Let’s Discuss Monster Play

[SSG_Orion]

Let’s Discuss Monster Play

I want to take a moment and acknowledge the dedication the efforts of Vastin and Fantus in these past several years. Without them Monster Play would long ago disappear into annals of game lore.

So, too, I want to recognize you, the players. There are many recognizable names on this forum who helped established the Ettenmoors as a unique experience in MMOs 15 years ago. Your passion, support, and dedication are unparalleled. Thank you.

Now let us get to the crux of the conversation. What is the future of Monster Play?

First, let us acknowledge that the Ettenmoors has not seen an appreciable change in structure, game play, or flavor in a long time – years. This leads to stagnation and a deteriorating player base. The numerous iterative changes, balance passes, and alterations were less bold than requested and have the appearance of placating the tenacious fan base that remains here still.

Since my return, I have spent days catching up on the past several years of system additions, alterations, enhancements, and changes. I have also spent time reading forum posts and generally catching up. It should be no surprise to many of the long-time players that I stopped in here – I spent a good deal of time interacting with this subset of the community during my time on LotRO.

Let me be clear, I have not worked on LotRO in nearly nine years having been plucked from the team to focus on one ill-fated project after another and returning was something I never expected. But here I am, back again looking at the Ettenmoors with a set of different lenses and the hindsight of what amounts to a lifetime ago. Though somewhat different, ultimately the Ettenmoors and you players are roughly the same. There is, however, a thread of perceivable melancholy and cynicism expressed in a good number of responses, and I hate seeing this.

Having delved into the history maintained in the forum, I can see where some measure of that wariness roots. A player base as invested as you are fiercely defensive of what you have and what you want. Minor adjustments to existing problems when the perception is only bold changes can address the issues ring hollow and worse, seem dispassionate to a player base that is driven by passion.

“Words are great, Orion, but what are you going to do about it?”

I want to say bold changes and new features. I want to say, here are the top ten things that I will address by this date. But, truthfully, I cannot. If I did, I would commit the same sins of the past and there is no benefit to anyone in doing that.

So, instead, let me level with you.

Monster play is showing its age and the rather arbitrary changes that came around the time of *checks notes*, Riders of Rohan, actively harmed the space. Performance issues having plagued the zone since its inception persist, though this is not isolated to the Ettenmoors, its impact is greater. The power creep of players, while addressed by Vastin, continuously returns as player’s edge higher and the imbalance inherent to the feature again rears its ugly head.

In a nutshell, monster play is at a crossroads.

Where we go from here is based on minor adjustments with perceptible and measurable impact, coupled with a potentially bold action if I can convince Raninia of its potential value and then it delivers on that value. (Side note: Thus far, Raninia is open to the bold action I am suggesting.)

What follows anon, are not promises. They are potential adjustments, based on my own perceptions, your feedback, and my gut instincts. To determine if these proposals are beneficial, I am presenting them to you to gauge appetite and determine where we should focus efforts.

Camp Relocation – Orc and Elf

Tol Ascarnen is the central fort and what should be the main battle location in the Ettenmoors. The EC and OC camps were crucial fallback and push positions that actively contributed to the battle space. I am considering moving these camps back to0 their original locations.

The Delving of Frór

By removing the active effort needed to access The Delving we removed a crucial set of battle points in the Ettenmoors and just made the underground haven another place to ambush players and monster players. The loot within diminished in value and while updated somewhat has lost some relevance. Additionally, there are no secondary end game reasons to enter the Delving.

To address this, I am proposing the following:

• Restore the Coldfells Outpost at the south center of the map.
• Restore the requirement that at least two outposts must be under control to access The Delving of Frór.
• Update and add corruptions to monster play advancement to bring them in line with players. Place the barter items necessary for these new corruptions into the Delving loot system.
• Update the barter rewards for the players in the delving to include itemization relevant to end game out of the ‘moors and update to other important end game treasure lines.
• Give meaning to outpost status – player, monster player, and neutral owned within The Delving of Frór.

Keep and Tower Revision

Battles in the Ettenmoors revolve around keep and tower ownership. The NPCs in the towers hold importance but their abundance and the scripting involved in handling their reactions is a likely contributor to performance concerns. An adjustment will reduce the number of defenders but increase their difficulty commensurately. The halo effect here will provide more opportune moments for counter offensives.

Healing Modifiers

Healing prolongs battles and undermines the competitive nature of fights. There is no silver bullet in “fixing” this. My intent would be applying an Ettenmoors only effect that reduces the incoming healing to drive combats to a swifter conclusion. Dynamic implementation allows us to modify this effect without waiting for a patch to make the change.

Should this prove successful, we will look at how this style of effect modifier can address other imbalances we know exist in the moment-to-moment experiences.

Closing

This is not going to be easy.

This is not going to be fast.

This is not going to happen behind closed doors.

This is not going to happen without player input.

So, to that end, I look forward to hearing your thoughts on these proposed changes, and any that you might think I have missed.

I look forward to getting back into the trenches with all of you.

[istvana]

This has almost no chance of happening, but can replacement of monster play by true pvp be considered?

Two reasons for asking. Firstly, the Tolkien estate had felt that true pvp went too much against the lore and so it wasn't an option. That is my understanding of why we developed pvmp in the first place. Over more than a decade both personnel and attitudes have changed. Perhaps what was once unacceptable would now be considered fairly routine. They have certainly let the movies and the tv show do many things.

Secondly, we have now gotten game play through Mordor and up to Easterling territory. Perhaps a new race of Men called Easterlings is possible. They don't even have to look different - so minimal programming work. No one could conceivably object on lore grounds to Easterlings fighting any or all of the races of the Free Peoples.

[Saruman_Of_Numbers]

While this may help a bit, I'm afraid a few broad-stroke patch jobs isn't going to cut it... once again I feel like the depth of the problems escapes you as it did Fantus... especially the fundamental disparity between creep and freep abilities beyond simple damage and healing.

There are so many mechanics and abilities that have been added to freepside that creeps vs freeps is like a guy with a baseball bat fighting a bazooka-wielding guy with a jetpack and a lightsaber...

if you make the guy with the baseball bat too big and strong, he just wins by brute force, making things un-fun
if you leave things the way they are, the guy with the bazooka and jetpack just deletes the guy with the baseball bat.


Layercaking bandaids on top of other bandaids may even make things worse. Resolve the root issues or you may find that you're just throwing devtime into a bottomless pit with no real impact to player satisfaction.

[Menathradon]

The BF 2042 team realized not having an in game leaderboard scared off part of their player/fanbase. Bringing back and/or enhancing PvMP leaderboards via the lotro forum would be my simple suggestion.

[Spilo]

The problem with the Ettenmoors is that there's been no meaningful development/balance work in so long and there have been numerous unfulfilled promises. This leads to disillusionment and, frankly, a terrible playerbase filled with players whose mindset to PvP is damaged/seriously flawed. Most PvPers currently in game have no idea how to play their class to even a base means, aren't interested in fair/fun fights, and are solely focused on the dopamine hit from zerging for points.

Your suggestions seem reasonable, but I'd add a few: heal-tagging/point calculations from zerging, simplification and continuation of Freep Armor sets (leveling the playing field of Freep gear is a priority), continued reward/objective systems to give reasons to PvP besides simply chasing kills, and some other issues like the number of Creep maps (zerg mentality), base floor of certain Creep classes (Defiler is brainless), etc.

There's a large population of PvPers mostly residing in PvP Discords that were very invested in Fantus's work, and took a lot of time to share feedback/ideas. If you show good faith, I'm sure you'll be able to draw their attendance/participation. However, I remain skeptical as SSG/Turbine's poor leadership, communication, feedback system (none), and a festering/cancerous playerbase means that we're likely too far gone (barring a benevolent millionaire bestows all his resources to restore PvP). You're going to need to fix a lot of fundamental things AND then have the patience to continue giving it resources/attention over a long time for it to payoff- there's been so much damage done to the system AND the quality of players participating. I doubt that's a realistic scenario.

Good luck- you're going to need it.

[SneakPeek]

Here's hoping that you are able to work on what you've laid out.

I understand that most of the changes would be a long-term undertaking but would it possible to have a matchmaking instance for Freeps vs Creeps as a short-term solution? While balance and point incentivization remain a core issue, the toughest fight by far in PvMP is the lag. If it is possible to run multiple instances of "small group" action, such as 6v6s or 12v12s, lag may be a less issue. Furthermore this setup could test balancing between group setups as well.

Just my two cents.

[Brolad]

This all sounds great, but the concerns that it will still be too little remain. During the Fantus era, which was an amazing experience with unprecedented interaction between a dev and the player base, we learned that what we had previously considered to be sufficient fixes helps but at the same time uncovers many further issues and in the end changes very little.

Here are two things that definitely need to be changed in addition to what you listed in your first post, Orion:
- the reward system needs to reward mindless zerg and healtagging less
- freep class changes need to be better thought through, at the moment there are many skills that are truly broken in PvMP

[WeirdJedi]

Sadly, what I want from gameplay isn't really considered the main appeal of the Ettenmoors. Many people want better balancing between the types of players, while I want better interaction with the setting itself. Making the troll and ranger formidable foes is just one example. Having the assist of named characters actually mean something and lead to a victory. I still kind of want to know if anything is going to be done with the Osgiliath map.

[Aeroniel]

Speaking as someone who knows very little about game design, I've often wondered if pvmp would be a lot easier to manage IF freepside operated with the same mechanics as creepside? As I understand it, creeps operate within a 'session play' mechanic. Freeps, of course, are the same player characters as operate within the pve environment. So every time stats/skills improve on freepside, someone has to figure out how to update creepside to maintain 'balance'. So maintaining 'balance' seems like an ever moving target, and the inevitable delay between freep improvements and creep improvements leads to a lot of frustration. Not to mention the absence of freeps from the moors any time there's a major update while freeps get better gear thru raids, etc.

It also seems to me that pvmp would become more of a battle based on leadership and tactics rather than morale pools, healing disparities, dps disparities. You would still have the exhilaration of fighting against other humans, but would have to rely more on your ability to outthink the other side. That is what I so enjoyed about pvmp some years ago. And when the 'balance' seemed to get so out of whack such that leadership and tactics became almost irrelevant, that is why I left pvmp.

In any case, Orion, best of luck to you!

[Luke76]

Its simple, if SSG does not fix lag issues it is pointless to discuss concepts like balance, mechanics or bonuses.
We are in 2022, an MMORPG that offers a PVP play, can not lag every time that two raids fight.

Still, I hope that you achieve all the changes that you want to make. I would love to see that PVP becomes the real EndGame content that worths paying for.

Cheers!

[Daenirion]

Welcome back, Orion!

There's one thing I have to disagree with, and it's this:

Healing Modifiers

Healing prolongs battles and undermines the competitive nature of fights. There is no silver bullet in “fixing” this. My intent would be applying an Ettenmoors only effect that reduces the incoming healing to drive combats to a swifter conclusion. Dynamic implementation allows us to modify this effect without waiting for a patch to make the change.

Should this prove successful, we will look at how this style of effect modifier can address other imbalances we know exist in the moment-to-moment experiences.

While it's true that some healing abilities are too strong, it's actually not the main reason why there's such an abundance of healing. It is, and I'm sure you read this somewhere already, caused by the reward system. Update 8 (riders of rohan, your notes are correct) made healing a valid contribution. That in itself wouldn't really be an issue, but sadly as with a lot of things in this game, it wasn't implemented properly. There are no restrictions. The removal of the 80m distance limit (if a player died, you had to be 80m or less away to receive rewards) made is exponentially worse.

Reasonable restrictions would've been:
- the player you heal has to be in combat
- you need to do effective healing (morale below 100%)
- some sort of expiration time / your contribution is reset once the player is out of combat again
- keeping the distance limit

Right now, you can put a single heal over time on someone who is out of combat with 100% morale in your base, and if that person ports to the other side of the map and kills someone, then he has to share his points with you. That's beyond ridiculous. Being a healer is the most effective way to farm infamy/renown and commendations. That's the reason why for every DPS player in the moors, there are probably 3 healers. If you reduce the incentive to be a healer, you'd fix a part of the problem. We need more incentives for solo roaming and small group play. Stop encouraging mindless zerg culture.

The first step would be to re-introduce the 80m distance limit. If you're able to, then please revert the reward system to how it used to be pre U8. I'm sure there are backup files somewhere. If it's not possible, then just delete healing as a valid contribution, because let's be honest, it's probably easier than implementing all those restrictions from above.

Fixing this should be somewhere at the top of the priority list, and I'm sure this is not just my opinion.

[Urundus]

Just gonna leave this here. A post I made a while ago on Fantus' thread.

These look like some very promising changes, thank you. I hope this will somewhat stabilize the core of PvMP as a (scalable) system.
There's already been plenty of discussion on balance, landscape changes (EC/OC) and general moors mechanics (backdoors, auto flips, zone buffs, etc.), so I'll be skipping this for now. I also do assume these are already on the radar of the team.

A different point I'd like to bring up is renown/infamy gains and distribution over large groups. There used to be a time where point distribution was based on your contribution to a fight and then distributed over all group members involved. Players that were too far away from fights would not gain any points at all, the 80m rule so to say.
This all has been thrown out of the window many years ago with the Rohan update. Now everyone who even tagged the opponent, and to extend anyone within the group of that player (regardless of participating in the fight), will get a base 10% of however many points this opponent was worth.
This means when scaling to large groups (10+) you're essentially printing points out of thin air as anyone involved in the kill, or anyone in a group with a person involved, will gain 10% of the opponents worth, no matter the total amount of players that participated.
This has IMO been a huge contribution to the zerg culture we see today and have seen for years already. There is essentially no downside to scaling groups beyond 10 players as far as point gains go while at the same time overwhelming numbers guarantee you a victory.
It also hurts smaller groups as they are taking more risk, yet gaining about the same amount of point per kill whilst having a lower amount kills per fight. For solo players it's even worse as if a single player with a group tags your kill you see all of your points evaporate and flow to that group.
With the current point distribution system you end up rewarding and actually encouraging the zerg mentality whilst punishing most other group sizes.

From the Rohan patch notes:



In light of the many changes that are going to require commendations I'm afraid that the whole zerg mentality is going to be exacerbated as it will be the fastest and most efficient route to gaining commendations and thus the new gear/essences and audacity ranks.
I'd like to propose to revert the changes made with the Rohan update to the point system. This would promote more small scale action and (with the right landscape changes) across the map for strategic points and objectives such as keeps and outposts.

Copium

[reverendmaggot]

Camp Relocation – Orc and Elf

This is a great idea, but I don't know that it will do what you, and most of us; want it to. What we have right now, and have had for a long time, is a playstyle problem that back doors created. The doors are gone, but the mentality persists. I think players on both sides of a oneshot shuffle need to be de-incentivized to engage in the oneshot shuffle. I don't know if it's doable, but I think putting a barrier around grams, gv, and the rez circles in which characters do not get points for kills, is a good idea. Nobody will be incentivized to sit in the oneshots if they're not getting points, and nobody will show up to be camper for the same reason.

The Delving of Frór [*][*]Update the barter rewards for the players in the delving to include itemization relevant to end game out of the ‘moors and update to other important end game treasure lines.

Also a great idea, but as I'm sure you'll see in the coming 15 pages of replies to this post, non-pvpers will not like this one bit, as there is currently not a reliable way to get teal and gold traceries in pve-land. Until that issue is fixed, the idea that these players would be forced to enter a zone they detest to get items they need for pve, will lead to many a complaint.

Will Ranina, the team, et al allow you to start another Discord server? Arguments and trolling aside, it allows for a much quicker paced discussion than these forums do.

[Frappy]

Great to see you on here. For one reason or another for a number of years I have the feeling that forums have been read by the community manager, or the mods and NO actual attention paid to feedback. I certainly haven't had the feeling that any sort of 'digest' version has been regularly passed on to the devs, or if there is one that it's been read - instead the forums have had the feel of being a blame barrier rather than used as a method of communication.

I like the direction of simplifying and restoring control points to earlier versions, both because 'simple is good' and because i think there can be support from players who remember better days. New/old locations are not however going to be a silver bullet.

The huge elephant in the room is the lag, which does make ettens utterly unplayable. Not just bad, but even if you're in the USA and low ping and it's low server load times, it is not playable. If any of those conditions are un-met, like if you live in germany or poland or the server load is up even a fraction due to events or whatever, it's basically hit one skill per 300 seconds and hope it takes. Steps to fix this have to be the top priority. And while I'm no coder I think stripping away as many of the systems built on systems might be one thing to do - what does each layer of stuff really contribute to the experience should be the question applied to it all. Do we need this currency? Do we need this audacity mechanic? Do we need this area effect? Do we need it, if not get rid of it!

I do miss the days of glimmering spirit stones and the like making the zone meaningful for level cap players, but applying the rule I just stated, let's get things running more smoothly first.

I fundamentally disagree over healing, I will try to explain why - sorry if this next part is not quick or short.

The current system of level scaling for free peoples gives an advantage to you being under-level (in the best gear for that level) and scaled up, compared to being a newly level capped player in gear that is sub-optimal compared to the current gear cap. Yes the highest level player can have even stronger gear, POTENTIALLY, but for too long we have seen balance passes scale the creeps or balance them against the uber-freep, not against the entry-level one. So a freshly minted creep then obliterates, solo, about 5+ freeps. Then a balance pass happens and freeps are made stronger and then the monster players get a buff and a yo-yo makes a poor analogy here because it's just up and up and up and up.

To better tackle healing rather than a blanket effect (another zone effect?!) on both sides reducing incoming heals, i suggest a pass on the creep heal skills. Compare the mini or runekeeper heals which are strong on a single target, with inductions - to the creep heals which are very strong to multiple targets and with no or very short induction. Also the way that defilers can self heal is very very strong. I've seen minis do incredible things and keep a tank up despite enormous focus fire on him, but a mini cannot self heal the way a defiler can. I've seen defilers tank against a whole freep raid just by standing in place healing themself. It's that sort of huge imbalance that needs tackling. I've also seen a single blackarrow one-shot a fellowship one by one. It's not about balancing the heal output or inbound heal if players are dying to one-shot. To be fun, you need to have the threat of dying pretty fast and hard if you do something wrong, but also the ability to react to it and move or hide or get back in ranks, or for the healer to react and heal you, or the tank to bubble you.

So I'm broadly in favour of simplification and here are five top feedbacks:

1) Get rid of level scaling, it's tough on players who have taken a decision to tortoise at say 75, but the question is why are they doing that? why stop at 85 or 120? what's the advantage? if there is one they are exploiting take it away. Sorry to be harsh but let's just do away with level scaling on ettens. Bring it back to just PvP for endgame.

2) Remove zone effects or limit it to perhaps two. Capture the crown gives the big rewards rather than multiple different ones for a burg solo flipping a control point.

3) Stick to just ONE reputation and ONE currency. So renown and commendations. Ditch everything else. Everything must go.

4) Why are some armour and jewellery pieces usable in PvP but not PvE? Stupid. Broken. Systems on systems. Impossible to balance. If I was going to be so draconian then the thing I'd block would be LIs, in favour of a zone specific weapon *I don't like this much either but it would be better than the current mess.

5) Ditch Audacity as a balancing method. it compounds the problems rather than making anything that I can see better. It also directly encourages teaming and farming which are against ToS and the ethos of fair play. I believe it's not possible to balance the core abiliities of the creeps when there are so many multiplying factors involved.

[Makawulf]

First of all thank you for all the good intentions you are showing here. I completely agree and support each changes you stressed out. Quickly on top of my head I can suggest one more thing.
Please disable auto-flip on keeps. It is infuriating to see a keep you managed to take flips back to previous state in 5 minutes without any effort from opposition.

Additionally, as Fantus upgraded PvMP armours for Freeps, it was refreshing to see people using it and kind of balanced things out however as updates on PvE aspect progressed , creeps left behind and currently many freeps are back to using their PvE armor disregarding the downside cause in the end they have more to gain by using PvE armor in EM, cause creep DPS is not sufficient enough to cut through heals/defences before hitting the ground. I say this cause if you manage to implement healing modifiers, the huge gap on DPS between two sides will result in one sides ultimate domination. Sadly many changes are being implemented without any regards to PvMP which is understandable, after all PvE is the main focus, which is why your work will be tough trying to balance things out.
Looking forward to your changes, good luck and thank you again!

[SSG_Orion]

Will Ranina, the team, et al allow you to start another Discord server? Arguments and trolling aside, it allows for a much quicker paced discussion than these forums do.

Short answer; yes. Working on that with Cordovan.

[SSG_Orion]

non-pvpers will not like this one bit, as there is currently not a reliable way to get teal and gold traceries in pve-land. Until that issue is fixed, the idea that these players would be forced to enter a zone they detest to get items they need for pve, will lead to many a complaint.

Non-pvpers do not need to engage in PvMP. This is a choice. Always has been and always will be... addressing the issue with current availability is handled elsewhere.

[Lampion-Snowbourn]

1v1 rated matches:
1v1 battles or even 2v2, 3v3, 5v5 battles could be done in a championship manner, where it is about reducing the opponents' morale rather than killing them.

Picking up the thread:
I log into pvmp once in a while, but: alone I can't do anything except for running around waiting to get ambushed. Don't know where the fight is, so I keep spamming ooc until someone replies or not needed at the moment and stick to the raid nevertheless without being member or just leave it and log out. You should somehow make it easier to jump into the fight and be part of it, to truly test your skills against other players and get rewarded. In the current form of the Moors it's almost impossible.

Reduced healing:
A kind of diminishing healing could be applied like a boss debuff. The incoming healing of the player is slowly reduced until he/she can't be healed anymore. Either he/she backs off the fight, or dies.

Standing war:
The good example from battle royale games could be applied somehow, that enemies cannot stand forever out of range. Some mechanic that pushes the raids against each other. Making more frequent clashes between them.

[Brolad]

Right now, you can put a single heal over time on someone who is out of combat with 100% morale in your base, and if that person ports to the other side of the map and kills someone, then he has to share his points with you. That's beyond ridiculous. Being a healer is the most effective way to farm infamy/renown and commendations. That's the reason why for every DPS player in the moors, there are probably 3 healers. If you reduce the incentive to be a healer, you'd fix a part of the problem. We need more incentives for solo roaming and small group play. Stop encouraging mindless zerg culture.

Just to illustrate what the problem is, here is a player who gets credit for a monster player kill more than 10 minutes into a PvE raid (weaver slayer deed starting). Please note that this was not intentional from the player.
https://clips.twitch.tv/FancySuspici...uhzjE97QuqZCv5

[Vilan]

Fix healing contributions so you have to do meaningful healing to get rewarded, not free points from healing someone at 100% in GV.

Autoflips should be either removed or have a longer duration, at least 1 hour from the last time it changed hands or whatever.

Make Rangers (and Trolls) Great Again.

Some sort of serious effort to reduce lag. Reducing the number of NPCs is a fine idea, but more is required.

Welcome home and good luck with your efforts!

[Degelhil]

I think we/you need to start from 0. We have to rethink PvMP/PvP in Lotro. How about a complete new and maybe smaller map? Just delete PvMP and start again . I think we need the whole SSG team to work on that, like you do on an upcoming expansion. Rework the creep side - it's really unattractive there.

To chief Rani: PvP can be an inexhaustible source of money, if you do it correctly. I bet you know that. Sell people boosts, nice horses or nice armors whatever, like other games do it (CoD, Fortnite etc.) People create their own story in pvp - and that is what I really like. I would pay a lot of money for a well-functioning pvp - and please remove to VIP gate (so that it is not 4 vs 5) [and the main problem of this game: The lag]


P.s. Welcome back Orion

[EdagarWolfgang]

What I'm going to suggest may not be an easy task, but it would be interesting if is implemented in some way. Someone has already said that freeps and creeps should be played with the same mechanics, but what if instead of that, creeps are revamped like Playable Characters (as a Faction vs Faction gameplay), like to get armors, weapons and upgrades for creeps like they were normal characters, and create some maps (or revamp some actual maps) and give creeps quests where they will have to go to NPCs towns and lvl like freeps do, upgrade trait trees and such. The only problem I see with this is lvl sync with other players, since high lvl players could easily wipe creeps out while lvling. A simple solution to this (hopefully simple enough) is to limit lvls to ever map where players play normally (something like SWTOR, where everything you have equiped is downscaled to each map lvlcap).

I'm not an expert on such things, but as a recurrent player, actual PvMP is kind of unappealing to me, specially since I can't be VIP as constant as I would like to, and since you asked this while I'm VIP, I took this chance to make a suggestion into a matter that I never bothered to care, but I would if there were any change. I apologize if I'm not being clear enough, as English is not my native Language.

[Serfenos]

What I'm going to suggest may not be an easy task, but it would be interesting if is implemented in some way. Someone has already said that freeps and creeps should be played with the same mechanics, but what if instead of that, creeps are revamped like Playable Characters (as a Faction vs Faction gameplay), like to get armors, weapons and upgrades for creeps like they were normal characters, and create some maps (or revamp some actual maps) and give creeps quests where they will have to go to NPCs towns and lvl like freeps do, upgrade trait trees and such. The only problem I see with this is lvl sync with other players, since high lvl players could easily wipe creeps out while lvling. A simple solution to this (hopefully simple enough) is to limit lvls to ever map where players play normally (something like SWTOR, where everything you have equiped is downscaled to each map lvlcap).

This is just the kind of Nightmarish scenario that i think would make most current players abandon the game, an open world PVP LOTRO.
I for one hope it never happens.

[Hayden102]

Main Issues - These are why the PvMP player count continues to dwindle
#1 - Fix the lag or minimize it - Who wants to play a slideshow where nothing runs properly? Can't even play the game
#2 - Balance+Healing Issues - Incredibly strong classes e.g Defiler, Champion while there is absolutely npc bot tier classes like Reaver. Balance needs to be addressed and evened out. Freep updates need to be thought out in pveland because they always harm pvmp, otherwise your only option is to adjust creeps according to the freep power creep. Creeps are just 2nd tier and always playing catchup. Players just flip to the meta every update.
#3 - Inf/Renown/Comm Gain - Punnish the zerg like old times, don't reward them for having more numbers and facerolling solos and small groups, get rid of that zerg for points mentality. Remove heal tagging.


Secondary Issues/Your Potential Adjustments - Are they good ideas? Yes, Will they fix the real issues with PvMP? No. Will they bring back players? No. Will they attract new players? Maybe, to get gear then never venture into the Ettenmoors again because of Main Issues
-Remove keep auto flips
-Bring OC/EC Back
-Your Delving of Frór Ideas - While interesting and pretty good ideas, they're also just re introducing more PVE into a PvMP area. It's sort of like we can't fix the main PvMP issues so lets instead just add more PVE?

Best things the Ettenmoors received in years:
-Fantus's freep audacity gear(Which needs to be forced for balance) Otherwise freeps just go back to using stupidly OP pve sets.
- Creep buff.

Welcome back, and Goodluck.

[Lyonitis]

I used to suggest all the time how cool it would be if creeps could wander the whole world but could only engage freeps that flagged themselves as pvp targets... I guess that isn't something anyone else wants or the devs don't think is feasible or is not doable because of the way the property license works... ok that's ok BUT, what would immediately get me back In the pvp areas would be the ability to UNFLAG myself as a pvp target and give me missions or quests or something that I can do to add to the war effort and achieve pvp specific loot or rank or currency as a solo player. This would give new players to pvp an opportunity to do something constructive or additive to the war effort and the opportunity to see and interact with the pvp zone and meet people and maybe get invited to group based on folks seeing them in the space without immediately being killed the moment they step out of GV. I think that if I could have specific tasks I could do or missions with a creep or freep that was UNFLAGGED and not vulnerable to anything but the npc's in the zones that would immediately get me back in the moors. No one likes the experience of being new and thinking you're pretty well geared and walking into the moors only to get killed very quickly by more experienced or better geared players.... give new players a way to do quests and missions in the space and interact with friendly and enemy npc's while not being vulnerable to opponent player characters... a pvp bubble so to speak that makes the new creep or freep invulnerable to anything but enemy npc's. I think I don't need to ramble on I think you can see what I mean. P.s. Thank you so much Orion for your effort to do something to get me back out in the moors, I did really enjoy it way back in the day but being an average or below average skill pvp player, being able to go out there and do stuff that contributes to the war effort but keeps me from getting repeatedly ganked would go a really long way toward getting me out there working on my skills and and gear and interacting with other players till I work up the courage to participate in real pvp
. Thank you Orion and all the devs at lotro, I've been playing for 14 years and I love everything about lotro and appreciate everything you have done and will do to bring this world into our world Thanks!!