U34 Preview 1 Feedback: Delvings

[CaerArianrhod]

It is important to remember that the reflect does not appear until the tier 9 version of this delving flavor as we have been calling them internally. When you reach tier 9 and 10 the difficulty is meant to be very, very, hard to defeat.

I can only hope, you take serious feedback serious. I just don't believe on those "run t10 in 1 minutes ...all t10 are way too easy" ill minded "feedbacks".
May I ask you something? Can you tell us how many players finished The Hiddenhoard of Abnankâra at T5?
You have the statistics, use them for a decision like "difficulty is meant to be very, very, hard to defeat" and think about, why do you invest resources as time and money to create something for less than 50 players worldwide!?!?

Don't get me wrong, it not about one-shoot every mob in a T10 instance. But it is about all those "it is too easy" sayings and that at the end you create something, that only a very, very few players will ever play, and the majority will get frustrated because of "impossibility" and ...

Completing a delving at that tier should be a moments of accomplishment - and not every player is going to attempt to speed run through these.

... because in the last years, the rewards never felt rewarding in LOTRO.
As mentioned in some other posts, doing t10 and getting low level "junk" is not only not feels rewarding but moreover it feels as an insult.
We already can see how the new, shiny delving system will work: as an endless, frustrating treadmill.
1.500 writs for a piece of gear, when you get 50 (for t10, which should be incredibly difficult according to you!) of those writs granted?
I really don't know why someone at SSG is still thinking, that blatantly pushing RGN into every reward process would feel for the players in any way as rewarding.

There are some players who will undoubtedly chew this new system up, quickly. That typically does happen when new systems are introduced.

Do you know why it is so?
Because SSG is used to putting unfinished content online.
Don't misunderstand me, we know that you are working hard on those contents and put a lot of effort into them. But SSG release those contents too early, half backed and bugged.
True to the motto, "the early bird gets the worm" ... players who run new content as soon as possible, benefit from the unfinished content, bugs and co.
We get then one or two patches and when the majority of the players reach the point to get fully involved into the new content, it is a lot harder for them, and the "early birds" are sitting on their high branch, laughing and thinking "Yey! Thanks to the Valar, I don't need to do this *sh...* anymore. I got my stuff already out of it."
I do not make any runt at this point, but this is my 15 years of experience how things works with LOTRO. Sry.

[SSG_Orion]

I can only hope, you take serious feedback serious. I just don't believe on those "run t10 in 1 minutes ...all t10 are way too easy" ill minded "feedbacks".
May I ask you something? Can you tell us how many players finished The Hiddenhoard of Abnankâra at T5?
You have the statistics, use them for a decision like "difficulty is meant to be very, very, hard to defeat" and think about, why do you invest resources as time and money to create something for less than 50 players worldwide!?!?

Feedback, on any new system, is needed to gauge your initial level of success in implementation and then guideposts toward refining the system over time. We just put out the first iteration and we wil revise to meet the goals and the intent of the system that we are creating.

So, what are those goals? A lot of this is covered in my dev diary, which I hope we get out soon. Let me just distill the goal here.

The Delving system is, primarily, created to provide an alternative to end game raid progression for those players who do not wish to engage in raids.
The secondary goal of the system is to provide another options for players who wish to challenge themselves and work toward items that they may find appealing or worth acquir

The rewards are commensurate with raid gear of roughly tier 3, minus the set bonuses - so the rewards are not as good as raid rewards. However, the gear still help the player who acquires it with end game content more readily. Reward progress is expected with the majority of more casual end game players in mind and is set at a full engagement of players getting to Tier 4 or Tier 5, feeling comfortable with their progression there, and gaining a piece of gear that is of raid quality, roughly, every five days of dedicated play.

A secondary objective of the delving system is to provide players who engege with a more direct way to obtain crafted traceries only available through this new system.

The tertiary objective of the reward system is to provide evergreen chase items that players can continue to pursue to augment and enhance their game experience.

With this in mind, we are working toward finding that balance point where the middle tiers are a good steady progression experience for players.

Don't get me wrong, it not about one-shoot every mob in a T10 instance. But it is about all those "it is too easy" sayings and that at the end you create something, that only a very, very few players will ever play, and the majority will get frustrated because of "impossibility" and ...
... because in the last years, the rewards never felt rewarding in LOTRO.
As mentioned in some other posts, doing t10 and getting low level "junk" is not only not feels rewarding but moreover it feels as an insult.
We already can see how the new, shiny delving system will work: as an endless, frustrating treadmill.
1.500 writs for a piece of gear, when you get 50 (for t10, which should be incredibly difficult according to you!) of those writs granted?
I really don't know why someone at SSG is still thinking, that blatantly pushing RGN into every reward process would feel for the players in any way as rewarding.

There are definitely "sad trombone" rewards in the system, but there is always progression along the reward matrix for your character. If you are powerful, skilled, or persistent enough, you can cut your time to gain a piece of gear from the Delving reward barterer to ~3 days, with dedicated play. Further, that gear will likely help you complete those tier 10 experiences more readily.

If you compare the progression of this system against the progression through raid, it is a little slower - for certain - but the time investiture based on successes and failure in raids brings those curves closer. And, you remove the coordination and for some players the frustration of joining a raid.

The point of the Delving system is not to replace raids. It's an alternate path to better end game gear.

There will be players who enjoy the escalatng difficulty and for that group of players we want to provide that to them. But, more than any other system we have introduced in the game - this one allows the player more direct influence over their progression and difficulty.

The entire point of returning the cracked version of the gems is so that when you find your specific "sweet spot" you can return to it and advance at your own pace - without worrying about what that other player is doing. Or, if you want to compete against yourself or that other player and really tackle those tier 10 experiences - go for it. It's going to get harder and harder, but the chance for better rewards increases with each tick up. Still, there will be moments of disappointment - but there is always progression toward the goals that you set for yourself.

[DoRonRon]

I can only hope, you take serious feedback serious. I just don't believe on those "run t10 in 1 minutes ...all t10 are way too easy" ill minded "feedbacks".
May I ask you something? Can you tell us how many players finished The Hiddenhoard of Abnankâra at T5?
You have the statistics, use them for a decision like "difficulty is meant to be very, very, hard to defeat" and think about, why do you invest resources as time and money to create something for less than 50 players worldwide!?!?

Don't get me wrong, it not about one-shoot every mob in a T10 instance. But it is about all those "it is too easy" sayings and that at the end you create something, that only a very, very few players will ever play, and the majority will get frustrated because of "impossibility" and ...



... because in the last years, the rewards never felt rewarding in LOTRO.
As mentioned in some other posts, doing t10 and getting low level "junk" is not only not feels rewarding but moreover it feels as an insult.
We already can see how the new, shiny delving system will work: as an endless, frustrating treadmill.
1.500 writs for a piece of gear, when you get 50 (for t10, which should be incredibly difficult according to you!) of those writs granted?
I really don't know why someone at SSG is still thinking, that blatantly pushing RGN into every reward process would feel for the players in any way as rewarding.




Do you know why it is so?
Because SSG is used to putting unfinished content online.
Don't misunderstand me, we know that you are working hard on those contents and put a lot of effort into them. But SSG release those contents too early, half backed and bugged.
True to the motto, "the early bird gets the worm" ... players who run new content as soon as possible, benefit from the unfinished content, bugs and co.
We get then one or two patches and when the majority of the players reach the point to get fully involved into the new content, it is a lot harder for them, and the "early birds" are sitting on their high branch, laughing and thinking "Yey! Thanks to the Valar, I don't need to do this *sh...* anymore. I got my stuff already out of it."
I do not make any runt at this point, but this is my 15 years of experience how things works with LOTRO. Sry.

Don't forget that some players have slotted a nice class essence since Gondor, from tradeable resources obtained via area quests and Warbands, and moved it around in any of up 30+ essence gear slots quite freely. Some, because of this interminable choice to always employ multi effect skills, find the means to exploit secondary effects with combinations of skills, CDs, trait, tracery and that class essence that then misinforms the class's true position in a particular role to be left as is, until eyes are cast toward that class years hence.

To replace that with 140 to 149 limited use essence, slotted in a newly developed exclusive class essence slot that can only be slotted in a specific gear slot from two pieces of gear that have two stages of expensive upgrades and will bind to char on slotting, only available in Cap exclusive Duo content set at a high degree of difficulty with the prospect of repeating it all again at 150 if it isn't shelved as a concept by then because it was deemed too convoluted and demanding for the rewards available.

Balls! I can juggle three balls quite well, is it worth stepping up to juggle chainsaws?

[Brinswith]

It is important to remember that the reflect does not appear until the tier 9 version of this delving flavor as we have been calling them internally. When you reach tier 9 and 10 the difficulty is meant to be very, very, hard to defeat. Completing a delving at that tier should be a moments of accomplishment - and not every player is going to attempt to speed run through these.
Orion

I recognise the need for the delving system to be of a sufficient difficulty to challenge seasoned players at the highest tiers. I don't think you'll find many that disagree. I was most certainly not trying to speed run through them. But even taking my time I had to kill 2, die, run back, kill 2 more, die, run back... etc. In the end it stopped being fun.

For me at least my takeaway from running these as a champion that is geared for T2/3 raid content is that the reflect on those mobs punishes some classes a lot more than others. For me at least that is a problem. I want to be able to run these on my main class. If the answer to how do I complete them on the highest tier is to have to use another class, that just turns me and likely others in a similar situation away.

As others have said it's not a case that we want to run in and shing-shing mobs down in wave upon wave. It is more having an unremovable reflect punishes us for doing exactly what we are designed for. Doing as much dps in as little time as possible. I fear that with the next round you will be testing a new "flavour" and that we won't get to find out how tuned the reflect will be until it goes on live. With two weeks to go until the expansion I'd have liked to have tested all of these "flavours".

[Bragolos]

Feedback, on any new system, is needed to gauge your initial level of success in implementation and then guideposts toward refining the system over time. We just put out the first iteration and we wil revise to meet the goals and the intent of the system that we are creating.

So, what are those goals? A lot of this is covered in my dev diary, which I hope we get out soon. Let me just distill the goal here.

The Delving system is, primarily, created to provide an alternative to end game raid progression for those players who do not wish to engage in raids.
The secondary goal of the system is to provide another options for players who wish to challenge themselves and work toward items that they may find appealing or worth acquir

The rewards are commensurate with raid gear of roughly tier 3, minus the set bonuses - so the rewards are not as good as raid rewards. However, the gear still help the player who acquires it with end game content more readily. Reward progress is expected with the majority of more casual end game players in mind and is set at a full engagement of players getting to Tier 4 or Tier 5, feeling comfortable with their progression there, and gaining a piece of gear that is of raid quality, roughly, every five days of dedicated play.

A secondary objective of the delving system is to provide players who engege with a more direct way to obtain crafted traceries only available through this new system.

The tertiary objective of the reward system is to provide evergreen chase items that players can continue to pursue to augment and enhance their game experience.

With this in mind, we are working toward finding that balance point where the middle tiers are a good steady progression experience for players.



There are definitely "sad trombone" rewards in the system, but there is always progression along the reward matrix for your character. If you are powerful, skilled, or persistent enough, you can cut your time to gain a piece of gear from the Delving reward barterer to ~3 days, with dedicated play. Further, that gear will likely help you complete those tier 10 experiences more readily.

If you compare the progression of this system against the progression through raid, it is a little slower - for certain - but the time investiture based on successes and failure in raids brings those curves closer. And, you remove the coordination and for some players the frustration of joining a raid.

The point of the Delving system is not to replace raids. It's an alternate path to better end game gear.

There will be players who enjoy the escalatng difficulty and for that group of players we want to provide that to them. But, more than any other system we have introduced in the game - this one allows the player more direct influence over their progression and difficulty.

The entire point of returning the cracked version of the gems is so that when you find your specific "sweet spot" you can return to it and advance at your own pace - without worrying about what that other player is doing. Or, if you want to compete against yourself or that other player and really tackle those tier 10 experiences - go for it. It's going to get harder and harder, but the chance for better rewards increases with each tick up. Still, there will be moments of disappointment - but there is always progression toward the goals that you set for yourself.

Thanks for the great communication in this thread, it makes it feel worthwhile to give feedback. The concept of this system is something Id wanted to see for many years, and your explanations here make perfect sense. Please keep polishing and improving the basics of it, instead of making it needlessly more complicated. Looking forward to the next rounds!

[WeirdJedi]

Feedback, on any new system, is needed to gauge your initial level of success in implementation and then guideposts toward refining the system over time. We just put out the first iteration and we will revise to meet the goals and the intent of the system that we are creating.

I've always wanted a concept like the delving system. Like Minas Morgul, the raid set was still valuable and provided benefits to those who obtained them even after releasing commensurate gear afterwards. This is a perfect opportunity for those who aren't quite able to climb all the tiers right away a chance to stand in a better position to try again. It is also quite fair since it comes several months after the raid was released. And with any new content that comes out, it also provides people a chance to get a few new pieces of gear, along with some cosmetics, no matter what they had beforehand. Between the item level cap slowly being raised, the chances of getting better traceries, increasing the virtue level, allowing people to automatically have all their trait points at the level cap, and the option of getting these items, I can see our kinship finally doing some of the higher tiers in the future along with some new players that might just now be getting to that point.

The one thing I did not want to happen again is the unfair advantage people had with the release of the Wildwood instances. Those of us who didn't have the gear or prowess to run T3 were stuck getting a trivial amount of tokens that would have taken us a couple months instead of a week to get a single piece of gear. So, I like the goal of giving people an item for every 5 days of dedicated play at early levels, perhaps 4 days of play at steady difficulty, or 3 days if they attempt the hardest difficulty possible.

[CaerArianrhod]

So, what are those goals? A lot of this is covered in my dev diary, which I hope we get out soon. Let me just distill the goal here.

The Delving system is, primarily, created to provide an alternative to end game raid progression for those players who do not wish to engage in raids.
The secondary goal of the system is to provide another options for players who wish to challenge themselves and work toward items that they may find appealing or worth acquir

[...]
A secondary objective of the delving system is to provide players who engage with a more direct way to obtain crafted traceries only available through this new system.

The tertiary objective of the reward system is to provide evergreen chase items that players can continue to pursue to augment and enhance their game experience.

With this in mind, we are working toward finding that balance point where the middle tiers are a good, steady progression experience for players.

Those are perfect goals.
Basically, it's an excellent idea to have something to work for and get good gear, recipes etc. as reward. At this point, I don't have any problem with the new system.

The rewards are commensurate with raid gear of roughly tier 3, minus the set bonuses - so the rewards are not as good as raid rewards. However, the gear still help the player who acquires it with end game content more readily. Reward progress is expected with the majority of more casual end game players in mind and is set at a full engagement of players getting to Tier 4 or Tier 5, feeling comfortable with their progression there, and gaining a piece of gear that is of raid quality, roughly, every five days of dedicated play.

There are definitely "sad trombone" rewards in the system, but there is always progression along the reward matrix for your character. If you are powerful, skilled, or persistent enough, you can cut your time to gain a piece of gear from the Delving reward barterer to ~3 days, with dedicated play. Further, that gear will likely help you complete those tier 10 experiences more readily.

If you compare the progression of this system against the progression through raid, it is a little slower - for certain - but the time investiture based on successes and failure in raids brings those curves closer. And, you remove the coordination and for some players the frustration of joining a raid.

There are a few points here that give me a headache.
T1 up to T3 is fine in the sense, that these levels are for very casual players. T4 up to T6/T7 is for the more ambitious players, and T7 up to T10 is for players who want to challenge themselves. So far, so good.

But the assumption that "reward barterer to ~3 days, with dedicated play" is a very interesting point of view, and it may say more about how SSG is seeing the players, as we thought.
Given the number in the first beta:
- one piece of gear to barter: 1,500 writs
- granted reward for T10: 50 writs

3 days would mean: 10 successful delving mission at T10 for 3 days in a row.
Assuming the time for a mission approx. 10-15 minutes (from get the quest outside until finish it outside again)
(for everyone how says that is too much time: please remember Annâk-khurfu etc. and waiting for minutes to be able to finish the quest!)
Average time for a piece of gear: 300-450 minutes or 5-7.5 hours.
This is only at T10!

You said, that the "majority of more casual end game players in mind and is set at a full engagement of players getting to Tier 4 or Tier 5".
I can't remember the numbers right now for those tiers, so I just go with 20 granted writs.
This will require 75 successful delving mission at T4-T6.
Given that one can/could do 10 delving missions per day, it will take not 3 or 4 or 5 but at least 8 days in a row!
Average time for a piece of gear: 700-1,125 minutes of 11.6 to 18.75 hours.


I am sure you have appropriate data analysis and statistics.
You have the account creation time, the character's playtime etc., so you can calculate average daily playtime for a player.
What is the most average daily playtime for a player?
To fulfill all the necessary delving missions, a player would have to have a daily playtime from 1.6 up to 2.5 hours.

Do you think that is realistic, taking into account that this playtime would be needed only to play the delving missions?

This is the point where I think SSG have a very different point of view about a player.
It seems that you at SSG see a player as a "single character player", who plays only that one character all the time.

Isn't one of the goals, not just of the new system, but of the game itself, for players to be more connected and engaged in the game and having fun, which includes to play more than one race/class combination?
Just imagine that a player hast two characters.
How appealing is this system when the player knows that it takes him more than 30 days with a daily playtime from 1.6 up to 2.5 hours, to get just 4 pieces of gear just for one character?

I know what you want to say at this point: "There is a chance to get a decent gear from the mission's reward chest."
And that is the point, where I 100% disagree with you and with the reward system.
RNG is not a reward. RNG is just good or bad luck, but never a reward.
You said: "There are definitely "sad trombone" rewards in the system, but there is always progression along the reward matrix for your character."
Not only the "sad trombone" but the gear itself too. RNG is RNG, you can get the same piece of gear for the 10th time. And to be honest, the number of writs one can get for deconstructing a delving gear is an affront.

The entire point of returning the cracked version of the gems is so that when you find your specific "sweet spot" you can return to it and advance at your own pace - without worrying about what that other player is doing. Or, if you want to compete against yourself or that other player and really tackle those tier 10 experiences - go for it. It's going to get harder and harder, but the chance for better rewards increases with each tick up. Still, there will be moments of disappointment - but there is always progression toward the goals that you set for yourself.

This sounds reasonable, but unfortunately the reality looks different.
RNG is not a progression at all to achieve a goal.
A real progression is, when you can calculate the necessities to achieve a particular goal and can calculate the amount of effort (time etc.) you need.
Like: "I get x writs granted for a mission. I need to do then x missions to get the reward I am looking for."
And for this real progression: see my numbers above.

I know, SSG do not want to change this system, but then please do not be surprised, when players will dislike this system and will call it boring, tedious and not rewarding.

[Joedangod]

Our goal is not to make these overly punishing - instead - we want them to be a challenge.

We're already discussing what might change with that tier 9 effect and how we can make it more of an experiential choice in the course of the combat.

You either strip it entirely or treat it like the deadly difficulty corruptions i.e. a telegraphed corruption effect that people can actively play around. An always on reflect is basically only something that classes with spammable heals can play with as they can trade off damage for healing and vice versa. Something like Brawler (a class with 2 heals on long CDs) ends up feeling awful in such a situation because you simply can't fight mobs until you get a CD back (unless you just want to suicide into the mobs over and over). It might be a bit more tolerable if inc damage reductions applied to reflected damage but they don't, so... at least have some kind of consideration for the gameplay you're promoting with this stuff.

[SSG_Orion]

There are a few points here that give me a headache.
T1 up to T3 is fine in the sense, that these levels are for very casual players. T4 up to T6/T7 is for the more ambitious players, and T7 up to T10 is for players who want to challenge themselves. So far, so good.

But the assumption that "reward barterer to ~3 days, with dedicated play" is a very interesting point of view, and it may say more about how SSG is seeing the players, as we thought.
Given the number in the first beta:
- one piece of gear to barter: 1,500 writs
- granted reward for T10: 50 writs

3 days would mean: 10 successful delving mission at T10 for 3 days in a row.
Assuming the time for a mission approx. 10-15 minutes (from get the quest outside until finish it outside again)
(for everyone how says that is too much time: please remember Annâk-khurfu etc. and waiting for minutes to be able to finish the quest!)
Average time for a piece of gear: 300-450 minutes or 5-7.5 hours.
This is only at T10!

Correct, players spending their time at the top end to get this gear through will need to put in about that much time to earn gear that is commensurate to Tier 3 raid gear. If we shortened the amount of time that this took it would undercut the dedicated time that a raid player puts into getting thei gear.

You said, that the "majority of more casual end game players in mind and is set at a full engagement of players getting to Tier 4 or Tier 5".
I can't remember the numbers right now for those tiers, so I just go with 20 granted writs.
This will require 75 successful delving mission at T4-T6.
Given that one can/could do 10 delving missions per day, it will take not 3 or 4 or 5 but at least 8 days in a row!
Average time for a piece of gear: 700-1,125 minutes of 11.6 to 18.75 hours.

It's currently 20-30 in that stretch of tiers which puts the total run count at about 50 to earn a piece of gear.

I am sure you have appropriate data analysis and statistics.
You have the account creation time, the character's playtime etc., so you can calculate average daily playtime for a player.
What is the most average daily playtime for a player?
To fulfill all the necessary delving missions, a player would have to have a daily playtime from 1.6 up to 2.5 hours.

Do you think that is realistic, taking into account that this playtime would be needed only to play the delving missions?

This is the point where I think SSG have a very different point of view about a player.
It seems that you at SSG see a player as a "single character player", who plays only that one character all the time.

This one is a little tricky to answer.

Is this a realistic expectation of playtime to dedicate to earning gear commensurate to Tier 3 raid gear. Each player will need to make that determination for themselves. From a time investiture standpoint - I think if you compared the amount of time that raiders who have completed the tier 3 experience, they could more readily answer that question for you. We do have the metrics and we know that an appreciable amount of time goes into players getting through those initial tiers and eventually conquering the tier 3 threshold.

Isn't one of the goals, not just of the new system, but of the game itself, for players to be more connected and engaged in the game and having fun, which includes to play more than one race/class combination?
Just imagine that a player hast two characters.
How appealing is this system when the player knows that it takes him more than 30 days with a daily playtime from 1.6 up to 2.5 hours, to get just 4 pieces of gear just for one character?

I know what you want to say at this point: "There is a chance to get a decent gear from the mission's reward chest."

The appeal of the system will vary from player to player. Different players have different playstyles and objectives for their characters. It's our position that providing as many options to players as we can, so that the variety of play styles engaging with game can enjoy it was they want.

And no, I don't want to say anything along the lines of getting the decent gear from the chest because that is more bonus and evergreen pursuit of the system rather than the bread and butter. The bread and butter reward earning is the progression toward the gear that a player wants. Additionally, when BR comes back up take a look at the reward boxes.

And that is the point, where I 100% disagree with you and with the reward system.
RNG is not a reward. RNG is just good or bad luck, but never a reward.
You said: "There are definitely "sad trombone" rewards in the system, but there is always progression along the reward matrix for your character."
Not only the "sad trombone" but the gear itself too. RNG is RNG, you can get the same piece of gear for the 10th time. And to be honest, the number of writs one can get for deconstructing a delving gear is an affront.

This sounds reasonable, but unfortunately the reality looks different.
RNG is not a progression at all to achieve a goal.
A real progression is, when you can calculate the necessities to achieve a particular goal and can calculate the amount of effort (time etc.) you need.
Like: "I get x writs granted for a mission. I need to do then x missions to get the reward I am looking for."
And for this real progression: see my numbers above.

I know, SSG do not want to change this system, but then please do not be surprised, when players will dislike this system and will call it boring, tedious and not rewarding.

We expect, as with anything new, that some players will like it and some will not. Some will engage in a hardcore sense and stay pegged at tier 10 and crush the system fast. Some will engage and disengage. Some will enjoy doing a delving or two a day and working toward that progression over time.

We're not forcing anyone to engage with the system nor will the system only ever be tied to missions.

With all of that said, I am interested in understanding what you believe would be a better progression toward acquiring the new delving gear?

[CaerArianrhod]

[...]

First of all: I really appreciate your open communication with us (especially because it is your free weekend)!

Correct, players spending their time at the top end to get this gear through will need to put in about that much time to earn gear that is commensurate to Tier 3 raid gear. If we shortened the amount of time that this took it would undercut the dedicated time that a raid player puts into getting thei gear.

It's currently 20-30 in that stretch of tiers which puts the total run count at about 50 to earn a piece of gear.

At T10 the required time for a piece of gear seems reasonable for me. (with the assumed average time for a piece of gear around 5 - 7.5 hours)
But I do agree with you, that there will be players, who will rush through the new system even at T10.
I think that these players have other things in mind as the gear, because if they finished the T3 raid content, gear is only a second objective to fill the gap here and there.
At least I know my incentives as a T3 raider, which are in the first place the recipes for crafted traceries. The gear comes second. Knowing myself - and I don't think that I am alone with my view - I will run the delving missions on max tier maybe for a month. The delving gear is not my personal worries. (but more on that later)

Also, I think that the T1-T3 range is fine. Since they are for players who can not or will not engage themselves in endgame raiding, but sill offers these players the possibility or choice to do so with the new gear.

My concern is more the mid-range. I think that the time and effort a player need to put into it is not appropriate rewarded.
Why do I think that? Without doubt, the new gear is for many players a "big thing", because the current endgame raiding and high tier instances requires good equipment (and not only good gaming skills).
I definitely see the chance that with the new delving equipment, more players will dare to tackle more difficult instances or raids. And that is what I would like to see.
But ... but that will not happen if the necessary time and effort to get that gear is that high as it was in the first beta. Players will give up, because the way is too long.

I fully understand, that it is an impossible task to solve the problem between 24/7-players and players with an average playtime of 15-20 hours a week. But making the road too long seems like the wrong approach to try in my eyes.

This one is a little tricky to answer.
Is this a realistic expectation of playtime to dedicate to earning gear commensurate to Tier 3 raid gear. Each player will need to make that determination for themselves.

[...]

The appeal of the system will vary from player to player. Different players have different playstyles and objectives for their characters. It's our position that providing as many options to players as we can, so that the variety of play styles engaging with game can enjoy it was they want.

That's fair enough, and I can agree with that.

From a time investiture standpoint - I think if you compared the amount of time that raiders who have completed the tier 3 experience, they could more readily answer that question for you. We do have the metrics and we know that an appreciable amount of time goes into players getting through those initial tiers and eventually conquering the tier 3 threshold.
[...]
And no, I don't want to say anything along the lines of getting the decent gear from the chest because that is more bonus and evergreen pursuit of the system rather than the bread and butter. The bread and butter reward earning is the progression toward the gear that a player wants. Additionally, when BR comes back up take a look at the reward boxes.
[...]
With all of that said, I am interested in understanding what you believe would be a better progression toward acquiring the new delving gear?

"This one is a little tricky to answer."
I am leading raids in LOTRO since the beginning and I have seen all the different reward systems in instances and raids.

1) The problem with the current endgame instances and raid is, that the gap between T2 and T3 is a way too big. T3 requires already very good equipment. And big problem for everyone is to get that good equipment, because it is 100% depending on RNG (unless one already finished the T3, which is a paradox).
Just an example: I did already a handful runs on the T2 raid with my wardens (I have 2) and still do not have any other raid gear as the shoes from T1. Meanwhile, it is frustrating. (Just a personal note: I said earlier, that "the delving gear is not my personal worries" and this is still true, because I personally can do the raids and the delving gear will me help not more or less with that.)
You can not compare the current raid experience with the delving system in regard of time and effort, because the firs is RNG only and the second offers at least some granted reward to make progress.
According to you, I will need "total run count at about 50 to earn a piece of gear" from the delving system. But I can run 100 times the T2 raid and still not get the raid gear. If the RNG likes me, I can get my 3 pieces of raid gear in just two runs. How is that compared to the weeks or months to get 3 pieces of delving gear? A comparison of such different systems can only fail.


2) What the delving system can and should do, is to help players to go into raids/instances. In my opinion, the game and we need more raiding and instance players.
As I said, and you pointed this out too, different players will have different objectives. The ones who can run T10 will not have the same as one who can run only T4-T6.
But we need this ambitious T4-T6 players, who (hopefully) will then try to go into raids too or just to help a raider to get some starter equipment for a second raid character.
What I would like to see is a slightly shortened road to get a gear from the mid-tier delving instances.
If SSG sticks to RNG: I could imagine, that (in those mid-tier instances or in all tiers) the RNG instance chests not dropping a gear directly, but instead a choosable barter coin is dropping. Say a chest with "coins" to choose from a "coin for a shoulder", "coin for a chest", "coin for a hat" etc. or just generally a "coin for a piece of gear". This is not very new, as the game have this kind of system in place (like The Rift etc.). This would allow a player to have a free choice of gear. The chest is still RNG as it is now, but not that frustrating as the same gear drop for the 5th time.

I know the discussion about "one will farm the instances with one particular class" is old. But seriously, if you say "It's our position that providing as many options to players as we can, so that the variety of play styles engaging with game can enjoy it was they want." then why not let the player choose his reward independently?

[DoRonRon]

I'm kind of busy preparing for level 150(/160) still. Got 10 characters working on it and that fills up my week. Don't have the time to squeeze in the slower Ember sources in Gundabad either. I got all my crafted heraldry and words sorted, even the fallbacks when those combo "Unique" ones become not intended as well as some coin with AH sales. I'm still a few caps worth short on banked Ancient Script to match the Tracery Tokens on the mules already. Maybe by end of season four, 80% losses and all. More gold tokens from delvings maybe (I'm happy with teals), still needs AS when I choose to use them. The ability to take writs into a 150 cap game, perhaps, but do I need another means to wrangle around another capped currency? Are the upgrade gear tokens level bound, don't remember with my brief look? The class essence can't be going to live as they stand, and maybe finalised post BR?

That's 25 odd hours a week I'm playing towards my current goals, a sliver above these 149 ones. All done to distance/limit exposure from the RNG elements and be able to plot through the 2 year cap cycle.

Can't entice me back into raiding when their mechanics are why I stopped. You don't cater for us playing 6 capped characters, only one or two. Yet still colleagues entice all into capping ever more! I got 4 months to complete my schedule, World Cup should bring that up to an LP purchase time frame and the likely new mission stability we'll end up with. I'll have the time then for a solo challenge when you have them balanced for duo if you aren't going to distinguish between solo/duo. How can you possibly attain that final balance without or class makeup in a duo where healing become necessary to not just zerg the reflect?

We know it won't be finalised by release, don't we? Copy on the Market still unchanged! My stoned 116 with imbued LIs would have been gutted.

The catch 22 is that someone who might explore the extremes of their classes' builds/skills and is adept at finding challenges of their own making in the game over the years is also one to fully appraise the deliverable where the intent is to provide that higher challenge. Multi tiers, Scions and Deadly 6, nope.

[Neinda]

Thank you Orion for being interactive with people here on the forums. You continue to set an example for great and outstanding customer service.

I personally dislike missions but they are better than picking flowers which many of us remember from those pre Mordor days. The missions are better than anything we currently have at end game which is pretty much nothing other than a fickle RNG. It is better than running the same instance over and over again to get gear to break down into embers to buy a box to get a piece of gear. It is a system for obtaining gear outside of an extremely random drop in a raid that only a few can run. It is a much better system than we have had for the past year or two or three. The time frames to obtain armor are consistent with what we have had for many years and they are reasonable. It is also a sustainable system that can be adapted for different levels as time goes on and is leaps and bounds better than loot box keys. It is a system for obtaining armor that makes more sense than anything we have had for several years and several level caps.

Hopefully this system will help balance an end game that is currently not very balanced at the moment. Hopefully this system will be fine tuned so that people can progress their gear and be able to run the end game content which is currently out of reach for many of us because of the gear issue. Maybe it can also be adapted to help people with their legendary weapons. Maybe it can be expanded to other levels and offer the opportunity to earn yellow/green to purple to teal gear so people can earn and upgrade gear within the system. You could even leave the loot boxes and embers/motes for those that don't want to do the missions or earn gear. The systems would work well side by side.

Maybe someday you could combine this with the skirmish system somehow and allow for group content that grows with the characters and the game. (Hint: Skirmish soldiers and skirmish rewards at end game really need an upgrade. That alone would sell more expansion packs.)

My only suggestion is don't release the expansion until it is ready to go. Releasing an incomplete/broken expansion does not win people over. Incomplete and broken expansions leave people annoyed and frustrated. I expect most people in game would not mind a delay if it means the expansion being released is working and fully functional. Incomplete expansions have chased many people off over the past couple of years. I doubt most people would complain if they had to wait a few extra weeks. Also, please make sure all these new missions are not going to feed the lag/server performance issues/whatever you want to call them.

Note: Please make maps for the missions and please don't make people wander around looking for an NPC so that they can turn in the quest and complete the mission. That has probably been one of the main contributors for my true dislike of the mission system. It gives them a very unpolished/half finished look and feel. When I invest the time to run a mission, I don't want to spend additional time wandering around lost looking for a dwarf just to click on him in order to get credit and leave. Let the missions auto complete. It would solve the wandering around looking for a dwarf issue and lead to less frustration on the part of many. That is not a fun or interesting mechanic. If it serves a purpose or adds value to the mission the purpose and value are not obvious.

[savetheroadtodoriath]

I can only hope, you take serious feedback serious. I just don't believe on those "run t10 in 1 minutes ...all t10 are way too easy" ill minded "feedbacks".
May I ask you something? Can you tell us how many players finished The Hiddenhoard of Abnankâra at T5?
You have the statistics, use them for a decision like "difficulty is meant to be very, very, hard to defeat" and think about, why do you invest resources as time and money to create something for less than 50 players worldwide!?!?

Don't get me wrong, it not about one-shoot every mob in a T10 instance. But it is about all those "it is too easy" sayings and that at the end you create something, that only a very, very few players will ever play, and the majority will get frustrated because of "impossibility" and ...



... because in the last years, the rewards never felt rewarding in LOTRO.
As mentioned in some other posts, doing t10 and getting low level "junk" is not only not feels rewarding but moreover it feels as an insult.
We already can see how the new, shiny delving system will work: as an endless, frustrating treadmill.
1.500 writs for a piece of gear, when you get 50 (for t10, which should be incredibly difficult according to you!) of those writs granted?
I really don't know why someone at SSG is still thinking, that blatantly pushing RGN into every reward process would feel for the players in any way as rewarding.




Do you know why it is so?
Because SSG is used to putting unfinished content online.
Don't misunderstand me, we know that you are working hard on those contents and put a lot of effort into them. But SSG release those contents too early, half backed and bugged.
True to the motto, "the early bird gets the worm" ... players who run new content as soon as possible, benefit from the unfinished content, bugs and co.
We get then one or two patches and when the majority of the players reach the point to get fully involved into the new content, it is a lot harder for them, and the "early birds" are sitting on their high branch, laughing and thinking "Yey! Thanks to the Valar, I don't need to do this *sh...* anymore. I got my stuff already out of it."
I do not make any runt at this point, but this is my 15 years of experience how things works with LOTRO. Sry.

I've gotten 467 gear from the boxes at the end as a reward. The gear you say costs 1.5k writs.

You can get about 500 writs a day, discounting RNG boxes giving you gear that's a piece of gear like every 3 days. In reality it's more. I think that is very reasonable considering how trivial Delvings are, if you bring a buddy there should be no problem doing T10s even for average players.

[auximenes]

Note: Please make maps for the missions and please don't make people wander around looking for an NPC so that they can turn in the quest and complete the mission. That has probably been one of the main contributors for my true dislike of the mission system. It gives them a very unpolished/half finished look and feel. When I invest the time to run a mission, I don't want to spend additional time wandering around lost looking for a dwarf just to click on him in order to get credit and leave. Let the missions auto complete. It would solve the wandering around looking for a dwarf issue and lead to less frustration on the part of many. That is not a fun or interesting mechanic. If it serves a purpose or adds value to the mission the purpose and value are not obvious.

/signed Just having the NPC jog over to where you are for an easy turn-in would be fine. There are a few missions like this already, why not all of them?

[DoRonRon]

I've gotten 467 gear from the boxes at the end as a reward. The gear you say costs 1.5k writs.

You can get about 500 writs a day, discounting RNG boxes giving you gear that's a piece of gear like every 3 days. In reality it's more. I think that is very reasonable considering how trivial Delvings are, if you bring a buddy there should be no problem doing T10s even for average players.

The items I saw with these 1500 writ tags were the necklace and cloak and initial upgrades as well as a maybe 3000(?) for the top upgrade so the final most desirable items are going to be involving serious engagement. Kind of ok with only one or two characters to play who's class has a natty essence or two on offer. That looks more like a 3 days, then another 3 and 6 and 3 and 3 and 6. With six or seven chars that's 5 months of commitment likely forsaking all else? I wonder if the RNG is delivering full range of gear slots or the trend of one or two. Chasing 2 pieces with standard role blind RNG won't be covering all those other slots if that is the case.
The purple pieces will provide that class essence slot though so that maybe enough. Teal then gold not so much to be gained but BiS with a choicer class essence perhaps.

I am kicking myself for not recording my too brief trip into BR#1.

[Ryvick]

/signed Just having the NPC jog over to where you are for an easy turn-in would be fine. There are a few missions like this already, why not all of them?

From what I have seen the npcs appear in one of 2 ways based on the mission itself.

1. If the mission has no final destination and can complete anywhere (such as kill x mobs) they place the turn in npc back at the entrance.

2. If the mission has a specific or final point location (such as kill a named that appears at a certain spot) they place the npc near that point (or somewhat near).

I haven't seen any variation on those 2 conditions.

[Neinda]

From what I have seen the npcs appear in one of 2 ways based on the mission itself.

1. If the mission has no final destination and can complete anywhere (such as kill x mobs) they place the turn in npc back at the entrance.

2. If the mission has a specific or final point location (such as kill a named that appears at a certain spot) they place the npc near that point (or somewhat near).

I haven't seen any variation on those 2 conditions.

Different sets of missions appear to have different rules for completion and different dwarf locations. Some you can just leave and skip the dwarf and the chest but still get credit which is great if you are already at the currency cap and not getting anything other than credit for finishing a mission. Others won't complete unless you click on the dwarf in the mission.

Problem is many times there is no map so finding the start point again takes a bit of time and excessive wandering. On those occasions where there is a map the ring for the dwarf does not show on the map. The other issue is sometimes you have to stand in the exact right spot to get the NPC to appear which is sometimes near the entrance and other times in the general vicinity of the entrance. Then there are other times where I think lag/whatever you want to call it causes delays in the NPC appearing which is extremely frustrating. Having to find a dwarf is just plain annoying This click on the dwarf mechanic is not fun nor do I see it as being helpful or useful. Added to all of this, you still have to wait on the original mission grantor to finalize the entire process although I have learned if you leave the area and port back the NPC will acknowledge you a bit sooner than waiting for everything to clear and catch up.

I have tried leaving the mission and going back in which sometimes works and other times causes the whole thing to start over. Other times I just stand near the entrance and go AFK with the hope that the dwarf will appear sometime soon. Maybe Orion can explain why we need the click on a dwarf mechanic? I am missing something obvious here if it is a helpful mechanic.

[Ryvick]

My guess is because the Delving mechanic is not the Mission mechanic just like he explained. The second you step outside you will fail the Delving mechanic. To gain a successful completion of the Delving mechanic it needs something to go ding while in the Mission. You can still complete the mission even if you fail the Delving mechanic by leaving the mission but the only thing that will allow you to successfully ding the Delving mechanic is completing the mission while in the mission itself. I assume it is this way as otherwise he would have to code separate success conditions for the Delving mechanic for every mission separately.

I haven't seen any variations on the Dwarf spawns at the end other than the 2 I mentioned but lag isn't really a coded variation and the chest isn't really on topic as it is the spawning of the dwarf that was talked about there. I fully agree on some form of Arrow/ indicator pointing to where the dwarf is at the end of a mission.

[Belechael]

The items I saw with these 1500 writ tags were the necklace and cloak and initial upgrades as well as a maybe 3000(?) for the top upgrade so the final most desirable items are going to be involving serious engagement. Kind of ok with only one or two characters to play who's class has a natty essence or two on offer. That looks more like a 3 days, then another 3 and 6 and 3 and 3 and 6. With six or seven chars that's 5 months of commitment likely forsaking all else? I wonder if the RNG is delivering full range of gear slots or the trend of one or two. Chasing 2 pieces with standard role blind RNG won't be covering all those other slots if that is the case.
The purple pieces will provide that class essence slot though so that maybe enough. Teal then gold not so much to be gained but BiS with a choicer class essence perhaps.

I am kicking myself for not recording my too brief trip into BR#1.

As the items are bound to account this will take way less than 5 months for my 10 level cap characters.

I will use my dps classes to do up to T8 delvings (Hunter, burglar, champion, minstrel, RK, even LM), and team up with a friend or random fellow from LFF for the last 2 tiers.

As long as you have multiple characters decently geared and free time on your hand this system will let you equip everyone in a couple of months tops.

[DoRonRon]

All the older missions have a hidden timer to boot you out after the mission complete, if you have gone afk or are looking around for a chest/npc. Not so useful when there is still a key step to make for the delving when you have completed the specific mission objectives. I have wondered if it was this mechanic in some way delaying the hand ins as often waiting inside to be booted sped up the hand in just after when a prior and later mission would have that longer delay. High pops ofc.

[DoRonRon]

As the items are bound to account this will take way less than 5 months for my 10 level cap characters.

I will use my dps classes to do up to T8 delvings (Hunter, burglar, champion, minstrel, RK, even LM), and team up with a friend or random fellow from LFF for the last 2 tiers.

As long as you have multiple characters decently geared and free time on your hand this system will let you equip everyone in a couple of months tops.

Hope you are nearer the mark than me. I rather think that if some are saying it's trivial to T8 and easy Duo at T10 we are going to have the difficulty rank up in BR#2 else where is this Challenge. Me, I really want to treat these as pure solo if I can, in the spirit of the promise made. Perpare for random tells on your mini and RK for HEALZ though.

I might not start for 6 months though, if the "challenge" falls by the way.

[maartena]

Stones will likely remain stored in inventory for a little while We are working on a better way to store them.

I sense a delvings carry-all coming..... for only 1995 LP!

[Bragolos]

BR round 2: perhaps I'm missing something, but it seems the gear rewards for the Delving missions are already nerfed to plain ember gear?

Unfortunately I haven't taken screens from the BR round 1 rewards, but the level was at least 470. Right now it says level 467, which is the same as ember gear.

Perhaps it's a little bit better because all pieces have 2 essence slots. Most ember gear have only one slot. But I'm sure about the level nerf. Would be too bad.

EDIT: and why does every piece have more Vitality than the Primary stat?

Btw I'm not talking about the gold cloak, that one still has an ilevel of 480.

[SSG_Orion]

We have introduced a new "flavor" or grouping of effects, skills, and abilities for the delvings in this release.

A change has been made to the Sauron's Defence ability - though it will not appear in this round of testing - the change is as follows:

The Sauron's Defence ability is now a corruption. When removed, it applies a second corruption effect to all nearby enemies stacking up to 4 times. The efficacy of the effect has also been altered to by 15% with a variation of 50% of that value reflected. This should allow for more gameplay around the ability.

[Minimur]

Why has the item level of the delving gear been reduced to item level 467? Is this working as intended? This is now no better than ember gear.