Welcome back to the Ettenmoors!

[SSG_Orion]

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.

With the way that Creeps are constructed this is not possible.

[SSG_Orion]

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.

Mistake in the notes.

[Maxdemax]

The change on the crowd control duration is, in my opinion, unnecessary again.

The current % on live seems correct, with the WL purge, the 1min brand for creeps / the LM stun immun and all the consummables.

Aiming between 50-60% is totally fine, i don't get why you want to push it to 65%.

Anyway, keep it up, lots of people appreciate your work.

[SingularityNow]

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.

Freeps are overpowered right now on live with PVP gear. Not sure what your point is. I don't know what server you play on, if any, but on Ark all OP's are freep controlled, and there are barely any leaders for raid vs raid and the only time there are is when freeps are at some kind of disadvantage; not a bunch of healers around or general number disparity. As soon as the gap closes between the raids, the freeps roll creeps easy. I did start playing before the Audacity changes. Freeps were OP then, freeps are OP now. The armor didn't change that one bit.

What the armor did change: it closed that gear gap for sure. Before the pvp armor, there were always some squishy freeps in the raids that you could count on to squash to balance out the ones in raid gear that were much more difficult. Now there are no squishy ones.

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.

The "git gud" argument is nonsense and the implied part of the message is contradictory anyway, SSG please keep freeps nerfed so I can win. Flies in the face of being good, imo.

[Spilo]

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.

The incoming damage one I can understand being delayed, but it's going to be rough live on opener if commendation cost and/or the level 1 Audacity for new creeps is left as is.

[hobbit_m]

I know the Sundering was disabled until it was reworked, but it was a good pve way to get infamy, any plans on making the Osgiliath map available?

[Ameranth]

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.

Seconded.

[Melank]

With the way that Creeps are constructed this is not possible.

Maybe give Freeps new PvMP LIs that are coherent for PvMP balance and context.

PvMP LIs with 4 sockets that can account for everything a Freep may need and at the same time it can substitute PvE LIs.

By jumping into Moors a Freep may get 1 PvMP LI with 4 empty sockets and 4 yellow chests to choose yellow traceries from (to locate on new pvmp LI). And then Freep may get better traceries by engaging in PvMP activities (purple/cyan/legendary).


This could be a way for Freeps to have their own balance rather than depend on the future of PvE to then adapt PvMP to those changes a posteriori.

[Sharkuclown]

After 15 years and the developers still cannot make Ettenmoors enjoyable for both sides.
No matter what you do creeps will stay back crying in OOC about how OP freeps are (a joke btw).

Jokes aside, the only way to fix Ettenmoors and actually make it balanced is by making creeps into freeps.
What I mean by that is; convert all freep classes to creep counterparts. Wargs = Burglars, BA = Hunters etc. and just change the name of the skills. This way when you buff one side you automatically buff the other.

Another thing to take into consideration: don't keep creeps at max lvl anymore, give creeps pve content. I get it, it was an interesting idea to have creeps as a pvmp faction only when LOTRO was initially released but now it's pointless. It just leads to balancing problems. Creeps still don't have talent trees and use old corruption system. Maybe most creeps are happy with doing PvE content on their freep and PvMP on creeps but maybe enough people would be interested in creep side PvE content. We're past the war of the rings storyline so now it wouldn't be as lorebreaking to make them play through maybe the first and second age as part of the forces of Morgoth and Sauron.
Just an idea. Or just keep them at max lvl but make the classes the same.

Trying to balance PvMP by changing audacity, % inc damage, % damage done, pots, buffs etc will never lead to a balanced PVP-system. Not when the gameplay is fundamentally different from eachother when comparing freeps and creeps.

[SniperCT]

With the way that Creeps are constructed this is not possible.

Pity, but understandable!

[SniperCT]

What I mean by that is; convert all freep classes to creep counterparts. Wargs = Burglars, BA = Hunters etc. and just change the name of the skills. This way when you buff one side you automatically buff the other.

One reason they went with monster play for pvp was so they could balance it without adversely affecting PvE balance. Giving Creeps the same skills as freeps would essentially mean when they balance for pvp it would impact pve balance. Skills handy in a raid or dungeon could get nerfed so they don't affect pvp as bad but then your dps in the raid drops and no one is happy.

[DickDastardly]

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

I’m aware of that . My point was that as a R14 BA how are going to persuade me to come back and grind another 11 ranks of audacity to make me competitive ? Are you going to increase creep base stats commensurate with rank ? The way you are talking I can’t see one benefit to creeps . My rank was obtained legitimately and over a considerable period of time and yet you show no interest in rewarding it . Just give a quick fix to the fotm and ezmoders by allowing the first 25 of audacity to be obtained quickly and cheaply . Kind of takes the mick out of the 25 I earned and the time I spent doing it . It cheapens it .

[Melank]

What I mean by that is; convert all freep classes to creep counterparts. Wargs = Burglars, BA = Hunters etc. and just change the name of the skills. This way when you buff one side you automatically buff the other.

You still have to deal with 24 traceries that modify combat in many significant ways for Freeps compared to Creeps.

[Joedangod]

Unless they decide to make Freeps F2P

Already done as part of this beta.

[SingularityNow]

I’m aware of that . My point was that as a R14 BA how are going to persuade me to come back and grind another 11 ranks of audacity to make me competitive ? Are you going to increase creep base stats commensurate with rank ? The way you are talking I can’t see one benefit to creeps . My rank was obtained legitimately and over a considerable period of time and yet you show no interest in rewarding it . Just give a quick fix to the fotm and ezmoders by allowing the first 25 of audacity to be obtained quickly and cheaply . Kind of takes the mick out of the 25 I earned and the time I spent doing it . It cheapens it .

That's not the worse part of this to me. Lets say you're a R14 BA that comes back to the game after a break, maybe a month after the update that makes this change. And I'm a R7 BA that's been playing straight through and has somehow achieved the 36 ranks of audacity. Guess who's now more effective, my R7.

[Melank]

Already done as part of this beta.

It says all Creep play will be F2P. Not Freep play.

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!

[Joedangod]

It says all Creep play will be F2P. Not Freep play.

[SneakPeek]

The current iteration of audacity is definitely an improvement, however there is still a problem. With the tincture and 4-set, you can reach 32 Audacity. This is slightly lower CCR, around +10% inc dmg and -20% outgoing dmg multiplier. For most, if not all, DPS classes this is enough to incentivize using PvMP gear. However, healers and other non-DPS specs can get away with this. For example, RK pve 4-set gives -10% incoming dmg to everyone in the area of the ground targeted skill. I checked Audacity and it did not effect my tooltips and judging by it's own tooltip, there is no effect on the healing. Basically the Blue Runekeeper can still use the pve 4-set at a cost of slightly longer CC duration. Yes, Flurry of Words does not have 100% uptime but it's still pretty high; and even assuming this to be net individual loss the fellowship benefits will outweigh this loss. A similar point can be drawn for the Captain Yellow pve 4-set and possibly many others. Even the RK yellow pve 4-set might be worth the cost of +10% inc dmg and -20% outgoing damage multiplier as their 4-set has ~30% lightning mitigation debuff instead of 15%. Naturally this range of classes will vary, depending on the strength of their PvE sets but it still points out a potential way to workaround needed max Audacity.

However, even with the 25 Audacity limit this issue still remains as the armor pieces provide +1 Aud. Infact, with the addition of the tincture it makes it even easier to have max Audacity and use the 4-set. A reasonable solution could be to limit Audacity to 25 and have cutoff points for tincture, so that it is not abused for optimization to include PvE gear -> At 1-10 Aud, sets Aud to 14, at 11-15 Aud, sets Aud to 19, at 16-23 Aud, sets Aud to 24. 24-25 it sets Aud to 29-30. In between all these limits, the jump from 24 to 25 Audacity would be the largest to force all but 2 slots to be PvMP with the tincture or 1 slot without. Perhaps an additional benefit can be provided from 29 to 30 as well, such as bonus renown/infamy/commendation gain to encourage usage of tincture at max audacity, thereby limiting to all but 1 PvE gear slot (the cloak).

These changes could be reflected on creepside as well though it is hardly needed as they do not posses such options anyway. Maybe for creeps the first 16 Audacity ranks could be made trivially cheap so that with tincture they reach near max Audacity.

[Cambruyn]

1) If scaling worked well then you could make PvMP level agnostic, this means more players would engage without having to grind to level cap, it also means we could offer PvMP to legendary server players who are missing out on the part of the game with the biggest 'replayability' factor.

Has there been any feedback regarding opening up PvMP on the Legendary Servers? I'd be perfectly fine with completely imbalanced PvMP.. that's how depeserate I am to be able to get some PvMP in.

[DickDastardly]

That's not the worse part of this to me. Lets say you're a R14 BA that comes back to the game after a break, maybe a month after the update that makes this change. And I'm a R7 BA that's been playing straight through and has somehow achieved the 36 ranks of audacity. Guess who's now more effective, my R7.

Precisely !

I appreciate the fact that Orion is looking at PVP but there is a white elephant in the room that they seem determined to ignore .

[Joedangod]

That's not the worse part of this to me. Lets say you're a R14 BA that comes back to the game after a break, maybe a month after the update that makes this change. And I'm a R7 BA that's been playing straight through and has somehow achieved the 36 ranks of audacity. Guess who's now more effective, my R7.

Ok. And? The R14 would catch up in under a month in that scenario.

[Melank]

Any chance to bring a PvMP UI to move in and out from the Moors?

That may give the whole thing more visibility and viability, rather than keeping it kinda hidden through specific NPC interactions at specific cities. I mean, we are able to jump in and out from any instance in the game from Instance Finder UI, it should be the same for PvMP.


If Crafting can have its own icon at the main UI bar, PvMP should have one too.

[Arantha]

Will Osgiliath PvMP disappear?

I thaught in Bullroar it's just for testing, that the waypoint to Osgiliath isn't there...

[Melank]

I believe the 20 to 140 Freep scale makes evident the fundamental unbalance of PvMP.

It needs to create ways to seduct players into creating a Creep alt, because most people would rather play with their full main toons rather than toon that was intended to be an appendix to fill up an specific gap in the game (PvP).

If we were supposed to fill that gap, it'd be better to make Moors a queued Battleground like WoW rather than an open world Wilderness like Runescape (the way it is right now resembles more to Runescape Wilderness rather than WoW Battlegrounds).



Once Moors was made a queued Battleground with 12/12 (24 players), then let players to have something like 20 seconds to choose sides, if 12 players choose Freep and 12 choose Creep in less than 20 secs, the encounter would begin.

If 24 players choose Freep side and 0 players choose Creep side, then the last 12 players to choose their side become Creep. Which would give more relevance to non-AFK players.

If 3 or more players are AFK during queue, the players that were active are moved to another queue in which new players can queue the last spots that were AFK. If only 2 or 1 player was AFK during queue, the match starts anyways, and later on that 1 or 2 spots can be filled from players queueing from the outside.


After 24 players are ported to both sides, the 12 Creep players get to choose whichever Creep they would like to play on that specific encounter (any monster they want to play at that encounter, and they would be able to "save" their skill tree/action bar for any specific monster race), and the other half just plays with the toons they've queued for Moors.

Everything accomplished from players that were turned into Creeps accumulates to the same toon they queued for PvMP battleground, so it doesn't matter if you're creep or freep, your progression is the same for all your Creeps and your Freep.

If a player leaves the Moors before the encounter is over, gets penalized for 30 mins from queueing Moors and it's replaced for any player that queues from the outside.


I believe that would make things way more balanced and easy for everyone, and also much more fun.

[subadar]

The best thing that i enjoy about Lotro pvmp, is that you can do whatever you want on an open map, roam solo, run with small pre-made groups or even full on RvR. no waiting in ques, no instanced pvp, which i doubt this lo-pop game could support long. Basically you can do whatever you want anywhere on an open map.

The worst part of Lotro pvmp is that anyone can do whatever they want, Multibox (absurd in pvp) stack heals to the roof, run absurd freep FoTM toons, engage in mindless shuffles etc etc.

so whatcha gonna do? this game can never be balanced solo 1v1 creep class vs freep class so it is what it is.

if it ends 15+ years is a good run.

oh and joining a fail rando group on a toon you dont want to play kind of sounds not so fun man, who would do that?