Bullroarer Update 32 - Beta #2 - CLOSED

[Hisp]

Why is it not fine? We are 2 months into the expansion. Do you expect to already have all the stats potentially capped out?
I am not counting champ because I have also done it without champ.
You need one tank (can be Guard or Captain - I haven't done it with warden but I'm quite confident a proper warden can tank this).
You need one heal (mini or rk. I prefer yMini for that fight because of extra mits - adapting like I said)
You need 2 debuffers (LM and Burg - Haven't tried double burg)
You need 2 "dps" (can be whatever - if tank isn't captain, you might be forced to take a rCap for survivability)

So the only class that doesn't have a spot in this is brawler but are we really arguing about that? So out of 11 classes, 10 have a spot. Might be in specific specs but that's fine.
Once again, if you are arguing about B2 T3 just for the random OS and AoE, I think that's missing the point. Sure they can be tuned down a bit and arguably, they should to avoid stupid stuff happening but bugged out mechanics (blizzard/shadow puddle) and B3 being a clown fiesta are much more important things to fix.

Tuning down damage on B1 is fine but same thing, this being the only thing touched upon is ridiculous, I hope we can agree with that

[CoatHangers]

People in this thread once again proving that general population of LOTRO is utterly trash at the game and has a mono-directional look at classes and builds.

[Snowlock]

People in this thread once again proving that general population of LOTRO is utterly trash at the game and has a mono-directional look at classes and builds.

epeens gotta epeen.

[Snowlock]

Why is it not fine? We are 2 months into the expansion. Do you expect to already have all the stats potentially capped out?
I am not counting champ because I have also done it without champ.
You need one tank (can be Guard or Captain - I haven't done it with warden but I'm quite confident a proper warden can tank this).
You need one heal (mini or rk. I prefer yMini for that fight because of extra mits - adapting like I said)
You need 2 debuffers (LM and Burg - Haven't tried double burg)
You need 2 "dps" (can be whatever - if tank isn't captain, you might be forced to take a rCap for survivability)

So you're doing three mitigators. Burg, LM ymini. Again, that's what I said in my original post, and you're using builds the class isn't designed for. Again, as I said in the op.

If this were t4 even, ok. But to me a T3 should be testing skill only. If you're getting into class stacking or build theory crafting then it should be reserved for T4 and 5.

[Hisp]

Burg, LM ymini. Again, that's what I said in my original post, and you're using builds the class isn't designed for.

What are you talking about? yBurg, yLM and yMini or bMini are the most standard things you can do. How are the class not designed for that? If that is what you are arguing about right now, your opinion has close to no value. I never told you that yMini was mandatory. I argued any variations of healing was alright, I just have myself a preference for one, not high healing required but more mitig oriented, so adapting to the fight, once again.
The talk shouldn't even about T3 or any tier. The chat should be about getting this instance fixed. Both in terms of mechanics and damage tuning. I agree that T4/T5 is going to be most likely problematic if damage stays the same (i guess bughlak will never be touched upon anymore).

That's exactly my point, at the moment, T1/T2/T3, this instance only checks for your ability to drop some offensive stats for more defensive stats. Currently no brain cells are required to pass this instance.

During Fokd, even in T3, having high tMit was somewhat required. If you don't want to adapt to your current encounter, yeah you are going to have issues with certain bosses or instances. No matter the tier.

[Snowlock]

What are you talking about? yBurg, yLM and yMini or bMini are the most standard things you can do. How are the class not designed for that? If that is what you are arguing about right now,

No not at all. I never said I had an issue with roles the classes might play. I said I had issues with roles that are required. I think 3 - call them debuffers, call them mitigators, whatever - is excessive in a 6 man for T3. I think it's excessive for a T3 to require armor builds that are obviously not meant for the class. If it were either one or the other, stacking mits or stacking debuffers then it could quite likely mean that the T3 isn't generally for everyone yet. But if it's both, that tells me that something is out of tune. It's likely that we're both talking about is tied to the same thing. I suspect that the double nature of the common and shadow attacks on the two skills are what the problem is and it could be a bug that in resolving one would resolve the other as well.

Class stacking, or in this case role stacking, to me isn't adapting. It's usually an exploit mechanic (not a cheating one), that often involves the store. The p2w side of that turns me off.

[wrath247]

People in this thread once again proving that general population of LOTRO is utterly trash at the game and has a mono-directional look at classes and builds.

I think its an issue of both the game and players.

Subjectively speaking this is how I see it:

1.) The dungeon mechanics in this game are, for lack of a better word, repetitive. Objectives might change but due to the hardware they really can't do anything overtly over the top as it'dl likely hamper servers or kill the playerbase's laptops.

2.) This one track design of dungeons (mechanics wise at least) has kinda led to a single view: Dps as much as humanly possible. So its basically created this stigma towards classes or even roles that don't output the maximum utility for said dungeon.

3.) This is further highlighted in how ppl will say some classes aren't good or bad, because these are the same ppl who run group content over and over so based on that experience they're first response to ppl asking about classes will net that response.

4. Personally, stop making mobs or bosses bullet sponges. Games today tend to focus more heavily on mechanics rather than overall dps parse, not saying it doesn't exist! But that's mostly for high end stuff already. Plus it'd help move the community away from the whole dps pov, and focus more on quality than quantity. Might even lead to a new class design pov on less skills on screen but greater impact.


ALSO for Housing, its roughly in housing writs:

1. Base House = 12
2. Deluxe House = 20
3. Geode House = 28
4. Kinship House = 40

[StinkyGreene]

Wouldn’t it be nice to get rid of the over-enhanced traceries from the first week of the LI rollout for mid-level characters? We were allowed to enhance our level 51 LI traceries to 125 enhancements out of 51 (125/51) and reap the benefits. Seems super overpowered to me.

[Fantomex]

- The following quests involving Lord Elrond have received High Elf-specific dialogue:

• A Man Called Estel
• Vol. I, Book 4, Foreword: The Troubles of Rivendell
• etc, etc

Love this, please do Stout-Axes in Mordor next. I skipped that questline because it hurt me so much to go unrecognized.

[cwswim03]

You’re literally not reading what he said. DPS classes cannot cap their mits. Ergo, the comment of classes wearing armour that it not meant for them. I.E Tanky pieces

Captains and Guardians frequently wear agility pieces because the stat distribution is better for them. Healing minstrels no longer need OGH when they max their LI so the tank pieces are just better for them. If you max your virtues and wear the right gear, you take almost no damage from the AOE. The shadow strike is the only problem because it kills fully mitted/morale stacking people. I'm sorry you have to change your build for one fight and can't just pew pew to your hearts content but this is currently the hardest content in game and there should be a slight challenge not just an utter faceroll.

The AoE can easily be handled with one debuffer and the champions single target taunt (Champion's Challenge) which reduces the damage by 30%. The problem is the random single target attack ("Shadow Strike" I think) beacuse it cannot be predicted.

Correct.

[cwswim03]

I think its an issue of both the game and players.

Subjectively speaking this is how I see it:

1.) The dungeon mechanics in this game are, for lack of a better word, repetitive. Objectives might change but due to the hardware they really can't do anything overtly over the top as it'dl likely hamper servers or kill the playerbase's laptops.

2.) This one track design of dungeons (mechanics wise at least) has kinda led to a single view: Dps as much as humanly possible. So its basically created this stigma towards classes or even roles that don't output the maximum utility for said dungeon.

3.) This is further highlighted in how ppl will say some classes aren't good or bad, because these are the same ppl who run group content over and over so based on that experience they're first response to ppl asking about classes will net that response.

4. Personally, stop making mobs or bosses bullet sponges. Games today tend to focus more heavily on mechanics rather than overall dps parse, not saying it doesn't exist! But that's mostly for high end stuff already. Plus it'd help move the community away from the whole dps pov, and focus more on quality than quantity. Might even lead to a new class design pov on less skills on screen but greater impact.

People don't generally do the harder content of this game. Lamentations, Black lore, and Thikil Gundu at high tiers are good examples of this and FOKD anything above T2. The creators make challenging content but most people don't even try. The problem is that most people who are playing this game are perfectly content to never try harder content so developers put less time into polishing it. That's why all three instances this expansion have had major design flaws (Although the main flaw of dhushtrok is that the bat has a bugged bleed (like all bleeds right now)).

[wrath247]

People don't generally do the harder content of this game. Lamentations, Black lore, and Thikil Gundu at high tiers are good examples of this and FOKD anything above T2. The creators make challenging content but most people don't even try. The problem is that most people who are playing this game are perfectly content to never try harder content so developers put less time into polishing it. That's why all three instances this expansion have had major design flaws (Although the main flaw of dhushtrok is that the bat has a bugged bleed (like all bleeds right now)).

Fair actually.

I think this might also contribute to the base versions of dungeons having littile to no mechanics.

But, and again this is just subjective, if we're defining challenging, then yea it is but feels more of the same without much change. Don't get me wrong, playing thise raids at T3+ was fun! But I'd like to see more variety other than puddle, eye, front or aoe attack. This might just be because I've been spoiled recently with Warframe and Genshin Impact, but I think new varieties would be nice.

The two headed troll boss in dhushtrok for example, was nice insofar as it was the same mechanic but visually different and was nice to see smth from FOKD carry over to the base versions.


Tldr: More mechcanics for base dungeons would be nice so the meta could change from just quantity (dps machinegunning) to quality (more mechanics at the start, leas focus on dps and more what the class could offer). Idk if im making any sense haha

edit: haven't played much of the new dungeons, do they have alot of new mechanics in T1?

[cwswim03]

Fair actually.

I think this might also contribute to the base versions of dungeons having littile to no mechanics.

But, and again this is just subjective, if we're defining challenging, then yea it is but feels more of the same without much change. Don't get me wrong, playing thise raids at T3+ was fun! But I'd like to see more variety other than puddle, eye, front or aoe attack. This might just be because I've been spoiled recently with Warframe and Genshin Impact, but I think new varieties would be nice.

The two headed troll boss in dhushtrok for example, was nice insofar as it was the same mechanic but visually different and was nice to see smth from FOKD carry over to the base versions.


Tldr: More mechcanics for base dungeons would be nice so the meta could change from just quantity (dps machinegunning) to quality (more mechanics at the start, leas focus on dps and more what the class could offer). Idk if im making any sense haha

edit: haven't played much of the new dungeons, do they have alot of new mechanics in T1?

Puddles, eyes, and ground effects are the best forms of mechanics. They should make them more dangerous though. Remove all the shadow strike type effects and put them into eyes/puddles. Mechanics that require you to stand in a certain spot or do a certain action prioritize skill and reactive abilities rather than just min maxing stats. Right now, if you just build properly, Loknashra is a joke (albeit a 8-15 minute joke)

[CoatHangers]

epeens gotta epeen.

No, not an epeen thing. A genuine fact. Even you got straight laughed at by the broader community, even a developer chimed in on several occasions. How does one put so much playtime into a class and yet still demand the class(es) are at fault and not themselves?

[wrath247]

Puddles, eyes, and ground effects are the best forms of mechanics. They should make them more dangerous though. Remove all the shadow strike type effects and put them into eyes/puddles. Mechanics that require you to stand in a certain spot or do a certain action prioritize skill and reactive abilities rather than just min maxing stats. Right now, if you just build properly, Loknashra is a joke (albeit a 8-15 minute joke)

Actually, and looking back at the other games I play with dungeon types, that does tend to be the case. I think it just feels different cos even if its a repeat, there's more variety to the types. Like you said with the having to stand in one place for example or use certain skills at specific points.

What would also be nice if they incorporated other elements like maybe small defence sections, or maybe even a debuff if you stray too far from the npc which gets removed once the npc activates something.

Maybe even incorporate items that you need to trigger such and such. Anything that adds more variety and complexity would be nice in general. Could even extend to the bosses themselves. Not saying this one should be implemented in-game, but one of the new bosses in Genshin Impact for example drains energy/mana and if ur char doesn't have any it deals damage instead.

And then leaked enemies coming out supposedly do increased damage to chars with shields, I guess that could translate to captain/guards? Honestly i feel like adding more depth would help the replayability of old dungeons. Alongside incentives ofc.

[Snowlock]

No, not an epeen thing. A genuine fact. Even you got straight laughed at by the broader community, even a developer chimed in on several occasions. How does one put so much playtime into a class and yet still demand the class(es) are at fault and not themselves?

You call people trash, it's an epeen thing. It's a video game, that's all. Deep breaths, try to avoid the nerdrage. My opinions are formed not just for myself, but on behalf of others. You could try that maybe.

[Belechael]

From what I read in this thread, and from what I see the l33t folk wear when inspecting them on Laurelin, I expect the vast majority of the player base to not have any easy to medium instance to play, now that Storva is done.

This is the first time in all my 15 years in the game that there is nothing to do that doesn't require a huge amount of time with arguably very small improvements gear-wise. Not to mention the bloody RNG factor...

I don't care about the teal trinkets that the l33t boys and girls will wear as long as I have something to run that has a decent reward-to-time-and-effort ratio.

Will there be something like that dear Devs? or are we looking for greener pastures until the next landscape update?

[Hisp]

Class stacking, or in this case role stacking, to me isn't adapting. It's usually an exploit mechanic (not a cheating one), that often involves the store. The p2w side of that turns me off.

I think like you said, we are ultimately arguing for the same thing. My only problem is consistency pretty much. To me, you can't fix the random hits from B2 without fixing the rest of the mechanics at the same time.
The fight isn't very challenging at the moment, or if some think it is, it isn't for the right reasons. Fixing the random hit, which I also agreed should be done (I believe removing the physical damage part and just keeping the tactical one should do it), has to be done with fixing of blizzard/shadow puddle and B3 rework/fix. They should be done at the same time, already 3 weeks ago at launch or at least a week or two after.
Arguing for just random hits from B2 because it's the detrimental to you but not for the rest because you still get loot after B3 is problematic to me. If you don't care about boss fights or fun, yeah reducing damage from B2 is fine, you'll be able to loot away. If you care about playing the game, the whole B2 and B3 should be fixed. I'd argue current state B2 and B3 are just longer dummy parsing.

Role stacking being an exploit mechanic I don't get that. You have both LM and yBurg in raid. You have multiple DPS even in 6 man. On some fights you might need a duo tanking, on other not, should you always bring the same comp every time no matter what? If that's the case, they should implement something like FF14 with fixed group compositions. Taking multiple champ in group comp because it's the hot thing, I don't think you'd call that exploit mechanic, would you?

[Ragnarot]

I think the point being made about role stacking here is the exclusion. I would have a problem with groups that ask for only champ dps. I have seen in the past where ranged dps was the only dps being asked for. The idea here in this case is often for t3 HoR you see people asking specifically for 3+ support classes. This often leaves room for one dps class at most.
Now the reverse of this where groups ask for 3-4 dps they won't turn away a burg or lm, but with the current overtuning of HoR most classes are getting turned away simply because they don't fit the current Meta. And if there are only 1 or 2 different comps that are able to clear the content then there is something seriously wrong with it.

[Nanganark]

Bullroarer is OPEN


In addition to the new neighbourhood, Erebor Housing introduces new exterior music and dayfile hook types to allow players even more customization options for their homes and extends the usage of housing permissions to allow players to make their yards fully private from uninvited guests.!

Release Notes - Beta #2:

Housing:
- New neighborhood consists of 12 Base Houses, 1 Base+ House, 6 Deluxe Houses, and 1 Kinship House
Introduces the following new features to housing:

• Private yards! Set usage permissions on the gate leading to your home to allow only those you want to be able to open the doors!

I cannot exclude guests or unwanted persons at the entrance gate of my Erebor house, as there is no option to set this at the entrance gate, also under the panel "Residential Permissions" there is no such box where one could set this..., and would be nice if you can do a data wipe, and include for the next beta an npc where you can upgrade your kinship directly to life rank 7 or 10, thank you.

[Raninia]

We'll have additional changes to Houses of Rest coming, didn't make this BR. We'll have more info about that probably next week.

[RubenRybnick]

I cannot exclude guests or unwanted persons at the entrance gate of my Erebor house, as there is no option to set this at the entrance gate, also under the panel "Residential Permissions" there is no such box where one could set this...

You are searching for something that does not exists.

The option to set this is already in game, and it's allowing 'everyone' to 'visit' your house or not.

That's the same option you had to set before for your older houses. It's just that for other neighborhoods, removing the 'visit' permission was 'closing' the door to your house for everyone, but not your yard.
Now that we have a door at the entrance of Erebor houses yards, setting this will also affect the ability to enter your yard.

[Zyot]

@Raninia Any updates on the Brawler?

You guys promised (as per Sev words when he last was on stream) that this class will be viable prior to the release of 6man instance.

Months since the release and the class is useless, let alone the fact that you can't join any end game groups.

Fix this scam asap.

Cheers

[Zvim666]

People don't generally do the harder content of this game. Lamentations, Black lore, and Thikil Gundu at high tiers are good examples of this and FOKD anything above T2. The creators make challenging content but most people don't even try. The problem is that most people who are playing this game are perfectly content to never try harder content so developers put less time into polishing it. That's why all three instances this expansion have had major design flaws (Although the main flaw of dhushtrok is that the bat has a bugged bleed (like all bleeds right now)).

The devs don't put less time into polishing because people don't do harder content, they don't put the time into polishing because they lack the resources and it would be a bigger blow to them financially to spend time fixing problems and lagging behind with the release schedule for new content.

SSG, and previous iterations, have shot themselves in the foot to appeal to the vast minority of players by having a poor system which caters to the minority of their player base and this player base has for the most part been nothing but abusive towards them as a thank you.

You are right, most players do not do the harder difficulty content for a multitude of reasons, mostly because they aren't interested. I like harder difficulties, but the more tedious the content becomes the more I am only interested in doing it once for the challenge, the number of people in the raiding kins I am in that rage quit over Shelob was pretty epic. It isn't the challenge that puts off most people, it is the tedious nature of that content having to do it over and over. Some games are extremely challenging, but for the most part games need to be fun. The number of people who find extreme challenge as fun is abysmally lower, it is largely why LOTRO is light years behind the player numbers of the most popular MMOs. It is a perplexing business decision imo but I don't call the shots, I can only give feedback at how disastrous it looks from my perspective as a player.

FFXIV was so bad on launch that they had to shut it down and apologise to their customers, offer refunds and they rebuilt it with the mindset that MMOs are social games, people generally do not like tedious or overly punishing content, they want mechanics they can see, mechanics they can avoid, they want classes/roles to be balanced, they went from one of the worst MMOs ever created to number one by looking at what other successful MMOs did well and what they didn't do well and focused their game around they think the players want from an MMO, not necessarily what they think themselves is best in a game.

They went from a dead MMO to number 1, more than 25 million players and their latest expansion was so popular they had to suspend sales of the expansion as they couldn't bring servers online fast enough to meet demand. So I don't think MMOs need to go into a death spiral and there being no way back, it just needs to be a game people find fun to play and appeals to a much wider audience.

Improving the graphics or going to console isn't going to help if nobody likes playing the game. Yeah, the top end of the content is really challenging, but it is also challenging being kicked in the groin over and over without falling over, I have no desire mastering that challenge either and it is definitely not something I am looking for from a game I am paying a subscription to play.

All the top MMOs have their challenge layers, but they are not as obnoxiously woven into the basic of the game like it is with LOTRO. Look at the gearing of the various tiers throughout the previous expansion and so far in gundabad, if you are not interested in say anything beyond t2 level of difficulty, what kind of gear progression pathway do you have? If there is nothing much left to do other than the gear progression grind, how well do you service players with a varying degree of challenge desirability.

It is in essence, why LOTRO is where it is and why other MMOs are where they are in terms of player base, popularity and profitability. I really want to see LOTRO do well long-term but unless there are some major changes I think it will struggle to find the kind of market share those who keep purchasing the company are looking for.

[Feldanor]

The current 6 man is a joke. Boss 2 is just badly designed. Its pretty much pure rng. If your healer gets one shot a couple times in a row bye bye attempt 9/10 times. If it was t5, maybe it could be ok, even though rng one shots are pretty poor mechanics. But this is t3. The moment you need to use more than 1 debuffing class (LM or Burg) in a 6 man, its a failure of an instance. Hopefully this will all get sorted soon. The fact it hasnt been sorted yet just shows how incompetant and out of touch SSG are atm. Most groups are gonna be Ycap, lm yburg mini champ and 1 other dps, usually another champ and you pray the non heavy classes survive the hits. Its doable for sure, but only by stacking debuffs. Lets not even talk about boss 3. Thats the most ah just release it completely broken coz i wanna go home early for Xmas fight ive ever seen!