Welcome back to the Ettenmoors!

[SSG_Orion]

In the three months since I teased changes to Monster Play, I went quiet, head down, and hands on keyboard, and while not everything I wanted to do is complete, I do have some items to share about the changes coming to the Ettenmoors! The Ettenmoors occupies a niche role. It is not and never will be the focal point of the game. It is, however, an important piece of the greater whole that sets The Lord of the Rings: Online apart from other MMOs. Monster Play is at a crossroads. We need to solidify its place in the game and give it every opportunity to thrive before making a final decision on how it might be supported moving forward.

Finding Monster Play’s future role in the game is not easy. Not every player is invested in the experience, some flat-out recoil at the mention of PvMP, but those that engage deeply in the experience have done so, loyally, for a very, very long time. After many conversations with Raninia and Severlin, the direction I wanted to take became clearer. The intent with the upcoming changes is to supply support to Monster Play to ensure that it still is another reason to keep playing and a reason to come back.

The changes that follow are all made with these goals in mind.

Monster Play is Free to All

First, Monster Play is going free to all players. Continuing the success of our 15th Anniversary, once you gain level two on any Free Peoples player character, just return to the character generation screen and make any Monster Player character you want. Want to make a Defiler? Free. Warleader? Free. All PvMP classes are free upon reaching level two!

Monster Player Classes Updated

Now that we are making the PvMP classes free, we need to make the classes more accessible and viable at the outset, meaning changes to the initial skill loadouts for all monster classes. The changes focus on providing a better spread of skills more indicative of class gameplay. Each class now starts with eight skills, giving them a better interaction against Freeps.

Rank requirements- while still an important aspect of monster advancement- for Monster Player skills are reduced to a max Rank of five for all Monster Classes. This change should make it easier to attain a fully realized Monster Player character.

To further incentivize Monster Play, we are adjusting the first quests and accomplishments to reward the ‘Map to Gramsfoot’ - a necessity in the Monster Player experience - and adding updated accomplishment rewards to provide Monster Players with four items that grant a rank of Audacity each.

We’ve also increased the amount of ‘Commendations’ an account can carry to 20,000 and added a set of tasks unique to defeating enemies throughout the Ettenmoors to inspire more battles.

Audacity Changes

Audacity has been reimagined and made more important than ever! Each side in the Ettenmoors now has 36 Ranks of Audacity. Free Players get Audacity through the acquisition of gear, including a new set of armour and jewellery available for ‘Commendations’ at Glân Vraig. Monster Players earn Ranks of Audacity by spending ‘Commendations’ at their Corruptors within Gramsfoot.

Because of the reliance and necessity of Audacity, we have reduced the cost to train Audacity from Ranks 1-24. The reduction reflects the need to move to Rank 25 quickly, overcoming the negative impact to outgoing damage and increased incoming damage. At Rank 25 Audacity, all players reach parity and break even with neither bonus nor negative impact. From 26 to 36, there are incremental gains improving the outgoing damage and reducing incoming damage.

Moving forward, you will need Audacity to survive in the Ettenmoors, and to augment that need we have added new tinctures that increase Audacity by 5 Ranks for 60 minutes of real-time. Tinctures be acquired for either ‘Commendations’ or Mithril Coins at barter NPCs found at the respective main bases. These tinctures stack to ten and have a cooldown of 60 minutes to match their duration. The tinctures are not bound by your Rank in PvMP.

Store Updates

We are adding new racial, class skill, and corruption bundles to the store at a reduced cost to encourage new Monster Players.

And for the discerning elder Monster Players, we are adding a new appearance for each Monster Player Class!

Heal Tagging is Removed

Lastly, the practice known as “heal tagging” is gone. Players outside of fellowship or raids no longer earn infamy/renown or ‘Commendations’ when healing a player who defeated an opponent in the Ettenmoors. To get recognition for the defeat, a player must deal at least 2% of the damage to the target or be part of the fellowship or raid that defeats the target.

There is a known issue with the heal tagging fix right now that we are working and it may not be present in the BUllroarer preview uploaded in the next day or so. We are working to ensure that it is fixed for the next iteration of Bullroarer and certainly for the release of the next live update.

Conclusion

The Ettenmoors is changing, and we hope for the better! What I am really hoping for is a reinvigorated experience that drives players and monster players into conflict more often. If we get the fun right and players return to the Ettenmoors more often then we will have moved beyond the crossroads and have a clear path toward the future.

Welcome back to the Ettenmoors!

[Zaheer]

reavers are insane

[gildhur]

Sounds great. Can't wait to see what the new skins look like. I've got lots of LP I need to spend on something...

[Saruman_Of_Numbers]

All of the changes look good, which is the first time I can say that about anything coming out of SSG...

however, nothing you changed really tackles the core issues, so you're really just trading one problem for another.

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Removing heal tagging? fantastic.... but now its just a zergball meta where everyone is heavily incentivized to group into one gigantic ball for maximum point values, since the point distribution system still rewards that behavior.


All the buffs to creep skill? nice! but all those debuffs are cureable, and freep cures are so strong that with a certain group comp, everything gets insta-cured by AOE curative skills that are on extremely low cooldowns... or like champion, are just flat out immune.


Making all the creep classes free? good idea! but hold on... multiboxing is still allowed according to the rules... so its going to be boxer city out there (it was already, but now its gonna be big).


Keep changes? good! but freeps can still w-key through them all with their insane cooldowns and healing.


Creep cure! finally! but its on defiler, the most disgustingly overplay overstacked class in the moors next to blackarrow, while warleader changes are not enough to break it out of its c-tier category.



Let me be clear... as someone who historically has been very critical of a lot of SSG decisions regarding PVMP.... all of your changes are good changes.... just not hitting any real problem areas... nothing will fundamentally change, and those people who do log in to check it out will be disappointed to see things playing out identical to how they were before.

[SingularityNow]

How many commedations does it take for each rank of audacity and have you changed or supplemented the way comms are generated? I play on Ark, the idea that I would have a chance to quest for audacity without getting constantly camped by freeps is very unlikely and there are hardly any creep leaders anymore that will group people up except if you are at least r5, some not till r7. Where are the changes to Keeps, the DOF, or the other stuff you mentioned in your thread? All its seems you've done is make the rich richer, those that can generate comms, and the poor poorer, newbs and casual soloists who already struggle with the 6k per rank of audacity to cap. And now you've added 11 more in the hopes we spend mithril on temporary boosts? I don't understand, maybe I'm not seeing everything. Aren't all creep skills already available by r5? It barely matters because the comm grind is so brutal, you can't get the skills.

[Intolerance]

...Welcome back to the Ettenmoors!

Are the changes you mentioned for OC/EC, Delving, OPs, & Keeps still happening?

[kiwi88]

Going free to play is great!

Could we get carry-alls for moors items? They take up a LOT of bag space which makes it harder to switch back and forth between PVE and PVP.

[Ameranth]

This is probably a rhetorical question, but I have to ask it. Will there be any compensation for comms already spent?

It took 85,000 commendations to get 25 audacity on a single creep, multiply that by 6 creeps and it's 510,000 per player. That's a huge amount of grind.
Now we're being told that up to 24 is basically free, and we have to spend hundreds of thousands more which we no longer have just to get back to where we were. If it's the same 6000/7500 per rank as before, that's approximately another 400,000 to 500,000 per player!
Since those comms have already been spent it would be great if existing audacity ranks were scaled up to the new ones. Currently 1-13 are almost free and 14+ is very expensive, so any creep with rank 14+ audacity could just have 11 added to their current value and be back to what they'd originally paid for, with no loss or gain relative to new players.


It's great that creep classes are opening up, but with Defilers and Warleaders being free this will make massive rank farming even easier than it was before, and with new things to spend comms on it's guaranteed certain people will be doing it. Will anything be done about cheaters or will it continue to be the wild west out there with all COC/TOS violations being ignored?

[Arantha]

thanks for this work, sounds great

[SSG_Orion]

however, nothing you changed really tackles the core issues, so you're really just trading one problem for another.

Removing heal tagging? fantastic.... but now its just a zergball meta where everyone is heavily incentivized to group into one gigantic ball for maximum point values, since the point distribution system still rewards that behavior.

The behavior that we are addressing is one that should drive players back to groups, potentially raids, potentially slavering monstrosities of maximum point value seeking players. Considering that I am trying to push PvMP beyond the crossroads where it sits back into an active experience. I am hoping that taking what is effectively an exploitative behavior out of the game is better for longevity.

All the buffs to creep skill? nice! but all those debuffs are cureable, and freep cures are so strong that with a certain group comp, everything gets insta-cured by AOE curative skills that are on extremely low cooldowns... or like champion, are just flat out immune.

The upcoming changes I outlined here are not direct buffs, they're alterations meant to increase early experience survivability. If I got them right, then monsters stand a little better chance.[/quote]

Making all the creep classes free? good idea! but hold on... multiboxing is still allowed according to the rules... so its going to be boxer city out there (it was already, but now its gonna be big).

Not sure that this will come to pass. Seems like it might be something of a fringe case. One, that should it arise, we can look into.

Keep changes? good! but freeps can still w-key through them all with their insane cooldowns and healing.

These are longer term changes that are sneaking in and you will need to see the changes before you can make that assessment. If this is the experience - let us know once you get in them.

Creep cure! finally! but its on defiler, the most disgustingly overplay overstacked class in the moors next to blackarrow, while warleader changes are not enough to break it out of its c-tier category.

Again, this is a future update, not one that will be available immediately.

Let me be clear... as someone who historically has been very critical of a lot of SSG decisions regarding PVMP.... all of your changes are good changes.... just not hitting any real problem areas... nothing will fundamentally change, and those people who do log in to check it out will be disappointed to see things playing out identical to how they were before.

It's a process. The end goal of the changes will not be achieved in one release. I have to make incremental changes and stabilize what is here as best I can and power the Ettenmoors through the crossroads to really drive more meaningful and impactful change. I'm just hoping this starts it across the path and it doesn't stall it out.

[SSG_Orion]

How many commedations does it take for each rank of audacity and have you changed or supplemented the way comms are generated? I play on Ark, the idea that I would have a chance to quest for audacity without getting constantly camped by freeps is very unlikely and there are hardly any creep leaders anymore that will group people up except if you are at least r5, some not till r7. Where are the changes to Keeps, the DOF, or the other stuff you mentioned in your thread? All its seems you've done is make the rich richer, those that can generate comms, and the poor poorer, newbs and casual soloists who already struggle with the 6k per rank of audacity to cap. And now you've added 11 more in the hopes we spend mithril on temporary boosts? I don't understand, maybe I'm not seeing everything. Aren't all creep skills already available by r5? It barely matters because the comm grind is so brutal, you can't get the skills.

I will actually be out of the officce later today, but I will give you a preview of the cost breakdowns for 1-25 if I get a chance tomorrow evening.

Keep changes, DoF, and other pieces needed to get pushed. The changes to early ranks, as stated, have a goal of moving quickly. The 11 additional ranks are certainly more costly. So too for the players.

Not just mithril, commendations can be used and I will break down the cost, when I am back in the office.

[SSG_Orion]

Are the changes you mentioned for OC/EC, Delving, OPs, & Keeps still happening?

They are still on my list, but not in this first round.

[SSG_Orion]

Going free to play is great!

Could we get carry-alls for moors items? They take up a LOT of bag space which makes it harder to switch back and forth between PVE and PVP.

Nifty question. I'll take a loot, no guarantees.

[SSG_Orion]

This is probably a rhetorical question, but I have to ask it. Will there be any compensation for comms already spent?

The short answer, no.

It took 85,000 commendations to get 25 audacity on a single creep, multiply that by 6 creeps and it's 510,000 per player. That's a huge amount of grind.
Now we're being told that up to 24 is basically free,

I think you're reading a little too far into what I stated. Certainly not free. Attainable more quickly.

and we have to spend hundreds of thousands more which we no longer have just to get back to where we were.

Your current ranks will not change. No having to fight back to that level.

If it's the same 6000/7500 per rank as before, that's approximately another 400,000 to 500,000 per player!

The total cost for max audacity is not that high. I will break it down in the next week, so that this clearer, bear in mind that we need some testing to validate our changes.

Since those comms have already been spent it would be great if existing audacity ranks were scaled up to the new ones. Currently 1-13 are almost free and 14+ is very expensive, so any creep with rank 14+ audacity could just have 11 added to their current value and be back to what they'd originally paid for, with no loss or gain relative to new players.

If only it were that simple.

[Saruman_Of_Numbers]

The behavior that we are addressing is one that should drive players back to groups, potentially raids, potentially slavering monstrosities of maximum point value seeking players. Considering that I am trying to push PvMP beyond the crossroads where it sits back into an active experience. I am hoping that taking what is effectively an exploitative behavior out of the game is better for longevity.

People don't need to be pushed into grouping, in a way they're already doing it too much. That is the exact problem. Big mega raids that suck up every single player in the whole map and squat on a shuffle location with 5 second server lag because everyone is mashing as many AOE buttons as possible, causing huge network traffic on the server end. No one particularly enjoys this experience, nor do they enjoy the vast emptiness that is the rest of the map, devoid of players because everyone is shuffling in the big zerg to soak up all those points by pressing whatever ranged damage button happens to fall under their fingers... and if there's action somewhere else, the zerg will come and roll that for points too. There's no disincentive to have 80 players lagging each other out, nor any way to really avoid it.

The upcoming changes I outlined here are not direct buffs, they're alterations meant to increase early experience survivability. If I got them right, then monsters stand a little better chance.

I understand that by logging into some random server and looking at a shuffle, you might think that the sides are roughly evenly matched, but the reality is that whenever a competent group of freeps comes out with decent composition and leadership, the creeps have lacked any tools to be able to fight it beyond getting an absurd number of people (x2), and none of your currently known changes in this beta or future betas addresses this. In the past freeps were supposed to be the stronger of the two sides, but creeps had tools to compete despite being weaker individually, like their ability to rez or tools like blight. Right now they don't have any tools to effectively counter anything that a good freep group can throw at them.

The highest level players on all severs have pondered this and come to the conclusion after many tests and fights that there's basically no counterplay to many of these compositions, so neither side logs on, because its pointless for both parties... they don't want to shuffle, they want to have a good fight where the outcome isn't predetermined. Discussions within the various PVP discords have basically come to the conclusion that its not going to be worth logging in for your changes as they stand now, because the auto-win conditions are still there for freeps.

Creeps don't need buffs, they need tools.... right now they don't have enough.

It's a process. The end goal of the changes will not be achieved in one release. I have to make incremental changes and stabilize what is here as best I can and power the Ettenmoors through the crossroads to really drive more meaningful and impactful change. I'm just hoping this starts it across the path and it doesn't stall it out.

I'll give you this: these are the best changes in 8+ years..... but right now a lot of people are responding with a nod and a shrug. "good changes, but nothing has changed".

A lot of that reboot energy got burnt up with the (good but unfinished) Fantus audacity gear update, where many players decided to give PVMP another shot, only to come back and see the same old same old problems, just with less grind. You're really going to have to target the core issues if you want to get the people back.

[DeloTheboss]

Can you fix scytode brood "Contact Poison" tooltip still saying 102-132 damage? I've already made a bug report about this and I'm pretty sure a GM just replied that it's intended...

[Arantha]

Are there still any benefits of being a VIP in the Etten or not?

[elvenes]

the lag is gonna be glorious

[Brolad]

It's looking good so far, thank you.

I'd like to add to some of the concerns about multiboxing from a bit above. Lowering the barrier of entry to creepside seems unnecessary, any new players who want to try out PvMP likely have a level 10 character anyway, or can easily obtain one in less than one hour of gameplay. Creep accessibility never was a problem. If anything, whenever the balance is close or slightly in creeps' favour, creeps tend to have significantly higher numbers out than freeps. This change:

• slightly encourages multiboxing
• makes DIY rank farming even easier than it was before; the level 10 requirement didn't stop the 'commercial' and bigger rank farmers but it was too much effort for 'independent' ones - now anyone will be able to roll 10 warleaders any time free of charge
• encourages freeps to make disposable creep alts for OOC trashtalking, spying (even as it was now creep raids often had to map away because there were rank 0 reavers following them to know their location) and rigging the "outnumbered buff".

Speaking of the outnumbered buff (Lainedhel's call to arms/Akulhun's something) - any chance that it could get removed or changed into something that doesn't buff combat stats? On bigger servers freeps tend to have it even at times when the numbers are equal.

[Legoir22857]

I would not like to strongly criticize a person who may be really trying to fix a broken pvp, in any case, I want to at least hope that real work is being done, so I will be as correct as possible.

Dear Orion, your changes regarding the fame received for heal are, of course, not bad, but this is not the problem that really bothers the players, it did not require an urgent solution.
We are worried and forced to leave the project by an absolute imbalance, because creep is helpless against the background of freep with a good gear and brains.
The PvMP community does not require global changes from you at the moment, we ask you to make a patch, balance the creeps stats so that their dps can compete with the current selfheal freeps.
More specifically, you have made gear for freeps, and this is a good start, now ban the use of LI on Moors, make a separate standard mandatory weapon for freeps. If you want, let it work like LI, but adjust its parameters to the realities of pvp, but it's better to let it be a regular weapon without legacies. I am not a developer, but this is not a very large amount of work, if you need help testing the resulting balance, then you can attract players, there are enough people who will help you successfully implement it.
By the way, if you ban LI, it will also partially solve the problem with selfheal fraps, because many classes of cd heal skills are tied to legacies, and because of their lack of cds will increase, and freeps will cease to be so immortal.

P.S. a global problem requiring urgent solution - impossible server freezes. I haven't logged into the game since October last year, then everything was bad, but now it's even worse.
It seemed that we had found the bottom, but suddenly there was a knock on the other side...

[Victor119977]

People don't need to be pushed into grouping, in a way they're already doing it too much. That is the exact problem. Big mega raids that suck up every single player in the whole map and squat on a shuffle location with 5 second server lag because everyone is mashing as many AOE buttons as possible, causing huge network traffic on the server end. No one particularly enjoys this experience, nor do they enjoy the vast emptiness that is the rest of the map, devoid of players because everyone is shuffling in the big zerg to soak up all those points by pressing whatever ranged damage button happens to fall under their fingers... and if there's action somewhere else, the zerg will come and roll that for points too. There's no disincentive to have 80 players lagging each other out, nor any way to really avoid it.

If Orion reads this. Meta play will unfortunately always win over fun, hence it is up to the developers to make Meta fun.

It is probably unwise to touch upon the fact whether 24man raids are fun to be in, because it is subjective. However, we can all agree that being frozen in the same spot every 5 seconds, due the old LoTRO engine certainly places a demper on raids in general. And the effect a raid has on the rest of the moors, (making it feel empty because every player rushes to one location), is objectively not fun.

I am by no means an expert but could it be as simple to boost the renown/infamy game for solo/duo/fellowship play to such a degree Meta will shift.
By doing so the lag should subside and the moors will feel more active with wargs and burglars lurking in every corner.
To make things even more interesting boost commendations and renown/infamy for quests by a thousand? I can guarantee the world will feel active.

To reiterate, rank 15 or obtain gear is the goal, not to have fun, in pvp for the majority of players. (they will never admit it). Therefore tune the moors and LoTRO engine limits to this, which will provide the illusion of fun by doing a grind.
(small disclaimer for anyone that cares enough to tell that their goal is to have fun in pvp and not gain rank 15 or get gear. Great good on you.)

[Askelin]

Let's goooooo!
Well looking forward to trying this out!

[SSG_Orion]

I understand that by logging into some random server and looking at a shuffle, you might think that the sides are roughly evenly matched, but the reality is that whenever a competent group of freeps comes out with decent composition and leadership, the creeps have lacked any tools to be able to fight it beyond getting an absurd number of people (x2), and none of your currently known changes in this beta or future betas addresses this. In the past freeps were supposed to be the stronger of the two sides, but creeps had tools to compete despite being weaker individually, like their ability to rez or tools like blight. Right now they don't have any tools to effectively counter anything that a good freep group can throw at them.

I agree. The creeps have always lacked the tools to deal with the power of the freeps. This is an iterative process and I cannot do everyting all at once. If I don't make a stab at getting something together here then the we're on an exit ramp from monster town. I'd rather that not happen.

The highest level players on all severs have pondered this and come to the conclusion after many tests and fights that there's basically no counterplay to many of these compositions, so neither side logs on, because its pointless for both parties... they don't want to shuffle, they want to have a good fight where the outcome isn't predetermined. Discussions within the various PVP discords have basically come to the conclusion that its not going to be worth logging in for your changes as they stand now, because the auto-win conditions are still there for freeps.

Like I said, incremental change.

Creeps don't need buffs, they need tools.... right now they don't have enough.

True.

I'll give you this: these are the best changes in 8+ years..... but right now a lot of people are responding with a nod and a shrug. "good changes, but nothing has changed".

A lot of that reboot energy got burnt up with the (good but unfinished) Fantus audacity gear update, where many players decided to give PVMP another shot, only to come back and see the same old same old problems, just with less grind. You're really going to have to target the core issues if you want to get the people back.

You can only verify that these assumptions are correct by testing and providing feedback. Hopefully by my interactions you can see that I am willing to listen.

[SingularityNow]

The behavior that we are addressing is one that should drive players back to groups, potentially raids, potentially slavering monstrosities of maximum point value seeking players. Considering that I am trying to push PvMP beyond the crossroads where it sits back into an active experience. I am hoping that taking what is effectively an exploitative behavior out of the game is better for longevity.

I'm reserving my final opinion when I see the costs changes to Audacity and how that last 11 ranks affect gameplay. However, I currently don't see how this is accomplishing your goal. What you don't seem to understand is, at least on Ark - and there are only TWO servers that offer pvp populations, and I don't see anything here designed to entice players on other servers to pvp - there are currently a grand total of TWO common creep leaders that are active. One during the day, one in the evening. There are a few others on at random times, but for raids to form it's primarily these two. Now, of these two; one only will take R5+ and the other will tank only R7+ into their raids. How are you proposing this horde of R0's you're hoping to create get kills to get comms get skills and audacity?

It seems like, and again I'm trying to reserve final judgement, that you are about to create the biggest grams camp of all time as all these new R0's will have no where to go, and the freeps will flock to the easy points - for about 2 weeks before everyone feels it's hopeless and quits.

[Spilo]

Moving forward, you will need Audacity to survive in the Ettenmoors, and to augment that need we have added new tinctures that increase Audacity by 5 Ranks for 60 minutes of real-time. Tinctures be acquired for either ‘Commendations’ or Mithril Coins at barter NPCs found at the respective main bases. These tinctures stack to ten and have a cooldown of 60 minutes to match their duration. The tinctures are not bound by your Rank in PvMP.

I won't shoot the messenger, as I assume this monetization is the only reason SSG let you off your leash to work with PvP, so we'll take what we can get.

However, I hope that you'll keep in mind how expensive buffs are for creeps, especially creeps who do not participate in mass RvR, as it is. Right now solo/small groupers have immense struggles just breaking even on fury pots/delving buffs/morale pots, much less new buffs. I honestly think the best course would be to completely remove delving pots and internally add the stats they provide to all Creeps (it's actually one of the big reasons why low rank creeps are so garbage- they aren't high enough rank to buy them and even if they could, can't afford them). It would show a continuation of your wise line of reasoning that there should NOT be a massive gap between lower rank and higher rank Creeps in terms of stats- that only discourages new and inexperienced players. If you can't remove the pots/add the stats, then cutting down the cost would be great, so Creeps can spend comms on Tinctures, Morale/Fury/Stun pots, and foods.


I'll echo what Saruman of Numbers says- good changes, will remain skeptical until we see more big picture changes to discourage shuffling, improved macro play (objective adjustments, discouragement of zerging, a look at Map/Mount use), and some individual class balance stuff would be cool (Defilers are obnoxious, BAs are easy, Wargs too basic, Reavers stink, WLs are weak, and creeps have terrible utility/tools).

Cheers!