Q&A w/ Raninia on +Cord of the Rings - 6/18 @ Noon ET

[Joedangod]

Have considerations been made in regards to people potentially stacking the new LI system on top of the unimbued/imbued system with even more weapon swappies?

[Palascari]

Hi all

Do you plan to have new legendary server with far far more open world dificulty?
Will be great to have a new server with fixed hard or imposible dificulty

[JV216]

Some questions:

1. Would the team be open to considering restoring some skills that were previously removed from the game, e.g. rune keeper skills like Frozen Epilogue, Distracting Winds et al? They just added
more tactics in how to approach encounters.

2. The game has so many niche communities: role players, casuals, raiders, musicians, pvmp players, et al. yet oftentimes it seems that instead of being mutually supportive of each other's
needs, it just creates factions and camps at odds with each other. What do you think the team might be capable of doing to bring these disparate communities together?

3. Any future plans to bring more touch ups and landscape changes to earlier zones?

[Malachi108]

Any plans to revisit the "forgotten" systems such as Epic Battles, Skirmishes and Mounted Combat? All three feature separate progression trees that quickly lose their usefullness as you level out of their relevant level range. It is especially egregious with Skirmish Soldiers and War-Steeds which due to their lack of proper scaling are simply detrimental to use from Mordor onwards, where most characters eventually end up.

[DanteIL]

I'd be interested in learning whether there are any plans (or even discussions) about trying to provide support for the Mac Client again. While I'm sure that the share of Mac-only players in the player base is quite small, it feels like they've been kind of abandoned.

[Nubja]

Would you ever consider involving players more directly in class balance?

It's quite clear that the devs making changes to classes don't always fully understand how classes are played, what their specific roles actually are, the issues that classes face, or the effect that a specific change will have. With the looming LI update i'm sure some classes may be rendered sub-par without compensatory changes and every player would like this compensatory changes BEFORE the class is made useless for a significant number of months (cough yellow RK, still waiting for buffs that bring it up to par)

[Braer]

Given the constraints posted.

What is the correlation between recently re-activated accounts and those accounts reported for gold spam the last few weeks?

[Morgahad]

Hello

Questions:
Any plans to add content like Hytbold - maybe rebuilding Anfalas in the name od King Ellessar. Or annuminas.



Will wrdns, Hunters and some other classes get replacement for 105 throne class item?

Any plans for RAID/instances with throne loot system?


Will we get more boars as mounts, not only 3 peaks ones?

And most important to me:
Any plans for adding to the game some new haircuts and faces? For lotro store for example



-------

Sorry for mistakes i was writing from the phone...

[PewPew9700]

Any plans to add content like Hytbold - maybe rebuilding Anfalas in the name od King Ellessar. Or annuminas.

Oooh...I love this idea!

Any plans for adding to the game some new haircuts and faces? For lotro store for example

In this chat on Twitch with Severlin, he talks about character customization https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1052939678. See the 12:00 minute mark and the convo around 21:45. Essentially, Severlin said updates will likely come at the end of this year - maybe the beginning of next year. They're looking at heads, lips, & hair, etc.

[SingularityNow]

1) What are the goals for PVP in the next 6 calendar months?

2) Guardians, LM's and now Hunters seem to be behind the rest of the classes, in terms of group role. Other than generally speaking that class balancing is an ongoing process, what can you tell us about what is being looked at for these three classes specifically?

3) What is the next region after Gundabad?

[Nubja]

Why do patch notes never contain all of the important information?

[Mithithil]

Brilliant news and thatnks for being willing to engage

1. Do you plan to make crafted gear worth the bother at higher tiers again. Ideally without gating everything behind "best buddies" level of reputation or end game instnace only accessible components to give folk access to basic level appropriate gear for new areas. I accept that your accountants probably adore loot boxes but as a way to gear up a tonn that isnt played all day and every day they are a bit impractical.
2. There was no level increase to Azanulbizar which I feel was a good move but the gear jump simply for embers, to L442 or thereabouts, seems to have been a jump that makes Remmochant, save at gold gear levels, and indeed even Threshold, slightly irrelevant
3. The LM has been mistreated, there's no other expression and the burglar isn't so far away fomo that barring the burglar still can have a single target dps role in some group play. I'd be very interested to see some more detailed reasoning on why a set of skills that have been unchanged for a lot of years are suddenly OP, about the time that dps ratings are going through the roof, has there been a decision that dps is now king and support downplayed? It's a valid conclusion to draw from the observed facts.
4. I like the way you have visited the past history of Middle Earth outside the primary time frame of the game, any hints of other times you might visit? Forging of the Great Rings/War of the Elves and Sauron might be a lot of fun.

[Omen_Kaizer]

Brilliant news and thatnks for being willing to engage

1. Do you plan to make crafted gear worth the bother at higher tiers again. Ideally without gating everything behind "best buddies" level of reputation or end game instnace only accessible components to give folk access to basic level appropriate gear for new areas. I accept that your accountants probably adore loot boxes but as a way to gear up a tonn that isnt played all day and every day they are a bit impractical.
2. There was no level increase to Azanulbizar which I feel was a good move but the gear jump simply for embers, to L442 or thereabouts, seems to have been a jump that makes Remmochant, save at gold gear levels, and indeed even Threshold, slightly irrelevant
3. The LM has been mistreated, there's no other expression and the burglar isn't so far away fomo that barring the burglar still can have a single target dps role in some group play. I'd be very interested to see some more detailed reasoning on why a set of skills that have been unchanged for a lot of years are suddenly OP, about the time that dps ratings are going through the roof, has there been a decision that dps is now king and support downplayed? It's a valid conclusion to draw from the observed facts.
4. I like the way you have visited the past history of Middle Earth outside the primary time frame of the game, any hints of other times you might visit? Forging of the Great Rings/War of the Elves and Sauron might be a lot of fun.

1. Is fair, a basic set of armor worse than ember gear should be readily craftable.
2. Bad analysis, sorry. Adventurers ember gear jumped to 432 and the basic 426 remm gear, not even the sets, is better with a few exceptions just because Adventurer's gear has such inefficient stat itemization.
3. You're way overstating it. LM and yellow burg were essential in U29 and are essential in U30, for raids and high tier 6mans. 3mans, you may have a point.
4. Agreed

[Strider5548]

Hey folks, I'll be doing another Q&A on Cord's stream this Friday at noon Eastern Time, which you'll be able to watch here.

In preparation for that, if you have a question you'd like answered, feel free to throw it in this thread. I'll be starting the stream by answering as many questions in here as I can.

That said, a few ground rules on things I can't speak about, in an effort to save y'all some time:

1. I probably can't announce anything, including dates

That means no specifics about post-U31, or even when U31 is happening, or how exactly the Brawler will play, etc.

2. I can't speak to things that happened before I got here

That means basically anything before April 2021. Unless I was personally part of it - like my old play experience - I'm not gonna be able to answer your question. I can talk about how gamedev tends to work in general, but specific stuff that I wasn't part of I'm certainly not qualified to speak on.

3. I can't talk deeply about specific design or feature choices

Unfortunately, I can't give you the blow by blow for why Telling Mark got changed in U30, or which Guardian bleeds we're looking at changing in the future, or which roles we think Warden should or shouldn't have. General philosophical stuff is probably stuff I can speak to, however.

Everything else should probably be fair game, but if there's some other category of questions that crops up which I can't answer, I'll update this post.

Looking forward to answering your questions this Friday!

I have three questions regarding the upcoming Legendary Servers:

1) Can we please ensure that we have a PvP option on Treebeard and Shadowfax, even if it comes out after the initial launch?

2) Can we please use the legendary servers to revisit old content/systems this time. Examples: target LI revamp and updates to skirmishes when Moria is released, target overhaul of warsteeds when Rohan is released, target a deep review and upgrade to the trait system to make more class/trait combos relevant and upgrade epic battles by the time HD is released, etc. etc.

3) What will you be doing to ensure that these Legendary Servers don't die out in popularity and leave players unhappy the way Ithil and Anor did?

Non Legendary Server question:

1) What ideas do you have to make it easier for players to group together and enjoy LOTRO content? This includes small dungeons, raids, PvP, or even RP type gameplay. The game today is split into two extremes, on one end you have most of the game largely a solo experience, on the other end you have group play requiring a level of coordination that most people just don't have time for. How can you facilitate making it easier for players to get the MM experience from this MMO?


Thank you very much in advance! Very much appreciate you posting this and taking the time to listen to us.

[Hallandil]

I have three questions regarding the upcoming Legendary Servers:

1) What ideas do you have to make it easier for players to group together and enjoy LOTRO content? This includes small dungeons, raids, PvP, or even RP type gameplay. The game today is split into two extremes, on one end you have most of the game largely a solo experience, on the other end you have group play requiring a level of coordination that most people just don't have time for. How can you facilitate making it easier for players to get the MM experience from this MMO?

Something that could be easily remedied by returning active support for scaled instances and skirmishes. Many vary in difficulty and also provide opportunities to learn mechanics used in later raid bosses. Example: Eye effects in Lost Temple and Bard Guldur; Debuff effects in several 3-mans; Focused damage targets in Iorbar's Peak Take a leaf out of the old 2010-2012 structure that gave EVERY piece of content in the game meaning to provide a smoother curve in difficulty across the board. Something as simple as daily mote/embers quests. Updated loot tables / Tweaked reintroduction of Content/Cluster based class items. There are solutions that have existed in this game before- The Developers limit themselves by ignoring these options.

[Seregthol]

Can we expect the ILI rework that allows latecomers to skip all the grind from the last 4 years and make ranks depend on characterlevel anytime soon?
Is there hope to one day get back to the game and not face insurmountable grind?

This!

[hunter4215]

Q1: Can you explain a bit of the background of class balance implementation? Maybe an example of a recent change that started in forum discussion, compare changes to current and old raids to see how they would impact, how it's get scaled, how it's checked, how a raid creator might stay up to date on it? And where is that feedback most loudly heard? Forums, discord, video, videos, etc.

Also I have another Q related to U30 here: https://www.lotro.com/forums/showthr...all-of-KD-gear

Q2: Devs/Anyone from SSG: Any plans to create some kind of barter to exchange Remmorchant gear already upgraded with Tokens of Resolution?

Before the release of the Fall of KD, players picked which set bonuses made the most sense for the stats they were looking for, with most choosing 4 of one set, and 2 of another to obtain their 4 set main line bonus and the 2 set stat bonus. Now that the KD set armour is Boots, Gloves and Cloak for new set bonuses, many will need to use Chest, Helm, Shoulders, Legs of the Remm set to retain their 4 set bonus and the new 3 set bonuses. This creates a bit of an issue because although the remmorchant gear can be bartered between sets, gear already upgraded with Tokens of Resolution cannot be bartered from set to set. Creating a new grind of 1) obtaining the piece of remm gear 2) using more tokens to upgrade it.

Any way we could get an answer on this soon before having to spend the currency and regrinding new set pieces? I.e. Spending 9.5k Embers on a helm then 50 tokens of resolution (which would take multiple instances clears) and then come to find out there are future plans for a barter?

[SniperCT]

Can we get a transcript of answered questions after this is over? Not everyone is able to watch videos.

Q1:

Have you considered more cross-server things? A lot of items we get are account-bound, but cannot be shared between servers. I can understand why storage wouldn't be cross server, but what about the wardrobe? Or the ability to mail items such as cosmetic gear and etc that are account-bound

Q2:

Related. What about cross-server instance-finder, or cross-server PvMP?

Q3:

Any thoughts on there being more homelands for character creator? Adding Rhun, or Khand or the Harad for Men, for example. (Or in general just more options for character creation such as more hairstyles, faces, and details? The game could definitely stand to have more variety in chargen and more diversity to represent the player base. Easterlings and Southrons would go a long way for that and I'd like to see one or both eventually if/when the game's story takes us in those directions.)

Q4: Any thoughts on a shared crafting bag? ESO for example has one for their version of VIP that automatically puts all crafting items into it and can be accessed from any character on your account. You can even craft direct from that bag.

[Arnenna]

I have a few questions, but most have been asked in this thread already, so I won't repeat them.

One more to add though . . .

Will it be possible to revise the cost of old festival steeds? Currently they are 70 Mithril Coins each, which is a lot for old horses. It's been confirmed that mithril coins will remain the barter currency for these older steeds, despite players asking for that to stop, so instead, could the MC cost be looked at instead? Currently the equivalent LP cost for these is 750 LP. 250 - 500 LP would be a lot more reasonable.

[Nonde]

I'd like to hear about the reasoning behind currency caps, I don't think we have ever had those explained before.

Also: what level of caps SSG considers reasonable? In case you are not aware: the main currency for level cap gear is Embers. It has a cap worth just under 3 gear pieces or 1.3 Tier 6 essence, account-wide.

Would also like to know this as caps appear to have been selected on basis 10k is a nice round number to me. If a piece of gear is defined as 1 item + 2 essences to fill its slots the cap is actually less than 1 piece of gear per account.

Lotro has become the little train of cap driven 'can't do' to me. No point doing festival umbrellas as will cap figments, no point open lootboxes - even with free anniversary keys - as I risk capping motes/figments, no point doing embers quests as I will just be forced to spend them on something I don't want or lose them. And with the added irritation of needing to repeatedly scroll thru the barter wallet to find the relevant headings and open them to see what I won't be penalized for doing (at least list embers, figments and motes under currency please!!)

Are caps serving the intended purpose? Does that purpose outweigh their unpopularity and disincentive to participate in activities?

[Vilda]

Hello,

1) Why is SSG so much against alts?
- the grind is ridiculous - legendaries, virtues, crafting and reputations, skill points etc.

2) Why most of currency (GOLD !) and crafting material isnt shared yet? - Other things that could be shared acrros all characters: AH listings, mail - its time consuming when I have to load bunch of characters trying to find where is the crafting material or gold
(i like the Guild Wars 2 system, crafting material bank, shared currency...) - I would even pay for it.

3) Hobbit champions when ?

4) Some of rewards from instances dont stack (i suppose due to different timers for sharing on the items (we can stack them later tho)), also the white boxes with crafting material dont stack, or essence boxes of the same tier. - Any plans for that?

5) Recently i came back from (maybe) 2 years of hiatus... so with friends we run 1 of our favorite scaled instances - Stoneheight - level 130, Tier 2, with challenge, and the loot was only ilevel 395. Why to have scaled content, with no scaled rewards?


Thank you

[Arnenna]

Ohh, River Hobbits. Sev said they are a possibility, but wouldn't be before Gundabad. Are they still possibly on the table?

[Anglion1]

It's amazing to see that so many people just accepts the terrible lag, and pretend this game breaking problem doesn't exist.

There should be only one question here, and until it is answered, no other questions are relevant:

WHEN WILL THE GAME BREAKING LAG BE FIXED??!! What is beeing done about it, and what is the deffinite date of when it will be fixed.

Also, why this is not a number priority (probably because the game has so many addicts that just accept this terrible lag).

[Fatty]

Since characters can be transferred off the closing Ithil server onto any other server, EU or US, is there any chance, however tiny, of a rework of the transfer system to allow one-time US to EU character transfer or vice versa?

[Nehniriel]

Hello,

1) Why is SSG so much against alts?
- the grind is ridiculous - legendaries, virtues, crafting and reputations, skill points etc.

Thank you

I agree on that.
I think one solution will be to have lot of deeds (exploration for example) be server wide.

2) Why most of currency (GOLD !) and crafting material isnt shared yet? - Other things that could be shared acrros all characters: AH listings, mail - its time consuming when I have to load bunch of characters trying to find where is the crafting material or gold
(i like the Guild Wars 2 system, crafting material bank, shared currency...) - I would even pay for it.

Same be server wide will be much better.
All-Crafting bag wasn't a bad idea, but implemented with too much restrictions (no bag naming, not expansions of the bag but new ones for examples).

Another Q&A?! You're spoiling us, friends of mine who stopped playing years ago are now suddenly optimistic about the future of LOTRO. It's terrifying.

As far as questions go, I'll try to keep them short and within the given constraints:

[list][*]Any updates in regards to plans to improve LUA functionality? Be it through bug fixes or expanding support.

Yes, please!

I will not add my owns questions but I prefer endorsing those one (and few others but can't have all ).