Bullroarer Update 23 Preview #2: Release Notes and Feedback Thread

[Ethrildar]

Remember, this thread is designed for you to give us feedback on the things you've seen on Bullroarer. This is not a thread to debate the nature of monetization in the video game industry, or provide your opinion about someone else's opinion.

Please could some Dev/CM attention be given to the thread linked below so that the countless players posting in said thread can have their voice heard? It appears as though blue-names are burying their heads in the sand on that particular topic, and it's rubbing a lot of people the wrong way, I believe.

Linked you to page 13 which is currently the last page (this is the official thread for the latest round of updates and hasn't even hit 10 yet, that should tell you something). How many pages, replies, and people requesting the same thing does it take to get a reply or have this raised with the relevant people in order for change to come about?

I'd have thought things on BR were fairly pliable and not set in stone, but it appears the opposite to that, as though BR is more of a "This is what you're getting in a few weeks, bugs, poor design choices and all..." sort of deal? Many people even those against the locks would be happy just to see a blue-name say "Sorry but this is happening, get over it." rather than feel completely ignored and insignificant, not worthy of any sort of response nor mention.

https://www.lotro.com/forums/showthr...stances/page13

[Cordovan]

Some updates:

- We've adjusted the Tier 12 Crafted Morale and Power Potions. There was a number scaling issue, which led to the (awesomely but overly) large numbers in this preview. They will, however, still be quite nice.

- We are considering further differentiating the item level of new Lootbox gear from Tier 1 Instance reward gear, perhaps by lowering them another few levels. We are also looking at renaming the new lootboxes, and will revisit the flavor text on them.

- Older gear being available with the new vendor is a bug, and not intended. The older gear will be available with the older vendor, and the new gear with the new vendor, when Update 23 is released.

- Finally, we have been paying close attention to your feedback on Instance chest locks. We are working on making changes for these Instances to allow people to play with others at their preferred pace and schedule, while maintaining a healthy gear acquisition rate. To that end, we are looking at a system which offers Favored openings of a chest and Standard openings of a chest. A Favored opening would be a dramatically higher chance of getting desirable rewards, and be limited to a certain number of times within a certain time frame. A Standard chance of getting these rewards will happen during subsequent openings of the chests. The Favored status would be by character, independent of other characters in your party, so if you've opened the chest a lot, you'll have a standard chance, while someone in the group with you might have a Favored opening of the chest. It is likely the system will also have different numbers based on Instance difficulty, with more Favored chest openings on easier difficulties, and fewer Favored openings on higher difficulties, in proportion to the higher quality of the gear rewarded by difficulty. We are working on implementing some kind of visual effect that displays for you to let you know whether you will have a Favored Chest pull or not. We are still working on some of the details of this system, so names and numbers might well change.

[Fraushgrish2]

Some updates:

- Finally, we have been paying close attention to your feedback on Instance chest locks. We are working on making changes for these Instances to allow people to play with others at their preferred pace and schedule, while maintaining a healthy gear acquisition rate. To that end, we are looking at a system which offers Favored openings of a chest and Standard openings of a chest. A Favored opening would be a dramatically higher chance of getting desirable rewards, and be limited to a certain number of times within a certain time frame. A Standard chance of getting these rewards will happen during subsequent openings of the chests. The Favored status would be by character, independent of other characters in your party, so if you've opened the chest a lot, you'll have a standard chance, while someone in the group with you might have a Favored opening of the chest. It is likely the system will also have different numbers based on Instance difficulty, with more Favored chest openings on easier difficulties, and fewer Favored openings on higher difficulties, in proportion to the higher quality of the gear rewarded by difficulty. We are working on implementing some kind of visual effect that displays for you to let you know whether you will have a Favored Chest pull or not. We are still working on some of the details of this system, so names and numbers might well change.

Thx man, was that really that hard XD

This is seems like a fine change that the community can probably agree to thx for the response now one last thing about the lootbox change your talking about:

No one truly cares about the item lvl of the gear in br build 2, rn its 370 which is fine, the biggest issue is that the lootboxes drop ash and you can use ash to BARTER BiS gear thats the biggest issue rn


We will talk to you about items in instances and their difficulty when a separate br build is up strictly for them, im sure as of rn, they are very unpolished

[ArsSupervivendi]

Just for your peace of mind, Cordovan, I did want to give some feedback on questing.



1. Emotes for actions: Just something, that has nothing to do with a bug, just struck me as different and odd: When chars bend down to do something, like destroying barricades they used to bend down and wabble their hands back and forth. Which really looked like they were doing something to that object. The emote used now is the same used to apply xp-runes to legendary items. This might be a strange description, but it looks like my char is doing something to himself, instead of manipulating something else. No dirty thoughts, please!

2. Utterburg: when "helping" the Jengovar, you can already pick up the next quests, before taking the ones before back to the overseer.

3. Quest "Head of the Serpent": there are two dwarf-guards very close to the spawning point of the boss, you have to kill. As soon, as he spawns, he is attacked by those guards and turns grey. That way, the kill doesn't count for the quest. You can manage to lure the guards away, but it can take several tries.

4. Questracker often leads into the wrong direction. And is inacurate. One time, I had one quest in Hammerstead completed and was not very far away from it. But the tracker showed me different quest as closest, although it was clear on the other side of the map. This seems to have something to do with questgivers within buildings.

5. Adding to 5: Some quests don't show on the map, unless another quest is active in the questlog. Found that out trying to find Noris house. It first showed on the map, then didn't. I put another quest in the questlog and it showed me the right position. Same with Borins Story.

6. A lot of things usually could be done on horseback. And I ask myself: why can I mine ores on horseback, but cannot clean dwarf-markers while riding? In this update, a lot of stuff has to be done walking. Which seems tedious, when used to doing everything on horseback.

6. Smaug's voice... AWESOME. Please do something similar, for the German voiceover

7. Nice selection of Monsters. Some places felt like Moria again. Never thought, I would miss goblins with corruptions. Some are like Eregion, some like Forochel. The Glimmerdeep is a lot like The Ironpits in Dunland. Even with the spots in the map, where you fall through unseen holes (30.8 N 136.9 W). And please fix the gaping hole in Skarhald.

8. Next to the Monsters, landscaping is great. Again. So who do I tell this...Nice job!

9. I want a house like Nori has! Would trade that anytime for my palace in Belfalas.

[BotLike]

Remember, this thread is designed for you to give us feedback on the things you've seen on Bullroarer. This is not a thread to debate the nature of monetization in the video game industry, or provide your opinion about someone else's opinion.

The problem is , too many things are broken and beyond feedback... : - (

The instances are in a terrible spot , way too easy with almost no working mechanics.
I am not sure why they were released for beta testing in the first place , they are not even on alpha stage -_-
Historically , there's around 4 beta builds.
In all previous group content betas i remember , the instances were at a far better spot on BR #2 and still , they ended up reaching live with significant bugs most of the time...
I don't want to predict what will happen this time.

Loot system is extremely confusing , you renamed live ash for no reason , we already have a new type of it implemented so that we start from scratch in the new area.
Then you say that new lootboxes will be opened with black steel keys which can be acquired by older content and stacked currently on live ( lvl 115 ).
This makes absolutely 0 sense.
It doesn't seem you have a plan at all , you are still making it up , how are we supposed to provide feedback on such a system ?
We don't know what you will end up doing and whether we like it or not or how it will play out.
This will cause a lot of noise when it reaches live in the future , unless you clarify what your intentions are.
Odds are , you'll pop up a couple of months after release , completely rework the loot system that people will be used to and call it a bug , again...

Also , all the items i saw in the database ( including a gold pocket i glimpsed somewhere ) seem to be created by an algorithm that spawns hundreds of items with very little effort.
As a result , all loot in the game has 0 identity and due to lootboxes , 0 sense of achievement.
It will be the same as Mordor , you expect us to spend time and money on copy pasted gear with slightly higher item level.
0 fun in that , i don't like it.
That was never the case in the past , it started becoming the rule when Mordor launched...

Ironfold crafting is very draft , i've already provided feedback on other threads , there are key recipes missing , most notably essences...
Also , the limited recipes available from the reputation vendor are underpowered , no teal version , purple on both normal and crit versions.
No one will bother crafting much with current system.
The crafted items will be outdated very fast on first/second dot update and will be ultra cheap on the AH..
You need to give crafting a purpose , allow people to make gold through playing it...
We need a healthy market!

There's significant scaling bugs related to gear and stats across many levels.
Landscape and instanced content on mid-levels suddenly became even easier than on live ( which was already easy ).
Vastin said he's working on it , until it's done there can be no real feedback , it's just broken atm...

I would ask you to delay U23 for at least another 1.5 month , but i know you'll end up sticking up with your planned release date and that live will once again be the true beta ; d
It's been so long since SSG released landscape and group content , that it feels sad U23 seems so unfinished ; (
Everyone were busy with DDO i guess ? ^^

[elzeqq]

Some updates:

- We've adjusted the Tier 12 Crafted Morale and Power Potions. There was a number scaling issue, which led to the (awesomely but overly) large numbers in this preview. They will, however, still be quite nice.

- We are considering further differentiating the item level of new Lootbox gear from Tier 1 Instance reward gear, perhaps by lowering them another few levels. We are also looking at renaming the new lootboxes, and will revisit the flavor text on them.

- Older gear being available with the new vendor is a bug, and not intended. The older gear will be available with the older vendor, and the new gear with the new vendor, when Update 23 is released.

- Finally, we have been paying close attention to your feedback on Instance chest locks. We are working on making changes for these Instances to allow people to play with others at their preferred pace and schedule, while maintaining a healthy gear acquisition rate. To that end, we are looking at a system which offers Favored openings of a chest and Standard openings of a chest. A Favored opening would be a dramatically higher chance of getting desirable rewards, and be limited to a certain number of times within a certain time frame. A Standard chance of getting these rewards will happen during subsequent openings of the chests. The Favored status would be by character, independent of other characters in your party, so if you've opened the chest a lot, you'll have a standard chance, while someone in the group with you might have a Favored opening of the chest. It is likely the system will also have different numbers based on Instance difficulty, with more Favored chest openings on easier difficulties, and fewer Favored openings on higher difficulties, in proportion to the higher quality of the gear rewarded by difficulty. We are working on implementing some kind of visual effect that displays for you to let you know whether you will have a Favored Chest pull or not. We are still working on some of the details of this system, so names and numbers might well change.

You also need to understand that locks are not the only problem.

Another problem is itemization:
You are pushing constant recycled items through mordor into U23, we are asking for simple couple unique items that drop inside the instances, like gold pocket in SS. It can be any item in any slot, that people will grind for, because if the only items available will be barter gear just with higher item level, it will be really boring. Mordor itemization was extraordinary boring.


Another issue is diffuclty of the instances:

The instances are really really easy, i mean as of beta 2, those instances were absolute joke, they need some serious boost to everything
Also, like i already mentioned many times before, make sure you prior smart mechanics over pure damage, ToDT was a good example of smart mechanics.

[laughatdo0m]

Anything going to be done about Mordor instances still requiring LoE but LoE not being available on level capped gear? The Shadow system should be globally disabled if gear will no longer provide LoE.

[Cordovan]

You also need to understand that locks are not the only problem.

Another problem is itemization:
You are pushing constant recycled items through mordor into U23, we are asking for simple couple unique items that drop inside the instances, like gold pocket in SS. It can be any item in any slot, that people will grind for, because if the only items available will be barter gear just with higher item level, it will be really boring. Mordor itemization was extraordinary boring.


Another issue is diffuclty of the instances:

The instances are really really easy, i mean as of beta 2, those instances were absolute joke, they need some serious boost to everything
Also, like i already mentioned many times before, make sure you prior smart mechanics over pure damage, ToDT was a good example of smart mechanics.

The difficulty of the Instances is something we are looking at. Appreciate the itemization feedback, but it isn't likely we will completely re-do the U23 gear to align with your suggestion. Hopefully in the future we'll offer the unique items you are looking for.

[Cordovan]

Anything going to be done about Mordor instances still requiring LoE but LoE not being available on level capped gear? The Shadow system should be globally disabled if gear will no longer provide LoE.

Yes! There is currently a change planned for U23 that will give all races a passive trait at level 116 that will grant a certain amount of Light of Eärendil, with that amount increasing by the time you reach level 120. This is a brand-new thing added this week, with the current development numbers sitting at 20 Light at 116 and going up to 100 Light at 120, but those numbers are NOT final.

[Arnenna]

Some updates:

- We've adjusted the Tier 12 Crafted Morale and Power Potions. There was a number scaling issue, which led to the (awesomely but overly) large numbers in this preview. They will, however, still be quite nice.

- We are considering further differentiating the item level of new Lootbox gear from Tier 1 Instance reward gear, perhaps by lowering them another few levels. We are also looking at renaming the new lootboxes, and will revisit the flavor text on them.

- Older gear being available with the new vendor is a bug, and not intended. The older gear will be available with the older vendor, and the new gear with the new vendor, when Update 23 is released.

- Finally, we have been paying close attention to your feedback on Instance chest locks. We are working on making changes for these Instances to allow people to play with others at their preferred pace and schedule, while maintaining a healthy gear acquisition rate. To that end, we are looking at a system which offers Favored openings of a chest and Standard openings of a chest. A Favored opening would be a dramatically higher chance of getting desirable rewards, and be limited to a certain number of times within a certain time frame. A Standard chance of getting these rewards will happen during subsequent openings of the chests. The Favored status would be by character, independent of other characters in your party, so if you've opened the chest a lot, you'll have a standard chance, while someone in the group with you might have a Favored opening of the chest. It is likely the system will also have different numbers based on Instance difficulty, with more Favored chest openings on easier difficulties, and fewer Favored openings on higher difficulties, in proportion to the higher quality of the gear rewarded by difficulty. We are working on implementing some kind of visual effect that displays for you to let you know whether you will have a Favored Chest pull or not. We are still working on some of the details of this system, so names and numbers might well change.

this is all starting to sound a lot better now. Thanks for posting the results of Dev drawing board here for the players.

[MAWorking]

Yes! There is currently a change planned for U23 that will give all races a passive trait at level 116 that will grant a certain amount of Light of Eärendil, with that amount increasing by the time you reach level 120. This is a brand-new thing added this week, with the current development numbers sitting at 20 Light at 116 and going up to 100 Light at 120, but those numbers are NOT final.

Interesting.

[ArsSupervivendi]

Again, I apologize if my previous post sounded nagging, arrogant, bratty, childish, ignorant, or anything else.

(Shortened for easier reading, I read all of your post)


Accepted. And you make your point a lot clearer, now.



Thanks

[laughatdo0m]

Yes! There is currently a change planned for U23 that will give all races a passive trait at level 116 that will grant a certain amount of Light of Eärendil, with that amount increasing by the time you reach level 120. This is a brand-new thing added this week, with the current development numbers sitting at 20 Light at 116 and going up to 100 Light at 120, but those numbers are NOT final.

So players will be fine in Mordor landscape as soon as they hit 120. They will still need swaps with LoE essences or gear if they want to run CoS/DoN/AoM T2(c), but only a couple items. I guess that's a reasonable solution. Thank you for the quick reply.

[Fingerz]

Some updates:



- Finally, we have been paying close attention to your feedback on Instance chest locks. We are working on making changes for these Instances to allow people to play with others at their preferred pace and schedule, while maintaining a healthy gear acquisition rate. To that end, we are looking at a system which offers Favored openings of a chest and Standard openings of a chest. A Favored opening would be a dramatically higher chance of getting desirable rewards, and be limited to a certain number of times within a certain time frame. A Standard chance of getting these rewards will happen during subsequent openings of the chests. The Favored status would be by character, independent of other characters in your party, so if you've opened the chest a lot, you'll have a standard chance, while someone in the group with you might have a Favored opening of the chest. It is likely the system will also have different numbers based on Instance difficulty, with more Favored chest openings on easier difficulties, and fewer Favored openings on higher difficulties, in proportion to the higher quality of the gear rewarded by difficulty. We are working on implementing some kind of visual effect that displays for you to let you know whether you will have a Favored Chest pull or not. We are still working on some of the details of this system, so names and numbers might well change.

This is positive news Cord*, can you at this point provide some more clarity on the how the favoured chest opening works ?

Specifically If a 6 man fellow completes t3 run, I assume all players would have a chance of a favoured opening: player X opens chest and all players get a favoured roll of loot. If that same fellow re-runs the instance and player Y opens chest will they still get a favourable opening as they didn't physically open the chest on the first run and only player X will be getting the standard opening OR will all players now receive standard chest as the rule applies to the chest roll not the players physically clicking the chest to open it?

Sorry it's a bit wordy but hopefully you catch my drift.

* Really appreciate this, it's a game changer for me and many my in-game friends

[Fraushgrish2]

The difficulty of the Instances is something we are looking at. Appreciate the itemization feedback, but it isn't likely we will completely re-do the U23 gear to align with your suggestion. Hopefully in the future we'll offer the unique items you are looking for.

Dont forget that a 6 man needs to have better gear of some sorts then a 3 man, one of the reason no one was even slightly interested in naerband was because it was almost an hour and gave the same/less loot then CoS which was about 10-20 min

[Cordovan]

This is positive news Cord*, can you at this point provide some more clarity on the how the favoured chest opening works ?

Specifically If a 6 man fellow completes t3 run, I assume all players would have a chance of a favoured opening: player X opens chest and all players get a favoured roll of loot. If that same fellow re-runs the instance and player Y opens chest will they still get a favourable opening as they didn't physically open the chest on the first run and only player X will be getting the standard opening OR will all players now receive standard chest as the rule applies to the chest roll not the players physically clicking the chest to open it?

Sorry it's a bit wordy but hopefully you catch my drift.

* Really appreciate this, it's a game changer for me and many my in-game friends

The way it will work is by character, so for the example you gave, player X would get a Favored opening of the chest if they meet the criteria, and player Y would get a Favored or Standard opening of the chest based on what criteria they meet. That way it doesn't matter who opens the chest when; whenever you loot the chest, the loot available to you will generate based on what criteria you meet. The trade-ability of loot in the chest does indeed mean some folks who get a Favored chest opening could instead give their reward to someone who has already opened the chest a lot within that time frame, but we've had a LOT of discussion on this subject (as have you!) in recent days, and this still seems to be the best way forward. Please remember, though, that this system is very much being worked on, so things could change by the time Update 23 is released. We'll endeavor to let you know what those changes are as soon as possible, if anything changes. Once we get closer to the release, it's likely we'll be able to provide far more detail about names, numbers, and frequency.

[XbammyX]

This sounds close to how SWTOR handles this; subscribers there get an additional XP bar at endgame after hitting the level cap which awards a Command Crate (their version of a lootbox) when it fills up. Except there you can't buy these crates to open them at an accelerated pace like you can buy keys in LOTRO. If lootboxes were somehow limited in possible opening frequency in LOTRO there wouldn't really be an issue unless each box dropped a guaranteed 2,000 Ash or something crazy like that. The issue is buying keys and opening boxes gets you BiS gear quicker than running the content does, even though that BiS itself doesn't directly drop from the lootbox.

Quick note: SWTOR is published by EA, and even they have a less shady monetization plan going on than LOTRO does. That should be a wake up call...

I wouldn't recommend echoing the Command system from SW, it's so massively unpopular that they are disposing of the entire system entirely in 6.0. It's one of the major reasons many players have left.

Some updates:

- We've adjusted the Tier 12 Crafted Morale and Power Potions. There was a number scaling issue, which led to the (awesomely but overly) large numbers in this preview. They will, however, still be quite nice.

- We are considering further differentiating the item level of new Lootbox gear from Tier 1 Instance reward gear, perhaps by lowering them another few levels. We are also looking at renaming the new lootboxes, and will revisit the flavor text on them.

- Older gear being available with the new vendor is a bug, and not intended. The older gear will be available with the older vendor, and the new gear with the new vendor, when Update 23 is released.

- Finally, we have been paying close attention to your feedback on Instance chest locks. We are working on making changes for these Instances to allow people to play with others at their preferred pace and schedule, while maintaining a healthy gear acquisition rate. To that end, we are looking at a system which offers Favored openings of a chest and Standard openings of a chest. A Favored opening would be a dramatically higher chance of getting desirable rewards, and be limited to a certain number of times within a certain time frame. A Standard chance of getting these rewards will happen during subsequent openings of the chests. The Favored status would be by character, independent of other characters in your party, so if you've opened the chest a lot, you'll have a standard chance, while someone in the group with you might have a Favored opening of the chest. It is likely the system will also have different numbers based on Instance difficulty, with more Favored chest openings on easier difficulties, and fewer Favored openings on higher difficulties, in proportion to the higher quality of the gear rewarded by difficulty. We are working on implementing some kind of visual effect that displays for you to let you know whether you will have a Favored Chest pull or not. We are still working on some of the details of this system, so names and numbers might well change.

(Shortened for easier reading, I read all of your post)


Accepted. And you make your point a lot clearer, now.



Thanks

[Knight.]

Yes! There is currently a change planned for U23 that will give all races a passive trait at level 116 that will grant a certain amount of Light of Eärendil, with that amount increasing by the time you reach level 120. This is a brand-new thing added this week, with the current development numbers sitting at 20 Light at 116 and going up to 100 Light at 120, but those numbers are NOT final.

The requirement for Mordor Instances is 200 LoE.

If you are planning to add 0 LoE to new items (which is currently the case) that leaves a deficit of 100 LoE and forces us into using swap pieces to do Mordor content which is silly.
Surely it makes more sense to start at 40 light at 116 and go up to 200 light at 120?
Also as things stand there are no Tier 12 Light Essences in the beta (which makes sense provided the light issue is resolved properly)

I like the approach, but please adjust the numbers.

[Fingerz]

The way it will work is by character, so for the example you gave, player X would get a Favored opening of the chest if they meet the criteria, and player Y would get a Favored or Standard opening of the chest based on what criteria they meet. That way it doesn't matter who opens the chest when; whenever you loot the chest, the loot available to you will generate based on what criteria you meet. The trade-ability of loot in the chest does indeed mean some folks who get a Favored chest opening could instead give their reward to someone who has already opened the chest a lot within that time frame, but we've had a LOT of discussion on this subject (as have you!) in recent days, and this still seems to be the best way forward. Please remember, though, that this system is very much being worked on, so things could change by the time Update 23 is released. We'll endeavor to let you know what those changes are as soon as possible, if anything changes. Once we get closer to the release, it's likely we'll be able to provide far more detail about names, numbers, and frequency.

Many thanks, I better understand the proposed mechanic now and it seems like a great compromise to make the end game a healthier place.

Thank you to all those who influenced and fought to bring about this shift in instance play, both players and at SSG.

[Knight.]

The way it will work is by character, so for the example you gave, player X would get a Favored opening of the chest if they meet the criteria, and player Y would get a Favored or Standard opening of the chest based on what criteria they meet. That way it doesn't matter who opens the chest when; whenever you loot the chest, the loot available to you will generate based on what criteria you meet. The trade-ability of loot in the chest does indeed mean some folks who get a Favored chest opening could instead give their reward to someone who has already opened the chest a lot within that time frame, but we've had a LOT of discussion on this subject (as have you!) in recent days, and this still seems to be the best way forward. Please remember, though, that this system is very much being worked on, so things could change by the time Update 23 is released. We'll endeavor to let you know what those changes are as soon as possible, if anything changes. Once we get closer to the release, it's likely we'll be able to provide far more detail about names, numbers, and frequency.

I like it.

After all it's down to the person winning the loot as to what they do with it. Also an extra bonus to those running for the nth time that day to help others - in the sense that even if they are less likely to get something good, a solid chance still exists that someone you help may trade you something they don't need.

Thank you for seeing sense on the loot locks and coming up with a reasonable solution.

[B749]

I wouldn't recommend echoing the Command system from SW, it's so massively unpopular that they are disposing of the entire system entirely in 6.0. It's one of the major reasons many players have left.

Neither would I, but the post I responded to made me think of the CXP system immediately At least it would be better than what we currently have...

- We are considering further differentiating the item level of new Lootbox gear from Tier 1 Instance reward gear, perhaps by lowering them another few levels. We are also looking at renaming the new lootboxes, and will revisit the flavor text on them.

The issue isn't really the item level of the gear though. It's the pace at which we can get Ashes (or, as the new version is called, Embers) compared to the pace at which we get them from non-lootbox gameplay. If the lootboxes are a faster way to earn enough ash to barter BiS items like they have been throughout Mordor, that's an issue. Don't really care if they drop decent quality gear to begin with. I only care if they interfere with BiS gear progression and raid gear, and that's exactly what they have been doing so far.

- Older gear being available with the new vendor is a bug, and not intended. The older gear will be available with the older vendor, and the new gear with the new vendor, when Update 23 is released.

Does that include the bunch of cosmetics, steeds and housing items that were moved to the new vendor and now only barter for Embers of Enchantment, or does it strictly apply to actual gear?

- Finally, we have been paying close attention to your feedback on Instance chest locks. We are working on making changes for these Instances to allow people to play with others at their preferred pace and schedule, while maintaining a healthy gear acquisition rate. To that end, we are looking at a system which offers Favored openings of a chest and Standard openings of a chest. A Favored opening would be a dramatically higher chance of getting desirable rewards, and be limited to a certain number of times within a certain time frame. A Standard chance of getting these rewards will happen during subsequent openings of the chests. The Favored status would be by character, independent of other characters in your party, so if you've opened the chest a lot, you'll have a standard chance, while someone in the group with you might have a Favored opening of the chest. It is likely the system will also have different numbers based on Instance difficulty, with more Favored chest openings on easier difficulties, and fewer Favored openings on higher difficulties, in proportion to the higher quality of the gear rewarded by difficulty. We are working on implementing some kind of visual effect that displays for you to let you know whether you will have a Favored Chest pull or not. We are still working on some of the details of this system, so names and numbers might well change.

I assume this system is currently only being implemented for the new U23 Instances. Seems a fair solution to some of the concerns raised.
Any plans/potential to apply it to Mordor instances as well, and perhaps even to other scaling instances while simultaneously updating their loot tables to endgame-relevant stuff in the near or distant future?

Yes! There is currently a change planned for U23 that will give all races a passive trait at level 116 that will grant a certain amount of Light of Eärendil, with that amount increasing by the time you reach level 120. This is a brand-new thing added this week, with the current development numbers sitting at 20 Light at 116 and going up to 100 Light at 120, but those numbers are NOT final.

Interesting. Is that in addition to or instead of adding LoE to the level 120 gear? If it's in addition to, that's great. If it's instead of, the numbers will need to be tweaked (t2 Mordor group content has 200 Shadow by default + some mechanics which increase the Shadow beyond that). 200 should be a minimum in that case. Alternatively you could look at lowering base Shadow in the instances or extending this auto-granted Light to, say, level 110, to have it kick in as players venture into the tougher areas of Mordor; at a +20LoE per level rate that would render players immune to the effects of landscape Shadow by level 115 (it never goes beyond 100) and immune to the base Shadow inside Instances and the Abyss raid by level 120?

[Lord.Funk]

The way it will work is by character, so for the example you gave, player X would get a Favored opening of the chest if they meet the criteria, and player Y would get a Favored or Standard opening of the chest based on what criteria they meet. That way it doesn't matter who opens the chest when; whenever you loot the chest, the loot available to you will generate based on what criteria you meet. The trade-ability of loot in the chest does indeed mean some folks who get a Favored chest opening could instead give their reward to someone who has already opened the chest a lot within that time frame, but we've had a LOT of discussion on this subject (as have you!) in recent days, and this still seems to be the best way forward. Please remember, though, that this system is very much being worked on, so things could change by the time Update 23 is released. We'll endeavor to let you know what those changes are as soon as possible, if anything changes. Once we get closer to the release, it's likely we'll be able to provide far more detail about names, numbers, and frequency.

Now we're talking !!!

Sounds very good. Just don't change and tweak it, so it ends up ruined.

[Deadly_Myths]

the new % morale pots is going to be so op in moors, please disable them for the moors.

[Chagace]

The difficulty of the Instances is something we are looking at. Appreciate the itemization feedback, but it isn't likely we will completely re-do the U23 gear to align with your suggestion. Hopefully in the future we'll offer the unique items you are looking for.

I'm actually of the opinion that the 3-man instance is exactly where it should be at t2, unless you intend to make t3 impossible for anyone other than the min/max players that are really the focus of the t3 version anyways. Please don't make it harder until people get the chance to see the next tier. Anyone reading this needs to understand that for players that want to RP and/or play their favorite class despite the class' strength could easily yet again be edged out of being able to run the new content on anything higher than t1 if the scaling were set to match live. I'd recommend anyone thinking that the new instances should work like some of the old three mans try Sunken Labyrinth now with the mitigation drops from the balance pass to stats. Even North Cotton Farms is extremely challenging atm.

That transitions into the next issue, the unintended consequences of the stat changes. Classes that are heavily crit dependent are having issues right now on test if you check the parses if they aren't using agility (the I-win main stat). Why? Its because without getting crit rating galore from stacking agility, they have to try and up crit with only the few essence slots available. Unfortunately there aren't enough slots to let them catch up. Also with all the evade and parry agility grants they can afford even more stats into physical/tactical mitigations and can be nearly as durable as a tank while putting out top in class dps. Making agility, like the other stats give less contribution helps with this, but the stat is still too good. Honestly it might be time to just get rid of the main stat contributions altogether and just make mastery contributions be a separate stat on gear and mix the stats up again like it was in Shadows of Angmar. That or make might give more contribution to mastery than agility and even will since it doesn't give nearly as good stat contributions to dps classes as they don't use shields.

Also armor needs to give some more tactical mitigations, virtues need to give more tactical mits, and or there needs to be ways to get damage specific mitigations again. I don't know what, but enemies that do tactical damage in test are doing way higher dps to the tanks because even with stacked tactical mitigation essences its not possible to get tactical mitigation on a might or agility class even close to the cap. The min/max players won't notice as much as they kill the enemies really fast, but when you play a lower dps group you'll start noticing when say an orc archer starts shooting acid damage arrows and your tank fries.

Finally, I also want to say that the new content is beautiful, so far I haven't encountered any major bugs (other than presumably the RK lightning chisel's crit rating) and I think that with just a bit of tweaks the new group content, tier, and game play balance pass are going to make a highly positive effect on the game. I personally haven't been this excited to play the game in years!

[elzeqq]

I'm actually of the opinion that the 3-man instance is exactly where it should be at t2, unless you intend to make t3 impossible for anyone other than the min/max players that are really the focus of the t3 version anyways. Please don't make it harder until people get the chance to see the next tier. Anyone reading this needs to understand that for players that want to RP and/or play their favorite class despite the class' strength could easily yet again be edged out of being able to run the new content on anything higher than t1 if the scaling were set to match live. I'd recommend anyone thinking that the new instances should work like some of the old three mans try Sunken Labyrinth now with the mitigation drops from the balance pass to stats. Even North Cotton Farms is extremely challenging atm.

That transitions into the next issue, the unintended consequences of the stat changes. Classes that are heavily crit dependent are having issues right now on test if you check the parses if they aren't using agility (the I-win main stat). Why? Its because without getting crit rating galore from stacking agility, they have to try and up crit with only the few essence slots available. Unfortunately there aren't enough slots to let them catch up. Also with all the evade and parry agility grants they can afford even more stats into physical/tactical mitigations and can be nearly as durable as a tank while putting out top in class dps. Making agility, like the other stats give less contribution helps with this, but the stat is still too good. Honestly it might be time to just get rid of the main stat contributions altogether and just make mastery contributions be a separate stat on gear and mix the stats up again like it was in Shadows of Angmar. That or make might give more contribution to mastery than agility and even will since it doesn't give nearly as good stat contributions to dps classes as they don't use shields.

Also armor needs to give some more tactical mitigations, virtues need to give more tactical mits, and or there needs to be ways to get damage specific mitigations again. I don't know what, but enemies that do tactical damage in test are doing way higher dps to the tanks because even with stacked tactical mitigation essences its not possible to get tactical mitigation on a might or agility class even close to the cap. The min/max players won't notice as much as they kill the enemies really fast, but when you play a lower dps group you'll start noticing when say an orc archer starts shooting acid damage arrows and your tank fries.

Finally, I also want to say that the new content is beautiful, so far I haven't encountered any major bugs (other than presumably the RK lightning chisel's crit rating) and I think that with just a bit of tweaks the new group content, tier, and game play balance pass are going to make a highly positive effect on the game. I personally haven't been this excited to play the game in years!

Absolutely not.

First of all, the instances on bullroarer are extremely easy, they need massive buff. Northcotton farms are not EXTREMELY challenging!
The reason they were creating T3 was to create a new level of difficulty, not a new content for roleplayers.
People who want to RP will simply RP, not in T2/T3 instance.