Let’s Discuss Monster Play

[CreepNeedBuff]

1.destiny point achieve by quest and can be used when without vip
2.key drops in the moors
3.skill : march! ,auto use when out of combat or like highelfs race skill
4.new rank ,new creep class ,more benefit with rank improve on every rank, especially the last several ranks
5. 6 Corruptions bonus useless?buff Resistance Boost ,Finesse Boost,Critical Rating Boost, Critical Protection Boost
6.more control skills for all creeps class
7.buff RVR skils: Dying Rage,Blood Lust, Time-Out,Severing Strike,Serration.
8.buff warg skills:Flayer, Frenzy,Howl of Unnerving,Snap, Savage Fangs,Swipe,Rabid Bite,Scratch and Snip,especiallyespeciallyespec ially need a active selfheal skill or bubble
9.buff Warleader skills:Command Post, Purge,Aura of Command, and more finesse
10.buff backarrow skills:Set Trap, I See You, Centre,Cut,In Your Face,Strong Pull,Death Blossom,Steadfast Barrage
11.all creeps more finesse and critical damage
12.add rare creatures random appeare in the moors, good drops and groupkillable
13.quest stuffs turn in more times per day,and decrease quest items drop
14.make gold creepside useful
15.i destroyed a Sigil of Dedication by mistake,and but why i dont get it in the 2022,2021, Anniversary Celebration

[CreepNeedBuff]

1.buff Warband Maneuvers ,it useless now
2.more duration for the potions,and can be stack duration like tome of defence
3.more pvethings to do for creeps,when no freeps in the moors
4.creeps can go out of the moors per day in a week or something.
5.warg skills Sense Prey can Detect freep stats like tacical and physical mitigation
6.quest items can be turn in at grams to strengthen keeps NPS
7.a channel for creep and freep to chat. i hate r0 spyRVR
8.all different server creeps and freeps in the same one moors, and fix lag
9.defiler and warleader more dps ability
10.more duration for Anointing of the Slick Flesh and can be use for ppl not in group, make blight be a debuff skill

[Alcatrazz]

Welcome back Orion, hope you get the time you need to improve the experience in the Ettenmoors.

Here are some things I would like to see. Many of them are already mentioned in this Thread.

General Changes

• Remove Heal-tagging
• Recalculate the Renown/Infamy Gain -> More Reward for Solo/Group and less for Raid/Zerg
• Change the amount of earned Renown/Infamy and Commendations. Quests should give more Commendations than Renown/Infamy to support new players getting their traits/skills

Map Changes

• EC/OC back to old location
• Bring back South OP and OP requirements for DoF
• Decrease Infamy/Renown Buffs from Keeps/DoF Bosses
• Remove Mastery Buffs from OPs -> Maybe let each of the OPs buff one of the Keeps defense instead
• Change the way to take a keep back to pre Rohan (need to capture the flag after the Tyrant dies)
• General adjustments to NPC strength. OP should need at least 2 people, keeps 6 to be taken.

Balancing

• Lower the gap between the strength of low ranks and high ranks
• Each Creep needs a CC Break Skill like Freeps
• Each Creep needs a Cure Skill (Wound, Fear etc) like Freeps
• Bring Freep/Creep to an equal Moral/DPS/Healing Level (add -inc dmg as a Creep passive to be able to bring Morale down to Freep level)
• Lower Healing in general. One Heal Class shouldn't be able to outheal a DPS Class forever. Healing should delay death not prohibit it. (In PvP)
• Closer look a Creep individual Classes, especially Reaver an WL need some love

Would be great to see less Heal orientated Fights. The best fights I remember are those without a healer or back in days where healing was less powerful.

I would welcome the opportunity to improve LIs while being in the Moors. Such as Traceries and Enhancement Runes. This could bring action back to the moors since some people prefer joining the moors to grind their LIs instead of being forced to grind PvE Content to compete in PvP. Just ensure you don't get the rewards for PvE in the Moors.

[XPICTO]

First and most important - fix. the. lag. Not normal to play at 1skill/minute

Several must haves:

- Old EC/OC location
- Buff NPCs/keeps/OPs - make keeps/ops harder to conquer, make NPCs hit harder while lower the numbers. No one should be able to solo OP/keep
- remove heal tagging (or nerf it)
- nerf heals and self heals (especially on freeps)
- Make taking keeps more meaningful - in addition to making keeps harder make them also more rewarding after being captured.
- remove PVE gear and LI from Moors - PVE items/grind has no place in PVP. This would also make thing much easier to balance when new content comes and would require much lesser input to re-balance the scales. Provide meaningful PVP gear sets.
- Nerf freeps! - the above will be a good start
- remove most of PVE quests and leave only PVP quests i.e. Slaughter the Free peoples in Tower, Slaughter the Free peoples in Region (buff the infamy/renown they give to compensate). These quests should be repeatable. You can increase the infamy/gain of tower capture while keep the retry 1 time/day
- make rangers/trolls viable
- make horse run speed equal to creep run speed or vice versa. Remove maps, leave maps to Grams/DG&GV/OR on low CD
- buff Gift of the Carrock and Fragment of Mordirith crown. Currently nobody cares about them.

In addition I would like to comment on the current state of wargs:
- increase the overall damage (not only claws)
- sense prey should be equal to hunter tracking as range/cd/no trait required for stealth
- make Disappear reset cooldown of Pounce...
- increase the damage of Piercing claws - 5% max health is a joke (guaranteed crit in Shadow, self-heal in Flayer?)
- flayer stance - this needs complete overhaul. Mitigations are joke while DPS is non-existant. The only viable skill is root.

Other creep classes require some changes too.

In general its good see plans for changes in the Moors but failing would be the killer of PVMP.

zS

[Snowlock]

- remove PVE gear and LI from Moors - PVE items/grind has no place in PVP. This would also make thing much easier to balance when new content comes and would require much lesser input to re-balance the scales. Provide meaningful PVP gear sets.

This keeps coming up and I know it's a sensitive subject but lets address it for a second. We have pvp gear right now. We have more than we've ever had. What's it accomplished?

It's done nothing to grow the game, and its done nothing for balance. What it has done is add another gate that disincentivizes players from trying PVP. Whether you're a freep or creep, you shouldn't want this. The fewer players there are in our community, the easier it will be for the power that be at SSG to shut us down permanently. The fewer players, the less resources we get to address things too.

We need growth, and one of the best ways you grow our pvmp is to have it be a place to go to try out that new shiny you just got from the latest instance. It brings in the casual pvp'er and you may not like this person much as you may feel that they dilute the quality of pvmp, and you may be right, but they also grow the community and that benefits us all.

Does it make balance harder? Who knows. What is balance anyway? The average pvp'er thinks they are the greatest pvp'er that ever existed, and if they lose, it's obviously because the game is broken. And if they win, it's obviously because they are so great, they can overcome the brokenness of the game to get the win.

You can't balance that.

[RMX052]

Would be cool if someday creeps would be allowed to go out from Ettenmoors, even only for pve matters to grind some quest and points for new players or for veterans, i played pvp on Russian/US servers since Shadow of Angmar and always wonder "why we not allowed to go out?", and i'm not saying that it need to be open pvp nope, just pve for some new creeps to make them get some skills, traits etc.

[Alcatrazz]

This keeps coming up and I know it's a sensitive subject but lets address it for a second. We have pvp gear right now. We have more than we've ever had. What's it accomplished?

It's done nothing to grow the game, and its done nothing for balance. What it has done is add another gate that disincentivizes players from trying PVP. Whether you're a freep or creep, you shouldn't want this. The fewer players there are in our community, the easier it will be for the power that be at SSG to shut us down permanently. The fewer players, the less resources we get to address things too.

I really like the Idea of the current PvMP Gear, it just need some adjustments in my eyes, since the gap between the weakest and the best set I to big. Keep the lower stats on the purple gear, but add essence slots if we really need essences in the moors. This would closer the gap and again its easier to balance things out. Same for creeps, greenies need some serious buff.

But I aggre on your second point, we need something for "casual" PvPers like you said, so maybe some LI Grind option or shiny cosmetics to encourage more players to test the moors and mabe some will stay.

[XPICTO]

This keeps coming up and I know it's a sensitive subject but lets address it for a second. We have pvp gear right now. We have more than we've ever had. What's it accomplished?

It's done nothing to grow the game, and its done nothing for balance. What it has done is add another gate that disincentivizes players from trying PVP. Whether you're a freep or creep, you shouldn't want this. The fewer players there are in our community, the easier it will be for the power that be at SSG to shut us down permanently. The fewer players, the less resources we get to address things too.

We need growth, and one of the best ways you grow our pvmp is to have it be a place to go to try out that new shiny you just got from the latest instance. It brings in the casual pvp'er and you may not like this person much as you may feel that they dilute the quality of pvmp, and you may be right, but they also grow the community and that benefits us all.

Does it make balance harder? Who knows. What is balance anyway? The average pvp'er thinks they are the greatest pvp'er that ever existed, and if they lose, it's obviously because the game is broken. And if they win, it's obviously because they are so great, they can overcome the brokenness of the game to get the win.

You can't balance that.

I do not agree. PVP gear is good idea, however I dislike the essences. Not to mention LIs (champ sprint, ranged freeps skill range bigger than 1shooters and so much more)
Showing off the shiny PVE gear in PVP sounds good if you can make sure the same PVE is not completely broken. And yet why not show off you shiny PVP gear? Who knows - maybe more people would be playing if not the endless PVE grind that makes you viable in PVP. With the current state of the game - either PVE gear is too broken for Moors, or not good enough until raid gear. Removing this part and changing with PVP gear and no LIs (or LIs specific for Moors w/o the crazy stats) is not that bad path to take. Even better if Moors are at fixed level so you dont have to re-scale the stats every update.

You cant balance the people mentality, true. But lets admit the fact that freeps are currently beyond broken. And if creeps get the upper had freeps will just not enter Moors (as few updates earlier).
Either way SSG should aim for balance or not just close it.

[Snowlock]

I do not agree. PVP gear is good idea, however I dislike the essences. Not to mention LIs (champ sprint, ranged freeps skill range bigger than 1shooters and so much more)
Showing off the shiny PVE gear in PVP sounds good if you can make sure the same PVE is not completely broken. And yet why not show off you shiny PVP gear? Who knows - maybe more people would be playing if not the endless PVE grind that makes you viable in PVP. With the current state of the game - either PVE gear is too broken for Moors, or not good enough until raid gear. Removing this part and changing with PVP gear and no LIs (or LIs specific for Moors w/o the crazy stats) is not that bad path to take. Even better if Moors are at fixed level so you dont have to re-scale the stats every update.

You cant balance the people mentality, true. But lets admit the fact that freeps are currently beyond broken. And if creeps get the upper had freeps will just not enter Moors (as few updates earlier).
Either way SSG should aim for balance or not just close it.

We can admit the freeps are currently broken. We gave them the pvp gear the creeps asked for. It didn't help balance. It didn't grow the pvp community. It is a whole new category of balance that we are asking SSG to update and maintain. It's a gate to many who find the inventory management to be a disaster, who are on small servers that can't generate the comms to get the gear to be competitive against the few creeps they do have to fight because the're now required to use it. It was this whole thing of development that has no measurable positive impact and still a ton of downsides.

[Carallot]

Actually the fact that MP has not been updated makes it very interesting! The more the game moved from what it was the more "a different experience" is now for a new player.

Generic thoughts that maybe are helpful:

- Move all directly non-PvP content (quests, NPC's and non-player killable enemies) outside the Ettemoors to a linked area made of caves/walls with reduced visibility?
- Add visibility reducing features? Trees? Walls? Whatever that reduces the data charge per player?
- Players and NPC's here have volume, cannot be trespassed (reducing player density). This reduces the data charge per player?
- Creating "layers with restricted quality" = Multiple layers + Detect potato connections/computers = Potato players all in one?
- The fact that graphics are dumbed down by default (also some old assets like that elvish fountain) doesn't help. For potato players ^{_{(I'm usually one BTW)}} ok, but others?
- F2P players need to learn about and use this far more. Adding more creeps only for VIP that are in reality a copy of existing ones (so is easy to be done and kept) and leave existing ones to everybody? MP Festival/Event?
- Tribes and Kinships are two sides of one and same thing. So when you create a Kinship you also have a Tribe (maybe with a different name). Same friends. When adding a creep to a tribe a pop-up appears showing kinships where you already have characters, and you may choose one of these (or not).

...but... I still find that developing that (especially a creep) is a bit lacking, so also maybe...

- Create a new mini-zone for mounted combat PvP with controlled maximum capacity? Add mounts (or rider) for creeps.
- Content of PvP (in 2 teams) with controlled capacity (like a raid or instance).
- Shared solo quests. You do one choosing a creep and a freep of yours (or maybe someone's else too?), you must make both advance here and there for completing X and getting Y. Like "Mystery! What happened with little Timmy?", you get points by rescuing or eating little Timmy but if another creep eats Timmy then none.
- Possibility of choosing what Creep/Freep to use when still playing a character for filling a raid/instance/quest so you don't need to logout and log-in and lose chat contact.
- By doing something somewhere in MP you unlock extra content in different regions (a few quests here and there...).

PS: I deleted my previous posts in this thread and I leave this here, my ignorance of PvsMP was blatantly jarring! At least this now is somewhat helpful (I hope...)! Sorry!!

[XPICTO]

We can admit the freeps are currently broken. We gave them the pvp gear the creeps asked for. It didn't help balance. It didn't grow the pvp community. It is a whole new category of balance that we are asking SSG to update and maintain. It's a gate to many who find the inventory management to be a disaster, who are on small servers that can't generate the comms to get the gear to be competitive against the few creeps they do have to fight because the're now required to use it. It was this whole thing of development that has no measurable positive impact and still a ton of downsides.

I agree the PVP gear didnt help balance, yet I can say it has room to improve. This is another example of good idea but bad implementation. The fact that creeps were not adjusted to 140 does not help the balance. Remove essence, tweak the stats and proper set bonuses PVP gear. Make the gap between purple and teal lesser (give set-bonuses to teal) to help new freeps viable. Of course LIs should be revamped or removed from PVP as they are also part of the problem.

[TearMaker]

I agree the PVP gear didnt help balance, yet I can say it has room to improve. This is another example of good idea but bad implementation. The fact that creeps were not adjusted to 140 does not help the balance. Remove essence, tweak the stats and proper set bonuses PVP gear. Make the gap between purple and teal lesser (give set-bonuses to teal) to help new freeps viable. Of course LIs should be revamped or removed from PVP as they are also part of the problem.

I agree but the dev from D&D did their best with the limited time and resource.

The only way for pvp armour and jewellery would work is to flat out separate PVE gear from pvp zone. Design x3 pieces for each main stat to allow for differences and then the stats of said pieces can be scaled up and down and tweaked to try and bring some kind of balance. That way we could get rid of the HP bloat and endless battles with some classes bringing the purpose of playing moors to all Freeps who want to have a go and not just those who feel they have to have the best gear before they will leave GV stairs.

[XPICTO]

I agree but the dev from D&D did their best with the limited time and resource.

The only way for pvp armour and jewellery would work is to flat out separate PVE gear from pvp zone. Design x3 pieces for each main stat to allow for differences and then the stats of said pieces can be scaled up and down and tweaked to try and bring some kind of balance. That way we could get rid of the HP bloat and endless battles with some classes bringing the purpose of playing moors to all Freeps who want to have a go and not just those who feel they have to have the best gear before they will leave GV stairs.

I totally agree and I dont mean it will be an easy task to make.

[subadar]

pvp did help balance the freeps, it made them all pretty much equal out there.

you no longer have this huge swing from landscape gear equipped freeps to full on BiS equipped freeps. i guess you dont remember or perhaps you miss being the extremley OP freep of old?

the grind for the pvp gear and essences is minimal and the comm price is cheap.

theres no way to balance the wildly disparate skill levels of LOTRO players tho, you still have to try.

[Dranak123]

pvp did help balance the freeps, it made them all pretty much equal out there.

you no longer have this huge swing from landscape gear equipped freeps to full on BiS equipped freeps. i guess you dont remember or perhaps you miss being the extremley OP freep of old?

the grind for the pvp gear and essences is minimal and the comm price is cheap.

theres no way to balance the wildly disparate skill levels of LOTRO players tho, you still have to try.

I agree.

[Celebrius]

The main reason I stopped playing PVMP is due to it being a slide show. Fix the lag and I feel more people would play it. I am sure you are aware there are even regions in the ettenmoors which are denoted as "lag lines" and you have to push through them at like 1 fps. Below are my thoughts on how to do this.

Instead of scaling everyone up to 140 where you have these huge numbers for morale, damage, healing etc. You should scale everyone back to level 50. There is no reason people need to be max level out in the moors. I know people are not going to like this due to the fact they will not be able to get the max level potions from the vendor for PVE raiding, to this I say quit being lazy and make crafting useful again. Plus the added benefit is you will not need to re-balance everything every time there is a level increase, just tweak things as you change up classes etc.

In doing this, make PVE armor completely ineffective out there and make a new tab on the character panel to equip the PVMP gear. I know for me at least I do not have the bag space to keep a 3rd set of gear, so having this would allow my to have my PVMP gear in one place without causing more storage woes.
No legendary items, or have special ones only to be used in PVMP. This would reduce the range of which things need balanced for. It would also put more of a focus on players ability to play their respective classes and not what gear they have.

Reducing these numbers would reduce the amount of processing power required to calculate all of the effects going on at once. In saying this, it should apply to PVE as well. T5 Shelob having about 1 billion morale is ridiculous. You can achieve the same effect with much lower morale and higher mitigations which are not able to be bypassed.
(If you look at WoW, every few years they do a numbers crunch and push everyone back to level 50, I don't think we need to go that drastic but reducing numbers will help things significantly.) I am not sure why the dev's feel it necessary to have such drastic number increases with each level cap increase. Up until the 95 cap they were rather subtle and other mechanics would compensate for the increasing difficulty. Since then the numbers have been going up exponentially and is completely unsustainable at this point with the current game engine and servers. Larger numbers require more processing power, and when you consider how many calculations take place on a since hit it really adds up.

-Example on this. You use an ability to deal damage to an enemy. It then takes your base damage and multiplies by your traceries, traits, mastery, crit, and more before spitting out a number that is damage applied. Then that number goes through more calculations to get reduced by armor, crit defense, mitigations, other debuffs before it finally applies the final amount of damage to the NPC.


In my experience I had the most fun in PVMP during the 75, and 85 caps. perhaps look into that and digress a bit to make PVMP more like those.

Possibly to draw in the old PVMP players, consider adding more ranks into the system. I know some people who got to max rank and then just quit since they were at the top.

Giving rewards which work for the world of PVE to try to entice more players to go into PVMP is not a good idea. People who don't want to play PVMP should not feel compelled to do something they do not enjoy simply to keep up with gearing for those who do.

[SSG_Orion]

Good discussion so far.

I am pleased to see some engagement here and I am also pleased to see that there are some numbers out there in the field.

[Shakmahk]

This is probably a hot topic but imo creepside monetization needs to be revisited. Currently, unlocking all the trait/racial/class slots along with the character itself is 2600 lotro points. Considering the entire Gundabad expansion is priced at 3000, that doesn't reflect accurate value to me anymore and is probably a big detractor for non-vip players looking to get into the moors. Getting access to a single class should not cost as much as an expansion. I think if trait/racial/class slots were free or much more discounted, a significant improvement would be made. I think currently is a perfect time to bring this up and address this because the game has been making changes to its overall monetization, setting up a modern system, and the moors should reflect the changes made elsewhere as well.

[Snowlock]

pvp did help balance the freeps, it made them all pretty much equal out there.

That was the idea. When 28.2 was released and they buffed creep mits and defiler healing, defliers became so difficult to kill it took more than a few players and some kind of next level debuff like Oathbreakers to kill one. They made for instant perma-GV camps and people thought the only way to get the freeps off GV was to improve their gear. Creeps I think thought it took t5 raiding gear to kill defilers (it didn't it just took coordination and a whole lot of oathbreakers). So they advocated for SSG to create better gear for the freeps. SSG came out with two-tiered audacity gear that I guess was supposed to meet this request. The gear came out with Gundabad but the GV camps continued. Finally Fantus nerfed defiler healing by 30% and the camps dispersed. It wasn't the gear that made people equal, if I understand what you mean by the term, it was the defiler nerf.

The gear actually didn't do much for equality. There are still at least three tiers of freeps running around in various sets of gear: No audacity gear, purple audacity gear and teal audacity gear. It's really no different than saying those pre-audacity freeps were running around in a hodge podge of rep & shard crafted gear vs Remmorchant Gear vs Remmorchant & Threshold gear.

[LabadalofDorlomin]

That was the idea. When 28.2 was released and they buffed creep mits and defiler healing, defliers became so difficult to kill it took more than a few players and some kind of next level debuff like Oathbreakers to kill one. They made for instant perma-GV camps and people thought the only way to get the freeps off GV was to improve their gear. Creeps I think thought it took t5 raiding gear to kill defilers (it didn't it just took coordination and a whole lot of oathbreakers). So they advocated for SSG to create better gear for the freeps. SSG came out with two-tiered audacity gear that I guess was supposed to meet this request. The gear came out with Gundabad but the GV camps continued. Finally Fantus nerfed defiler healing by 30% and the camps dispersed. It wasn't the gear that made people equal, if I understand what you mean by the term, it was the defiler nerf.

The gear actually didn't do much for equality. There are still at least three tiers of freeps running around in various sets of gear: No audacity gear, purple audacity gear and teal audacity gear. It's really no different than saying those pre-audacity freeps were running around in a hodge podge of rep & shard crafted gear vs Remmorchant Gear vs Remmorchant & Threshold gear.

except this is what has always been done since day one. x class is OP and so after far too long they nerf. Then another class becomes the problem and the same thing happens. Usually this is on the side of Freeps due to their progression but does sometimes happen on creep side also as you state.

If you want to control balance in a more linear way and far easier to adjust, the idea of Freep armour is only good if they are forced to use it. There shouldn't be an option to wear PVE gear with its huge stat bloat. When you enter the moors cap the stats and disable the PVE gear.

Create the amount of gear options only usable in the moors to match the options that creep side have with the same variation as creeps. That way the calculations are easier and it takes away the need to keep adjusting throughout the PVE cycle. (not that it ever really did that in any meaningful sense)

Hopefully then the morale pool can be lowered dramatically and the fights can become more fluid.

Maybe bring back the Bard and disable current traits and add a new/old setup tailored to PVP and changeable through the Bard. Again these can be similar to what Creeps get and therefore again matching and making it easier to balance.


It all comes down to whether SSG decide that the initial mantra of grow with your character and bring them to battle a player driven foe can be altered and players are willing to try something new in order to better the experience. Remember that most of the Moors lag is factored through what the Freeps carry with them under the hood. So, maybe also a copy function instead of a character port could be implemented whereas the progress of the copy is written back to the main character upon leaving the instanced moors. Therefore all the bloat can be stripped away during the copy but leaving the real character unchanged.

[Askelin]

After better learning what I can do with MP...

PS: I deleted my previous posts in this thread and I leave this here, my ignorance of PvsMP was blatantly jarring! At least this now is somewhat helpful (I hope...)! Sorry!!

- Add visibility reducing features? Trees? Walls?
Unfortunately the game will still load all the assets and landscape behind these things regardless, the moors are fairly optimized as far as landscape goes (there could be improvements I'd grant you) and there's already a good number of objects such as trees and big rocks where you can use for cover.

- Players and NPC's here have volume, cannot be trespassed (reducing player density).
Not sure what you mean by this, NPCs not being able to be moved through? That would cause a blockage in keeps like no other.
There's already talk about Orion potentially making it so there are fewer keep NPCs but they are significantly more powerful as a result.

- Creating "layers with restricted quality"
This would be an unhealthy feature in the moors and could encourage undetectable rankfarming and prevent people from actually playing with eachother


-The fact that graphics are dumbed down by default (also some old assets like that elvish fountain) doesn't help. For potato players
Then learn how to truly optimize your setup for potato players, ideally you want to turn off the 'optimized pvp' option and configure it properly. The issue with lag in lotro is not performance lag for the vast majority of players but rather server lag.

-- Shared single quests. You do one choosing a creep and a freep, you must make both advance here and there for completing X and getting Y. Like "Mystery! What happened with little Timmy?", you get points by rescuing or eating little Timmy but if another creep eats Timmy then none.
so literally the same as poisoning the Hoardale and the Hobbit in Grothum?

-- Create a new mini-zone for mounted combat PvP
No. This would be awfully laggy and broken beyond belief.
I wish people understood better that this thread is not just for dumping ideas into the ether but rather to provide feedback and manageable suggestions that can realistically be done.

-- F2P players need to learn about and use this far more. Adding more creeps only for VIP that are in reality a copy of existing ones
I don't get this at all, are you suggesting they make two copies of the same class and make one stronger for VIPs or something?? The paywall remains on creepside for whatever reason, we just have to deal with it.

- Tribes and Kinships are two sides of one and same thing. So when you create a Kinship you also have a Tribe (maybe with a different name). Same friends. When adding a creep to a tribe a pop-up appears showing kinships where you already have characters, and ONLY from these you can choose.
Creepside is mechanically completely separate from freepside, which is why you can't even talk to freeps on creepside.

Welcome back Orion, hope you get the time you need to improve the experience in the Ettenmoors.

You formulated the main points of change perfectly, people want most of all for these basic things to be adjusted. These are doable, these are important and it will get us a good step in the right direction. Ideally there needs to be a proper look into creep classes and how they operate, they are remarkably outdated at this point, reavers and warleaders most of all.

[SSG_Orion]

This is probably a hot topic but imo creepside monetization needs to be revisited. Currently, unlocking all the trait/racial/class slots along with the character itself is 2600 lotro points. Considering the entire Gundabad expansion is priced at 3000, that doesn't reflect accurate value to me anymore and is probably a big detractor for non-vip players looking to get into the moors. Getting access to a single class should not cost as much as an expansion. I think if trait/racial/class slots were free or much more discounted, a significant improvement would be made. I think currently is a perfect time to bring this up and address this because the game has been making changes to its overall monetization, setting up a modern system, and the moors should reflect the changes made elsewhere as well.

Noted. I agree.

[Brolad]

We can admit the freeps are currently broken. We gave them the pvp gear the creeps asked for. It didn't help balance. It didn't grow the pvp community. It is a whole new category of balance that we are asking SSG to update and maintain. It's a gate to many who find the inventory management to be a disaster, who are on small servers that can't generate the comms to get the gear to be competitive against the few creeps they do have to fight because the're now required to use it. It was this whole thing of development that has no measurable positive impact and still a ton of downsides.

Are you even talking about the same game? PvP gear does not help balance between freeps and creeps by itself, it's merely a tool that shortens the gap between differently geared freeps in PvMP. PvP gear is not a singular solution, it's just one of several necessary features that acceptable balance can't exist without.

I can't believe there are people who don't understand this.

[Snowlock]

Are you even talking about the same game?

We might not be. I think you're talking about a MOBA. I view the moors as the repeatable endgame content of LOTRO; something that should/will keep players in the game beyond whatever level of pve endgame they view as their personal endgame. It's a progression in gameplay of the pve side. I think you may view our pvp as an independent entity that should be played at any time divorced of anything outside the main game. Right now we are at our lowest levels of participation in pvp I've seen personally and we are closer to a MOBA than we've ever been. I see the relation to these low levels when you put endgame pve in one silo and pvp in another. They should allow cross pollination between the communities so both grow. PVP gear is a gate to that connection, we need less gates, not more, imo.

[bohbashum]

I just really hate the map.

I'm not asking for a new map, just a serious shakeup. It shouldn't take 2minutes to get back to fights.

It's extremely boring. Fights aren't cantered to any nice places. 90% of the map is ignorred. You can spend ages searching for fights like kids lost in a shop, both parties looking and missing each other as they run past.

While I agree there are lots of other issues and lots of other solutions to different issues. I'm having my biggest hate of the map. After 15 years of basically the same thing (ignorring one oddity) I can't be the only one completely bored with it.


This is a bunch of major shakeup ideas. Some hopefully easy to achive. Some likely impossible because of spaghetti. But I want to show somthing different to give ideas.



Change 1: Remove Freep/Creep NPCs from EC/OC and Outputs in Delving and allow faster travels inside.

Every NPC that stands at an outpost/camp entrance bar 1 that should be buffed incredibly should be removed.

The delving should be a fast travel underground and NPCs ruin it. Creeps should be able to use there travel and freeps use there goats.

Ganks in the delving should be easily possible. It's a very fun fight location. Both sides should feel unprotected in a fight, unable to exit if it gets rough.



Change 2: Delving entrances should be from Grams & GV, One-shotters inside, not from DG and OR.

The long straights to those entrances will be the only freindly NPCs in there for players. This gives a route out and a fast travel around the map.



Change 3: Grams & GV Forward Camp

Outside of both grams and GV will be a few more freindly NPCs to support the faction that has been pushed all the way back.

It's an extremely barren land outside of GV and Grams. Your unable to push to anything nicely. If all fails, there needs to be a real "here, have some help".



Change 3: Lesser Keep Flags.

This is aimed at rewarding players for attack and defend of keeps. Pushing and pulling in and out. Newer players who struggle getting ganked outside can focus on these flags

All keeps have a flag for attackers outside, and a flag inside for defenders.
This must be "Built" by the relevent attacker/defender
This is a daily quest to build / destory for 100 infamy/renown/comm.
It has a 5minute cooldown on death.
If the flag is taken by an attacking force, they grant 5m buffs if within the area for 5seconds. The defending force can not receive these buffs.



Change 4: More respawns.

Lug:
This is roughly a 30s-1m respawn time to get back to the fights with options to go around, and causing the crossroads to get messy.


Tol:
There will be a new bridge on the waterfall and a slow pathway down the rocks.
This is a very fast respawn to the keep however, that keep is huge. Ambushes to people coming into the keep would be popular and they can not get back easily once in the river.
This then acts as a good assault for lug and TR. If players are taking optimal route to them, they may find a counter attack on tol to not be defended.


TR:
Similar to lug.


Entire map changes...

There will be a swift travel From Grams to DG, LC Spiders, and Goblin town. Only Grams and DG will be 2 way, all others will be 1 way.

There will be a swift travel from GV to OR, Isen eagle, and hobbit village. Only GV and OR will be 2 way, all others will be 1 way.

For example, if you go from Grams to Goblin village you will not be able to go back to grams. There is no swift travel back.

These swift travel locations need to be protected by more NPCs, however, I wouldn't want 1shotters there. An ambush should be viable.

Here are the respawns and swift travels visualised.

It's messy, sorry for crayons, but hopefully you get the idea. A busy maps with lots of focus points and ease to get around without defaulting too "maps and when can spiders ride wargs".