Bullroarer Update 21.2 - Beta #3 - Preview and Release Notes

[Tybur]

Welcome to our third open preview of Update 21.2. These notes are for Bullroarer, released on Saturday September 30th. Both the notes and the update are a work in progress, so you should expect things will change over time. We look forward to reding your feedback and receiving your bug reports.

Please feel free to copy your current live character to Bullroarer using the LIVE transfer wizard.

Known Issues:

• The display of some clothing / armour appearances is broken in this build for: female beorning, female human, female hobbit, dwarf, all elves, and all high elves. These character types may appear to be wearing their underclothes regardless of their actual equipment or cosmetic outfit settings. Gloves and gauntlets may also fail to appear on these characters even when the remainder of their equipment displays. Therefore, if you want to look at the appearance of an equipped item, please login or create a male human, male beorning, or male hobbit.

Focus for this Beta:

During this beta session, we again want to encourage all of you to try out the new instances: “The Dungeons of Naerband” and “The Court of Seregost”. We would particularly appreciate any feedback you may have on the difficulty of the instances at level 115 (tier 1 or tier 2).

• To enter “The Dungeons of Naerband”, you will need to complete the discovery deed. Find the sewer culvert at the base of Naerband in Talath Urui at approximately 62.0S x 19.7E.
• To enter “The Court of Seregost”, you will need to complete the discovery deed. Find the door up on the ramparts of Seregost around 49.0S x 33.0E. To climb Seregost, you will need to complete the Seregost quest line, or speak to Lansu in the Eyes & Guard tavern.
• If you are making a new character on Bullroarer, or have not completed your Gorgoroth allegiance gear sets on your live copied character, please visit Vastin in the Eyes & Guard tavern. For tier 1 runs, please pick up packages labeled Last Alliance and Towers appropriate for your class. For tier 2 runs, please use a mix of equipment from the Mordor R "Abyssal" or "Wyrm" packages sprinkled with equipment from Mordor I Abyssal or Wyrm packages. For tier 2 challenge runs, please use equipment from the Mordor I Abyssal or Wyrm packages.

New in this build:

• Adjustments have been made to both The Dungeons of Naerband and The Court of Seregost to fix various mechanics and adjust difficulty balance. Please note that shadow will now only be present in the level cap version of the instances (level 115) with more shadow in the tier 2 space than in the tier 1 space.
• The chests at each instance boss now have the new loot hooked up. We would love your feedback!
• The Dungeons of Naerband - The cage levers should now work properly even after their first use. The cages should now properly block attacks from the caged prisoners and from players that require line of sight.
• The new Daily Requests will now properly count towards Allegiance endgame daily quests.
• Crafting - Crafting: A Facility and Crafting: Artisan Profession are no longer required to unlock superior facility use or the artisan crafting tier. These quests are no longer available from expert craft npcs.
• Champion - Imbued legacy Strike Skill Power Cost has been adjusted above tier 59 so that it continues to improve.
• The Dungeons of Naerband instance now has a map.
• Wildermore Endgame - All quests will be available as choices all the time.
• The Battle of Ost Celebrant - Follower Doran will bestow all of the quests immediately when you enter Ost Celebrant.
• Evendim - Quest: Farmers' Bane - The wolf should always be available to advance this quest.
• Summer Festial - Made it easier to target and attack Heat Wave mobs for the quest "Defeat the Heat".
• Baggins Birthday - All of the story quests will now be availalbe continuously during the event.
• Reputation panel - Factions displayed are now ordered from newest to oldest.
• Udun - The Captains of Mornaur Lookout - Captain Shardul should appear more reliably.

Of Special Note:
Plateau of Gorgoroth Instances

Bring a full fellowship with you when you enter "The Dungeons of Naerband", a place of fire and anguish. Prepare to encounter the Maiden of Flame and face her ally, the chief torturer, in the prison of Direhold.

You will need a small fellowship to aid the rangers as they penetrate "The Court of Seregost" and struggle to thwart Lhaereth in her attempts to unleash a second Great Plague.

Filters

There is a new main menu item - Filters (alt+r default key mapping). This new panel has three tabs that let you filter out sounds, quests, and items (for the current player, or for your entire account) that you never want to receive or hear again.

Anything that you add to the Loot filtered list will not be awarded to you again (will not appear in your inventory or pending loot). To add an item, drag it from your inventory to the filtered list, or use the filter buttons in your Pending Loot panel. To remove an item drag it from the filtered list to anywhere else.

Anything you add to the Quests filtered list will no longer attempt to auto-bestow, will not appear as a quest ring on the mini-map radar, and will not appear as a quest ring over npc or mob heads. To filter a quest, in the bestowal dialog or the quest log, click the filter or account filter button at the bottom left. To remove filtering of that quest, simply drag it off of your filtered list. Quests that cannot be abandoned also cannot be filtered.

Anything you add to the Sounds filtered list will no longer play as audio in your game client. To add a sound, go to a place/situation in game where you hear the sound. Click the record button to see a list of all sounds currently playing (this list will keep updating until you click stop or close the UI). You can play any sound on this list by right or double clicking it. Drag any sound to the character or account filtered list.

How Loot Rules work with the Filter System:

Master Looter:
If the looted item quality rating meets or exceeds the quality rating of the chest, then the master looter will see an assignment dialog for the item even if the item is filtered. Assignment overrides all filters. Otherwise, the item is ignored by the master looter and converts to round-robin in the chest for follow-up looters.

Need/Greed/Pass:
If the looted item quality rating meets or exceeds the quality rating of the chest, players who do not have items filtered will see the Need/Greed/Pass dialog for each item. For filtered item, players will not see the Need/Greed/Pass dialog and the response will automatically default to Pass when the timeout for the response expires.

Mounts Collection

The mount collection has been revamped to match the style of the emote and pet collections and list every mount available.

Because we have many mounts that can no longer be acquired (such as pre-order and special event mounts), the mount collection has a unique feature that will cause every character to have their own mount collection maximum. If a mount is no longer available, it will not appear in the mount collection panel unless you already have that mount. So while a newly created character on a new account might only see a mount collection with 144 possible mounts, a player who has the Dusky Nimblefoot Goat for example will see a mount collection with 145 possible mounts.

Daily requests from the Expedition Organizers

There are new repeatable Daily Requests available from the Expedition Organizers in each of the Allegiance halls. Speak to Vórthi, Tancram, Glórellas, and Aster Hayward each day to accept these quests.

News and Notes:
Quests and Adventure Areas

• Talath Urui - Shackles have been excavated from the rubble and can now be reached for the quest "Breaking the Chains".
• Talath Urui - The hiding spot should now be more obvious in the quest instance "Borangos the Horror".
• Gorgoroth Resource Dungeons - Allegiance bonus quests no longer go away after completing an Allegiance. If you have already completed one or more Allegiances, the bonus quests will return for you.
• Gorgoroth Resource Dungeons - Barad-dur: Lore of the Past no longer has an Ancient Tome hidden in rubble. Barad-dur: Gathering Relics no longer has a relic hiding in a wall.
• Gorgoroth Resource Dungeons - Durthang: Gathering Relics Durthang is no longer missing a Relic.
• Gorgoroth Resource Instances: The following deeds are now available: Resources of Gorgoroth, Gathering of Resources, Gathering of Resources (Intermediate), Gathering of Resources (Advanced).
• The Tales of Gorgoroth Deed is now visible in your deed log as soon as at least one objectives has been completed.
• Some actors in Udun region instances now have the correct species/race listed.
• Some minor typos in the Elf Allegiance storyline have been corrrected.
• Now if you have the Court of Lothlorien Allegiance underway, Glorfindel is phased out of Rivendell UNLESS you are in the middle of an older quest that requires him. Then he will be there until that older quest is completed.
• The deeds "Scourge-slayer of Mordor" and "Scourge-slayer of Mordor (Advanced)" now carry a "Fat Spoils Box - Scourge of Gorgoroth", which contains more loot than a normal box. Players who have already completed this deed will receive the updated rewards when they log-in after the U21.2 patch.
• "Deeds of Udûn" now grants rewards comparable to the meta-deeds of other regions in Gorgoroth. Players who have already completed this deed will receive the updated rewards when they log-in after the U21.2 patch.
• Wolves in Mordor now properly drop Doomfold hides instead of Eorlingas hides.

Items

• The Aria of the Valar now includes a Class Deed Tome that will automatically complete trait point granting class deeds. If you have already used an Aria of the Valar, visit your class trainer and get your Class Deed Tome.
• A large selection of armour that was previously invisible on your High Elf now has its proper appearance.
• The Unidentified Third Age Legendary Item Box that can be acquired via barter once again correctly delivers a level 100 legendary item.
• When running the Pelennor Instances: Blood of the Black Serpent, The Quays of the Harlond, and The Silent Street, at level 115, you can now receive equipment that scales up to Item Level 315.
• Crafting - Doomfold Healing, Milkthistle, Conhuith, and Lhinestad Draughts now remove negative effects up to a maximum strength of level 120.
• Crafting - Captain Crest and Warden Carving recipes may be executed with Universal Ingredient Packs.
• Crafting - Food produced from Doomfold Cooking now has a stack size up to 100.
• Crafting - Woodworkers are now able to craft Strong Boards of Doomfold Wood, Weaponsmiths are now able to craft Quality Doomfold Ingots, and Tailors are now able to craft Well-treated Doomfold Leather.
• Crafting - Doomfold Jewellery recipes now only require 1 Refined Black Adamant instead of three.
• Allegiances - Daily repeatable, weekly repeatable, and Resource Instances in Mordor now give a new type of Allegiance Point item. The value of allegiance points from these sources results in the same point grant, but the new AP items can be used to barter for a new tier of Allegiance Gear.
• Allegiance point granting items now stack to 100.
• Allegiance Cloaks no longer have an armour class requirement for use. Any class can use any cloak.
• Spoils Box Scourge of Gorgoroth now carries appropriate crafting materials and barter tokens.

PvMP

• Ettenmoors - High Elves can now use the back doors of keeps.
• Level 115 Audacity gear has been added to barter vendors in the Moors.
• The Glan Vraig training dummies are now level 115.

UI

• Fixed raid vital background sizes.
• Scourge-slayer of Mordor deeds will no longer incorrectly show the accelerate button since these deeds cannot be accelerated.
• The Barbershop camera now zooms farther out for better visibility of Body Type option changes.

Misc

• In game voice chat: Party member voice volume can be adjusted individually. Party volume control visibility can be toggled by clicking on the party voice chat icon for party members. Default Group Volume preference has been added to the Voice section of Audio options. Use this volume slider to set the default voice volume level of new group members. This setting is 75% volume by default.
• Mordor Lost Lore dialog is now affected by the Voice-Over sound volume setting.
• Lua - We recently changed the way LOTRO ListBoxes work to fix a category of UI bugs. This may have side-effects for Lua scripts dependent on the broken behavior. If you encounter issues with your existing Lua plugins, you may want to change the ListBox orientation from Horizontal to Vertical and remove the SetMaxItemsPerLine limitation setter.
  
  • The Lua interface is being updated to provide four new functions for the ListBox control. They should be used in the place of SetMaxItemsPerLine( value ) and GetMaxItemsPerLine() which are being deprecated, however calls to SetMaxItemsPerLine makes use of either of the two new functions based on the orientation of the listbox for backward compatibility.:
    
    • number GetMaxColumns();
    • void SetMaxColumns( number );
    • number GetMaxRows();
    • void SetMaxRows( number );

[Oelle]

so when do we get class-balance-work and a rework of the ILI system?

And you really insist in not selling Mordor without Valarstuff for a reduced price? And only selling it for LP once its outdated?

[Spilo]

Another BR, another patch with 4% finesse on Creep. Oh well.

[Tirian-Hammerfist]

It's very welcome to see the convenience fixes for the Wildermore rep grind and the Baggins Birthday event.


However, still waiting to see a boost to tactical dps - my LM (currently my only capped char is really going to struggle through these instances as it can contribute so little to the 3 man if in the dps slot - groups will just take hunters or champs instead.

[Cenifh]

still no mention of the ILI issue that rends tactical classes worthless...


but at least i can grind Wildermore faster now ...

[Saintjoan]

so when do we get class-balance-work and a rework of the ILI system

Cordovan has spoken about this and explained what's involved, on numerous occasions, in the lotrostreams.

Now sounds like a good time to watch the archived Cord of the Rings stream videos.

People can start with the most recent one, from the link in the Dev Diaries.

Just Saying.

[Enurdal]

Wow can't believe that there is still nothing done about tactical dps issues...but at least we can attack heat waves in summer festival easier now

https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/balance

[siipperi]

Cordovan has spoken about this and explained what's involved, on numerous occasions, in the lotrostreams.

Now sounds like a good time to watch the archived Cord of the Rings stream videos.

People can start with the most recent one, from the link in the Dev Diaries.

Just Saying.

I believe he said on latest livestream he disagrees of hunters being too strong dps to other classes, or along those lines. So if thats stance of SSG lord have mercy on our souls and rip in pieces red guardians.

[Giliodor]

Cordovan has spoken about this and explained what's involved, on numerous occasions, in the lotrostreams.

Now sounds like a good time to watch the archived Cord of the Rings stream videos.

People can start with the most recent one, from the link in the Dev Diaries.

Just Saying.

People aren't interested in hearing about "class balance being an ongoing process". While not false, most of the major issues that people want to be addressed could be solved in one single update. Cordovan claims they do work to balance classes with each update. That is clearly a lie, because they don't. It doesn't take long to come up with some changes that would go a long way towards "balancing classes", and there are plenty on the forums. They simply choose to ignore every one of the ideas suggested. Cordovan just responds in a diplomatic manner during his streams... And doesn't always tell the truth (in my eyes, at least).

I understand that it doesn't have a priority, but that doesn't mean it should be completely neglected. When asked if the team plans to do a major class balance update before the raid is released the answer was a very resolute "No.". I suppose that's all you need to know.

I believe he said on latest livestream he disagrees of hunters being too strong dps to other classes, or along those lines. So if thats stance of SSG lord have mercy on our souls and rip in pieces red guardians.

I indeed asked him something about fixing blue line hunters, and he responded saying that "He's not sure whether he agrees", referring to blue hunters being in need of fixing. Which is kind of interesting, coming from someone who mains a level 38 minstrel...

[fmac81]

I believe he said on latest livestream he disagrees of hunters being too strong dps to other classes, or along those lines. So if thats stance of SSG lord have mercy on our souls and rip in pieces red guardians.

I don't normally pick sides on these forums, but totally agree with what siipperi said here. Ever since the update where hunters got an excessive buff, the balance in this game has gone downhill.

That's not to say hunters didn't something of a buff, but the one they received (way back when) was too much... Fast forward to the present, and the developers are in denial of the fact that hunters DPS is through the roof and refuse to fix it. In fact, they've only increased it, adding more damage to barrage, and adding a HoT on Blood Arrow that didn't need to happen...

Oh and not to mention, they removed the tiering down of guardian bleeds which makes them slow as turtles to level in landscape. Guardian bleeds mysteriously disappearing before overwhelm removal haven't been addressed either...

[Oelle]

There is nothing wrong with hunters dps, if we talk about redline...

blue and barrage however... bleh... neither the amount nor the way the dps are produced are fine, most players agree it can't be WAI and is an exploit... and its just huge. and the ILI system only makes it worse. maybe DEVs dont read forums and think barrage works as in the skilldescription, just tiers up three times and such only do like tier1+90% damage per shot? besides it not even tiering up at all if used normally (just spammed), the way it gets its bonusdamage... is just wrong. has been discussed long enough between players, but never gotten to DEVs it seems...

[LagunaD2]

so when do we get class-balance-work and a rework of the ILI system?

LOL. How about "never"?

[LagunaD2]

Another BR, another patch with 4% finesse on Creep. Oh well.

At least the freeps are getting more audacity, so it will be easier for them to one-shot us.

[Starkorm]

so when do we get class-balance-work and a rework of the ILI system?

And you really insist in not selling Mordor without Valarstuff for a reduced price? And only selling it for LP once its outdated?

Another BR, another patch with 4% finesse on Creep. Oh well.

Dead horses.

[Gertes]

Can we get offhands with a damage type pls, common dmg on blue weapons is kinda disapointing.
And maby something usefull to barter for long lost coins.

[Phindecano]

maybe DEVs dont read forums and think barrage works as in the skilldescription

The description says: "A quick attack that deals more damage each time it is used". So yes, technically it's WAI.

[Kaeneth]

Still kind of disappointing to not see any more additions/polishes to high elves like they had been getting in the other updates. They still need work done to them.

[Cenifh]

omg dude, u cant be serious lol

[zipfile]

[*]The chests at each instance boss now have the new loot hooked up. We would love your feedback!

Are these the sets with new unique bonuses? Or did you copy the older ones onto "new" gear?

[Starkorm]

Are these the sets with new unique bonuses? Or did you copy the older ones onto "new" gear?

Set bonuses are dead. I found them all disappointing anyway, so whatever.

[elzeqq]

This is beta 3 and you still did not fix the 6 man.
You release 1 6 man with major update and you are failing 3 weeks in the row to fix bugs, first boss has even new bugs now, grats on that.
Last fight is still broken, boss does 200K hits, one shoots whole group from the start, still and again the only way of doing this the fight is with 2 guardians.
It's total waste of time running it on bullroarer btw because you won't finish last boss without second guard anyways.
GG SSG.

[Markbjorn]

What a disappointment!!
Months after release and still no fix to tactical damage and guardian's bleed got nerfed.
Those classes are my mains. Guardian dps is already the lowest why you nerf them?
Not to mention other bugs still there for years never got fixed.
Lotro is very badly managed.
I wish I didn't buy Mordor expansion.
I will surely WON'T BUY further expansions.
I should have just joined my kinmates who had stopped playing Lotro out of disappointment and moved to another game.

[Knight.]

2K Alliance Relic -> 2x 1K Alliance Relics barter option is still missing.
This is an absolute must considering the grind involved. For example on an end game Captain running red line & yellow line you will need 2 cloaks & 2 gauntlets requiring a total of 520 alliance relics i.e. 52 Weeklies.

Some initial feedback on Court of Seregost T2C (3 man):

• On the whole, the instance seems a lot better balanced than before.
• Loot from standard chest seems more useful (emp scrolls and scaled heritage runes with a chance to get random purple gear to convert to ash, a silver signet of the armsmaster, special relics)
• Not sure what drops from the final challenge chest as the instance bugged on us (see below), but I'm hoping new Gold Signets of the Armsmaster for teal offhands.
• For loot I would like to see less RNG and a barter option (especially for the special relics).
• Perhaps give every player at least 1x Silver Signet of The Armsmaster per run and have options to barter 20x Silver Signets of the Armsmaster for a gold one.
• Likewise have it so that the special relics are also obtainable for a Gold Silver Signet of The Armsmaster just like the teal offhands are.
• If you fail at the last boss fight, the challenge still does not reset. The side boss simply isn't there on the re-attempt even though the boss keeps trying to summon him.
• There are a tonne of line of sight issues on the last boss fight especially in and around the central area which make targeting & taunting, healing, removing wounds etc. a pain

[HacyHo]

I'd still like to know what you mean by "barter items" in the release notes for the Mordor RTs (scourges). Does that mean signets (hopefully) or Gift Givers brands like other RTs. Thanks for the clarification.

[LagunaD2]

2K Alliance Relic -> 2x 1K Alliance Relics barter option is still missing.
This is an absolute must considering the grind involved. For example on an end game Captain running red line & yellow line you will need 2 cloaks & 2 gauntlets requiring a total of 520 alliance relics i.e. 52 Weeklies.

Allowing people to stockpile stacks of currency ahead of time (i.e. right now) is something they clearly aren't going to do.