Welcome back to the Ettenmoors!

[Ameranth]

That never happened in WoW with 100 million active players.

I never played WOW. Did it have the same mechanics where PVP used an entirely seperate currency and XP system in order to advance?
If not, you're comparing apples and oranges.

I've seen people complain about gold sellers in Lotro and there are no gold sellers or gold offers related to Lotro across all MMO gold selling websites. It has more to do with their ghosts.

Your join date is just last month, so I'm not surprised you've never seen a gold seller. You should have been here a few years back when chat was relentless gold seller spam 24/7, or a few years before that when they could sell store items so the bot packs were farming LP as well as gold and the ads were even worse. These things aren't as big a problem now because of changes that were made to the game, but any new changes that incentivized it again would just bring them back.

[Thorandril]

Do you play much Creep/Raid exclusively? .

Daily, raid maybe once/twice a week depending. It's easy. Simple solution to this is doubling/tripling the amount of time the potion buffs last for since there is a steep cost to them. Surely if they can extend the length of pay to win store buffs in pvp, they can extend this.


Doubling down on removal of mastery buffs from outposts. This garbage needs to go.

[Melank]

This ain't league of legends, besides, if you rlly want competition you completely strip rank requirements away, its ########.
Also, rewards I personally don't give a sht about, it also encourages dumb farming, which we exactly don't want.

Think you also forget that not everyone seeks the competition, ppl like me just want to take enjoyment in the fights, creating builds, build plans, concepts, theory crafting, and putting that to the test.



point of PvMP ain't rank m8, rank is only important to those who wanna show it off, or keep it as a trophy that bears no importance except to the person himself who wants to be proud of his 60 pixels icon with a 15 sticker on it. It's dumb and it really doesn't mean anything. The ranks themselves are pointless.

All gear should be available for rank 1
All creep skills should be available from rank 1

and neither of these 2 factors should take longer than a day to get.


I suppose we can keep ranks, as a nice Instagram trophy for those who care so much about it, to feel proud of it, to feed the ego and get that little dopamine out like the average champ enthusiast tries to get.

But keep all items, pots, buffs meant for moors untied from ranks, ty.

You do like to talk a lot about yourself don't you?

Maybe you should consider that not everyone is driven by the same motives as you. Many people want to level up and leave for good, that's why the game places so many incentives in PvE, because many get BiS gear they leave for good.

If Lotro's PvE journey stopped at 140, the game would be empty. Same goes for PvP.

Maybe the reason why PvMP is so empty it's not only because of balance, but because there's no coherent set of meta-achievements and meta-goals sticked together like it happens in PvE or in PvP in other games in which players actually engage with PvP actively.

If they wanted to make a PvMP game just for yourself and your "boys" I doubt they would get more people interested in it.

Without competition PvE and PvP becomes a waste of time.

I never played WOW. Did it have the same mechanics where PVP used an entirely seperate currency and XP system in order to advance?
If not, you're comparing apples and oranges.

PvP in WoW serves the function to rank up to get better gear and be able to increase your power, because PvE gear in PvP is useless, you have to rank up to access better gear and buff your PvP stats. It's the same as PvP leveling.

Players don't multi-box both sides to let themselves win and rank up.

[OverlordGate]

While reducing the requirements for new creeps to be of use is generally a good thing I don´t really see the point of returning to the moors as an very very old player. I reached rank 15 with my warg stalker in late 2013 and I´m basically of same use as an rank 5 warg stalker. I don´t really feel "appreciated" for the time and effort anymore. So I do think there should be mor to achieve than "cosmetics" while ranking up. Unique and powerful, but optional, passive traits for example. Very small skill enhancements like 1% cooldown reduction on base skills per rank. One more trait slot ... something like this.

[Zaheer]

You do like to talk a lot about yourself don't you?

Maybe you should consider that not everyone is driven by the same motives as you. Many people want to level up and leave for good, that's why the game places so many incentives in PvE, because many get BiS gear they leave for good.

If Lotro's PvE journey stopped at 140, the game would be empty. Same goes for PvP.

Maybe the reason why PvMP is so empty it's not only because of balance, but because there's no coherent set of meta-achievements and meta-goals sticked together like it happens in PvE or in PvP in other games in which players actually engage with PvP actively.

If they wanted to make a PvMP game just for yourself and your "boys" I doubt they would get more people interested in it.

Without competition PvE and PvP becomes a waste of time.

Oh I'm sorry for walking over your view, but ofcourse I knew it was subjective. The whole point of showing you my views is to make you realize, that it is subjective. But judging from how you talk, you've not gotten my message even though my choice of wording is often rather blunt and straight to the point.

PvMP isn't necessarily empty for the population this game still carries, it's rather okay. Problem is that many ppl refuse to play due how pvmp currently is implemented and how many factors contribute to poor player experience. One of these is for example; lag, poor balance.

Again, your last statement is your view, you seem to think that pvmp becomes ''empty'' because there's nothing to gain, but I think you should really start looking at the big picture and all these factors. Yes, progression may be a factor for some, but that's just one thing out of many factors. The most significant contributor I've seen to poor experience and a disregard for LOTRO PvMP at this very moment is how things are balanced around class and lagg.

Then there's more minor factors but do contribute somewhat, like the amount of time it takes to be fully geared, or have all skills on creep. Then there's the tome of defense and p2w factor.


What you name is your reason and what you seek as improvement for yourself, I gave you what I seek and I want, but we all can certainly agree on a few terms here. Except striderdigits, he thinks sprint is balanced.

[Melank]

Yes, progression may be a factor for some, but that's just one thing out of many factors. The most significant contributor I've seen to poor experience and a disregard for LOTRO PvMP at this very moment is how things are balanced around class and lagg.

Yes, lag and balance are big contributors, but I do think that giving a level 10+ player no coherent reasons to jump into a Creep alt is a huge factor too.

"Hey, I'll just forget about my main and I'll create a new Creep toon, because it seems.. cool?" -> Proceeds to play 1 hour with a Creep toon -> "Nah, this sucks".

Then there's more minor factors but do contribute somewhat, like the amount of time it takes to be fully geared, or have all skills on creep.

I don't think this is bad, I think it's good for players to have a sense of progression and building a character while learning how to play it.

Then there's the tome of defense and p2w factor.

Yes, it shouldn't surprise devs that many players are not interested to play PvE or PvP if they have to deal with p2w buffs, consumables and tomes at the store in 2022. That's a huge turn off for many people, unless we're talking about mobile asian gacha games in which players love to pay their way to the top.

Those F2P games were made to be p2w and players know it, and have their own playerbase. But Lotro has a Buy-to-Play PC model and aspects that attract players that are into that kind of gameplay, but then they introduce F2P p2w mobile gacha game's logic and store, which doesn't make sense. It's confusing for anyone. Nobody does it.

Seriously, there's no MMO in the entire industry that has both models at once because it confuses players. You're attracting 1 kind of player (PC Buy-to-Play player) and rejecting it at the same time (F2P P2W mobile asian gacha store).

The whole point of playing PvE and PvP is that you have to earn what you achieve, not your wallet. It's a very basic premise that they deeply ignore. And then they ask themselves why less and less people are interested in raiding or PvMP. I mean, you can sell players Valars, exp buffs, that's okay, but they also do it with endgame consumables, stat tomes, pre-BiS gear and BiS currency, which doesn't make sense unless this is a mobile asian gacha game.

[JonXu]

So today thoughts about things after a couple of hours of gameplay.

1 game breaking / altering feature ... Spy accounts. First time I saw one 0 rank toon following creep raid everywhere, as soon we made some noise, like trying to take keeps Freepraid showed up, in DOF mid boss fight guess what showed up, freep raid. We managed to lose that spy couple of times but eventually, it caught up.
2 About new player experience. Recently I started in a new server, since transfer is not possible between EU and US servers, then i did a fresh start. Someone mentioned that ranking up to R5 is days work, I agree but a new player only has hours until he or she is uninstalling the game.
3 Since in the future only viable option for some credit is DPS then I suggest removing all buffs and heals from the game. leave only debuffs. Or consider that every action is worth something. buffs,cc,heals are worth something.

[SSG_Orion]

So as a rank 14 BA we are still going to have to grind out audacity for a further 11 ranks ? Seriously ? Why on earth would I want to do that ? What recognition of existing rank are you going to give ?

Audacity rank and PvMP rank are independent of one another. Audacity is akin to a corruption.

[SingularityNow]

Audacity rank and PvMP rank are independent of one another. Audacity is akin to a corruption.

I think he's talking about he ranks of Audacity. In order for us to be at peak performance we need to go from 25 ranks of audacity to 36 right?

[Hipenny]

Can you change the effect outposts give? Since it's been impossible the last two updates to balance how long it takes for each side to take, the effect is too strong in comparison. At 130 the outposts were controlled by Creeps at all times. At 140, the outposts are controlled by Freeps at all times. It takes Freeps 10 seconds to 1 minute to take an outpost. A solo creep takes at least 3x as long, taking around 3 minutes or longer--while also popping cooldowns to survive. A group of creeps still take longer to kill an outpost than one good freep. Since this is the case Freeps are the stronger side--yet they get to reap all the benefits of outposts which make them even stronger. Since we can't rely on balancing the npc toughness, I suggest altering the effects outposts give.

I would assume the simplest solution is to give outposts the same infamy/renown buff as the keeps. Most people enjoy getting those effects, so many would opt into taking them or defending them. It would also not alter the balance of the game to such a large degree. You could move the damage multiplier to audacity. And instead of their being one side with +40% mastery modifier at a time, split it evenly so they both get the effect. Or do something equivalent to that. Either way this needs to be addressed. Thanks

[Elaelin]

Our kin has a tribe in the Moors which can still put together a good sized raid group for raid nights. Will the changes affecting landscape raids not getting credit for anything while in a raid group affect raid groups in the Moors? Will raid groups be allowed in the Moors both on freep and creep side?

And I know now is not the right time to ask but.......could we get creep housing some day? It would be so much fun to have our own caves and huts where we could display trophies gained from defeating our favorite foes, eg. xyz's elf ears, abc's bear skin rug and so on. Just asking in case someone ever has time to create something fun like that. Trophy drops with our opponents' names on occasion and somewhere to put them could be fun and bring a whole new dimension to the Moors.

[Spilo]

Monster Play:
[LIST][*]Monster play is now free to all players. To create a monster play character you will need to reach level 2 on any character.
[*]Beginning at level 20, all Free People classes can ride into the Ettenmoors. Though you will be buffed to level 140 your experiences will likely be diminished compared to a fully fleshed out true 140 level character.[*]Free Players entering the Ettenmoors from level 20 through 129 will scale to 140 and have 25 Audacity until level 120, then reduces by 1 rank until level 130 where it reaches 0.[*]Audacity adjustments - Crowd Control reduced to 5% at Rank 1 and scale to 65% reduction at Rank 36.[*]Free People Audacity Track:
- Damage Rank 1 begins at 0% bonus and moves to a 2% Bonus at Rank 25, Rank 25 - 36 the damage bonus progresses to 45%.
- Damage Reduction Rank 1 begins at 0% and moves to 5% reduction at Rank 25, Rank 25-36 the damage reduction increases to 30%.[*]Monster Player Audacity Track:
- Damage Rank 1 begins at 10% and increases to 23% at Rank 25, Rank 25-36 the damage bonus increases to 38%.
- Damage Reduction Rank 1 begins at 35% and increases to 38% at Rank 25, Rank 25-36 the damage reduction increases to 40%.[*]Bug Fixes - There was a change made that negatively affected the armor potions available to Monster Players. This has been rectified and we reduced the rank restriction on food and pots for several of the items available from vendors and barter NPCs in Gramsfoot to rank 1,3,5 from higher rank levels.

The problem we have is:

1. The gap between 1 and 36 Audacity is too much for new players
2. The gap is necessary to discourage Freeps from using PvP gear, but screws over newbie Creeps and Freeps trying to save up for PvP gear.

The solution is:

1. Give Creeps 25 Audacity for completing the intro. This significantly reduces the punishment for newbie Creeps and reduces the commendation grind.
2. Give Freeps 25 Audacity for T1 gear purchased with gold, and have progression stat increases for each tier up, not Audacity. This significantly reduces the punishment for newbie Freeps while still discouraging PvE gear.
I'm still concerned about the commendation cost, as it's still steep for 25-36.

You cannot both make Audacity a progression and a requirement and expect quality results- would take a monumental task of balance and brains.
--
--



Next, I think the incoming damage/outgoing damage argument isn't done. Maintaining inc damage at 40/30% isn't a good balance solution. Orion, you've shown us you can do this:


If it's possible to put a negative outgoing damage on Audacity, that is the solution for our incoming damage problem:

1. Set outgoing damage as a baseline for Freeps at -60% at level 1, scaling to -40% at level 36..
2. Set outgoing damage as a baseline for Creeps at -45% at level 1, scaling to -30% at level 36.
3. Set incoming damage for both sides to +30% (as in taking 30% extra damage) scaling to 0% at level 36.

If I'm doing my math right (little confidence in that), that means the defenses of Creeps/Freeps remain the same, keeps the strong encouragement for Audacity, and removes the game-breaking issues with -incoming damage %. The only issue I can foresee is if there's no way to separate Creep and Freep audacity numbers.

--

In terms of the details:


1. CC reduction is interesting, 15% extra for Creeps, 5% extra for Freeps - much more reasonable than previous iteration. Still not sure that it was necessary (60% flat seemed fine).


2. Nice to see the rank adjustments on the food/pots- great change. Just so confusing that these friendly for newbies happen, yet Audacity damage/inc damage gap AND commendations cost is still so massive and horribly unkind to lower ranks. Repeating what I said elsewhere, but it's like a backscratch for a cancer patient.
---


Lastly, I hope we're not missing the forest for the trees. While Audacity is certainly an important aspect of PvMP experience, EC/OC positions, boring Creep class design, objectives, Creep Maps, etc. are really important issues that need to be prioritized, even over micro/class balance stuff.

[Zaheer]

Freep mapping to glan vraig is still sub only
also, freep audacity dmg modifier is multiplicative, creep dmg multiplier isn't. Freep damage reduction should also be lowered somewhat.

I also suggest beefing up creep crit defence to about 70% base.

This because freep classes like champ, hunter and brawler benefit a lot from magnitude and these exact classes are somewhat OP atm.

For other classes, it's less marginally effective due crit def only applying to initial hits instead of DoT. This also makes classes who have some dots come a bit more forward, especially warden.

[Spilo]

I also suggest beefing up creep crit defence to about 70% base.

This because freep classes like champ, hunter and brawler benefit a lot from magnitude and these exact classes are somewhat OP atm.

For other classes, it's less marginally effective due crit def only applying to initial hits instead of DoT. This also makes classes who have some dots come a bit more forward, especially warden.

Buffing Creep base crit defense is an underrated solution to creep defenses once the Audacity/inc damage things settle.

[SSG_Orion]

I think he's talking about he ranks of Audacity. In order for us to be at peak performance we need to go from 25 ranks of audacity to 36 right?

Yes.

[Brolad]

I honestly cannot see why there are such strong efforts to make audacity work both as a deterrent for players who would want to bring PvE gear sets to PvMP and as a part of the gear progression.

1. If you want to keep audacity as a part of the gearing progression, the differences between the audacity level achievable with tier 1 gear and the audacity level achievable with tier 4 gear must be small enough to not make gameplay hell for new players.
2. If you want to deter freeps from using any PvE set, the difference between maxed audacity and nearly maxed audacity must be big enough to outweigh the benefits of any potential armour or jewellery set.

It is fairly obvious that these two options cannot exist together. If you wish to keep both, you need to give the audacity difference between t1 and t4 gear a greater impact than the strongest possible PvE armour set could create, which, added to other stat differences, creates a gap that is too wide.

Here's a stat comparison for a hunter with t1 (left) and t4 (right) audacity gear (rank 12, store buffs running, mostly maxed in other gearing regards like LIs and virtues, not a carefully planned build).

As can be seen, the stat difference between tier 1 audacity gear and tier 4 audacity gear is more than enough of an incentive for freeps to upgrade their gear. Some pieces of tier 4 gear provide nearly double the stats of their tier 1 equivalents. There is no particular need to bring audacity into this.

In my opinion you need to choose between the two options for freepside audacity use, and I believe the solution is obvious - give t1 audacity gear the same or nearly the same audacity as you gave to t4 gear. While stats alone create an incentive for gearing progression, there is no system apart from audacity that would prevent broken PvE sets from being used in PvMP.

[CHEBURASHKA]

Tactical mitigation and armour values on creepside have been unintentionally changed (on racial/class traits and some skills).
Orion, could you please change it back to what it used to be?
Screenshots for comparison.

SPIDER:


WL:


WARG:


Pots:


Note: Defiler and reaver have similiar problem but I'm just too lazy to take screenshots.


BTW, is it possible to reduce the cost of creep consumables or increase their duration (especially 20minute food)? As a soloer I find it really hard to get enough comms for consumables and with the new audacity it will be impossible for me (and for other solo creeps) to get audacity without not buying any consumables at all.

Also 60% CC reduction in audacity (for both creeps and freeps) is enough, no need for 65%, in my opinion.

PS
Orion, please check what Spilo and Brolad said above about audacity progression and inc/out DMG, it is extremely important. I think that their suggestions are a lot better than what we have now.

[SSG_Orion]

Tactical mitigation and armour values on creepside have been unintentionally changed (on racial/class traits and some skills).
Orion, could you please change it back to what it used to be?

I'll create bugs in the morning. Looks like these are all affected by the same changes that were made to the armor potions.

Orion, please check what Spilo and Brolad said above about audacity progression and inc/out DMG, it is extremely important. I think that their suggestions are a lot better than what we have now.[/SIZE]

I appreciate the feedback that we are getting and this is not say that it will not change. It is unlikely to change that significantly before the upcoming release. The changes, as they are currently implemented are a slight shift away from how they are set up in live. It may remain that way for a short time before another adjustmentment is made.

[CHEBURASHKA]

I'll create bugs in the morning. Looks like these are all affected by the same changes that were made to the armor potions.

I appreciate the feedback that we are getting and this is not say that it will not change. It is unlikely to change that significantly before the upcoming release. The changes, as they are currently implemented are a slight shift away from how they are set up in live. It may remain that way for a short time before another adjustmentment is made.

Ok, good to know. Thanks for your work!

[SingularityNow]

I honestly cannot see why there are such strong efforts to make audacity work both as a deterrent for players who would want to bring PvE gear sets to PvMP and as a part of the gear progression.

I don't profess to know much about freep pvp gear, but this change seems to say it's creating an option for freeps to choose to wear audacity gear or not; at least making the first 25 levels comparable to pve sets with the last 11 levels maybe outdistancing pve gear? I don't hate that as a creep because that means we won't see all the uniformity in freeps that makes them so formidable. But I couldn't guess at the impacts of the last 11 ranks.

[Melank]

I don't profess to know much about freep pvp gear, but this change seems to say it's creating an option for freeps to choose to wear audacity gear or not; at least making the first 25 levels comparable to pve sets with the last 11 levels maybe outdistancing pve gear? I don't hate that as a creep because that means we won't see all the uniformity in freeps that makes them so formidable. But I couldn't guess at the impacts of the last 11 ranks.

Yes. It seems more like a diplomatic thing to do.

Restricting players from their PvE gear from the get-go seems very unfriendly, it's better to offer them better alternatives to not feel so shocked and transition at their own pace.


The only thing that should be restricted from PvE are certain specific traceries, because trying to balance percentage based damage from skills and cooldown reductions from traceries is just not possible.

How do you balance 5.5%+ Single Target damage, 5.5%+ AoE damage plus 12 other percentage and cooldown reductions from LIs with PvMP buffs and gear to scale for an even fight against Creep players?

I mean, Heraldic & Word of Craft traceries are no problem because they're stat based only, but Word of Power + Word of Mastery traceries, which are based on percentage damage/heal/block & skill cooldowns it's a total mess.


Maybe only restrict Word of Power + Word of Mastery traceries and keep Heraldic & Word of Craft functioning for PvMP?

[SniperCT]

This is definitely beyond the scope of these initial changes, but you've talked about iterating over time. Has there been given any thoughts to Creep LIs? Like fel weapons of dark origin from the pits of Angband.

Might help balance increasing freep power with LIs while giving Creeps something else to work on. Could even have some quests for them, could be fun.

[Makawulf]

I'm not sure if BR notes are faulty or the execution.
Notes say "Audacity adjustments - Crowd Control reduced to 5% at Rank 1 and scale to 65% reduction at Rank 36."

However at rank 36 CC reduction is sitting at 60% but reaches 65% when tincture is used meaning at 41 audacity rank.

[Isbolg]

Monster PvE and dead/very quiet servers
PvE in the Moors is what Monster players need to do when there aren't any Freeps around, which, on most servers, is most of the time. And of course it's important for newbies. I actually like PvE'ing in the Moors (I like playing as a warg or spider), so here are some thoughts I've had over the years about how to make Moors PvE more fun. Not too relevant on Ark, but pretty relevant on most of the other servers.

Keeps
I'm very glad to hear that auto-flipping is considered a bug. People have commented, correctly, that once this bug is fixed, there's the possibility of the Moors map on a quiet server becoming permanently blue, making it hard for new creeps to rank up. I see 2, complementary, solutions:
- As has been mentioned already, move some of the questgivers from the keeps to Gramsfoot, Dar-gazag, or other non-flippable locations in the Moors such as Grothum.
The quest given in Tirith Rhaw to defeat 20 Freep Army NPC's is an obvious candidate.
Mazauk the Warg who will attack Freep-held Lugazag, the Orcs in the Orc camp against Freep-held Tol Ascarnen, the Spiders near the Lumber Camp, the Goblins in Grothum could have quests when those keeps are Freep-held.
- Since the beginning of the game, there have been six (or more?) major mobs who will attack keeps if their quest is turned in.
This includes the warg Mazauk (sp?) vs Lugazag, Tyrant Uzulthrang in the Orc Camp vs Tol Ascarnen ("Storming the Castle"), and Gorgoris ("Gorgoris the Gorger") vs the Lumber Camp for the Monsters. There's also a disabled quest in Dar-gazag (TaskMaster Gazgortag, "Huorns in the Grimwood") that triggers Huorns against the Lumber Camp. (I tested it on a really old character a few years ago and it still works, just the quest giver who used to give it no longer does.)
Gulloval vs Isendeep, Lieutenant An vs Tirith , and Old Goldhead vs Tirith Rhaw for the Free Peoples.
A problem with these quests is that the NPC's aren't, in general, powerful enough to help a lot. For example, Gulloval has about 8 million hp compared to the Tyrant of the Isendeep with 26 million hp and his main assistant with 21 million hp, so obviously an NPC with 8m hp isn't going to help you too much against NPC's with 47m hp. Related, note that there's a creep quest to defeat Gulloval that's classified as a raid quest (because that's how strong Gulloval was when the game launched), but Gulloval now is an appropriate foe for two mid-rank creeps.
The freep NPC's aren't terribly important because freeps seem to be pretty good at capturing keeps when they want to, and can do PvE outside the Moors in any case, but if the Creep NPC's were buffed enough to be effective help, that would help creeps recover Keeps during slow times on their server.

Group Quests and the Delving of Fror
At the moment, single player quests are, I think, in a decent place, but group quests are somewhat lacking. The Delving of Fror has several boss fights, but, to my knowledge, no quests or deeds associated with it. Adding quests and deeds here is an easy win. The quest givers could be in Dar Gazag, which would make Dar Gazag a little more alive.
An advantage of boss fights is that they provide groups to get an opportunity to get to know each other ("building community"), and to drill together. At the moment, creeps mostly do single-player PvE and then group PvMP. Boss fights would provide opportunities for creep players on quiet servers to practice playing together at a slower pace, as I wrote earlier, to drill together, rather than just going straight into the deep end of group PvMP.
If SSG could add some mechanics to creep boss fights that could be easily defeated by an ability of one of the creep classes that would encourage creep groups to include creeps of all creep classes. It's been years since I played the boss fights in the Delving, so maybe this feature is already there, but my impression is that the fights in there are pure DPS races, which encourages only bringing good dps classes and the best healer class. If, for example, each healer class has an ability that defeats a boss fight mechanism in the Delving, that would encourage bringing both.

Some Specific Quests
Freep Quest
The last time I checked, which was considerably more than a year ago, freeps had to be at the level cap to take the basic freep "Intro to the Moors" quest. If a freep can enter the Moors, they should be able to take that quest.
Creep Quests
I think two of the Gramsfoot quests should be changed or disabled, because they require turn-ins of drops that are required for other quests, and the other quests give by far better rewards, so that the Gramsfoot quests do nothing except encourage new players to waste their loot. These quests are:
Remove or change "Reclaiming the Fallen", from Task-Master Forzunk, which requires 10 slabs of troll-stone that would be better used for Lugazag and Tirith Rhaw quests. "Reclaiming the Fallen" only rewards 10 commissions, and in general you tend to pick up more stone fragments than you need, so perhaps this quest could be changed to require the (very minor) turn in of 10 fragments of troll stone for the (very minor) quest reward of 10 commissions and no infamy.
Remove "Proven Dedication", from Soldier Buzog, which requires 10 hobbit-feet that would be better given to Bok in Grothum.

Role-Playing Stuff
Creeps should be able to get drunk by drinking Hoarhallow Ale.

Ideas for additional Quests
Grothum village is full of food and ale that has been... acquired... from Hoarhallow, but there is no in-game mechanism for how it got there. I think there should be two more Grothum quests, one to turn in food sacks and one to turn in Hoarhallow ale. Since there is already one quest that gives 60 infamy and 15 commendations 10 for food sacks, that is the approximate reward these quests should have.
The quest "Huorns in the Grimwood" (TaskMaster Gazgortag in Dar-Gazag) is already in the game and is IMO fun. It would lose its novelty if it happened all the time, so perhaps it could be re-enabled with a rank requirement and as a weekly or monthly quest. More unusual but thematic things happening in the Moors add to the fun IMO.
There isn't a Creep NPC to help the Creeps recapture the Isendeep. Perhaps a troll at the troll-hole at good Isendeep (just west of the west entrance to Isendeep) could offer to do that, but only at night time (since part of the route from the troll-hole to the Isendeep is outdoors).
In general, it would be nice to have some weekly/monthly/seasonal quests and some creep-class-specific quest chains just to add some variety over the long haul of playing on a quiet server. The only thing we get now is that we sometimes get the opportunity to get iron tokens when an event is going on .
Example suggestion: Each creep gets a weekly quest from their trainer at Gramsfoot, or their corruptor or one of the other wargs/spiders/orcs in the area that they spawn in at character creation. That quest sends them to an NPC appropriate for their race, e.g. wargs might go to Mazauk (so the quest will only be offered when Mazauk is spawned, which is when Freeps control Lugz), spiders to either the Lumber Camp spiders or to a new quest giver in the spider dell behind Dar-Gazag, maybe Reavers and Blackarrows to quest givers in Orc Camp and Warleaders and Defilers to quest givers in Dar-Gazag (maybe the trainer there). If the creep is low rank, that second quest giver gives them a collection quest. If the creep is medium rank, the second quest giver gives them a quest to defeat a named Freep NPC who isn't the target of an existing quest, so maybe wargs defeat a hobbit, etc. If the creep is higher rank, they get a quest to defeat an NPC in the Delving.

Down the Road
Idea for adding new creep character choices: add Orc Blackarrows and Uruk Reavers. Then SSG could add the ability to purchase more creep character slots on the LotRO store. Because players totally couldn't just make a second account and add the new characters there.
I second the request for Creep Housing!

[Brolad]

I don't profess to know much about freep pvp gear, but this change seems to say it's creating an option for freeps to choose to wear audacity gear or not; at least making the first 25 levels comparable to pve sets with the last 11 levels maybe outdistancing pve gear? I don't hate that as a creep because that means we won't see all the uniformity in freeps that makes them so formidable. But I couldn't guess at the impacts of the last 11 ranks.

The uniformity of PvMP gear is not what makes freeps formidable. I assume you played before this level cap so you know that freeps were overpowered most of the time before PvMP gear made its return. What's worse, they were overpowered with no hope of the situation changing, because a significant portion of them used bad gear and creeps couldn't be allowed to completely roflstomp that part of freepside just because some other players had fancy raid armour.

Freep PvMP gear was introduced as a tool to close the massive stat gap between the freeps who raid and the freeps who don't, and it worked well in that regard. If creeps get balanced, they will be balanced against PvMP gear. If freeps end up using PvE armour sets, it will be because of one of the following cases:

• Using a PvE armour set is better than using low tier PvMP gear but worse than using full t4 PvMP gear. That creates a very wide gap between freeps who use full t1 PvMP gear and have no PvE armour alternative and freeps who are fully geared for PvMP. Imo that is not a good thing to have in the game. There is also very little room for error in balancing this possibility.
• Using a PvE armour set in combination with some t4 PvMP gear is better than using full t4 PvMP gear. That creates additional imbalance between a freep with full t1 audacity gear and a freep with some pieces of t4 audacity gear with the set.

I believe both of these options are bad for the game. If there ever is to be reasonable balance that attracts new players and doesn't turn them into punching bags, the difference between a new player and a fully geared player should be minimal. Otherwise either new freeps or new creeps or both will be walking infamy/renown.

More importantly, if a fully geared freep is 2-3x more effective in combat than a new freep (which seems to be the situation on BR atm, and depending on how audacity is scaled it might be even more), which of these do you balance creeps against? Do you balance on multiple levels to approximately match a r0-r3 creep against a t1 geared freep, r4-r6 against a t2 geared freep, etc? Isn't it better to keep the differences small so that you have to balance on as few "tiers" as possible and the balance is close enough at most other points?

The only ones who are against PvMP gear as a tool to create close balance are the people who are scared that they'll never win fights by their own merit and skill. For everyone else improving balance both between differently geared freeps/creeps and between the opposing sides will always be a positive change.

Restricting players from their PvE gear from the get-go seems very unfriendly, it's better to offer them better alternatives to not feel so shocked and transition at their own pace.

Yes, that is exactly how PvMP gear is supposed to work. Nobody is banning PvE gear from PvMP, I believe there isn't a technical solution in the game ready for that atm, but PvMP gear, even the t1 version, should always be better for PvMP than PvE gear is.



As a sidenote, I believe having 4 tiers of PvMP gear is too many. Two tiers would have been enough, three tiers is fine but since we seem to be getting four, I believe the stat differences between t2 and t4 gear should be smaller.