Thread: Monster play issues and discussion

I really disagree with the idea of negative inf/ren if you kill somebody who is low rank- then people would just create greenies and attack the freeps, knowing if they get killed then the freeps lose renown.

My suggestions:
10s is the max cc time, unless reapplied, at which point it lasts 5s. After this you become immune.

50% snare cap, except falling damage

Fix the bugs- resiliance, stuns/mezzes breaking r6 reaver and weaver racials and wl buffs, steelweave broken, LM stun immunity stopping webs, disappear can be popped at will by freeps(If you don't know exactly how, send me a PM and I will tell you), you get popped out of disappear by a mez/stun/root which was in the middle of its induction when the warg disappeared(different issue than the one I just mentioned, and one way to fix this is allowing both HIPS and disappear to have a 10s CC immunity, but this should not break CC that was on them before they HIPSed/disappeared in the same way that reaver charge does not break CC on you, but only prevents new CC from working), weaver can be stunned while burrowing, weaver hatchlings don't attack rooted/stunned targets, weaver hatchlings sometimes randomly attack an enemy other than the one they were spawned to attack, warg claws animation is longer than it should be(for those of you who don't know, Orion did say that this was a bug and not an intended nerf)...I think that is just about all the bugs, although I may have missed some.

Tweak the raid infamy or give group/solo infamy a buff, because as it is now raiding is far and away the best way to rank so there is no incentive to either solo or join a fellowship.

Adjust the racials(ex. most of the reaver racials are useless, and some racials are just awful for the amount of time it takes to get them- eg, r11 weaver racial is a 2% ranged crit chance buff)

Increase the CD on sticky tar to 10 mins(is it possible to do this just in the moors?) In any case, LMs in pve shouldn't be needing tar more than that, but I would prefer not to nerf PvE if at all possible. Another thing that could help is giving sticky tar a max number of targets.

Fix trolls so they no longer have a threaten to attack message, as it allows freeps to just ignore trolls

I put this in order of most to least important, IMO.

Fix the lag is my last request, and I'm not putting this in the list from greatest to least because it isn't a PvMP issue, but rather a server issue.

Originally Posted by Frelorn

*snip* just be a player. *snip*

You heard it here, folks. Turbine team member advocates womanizing! No wonder wifey has increased aggro range!

Welcome.

I was glad to see Orion lock a thread, just to see him, nice to know they let him out of the dungeon.

PVP has gone through many changes, and I know Orion has talked about CC as on target.

My hope for CC is 50% slow max (except for falling dmg)

And universal immunity to stun/root/mez/daze/knockdown

This is also the order for me.

My two cents:

CC -- 30 sec stuns chain stuns and roots tar etc. all over again and again and again that take ur character from gameplay: not = pvp

The game has interesting combat and beauty of it is that u don’t kill enemy in 2 shoots, tho negative buffs that stuck and make ur character helpless through the whole fight is plain *@#%* in pvp. Lets fight not play chicken c*ap hehe.

I know freeps are design to run... afraid to die and attack in huge groups usually protected by bears on top of it but pvp players shouldn’t suffer all this annoyance I mentioned above because they chose to play creeps. I guess until things change most pvpers will sooner or later move to find a new home hehe, so if turbine is serious to keep real pvp expanding they should have an idea what to do by now.

PS Burglars ..no comments...

Man start by fixing all the bugs, hotspots,R9 wearver trait, TA quests goblin arrow and the holes, the CC immue trinkets don't even work right.Keeps need to be harder to take on both side 6 ppl should not be able to take a keep even if they are left alone. This means that 6 ppl can change the course of the fight dramatically. The bugs I would say are the biggest problem I mean its been countless books and still the WL buff "aura of command" still gets removed when stuned, but the freep passive skill were fixed within weeks of being broken. We need a new zone to play in I know every inch of the moors i can run from grams to GV blind floded with out hitting a single obstacle . Bottom line this game could be great just think of the it. Imagine if creeps started in Mordor and lvled like freeps with crafting had there own unique skills and classes. The battles were throughout various cities trying conquer gondor with layers and layers of gates to push threw and fighting at helms deep while nazgul (sp) flew threw out the sky. The free peoples would march to mordor and fight at the blackgates. While cave trolls threw rocks or something from the top of the towers. The evil eye look down upon them causing dread bring fear when the eagles come soaring bring hope to them. stuff like that would be cool

Just so there is no confusion, Orion is still going to have his presence here on the forums. He is however a Developer and has been very busy working on Developer type stuff, which can cut into posting time.

Thats where I come in. As part of the OCR team here at Turbine, I can spend some more time both here and in-game gathering feedback and information that we can use.

And I am sure that Orion will be more than happy to come here and smack me around if I get out of line.

Ok. Here's my 2 cents.

I'll choose not to address class/race specific issues on either side creep or freep for one reason. I believe balancing every class is a bad thing. I believe PvMP is unique, enjoyable and challenging because of the differences in skills, survivability, and power.

Now, having said that I think there are some serious issues with the overall gameplay in the moors (many of which were introduced with B12 in an attempt to fix earlier issues) that I'll address.

Some of the problems as I see it:

1> Risk v Reward : Renown/Infamy. Pre B12 there was a significant advantage to solo play and their ability to tag/damage or otherwise leech renown from raids. I am not suggesting a revert to those days or that problem, I do believe that the solution is far worse than the problem was in the first place. As a solution the amount of renown/infamy granted to a raid was increased. IMHO it was increased far too much. So now a raid of 24 killing an opponent gets approximately 360 renown. A solo killing the exact same mob would get 100, and a group of 6 would get 100. All numbers are totals. This becomes rapidly apparent that anyone looking for renown should be ganging up into groups of 24. Not to mention the kill is typically far easier/safer to achieve with a group of 24 than it would be solo or with a group.

2> Risk v Reward : Power Progression. Creeps have a significant power progression curve, requiring both DP and Infamy. This serves as a motivator for creeps beyond any PvP "fun" incentive. Freepside has no such motivation. Again, the 'cure' implemented in B12 exacerbated the 'raid or die' mentality. By introducing equipment rewards that was essentially different colored versions of Raid gear numerous (and I'd love to see the population statistics pre/post B12) freeps began playing with the intention of getting cheap, relatively easy to aquire gear that just a day earlier would have cost them 20+g a piece on the AH, or the option of multiple Raid runs. To aquire this gear required not only rank, but organized PvE and taking and holding Keeps. Keep taking has always been the purview of raids. Additionally the freep side witnessed a huge influx of new players spiking the population.

1+2 = 3> Both of these issues 'fixes' led to new problems. Now the moors have become a raid-centric endevour. Population talks now address the number of raids on either side, not the number of players, Zerging as a tactic to grind fast renown/infamy has become not only commonplace, but the one tactically viable alternative. (The full reasons and results of this are several pages in and of themselves) This in turn, dumbed down the moors, excluded small group and solo playstyles and left many people who played in the moors pre B12 feeling left out, passed by, and all around yucky.

4> Trolls / Rangers. Let it be known first off, I'm in favour of session play. I'm in favour of Trolls and Rangers as a tool. But the implementation is just not successful. A Troll (I'll use troll as a generic term for either) is useful when a side is significantly outnumbered, i.e. 24 to 8. It is abusive, annoying, and downright aweful when the side is not outnumbered, i.e. 24-24, or 8-24. Unfortunately there is a> no current game mechanic to prevent this from happening, and b> nothing really gating the use of trolls beyond DP and Tokens (items that are FAR to easy to aquire, and have no significant use beyond trolls for most players. The number of keeps held is not an indicator of current balance in the moors.

5> This one is my single biggest complaint, and a personal one. Renown/Infamy is split amongst players in a group/raid, whether the group/raid is nearby or not. If I'm in a group of 4 people, 3 of which are in some other zone working on alts, running early books I get 1/4 the renown for what is for ALL intents and purposes a solo kill. To my knowledge there is NO game mechanic that works this way in the rest of the game. Loot tables are distributed amongst the players nearby, exp rewards are distributed amongst the players near by, deed/quest completion, gold drops all of it is dependant on who is near by independent of who you are grouped with. This is EXTREMELY punative to those (admitedly few) players who play in the moors solo while socializing with friends outside of the moors. My friends choose to level/play alts (most have a full complement of level 50s) I choose to play in the moors. And I've lost out on by my conservative esimates about 70k to 100k renown due to this fact. In the end the game is a tool for me to keep in touch with friends who I now live several hours away from, so I've sucked it up. But this is poor game design, and not fair to different playstyles.

6> Introducing PvE rewards into the moors was counter-productive on several levels, but there's no unringing that bell. 'nuff said.

Some solutions:

1> Tweek renown/infamy again (shudder) so that the alternative to huge zergs of raids clashing against each other is viable from a renown/infamy per time/risk spent playing. I would suggest Raids should have a net sum of renown = to that of a solo kill, but not split by multiple entities. Example: Raid 1 (composed of 24 people), Raid 2 (composed of 20 people) 2 solo guys, 1 group of 6 all manage to 'tag/damage' a player who dies. Raid 1 should get 100 renown/24 each so about 4 renown. Raid 2 should get 100 renown/20 or 5 renown. The solo guys should each get 100/5 = 20 renown, due to 5 'entities' tagging the mob. and the Group should get (100/5(total entities)) / 6(total players in group) for a total of 100, but only 17 each player. All of which could then be modified by %damage done to the player in question as it stands now. But the base concept of reward should be somewhere like this. Otherwise it's just too much in favour of raids. As it stands now no one in their right mind would run in 4 seperate groups of 6 instead of a whole raid of 24. There is no reason to do this, because the rewards in a raid are better than in a group.

So members of the raid get about 4-5 per kill, members of a group/solo get their portion based on the relative numbers of other groups/raids/solo's out there engaged, and everyone walks away with a fair reward for the risk involved in killing said player.

2> Implement SOME sort of increased power for freeps with rank. This could most easily be implemented in two ways.
A> A 'moors' buff. Achieving a certain rank could give an aura only on in the moors. This aura could be as simple as as morale/power boost, or as complex as a class specific boost, healing/attack speed/armor bonus bonus. (I'd advise against too complex as it would potentially be really tough to balance) Middle ground would include things such as increased damage type mitigation, slight speed boost (like 2% at Rank8), and out of combat regens.
B> Equipment rewards that are moors specific. Items that would be junk in PvE, but very useful in PvMP. I've posted extensively on this topic in threads that came out with the announcement of Moors sets...but suffice it to say equipment of this type is not only possible, it would be the perfect solution for encouraging moors play and not as a tool for increasing your PvE power.

3> Fix the bug in #5 above. It's a bug. If it's not, then it's punative towards part of your player base and the overall direction of your game needs to be reconsidered.

4> Lock Troll/Ranger play based on 'moors population, not on keeps held. Yes this is probably a really tough one, but necessary. The alternative is to limit to 1 and 0 based on keeps. The other alternative is to make them 'painful' to being out...50k DP and 90 tokens would be a start...

Other Misc.

1> I know it'll be very tempting to tweek this class or this creep from time to time. I suggest the fact that not all creeps/freeps are made equally is very important to the moors. I'm saying this from the perspective of someone who predominately playes one of the weaker classes. If everyone feels underpowered and broken, then chances are things are nicely balanced. The fact that there are threads posting about how underpowered creeps are and threads posting about how freeps are now on the run in the same day is a perfect example of this.

2> I can only imagine the challenge facing PvMP when the level cap is extended. I have a lot of ideas on this front, but that's far down the road. Feel free to open that topic for suggestion any time.

3> The game needs to be fun for everyone, but not at the expense of the minority who were having fun already. See above for clarification. My entire post is essentially this point. B12 attempted to bring lots of new players to the moors, and succeeded. But it REALLY turned those who made the moors a dynamic and enjoyable place in the first place off. Proper consideration of 'fixes' and their ramifications is vital to the long term success of any game mechanic. The fact that my top issue is suggesting a fix for the fix, is a significant problem IMHO.

4. Oh, and as for camping et al. Camping is impossible. It would take multiple raids to completely seal off a rez circle or Grams. If new players cannot figure this out then they need to come back at a time that there aren't people there. It IS PvMP after all.

I'm sure I have much more to say, but this is the heart of it off the top of my head.

Well, here are some problems I'd like to mention, based off of the current state of Meneldor:

1. Lag- The biggest issue for me right now is the heavy lag in the Ettenmoors right now. Most of the time, during fights, I can barely move, and my graphics are at their very lowest. This started to get really bad after book 12 came out, because I could still fight before then at just very low. If this was fixed, I would spend double the time in the moors that I do now.

2. Unbreakable lag- As of Book 12, the spider's web should of been able to break on damage at some point. In return, the duration was increased. Yet it still remains unbreakable as far as I seen. Now, it lasts twice as long as it once did. This makes it so any target webbed in a large fight is almost guaranteed dead. The web should have a medium chance to break on damage (even low with steelweave webs would be fine).

3. Trolls/rangers- I'll just keep this simple. Trolls and rangers should have a infamy/renown reward when killed, and timer before they can fight again. This way, maybe trolls will be used more strategically.

4. Keep defense- This is more of a request. Right now, keeps aren't that hard to take. Maybe there could be more quests to fortify a keep to make it harder to take. Maybe to increase keeps' value, some keeps will provide quest to help fortify/attack a keep. To counter this, there could be quests to help assault keeps (allies, special siege weapons, weaken defenders, etc.).

5. More rewards on both sides- Let freeps have more of a point to rank up with maybe pvmp gear that could be as strong as Rift gear, yet would require higher ranks to obtain then the gear now. Also, make the actual gear require PvmPing to get the tokens. For Creeps, make more passives beyond rank 5 maybe (could end up changing the creep's portrait to elite or higher), and maybe some new skills for rank 8+. Also, maybe some more class traits for the higher ranks. Racial traits also need to be buffed so all of them are worth getting. This would make getting higher ranks more enjoyable

6. Get more DP from PvmP- They should make the quests that require killing freeps/creeps score kills differently (and maybe the deeds also). They could make it so that you just need to get a set number of hits or a set amount of damage (could be bad for low DPS classes or healers though). This could let us kill the opposite faction to get our DP.

That's all for now. I didn't bother listing CC, snares, hotspots, etc. because it's already been mentioned a lot. Thanks for listening!

I hope you brought your waders and some extra protection.

what you are going to see here are basically these arguements.

Creeps:

CC is to powerful nerf it all.

Freeps:

webs and such are to powerful nerf it all.

now for a little bit more of an objective view.

Creeps:

Do suffer from tons of CC. there should be a 10s standard timer on CC. They put in dimishing returns but it is not working the way it was meant to because of the different types of stuns and mezzes. If a standard time limit was put in place and 10 sec is plenty that would solve the problem. if the same mez is used again then it is 5 secs then it doesn't work.

As for farming well this is pvp there are safe zones and non safe zones. if you go out a lone in a non safe zone then you are going to get hunted down and killed.

So far CC is the biggest complaint. however it should work on both sides. 10 secs for roots and stuns.

Trolls/Rangers. the biggest issue there is no incentive to kill them and tons of disadvantages for freeps to get killed by them.

Freeps:

The biggest thing for freeps is becoming the size of the creep forces at this point. I am constantly run into 5+K creeps now, and in book 13 they are getting a debuffing class in the defiler. there are very few creeps unless new that aren't 5-6K. it is nothing for 1-2 creeps to take my hunter out.

i don't think all classes should be balanced either but i think that is the reason for all the cc as well. the creep forces are getting huge. it takes more than 1 freep to take them down now. i still think cc can be balanced out though.

now as a personal pet peeve i am getting tired of see nothing but resists go up when i use my hunter. i mean really it is stupidly annoying to shoot off ROT and always see resisted almost all the time.

are there issues yes. are they these huge gapping problems that people make them out to be no. there are some simple solutions to what is going on and a few adjustments.

1) CC. It is ridiculous. Either limit the freep CC in the Moors or enhance creep CC to match.

2) Debuffs (i.e. Dust In the Eyes) need to be balanced in stacking or allow creep debuffs such as Crippling Bite to stack in the same manner.

3) Creeps need more depth. People that choose to PvP as the "underdogs" are not morons and can handle more skills. Ranking a Creep is harder than leveling a freep as the only was to get infamy is PvP kills. Not from quests that include "run there and talk to so and so" or from farming hordes of mobs.

4) Realize that the high rank targets are ludicrous. How many years should we have to play before we get access to all of those racial traits?

5) Session play - since you won't get rid of it, balance it. Trolls and rangers are mostly grudge monsters. Nothing says "try PvMP" like a stealthed ranger one-shotting greenies by Grams. And give us something for bringing trolls and rangers down.

6) How about some limited item use for creeps? Even two jewelery slots each depending on race (but no rings... the Boss doesn't let us have magic rings for some reason) and the use of looted potions from the Fror? Or the ability to trade in items for stones of the same "grade" (teal for teal, purple for purple, etc.).

Wow, tons of long winded analyses. Gotta love PVP, never fails to get people fired up. Heheh, well I suppose in the interest of making my squeeky little voice heard, I'll reiterate what I said before:

An camping sucks.

Trolls/Rangers amount to game-sponsored griefing.

That being said, I think the moors are a lot of fun. Both sides can whine all day about balance, but I think that a ranked up creep and an average 50 freep are just about on par.

Originally Posted by Dwarflord

2. Unbreakable lag- As of Book 12, the spider's web should of been able to break on damage at some point. In return, the duration was increased. Yet it still remains unbreakable as far as I seen. Now, it lasts twice as long as it once did. This makes it so any target webbed in a large fight is almost guaranteed dead. The web should have a medium chance to break on damage (even low with steelweave webs would be fine).

4. Keep defense- This is more of a request. Right now, keeps aren't that hard to take. Maybe there could be more quests to fortify a keep to make it harder to take. Maybe to increase keeps' value, some keeps will provide quest to help fortify/attack a keep. To counter this, there could be quests to help assault keeps (allies, special siege weapons, weaken defenders, etc.).

2. Spiders web can break, and ive seen it break and pre book 12 it lasted 16 seconds, now it lasts 16 seconds and no your not guaranteed to die if your rooted, also stun removes roots so if a warg pounces you you're down for 3 seconds then back in it

4. Great idea, would love to see that implemented

When I see a Turbine name asking for what we think, I cannot help but reply.

I have been playing the game since closed Beta. I founded and still lead one of the healthiest Heavy RP Kinships on my server. At first I had little interest in the Moors; it existed primarily as a place where my high level members ran off to and got enchated by. Several folks quit my kinship just so they could join PvMP kinships.

That has changed. PvMPers may give Roleplayers a hard time, but in the Red Arrows at least, we embrace all kinds of LotRO play and that includes the Moors. We have a small group of PvMPers who spend a lot of time there now, and then come back to RP with the rest of us for social events and questing. Almost all of our high-level players have spent some time there. We even made the Rank 1 cloak part of our unofficial uniform, since the three spearheads look sort of like red arrows.

I myself have had fun there as my Captain. I'm not a very good PvPer, and my Captain is traited for healing, not DPS, so I am strictly support. But I can melee effectively by working with Raid Leaders, and I have more killing blows than I have deaths. The Delving of Fror has been interesting and I may return there -- but the steady camping of all the bosses seems like a waste of time and energy on the part of the devs. Surely that is not what you intended, and there might be a better way?

I worked up to Rank 3 to get a couple pieces of armour, and I spent a small fortune on Luminous Stones when camping drove me to death from boredom. But the number of Stones required to get the higher level items -- and the fact that I already have some critted crafter tier 5 items and don't need the whole PvP set -- means I have stopped going to the Moors for a while. I don't have any real reason to go, but I hope I get another reason soon.

I am looking forward to Volume 2 as an expansion of PvMP into a new area which I might visit. And I would like to see the Delving cured of its camping. I would like Tokens of Valour to be worth something. And why would I ever try to quest in the Moors when I get jumped by Wargs every time I try? Just get rid of the non-Raid quests; they're suicide traps. Unless, I suppose, you are a Burglar.

CC is definately out of line...

As a 43 LM, I could go in and be a tremendous help to the freeps, as I could mezz, stun, root, etc... but, it is definately overpowered.

As a Warleader, I've suffered from the CC as well... very painful, and frustrating... probably the single most effective way of making me not want to play creep-side.

As to whether CC should be nerfed to 10 seconds, or creeps should be able to gain resistance to CC, I don't know. I'd be ok with any improvement at the moment...


The other thing that is extremely frustrating is the effectiveness of the various 'sneak' skills. IMO, no class should be able to be totally invisible at close range. With some Mobs, it's probably ok, but with a player who just died, and is standing in an open field looking hard for enemies, it's ridiculous to accept that a pack of wargs or burglars could have him surrounded and yet not be seen... Very frustrating for any attempt at solo activity as either a freep or a creep.

When either GV or Grams are camped, there should be a trickle of mobs attacking the 'campers'. This trickle should slowly increase, both in number and in level/stats, until the 'camping' is broken. Just think about it... there's all these powerful orcs, and it's this massive evil-army gathering place, with those fell-arrows guarding it, and we can just stay a little out of range and pick off the lowbies that come out??? that doesn't make a bit of sense. Open the floodgates if the place is attacked like that.

Some Roaming Master Elites in the controlled areas would be good... Roaming Orcs or Evil Master Elites between Grams and DG, Lug if it's creep-side. Roaming Rangers between GV, TR, and that camp on the eastern side...

Well.. that's my two cents.

JS

Edited: the only exception to "no class should be able to be totally invisible at close range" would be a burrowed spider... I think they should be totally invis, and able to stay down pretty much as long as they want. It's a powerful skill, but it fits... and it's not devastatingly powerful like Mezzing or Sneaking. One minute isn't enough time on the burrow... the short one should be 5 or 10 minutes, the long one should be as long as they want.

Oh, I recalled one more suggestion, this one about the DoF-
If your side controls 2 or more keeps, then your side can go into the DoF. This would allow more actual PvP in the Delving if one side has 3 keeps and one has 2, so both sides could get in and PvP could happen. The current system means that after the 3rd keep falls and the ones in the Delving from the side that no longer has 3 keeps are killed, no more PvP can happen.

I played in the Ettens as a Hunter, Lore-master and Burglar. I know how Cc can hurt. I've been stunned off my horse and killed before I even woke up from the stun by Wargs all the time, to that extend that I stopped playing my Hunter and concentrated on my Burglar again (that was way before the Creeps discovered Burglars as their "number one threat", I just wanted the Find Footing skill to have a chance to leave GV again).

My thoughts on the state of the Ettenmoors, post Book 12 (Freep perspective):

* Get rid of Trolls and Rangers! Two Trolls will just roll the map and Rangers are griefing machines. I know that someone thought it was a good idea and put development resources in it, but be a man (or woman) and say "Well, that was a good idea, but didn't work out.".

* Since Book 12 the Moors have changed. It's mostly zergballs now. Roll the map, then into the Delving, farming stones. If you would at least make the stones BoA so the Moors isn't flooded with unranked Freeps selling those stones on the AH, that would help a bit. (I personally hate the Delving, none of the bosses really need a strategy, just zerg them. At least it's in line with the general state of the Moors at the moment Some people, however, seem to enjoy the grind, so I won't complain about it in general.)

* Creeps are complaining about slows. But Rank 4 Creeps (easy to reach since Book 12) get insane potions that give +20% run speed for 15 minutes with a one minute cooldown. Ever seen a Reaver on steroids strafing around you? It's insane. Not to mention how hard it is to catch up with them or getting away from them! Short time speed buffs are okay, but 15 minutes is just ridiculous.

* Maps. I dare to say that Creep maps are more effective than Free mounts. We spend the other day playing ping pong with Creeps between Lug and TR. Ride to TR, run in to defend, Creeps map to Lug and vice versa. (I thought they couldn't map in combat, so they are probably resetting the NPCs or jump out of the window or whatever. I don't care how it works, but it just stinks.)

* Grams / GV camping. It stinks. I don't want to camp Grams because it's boring and I don't want to be jumped by a Wargpack on my way out of GV because... well... it's no fun. I don't have a solution to that, but it stinks.

* Item wear. Get rid of it in the Moors! I don't make money in the Ettens, I only lose it. It really, really, REALLY stinks. Creeps can get rezzed all the time without getting item wear (every 5 minutes and AoE rez is a bit out of proportion to Free rez abilities btw.), but Freeps really take damage here. I would dare to say that seeing your equipment turn yellow or red in the Ettenmoors is my number one complaint.

* Give Freeps a way toearn Destiny Points. I don't want to play a Creep to get DPs, give us DP rewards on the tasks called "quests" in the Ettenmoors, for kills etc.

My last point is more something I'm concerned about, and that's the Creep healer class that is coming. Creeps say that Freeps have better healing with Minstrel, that is true, but the difficulty in taking out a squishy Minstrel compared to taking out a Warleader is in NO relation whatsoever. And that bubble is too powerful. After having been bubbled Creeps should get a debuff that prevents bubbling for some time. Also, offensive skills should be disabled while bubbled. Ever had a bubbled Reaver charge into a full Freep raid going for the Minstrel, killing her, and getting out nearly unharmed? Rinse, repeat.

It's already very hard to take out Creeps without a zergball with the insane amount of Warleaders around and the "buffer" of 5.000+ Morale Creeps have (compared to the less than 2.500 Morale Minstrels). Now they also get a "real" healing class? I'm trying not to whinge, but IMHO this concern is valid and shared by a lot of Freeps I know.

1. Earning Destiny points as a Freep would be nice

2. Oil on the keeps, almost totally useless on a Creep with 5k+ morale, but what about that minstrel with 2600 morale? Seems a bit one sided.

3. If you're not going to get rid of Trolls and rangers, could you at least make it so they can't enter keeps? As it stands right now it's way too easy to flip a keep with them inside.

4. zergs really aren't that much fun.

I disagree with CC being out of hand.
I don't agree it needs to be reduced, per say.

I DO agree it needs to be balanced and there does need to be an immunity period after being CC'd. Right now Freeps have a lot more of it and lots of variety for it compared to creeps.

There needs to be a 5-10s immunity that takes affect after Daze or stun (even if they end prematurely for whatever reason ie potions or damage). Daze and stuns on the same immunity timer. Meaning if you are stunned, the immunity applies to Dazes also, and vise versa. For both sides.

Root have its own immunity separate from daze and stun (you don't loose your defense capabilities when rooted is why). Fix spider root so a shorter duration root doesn't over write it.

Add a global cap on snares at 50% (highest single player snare in the game), with the exception falling snare can go over this amount and stack on player snares (the penalty for falling should remain harsh as it is). This is a biggie imo.

Give creeps may be not identical, but similar types, variety, and area of effects in their CC. This includes fear. And defenses similar defenses against CC.

With those changes, then give freeps the potions like creeps have for CC also.

May have missed a few things but for the most part the CC issue then would be balanced, and you can focus on other areas that need balancing.


Because as much as people hate CC, it is necessary with the way the combat system is designed. I think the people just wanting it nerfed aren't looking at the bigger picture. The vast majority of kills out there only happen because of CC. A decline in kills would actually only hurt Creeps more, because they need infamy to get stronger, freeps don't. And finally, direct or indirect nerfs to CC hurt those classes and players that play classes currently built around CC, especially when nothing is given back for what is taken away (for both sides).

Some thoughts for now (more coming later I suspect)...

1. People go to the moors to have fun. When someone goes to a PvP area to have fun, that usually implies they want to fight other players.

2. Spending 30 seconds mezzed, having it wear off, and two seconds later getting remezzed, or rooted, or slowed to the point of being slower than one of those slugs from the slug pits, essentially removes one from the battle. One wants to fight, but cannot. See rule #1, above. People go to the moors to fight, not to spend their entire natural lifetime mezzed/rooted/slowed/stunned/etc.

3. I think most people could deal with #2 if it only happened rarely. It's when it happens non-stop that it can become maddeningly frustrating.

4. So I would suggest lumping all such skills into two categories: hampering debuffs (those things that slow you or reduce your effectiveness, but don't actually prevent you from taking any action) and incapacitating debuffs (things like stuns/mezzes that prevent you from taking any action whatsoever). And in each category, after you have been the victim of one of those, you have a fairly substantial time period (2 minutes maybe?) afterwards where you are immune from any other debuff of the same category. So if I'm a creep and I just sat through a LM's mez, and a burgler goes up to me to riddle me...nothing. Or if I'm there on my guardian and I get hit with a BA's run-speed debuff attack (sorry, forget the name) then when that wears off, even if a reaver nails me with his hamstring attack, it will have no effect. What this will do is decrease the frequency but increase the strategic importance of using these effects.

5. Very rarely, if ever, have I see *either* a troll or a ranger show up, whether on my side or the other side, and have the end result be "I'm now having more fun." But always the opposite. They stink, they are unbalancing, they are too easily abused by being used by a side that really doesn't need them, and the fact that you get nothing for killing them is utterly ridiculous. Last I checked, there is a real pvp-er controlling that character. There is no reason why the other side should not get infamy/renown for killing him; and considering how hard they are to kill, it should be significant (10x or 20x more than what you get for killing a normal player).

6. There is really no incentive to level a freep. I know there is a real fear of being any sort of buff to the side that (in general) is already the more powerful side...but right now, a rank 8 freep is not one bit more difficult to kill than a rank 0 freep. A rank 8 freep does not pose the slightest greater risk to the creep side than a rank 0 freep. Something is really wrong there.

7. Renown/infamy gain should be based on the RANK of the enemy you kill...not this stupid artificial construct of "stars." A rank 1 creep who happens to have a star is worth more renown than a rank 10 creep without a star? Why? Does anyone really believe that rank 1 creep was harder to kill? Does anyone really think that, if this was "real life," there would be renown among the free peoples because I killed some grunt, rather than a great Leader of the forces of Angmar whose resume includes 1000's of lifetime kills? Can anyone explain this logic to me?

8. The amount of renown/infamy needed for higher ranks is beyond bizarre. The fact that, even at the post-book 12 "elevated" renown rates, someone could work (I won't say "play" because this takes it beyond the realm of mere play)...someone could work LOTRO PvP as a part-time job; that is, 20 hours a week, 52 weeks a year, and do that for 2+ full years ALL ON ONE SINGLE PVP CHARACTER and STILL not be terribly close to max rank. I played one of the famous Korean grindfest MMO's for four years, but I can say with some confidence that the grind expected of a player in the "second half" of LOTRO PvMP ranking (i.e. ranks 8-15) is something the Korean grindfest gods would smile upon. (Anyone else, I think, simply feels it's insane.)

9. My suggestion #7, if the amount rewarded for killing those of higher ranks was SIGNIFICANTLY larger, might actually come pretty close to addressing #8. Though honestly I still think the whole ranking curve needs to be just burned and reformulated from scratch.

10. Within a group/raid, renown/infamy is split equally among members (at least within range), as it should be. The support classes need to be able to advance the same as anyone else. Yet for the slayer deeds, this isn't the case--only the character getting the killing blow advances one tick on the slayer deed. Why? Again, it makes no sense, and it puts the support/non-DPS classes at a huge disadvantage.

11. Speaking of disadvantaged children (erm...I mean...disadvantaged classes), guardians still need some help. Most of our skills (and class traits) are focused on generating threat...a mechanic that is 100% useless in pvp fighting. There have been a fair number of suggestions floated on the guardian class forums as to how this could be addressed; if you haven't done so, it might be worth heading over there and looking at them.

12. Though I might be in the minority, I have to say that the most fun I have had in the moors (both as a creep and a freep) have been in large battles--raid vs. raid sized battles. That, to me, is when the moors feel the most "epic." I might be in a minority here, but a 3 vs. 3 battle just isn't "epic" to me. Please don't introduce changes that nerf the desirability of raiding.

13. Camping (Grams/GV) sucks. Do something to prevent it, or at least make it horribly difficult to do. One thing would be to have a LARGE, and I do mean large, zone around each place that is super major dread/hope (by that, I mean 9 or 10). Enough so that even a much smaller group of the "camped" could stand a good chance against a much larger group of campers. Or maybe have "trigger" locations where if the other side got within a certain distance, it triggered a bunch of NPC spawns (something akin to hornblowers, but at fixed locations and non-destroyable). If this were a real war, do you really think a group on one side could sit, unmolested, a mere 50 meters outside the front gate of the enemy..and stay there as long as they wanted? It just doesn't make sense. Some sort of NPC-spawning mechanism would address it and also be pretty realistic. (P.S. they would have to be REALLY hard, and not drop anything at all. Otherwise, I could see a powerful raid intentionally getting close and "farming" the NPC's for drops...)

14. You could introduce one or both aspects of #13 in a tiered system where the effects increased the closer you got. I'll take Grams camping as an example but it would be easy enough to do the parallel for GV. So starting at maybe 200 meters out from Grams (or whatever...definitely a distance farther than what hunters can track, that is the key)....starting at 200 meters out, it's 2 dread and, say, 6 level 50 elites spawn every 30 seconds as long as freeps are within this 200 meter zone. Then at 150 meters, it is 4 dread and 6 level 50 Elite Masters spawn every 30 seconds as long as freeps are within the zone. At 100 meters, it's 7 dread and 6 level 50 nemesis mobs spawn every 30 seconds, and at 50 meters it's 10 dread and 6 arch-nemesis mobs every 30 seconds. Now none of these mobs would be one-shotters, so theoretically a raid could decide to stay and fight them. But they would have no drops on them, ever, so the only real incentive to stay and fight them would be to hope that the creeps would be emboldened by the NPC help to come and engage in the fight, and have a much better chance of taking down some freeps in a weakened state as a result of battling the NPC's.

Originally Posted by Frelorn

I will be honest here and say that I think that camping the space where players return after death/incapacitation is one of the most aggravating things I have run into while playing PvP of any type. I know it happens everywhere, but that does not make any more fun for those who are camped constantly.

We are hopeful that we will be able to find some way of reducing or removing the ways and or reasons that players camp like this. No promises at this point, but this has definitely been a topic of discussion here.

I'm a new player but I think it should be rather easy to fix that.

You even have 2 choices...

1st (my personnal choice): when you retreat in a teleport spot cuz you died, give that player a 2-3 minutes immunity, where he can't be hit/kill by anyone/anything and can't kill anyone/anything either. Obviously, makes it immune not only to death, but also to hits otherwise they could be slowed, etc.. til the 2-3 minutes wears off. But 2-3 minutes would be more than enough to rejoin your group in most situations. Enough to leave the rez circle spot without fearing any lame burgs who can't get kills any other ways

2nd: Make an invisible zone around the rez circles (not TOO large, but larger then the rez circle guardians reach, otherwise they'll just wait out of their reach). If anyone is killed in these zones, the victim doesn't lose anything in that zone but the killer lose Infamy, as simple.

And another idea...

So far, the Troll / Ranger options seems cool. But sometimes, it's not at all...

Now, there's some quests you can't complete if you're in a raid group etc. Why don't we have the same aspect of restriction but inversed?

Make it so you can only roll a Troll or a Ranger if you're part of a raid group, otherwise the option wouldn't be available.

Saw this two times this week, we weren't enough anymore on both sides to get some decent action and a stupid freep decided to roll a ranger just to kick everyone's around... very lame and a very good way to push everyone to log out.

I'm a new player to PvMP just recently and exclusivly on the creep side. Rank4 Weaver.

I have had many nights of great fun so the system in general is a very good concept. But of course there are a few moments of frustration.

1) The numbers are usually in favor of the Freeps on my server. That in itself is not the frustration because we still manage to get our kills. The main frustration is when we know we are way outnumbered and some fool rolls a Ranger. I'm sure the same thing happens with Trolls to the freeps at times. It just seems that the ratio of freeps/creeps should go into the calculation for these slots along with keep ownership. Really no reason IMO that anyone should be able to roll a Ranger/Troll when they own the map and have superior numbers.

2) Motivation for playing creep is hard to find. Other than just something to do or just the fun of cracking heads there is no real reward for sticking it out as a creep. This obviously is another reason for the numbers issue. Something should be rewarded to a guy who spends weeks as a freep target to get more folks over to the creeps a bit more. Considering many of the creeps are from other servers, perhaps these awards should be account based so the accomplishments transfer over to their freeps.

Hehe - I don't envy your job of trying to synthesise all these view Frelorn! Lots of contradictory responses, of course.

My thoughts:

1. Rewards for Freeps

The freep armour is a great incentive. For a long time people playing freep-side wanted there to be incentives to reward freeps for coming out and playing, and the huge influx of freep numbers post book 12 shows that was a success. Complaints about the armour/weapons/jewelry not being enough of a reward mostly come from a minority of the player base who are over-represented in forum posts. I know many people in my smaller kinship are very keen to get various items from the ettenmoors, and so I know they hope that that doesn't change.

2. Fixing Bugged Creep skills

Weavers, reavers and stalkers all have bugged skills, which have been bugged for a long time. Weaver's traits to improve their webs, reaver's ability to resist crowd control, and the warg's claw attack are all waiting on fixes.

3. Crowd Control

The main problem is in the disparity. Limiting the length/duration of slows/hinders/mezzes/roots and stuns is a good approach, as would be giving the creep classes more options for aoe crowd-control to brek up freep formations in similar ways that the freeps break up creep formations.

4. Infamy / Renown Gain

I have no problem with this as it is. Freeps progress towards their later-rank gear/titles faster, and the average creep rank goes up, making for more even battles. Given how far away the higher ranks are I can't really see how it can be argued that gains are too high - it just changes the median point for both sides.

5. Balance

Is too much of a dynamic to be cotnrolled, really. These boards will always be full of people wanting nerfs to one side, class or ability, or buffs/additions to the same. Certainly the first 5 or so creep ranks are brutal, and any freeps complaining that freeps are overpowered are quite simply wrong. My impression from Landroval is that Freeps generate far more renown-per-hour-played than Creeps generate infamy, and that it evidence that creeps die much more and kill less than Freeps still. I imagine Orion will have access to the numbers to determine whether or not that is so. Some freeps who remember how easy all creeps were to farm are no doubt annoyed that ranked creeps provide more resistance, but when you start so weak there needs to be that incentive to get stronger creepside. The number of creeps at rank 6 or 7, where they start really being competitive, is still a marked minority of the creepside forces.

It would be nice to see other bonuses be available for various deeds/ranks though, for both sides. Small buffs to freeps reaching high rank, and small buffs to players on either side for achieving certain titles perhaps (though this is probably a bad example, as it would too heavily favour DPS classes at the expense of support classes).

6. Trolls / Rangers

I was against them initially, but now have to admit to having come around to them. They are often useful to break up stalemates or provide alternative ways to have fun in the moors. My main problems with them are that the ranger is primarily designed to be a griefing tool (hardly heroic), and that there are no rewards for killing either trolls or rangers. Something like making them worth 500 renown/infamy each would make them instantly less odious.

7. Money

Money-supply has dried up creepside, with the change to trolls that makes farming dwarves less effective. With the need to eat to counter the low incombat regeneration, and the need to have pots and trackers to counter freep cc and escape abilities, the amount of time needed for PvE in the zone has increased. That may be a development decision, but if not then please reduce costs on creepside consumables. Another option may be to give creeps something else to do with DP, like convert it to coin or barter consumables / delving stones with it.

I'm not sure what freepside repairs are like, but possibly a reputation vendor based on rank to repair items cheaper or for free would be worthwhile. The amount of high level crafting materials in the zone is also a boon to the freeps, but it could possibly be increased if you are looking for ways to further financially reward freeps.

8. Burgs and Loremasters

Loremaster crowd control + stun immunity is over-the-top. I enjoy playing my loremaster, but don't like PvPing with him because of how overpowered I feel. Just making the stun-protection unable to be cast on one-self would make them much less overpowered, imho.

Burglars are more overpowered in that their survivability is off the scale, and when combined with good melee and crowd control abilites, they become the ultimate PvP toon. The most overpowered burg skills are:
- stacking Dust in the Eyes;
- traited enrage; and
- green conjunctions.

By toning those down the class would still be feared as a ganker of greenies, and be valuable addition to a team, without being as OP as they are atm.

Wow, wrote more than I thought I was going to

Last thing is thanks for a great system - both sides are lots of fun, and the moors has been fun for me for nearly a year now, so must be doing something right

the lag is killer.
On Vilya it feels like the creeps have the advantage.

A few simple tweaks I think are all thats needed.

Make Delving stones BoA. Too many people that never pvp only show up in the dungeon without contributing anything to the zone, and when people that actually worked to flip the map try to get stones, they are outfarmed by the farmers.

Give the creeps alittle more CC to combat the freeps and tone down the creep side health.

Session play for either side should be disabled when that side controls all 5 keeps. Minimum of rank 3 to make a troll/ranger.

Make the ettenmoors unaccessable to freeps if they were on there MP. Its unfair for one side to be able to fight and immediately flip over. Both sides should suffer the same 2 hour penalty, pick a side and go with it, not flip to whichever side gives you best rate of return that day.

Please fix TA so we can finally have murder holes up and working for both sides.

Last but not least, cut raid infamy/renoun in half, at 8-12 per kill that is way more then fair considering the risk/reward raiders are putting up in pvp. Make inf/renoun gain optimal for 6 fellows at about 22 per kill and about 14 per kill with a group of 18. This doesn't penalize raids but it also encourages fellowship size groups to go out hunting because that is where the best gain is at.

I read that you had been PvEing a lot, and said you feel you have the Freep side of things, so you are playing a Creep. With that, there is a big difference in the PvP aspect as a Freep. Here are some suggestions to learn about game imbalance on Freep side. Note, I am assuming you know as much about each class as anyone, and know how to play them well enough to succeed:

Play a 50 LM or Burglar for a week or two. Play aggressively, but use only self-buffs/skills. Stun Immunity, HIPS, Touch and Go, etc. Count the number of deaths you have during that timeframe. If possible, parse the number of times you were stunned, rooted, pin-shotted or webbed and how many of those lead to death. If possible, get a rough estimation of how many times you evaded death when put in a rough situation.

Play a 50 champion for the same amount of time. Play aggressively, use self-buffs/skills, but you can also use captain buffs. One buff you cannot use is Stun Immunity (simply from the standpoint that its up to the LM to decide to give it to you in the first place). Count the number of deaths you have during that timeframe. If possible, again, parse the number of times you were stunned, rooted, pin-shotted or webbed and how many of those lead to death. If possible, get a rough estimation of how many times you evaded death when put in a rough situation.

Compare your results.

Those instructions alone will give you an idea of how night-and-day difference the Freep classes are in PvMP.

After playing the Champion, roll a r3 Reaver and acquire Charge!. Play as aggressively as you did on your Champion, count the number of deaths you acquired.

If you want more suggestions, roll a 50 champ on Nimrodel, change your name to Slither, play aggressively with the rules stated above, and see how many deaths you accumulate.

I'll give you the shortened version

1. CC, slows, mez, roots, riddle, DiTEs (all forms of CC that Turbine doesn't always call CC) need to be looked at. I don't know the solution, but creepside it's no fun. Immunities, better cheaper pots, diminished returns that works, something!

2. Bugs. On both sides these need to be fixed. Some of the creepside bugs have been around for a long time. I won't list them, but I'm sure others will or already have.

3. Trolls/Rangers. Bad idea from the start, both sides hate dealing with them. If you won't take them away, at least give us something for killing them. And please make the ranger less of a gank machine.

4. Freep repair bills are bull. Please remove this asap in the moors.

5. Lag in the moors is a big problem. I have a good rig, much better than the minimun specs on the box and post book 12 lag in the moors is horrible. Please look at what can be done server side to fix this problem, since we mostly agree that the issue isn't connections or systems.

6. Some classes have a harder time with titles or deeds in the moors. Get creative, give minstrels a deed for rezzes in the moors or something.

7. Freep imbalances between freeps are problematic. They don't have to be perfectly balanced, but certain classes are more difficult to play in the moors. It's getting to the point that everyone wants to play LM or Burg, since they're the godmode classes. Honestly, if you deal with CC well enough, the classes will balance out a bit.

8. Hunter DF - either disable it in the moors or give creepside an equal skill: either way, make sure that when the hunter dies at the rez, creeps actually get credit. It's the lost infamy that really burns creeps.

9. Make camping (Grams, GV, rez) a less desirable thing to do. Add some incentives, get creative.

10. The numbers game - Turbine's stated purpose (creeps outnumber freeps) has totally flopped. Find a way to balance things a bit, either limiting freeps in the moors, add buffs to either side depending on the numbers, or add dynamic npcs to help balance things when numbers are overwhelming.

11. Stop chucking things in the moors and hoping they will work. You have test servers for a reason, please use them.

12. Can I please get some ICPR or ICMR on my creep? I'll sacrifice morale to do it too, just give me some regen.

13. High ranks on both sides are insane amounts of renown/infamy. I'm not playing 10 years creepside to make r15.




More to come later Thanks for asking, and more importantly, thanks for listening.

Some have already mentioned it, but i have to agree.

-Max slow of 50%
-Increase CD of LM tar. The WL banner was deemed too powerful when it first came out, and was put on a 10m CD with a 2m duration. Did it make it less powerful? Not really, it came down to multiple WL's planning it out. Or in smaller battles waiting for the right moment to put it down. Not spamming it all over. WL's had to resort to tactics to use it, something LM's and their tar should learn. It's really sickening when I see two LM's put down tar pits and a 1/2 a raid of freeps stands right behind the 2 tar pits. They don't want to leave the security of their tar and hide behind refusing to come out and fight.
-of course immunity needs to be put in, as it is now immunity means jack for creeps!
-I think quest rewards should be able to give silver in addition to or in place of DP. most us higher ranked creeps have a large supply of DP and don't need it. But switch it up. Selectable reward type thing. Maybe instead of DP you could offer food, silver, potions. I don't think it's too much to ask for.
-Fix the murder holes! I have yet to see them work

Stars. Either make them go away, or make them worth having other than a status symbol.

Freep CC. Its beyond out of control. Stun/root/daze/mez/root/tar/many dust in eyes/walk backwards/dead. THis is how most deaths happen imo. Its no fun at all to be perma CC'ed in some way. Freeps have many many CC things and creeps have very few.

PvP imo should be fast paced for fun and excitement, theres no fun in dragging your feet at a snails pace just to get out of tar/webs. It really does cut down on the fun factor for me.

creep WBM need toned up a little bit or freep FM's need toned down a little. To bring them in line with each other, I personally would rather see them removed as there was no problems before they were introduced.

Trolls need a whole lot more power or some kind of skill/immune to power drains from LM's, a single LM'er can make a troll next to useless in about 5 seconds with a simple power drain, which of course goes thru trees,rocks, walls etc. Add to that all the other tar/snares etc it makes them near to no use.

Rangers, well imo i think they are not as bad as others make them out to be, i can kill way more creeps with a ranger than i can kill freeps with a troll in the same settings. I think if anything creeps should have another session character that is along the same lines as a ranger, and freeps should have a session player along the lines of a troll. Even it out some. or just remove them like most of the PvMP'ers want and have asked for for far too long now.

Grams camping...some people like it, most of the time its no fun and creeps log off leaving very little chance to even get out or to form a raid to map out and take a keep before been spotted by a freep and owned while taking said keep. Make the one shotters at grams and GV shoot further would help some, but really there should be random patrols around the area...instead of the 2k/4k mobs that just get mowed down in seconds and really can be ignored for the most part.

Welcome to the wonderful land of the Monster Play Forums, thanks for listening

My concern is if Freep CC and other abilities are going to be nerfed to make creeps better able to break CC (and because of this attack us more often), then creeps should not have the rediculous amount of HP that they have. I mean unranked creeps can start out at over 4k hp while many freep classes would have to cripple themselves statwise to get that high. I have to fight ranked creeps with over 8k hp while I have 2.5k HP. It gets a little frustrating. There are Warleaders who can solo the 44k hp bosses in the delving thanks to their high HP.
So, if your going to even the playing field for the creeps in one area, then please throw us freeps a bone too.

Originally Posted by BerenTelcontar

CC is definately out of line...

As a 43 LM, I could go in and be a tremendous help to the freeps, as I could mezz, stun, root, etc... but, it is definately overpowered.

Freeps can begin playing in the moors at level 40, so yes, a lev 43 LM should be able to be a help to the freeps.

I played both sides a lot, but now only play a creep. It was way too easy as a freep, not much of a challenge at all.

1. Freep CC, and anything that hinders a player, is way over the top. There is no creep CC to speak of. Spider webs and BA hinders are nothing compared to freep CC. For the love God, get rid of tar. The introduction of tar is the most unbalancing thing there is in the moors. At least let us set fire to it, and burn them off the tar, or make it slow both freep and creep.

2. I love trolls if they're used when creeps are outnumbered, which is the usual on elendilmir. I don't mind rangers, until freeps pull them out when they already outnumber creeps.

3. There are days when we have lots of creeps online, but then half of them don't pvmp, they're just there for DP, or to feed their freep friends renown. There needs to be a place where the creeps can go to farm DP, and be separated from the ones who actually pvmp....that leads to this.

4. There need to be limits on freep numbers, or creeps who are actually participating in pvmp should get buffs when outnumbered. Creeps can have 50 online, and then only be able to get a raid, or 1.5 raids together to fight freeps. There's just not much our numbers can do to 2+ raids of freeps...outside of a grams camp, and assassinate them one at a time with focus fire. Else, make creeps equal to freeps.

5. Freep zerg balls. OMG, that is so lame. No collision detection, and no chance of them getting hit by their own aoe spam is crazy. If you can force them out of the zerg ball, they take their ball and go home...even if they outnumber creeps 2 to 1. There probably isn't anything to be done about that, but it's still cheesy.

6. Creep controlled keeps should get buffs when there are a couple of freeps raids trying to take one. It's beyond easy for that many freeps to take a keep, even with creep resistance. Then it turns into a farm session, up and down, up and down. Without much creep resistance, they can burn down a keep in less than 5 minutes. They burned down a tyrant tonight in about 20 seconds. There's no challenge in that.

7. Please fix the bugs, spiders are screwed by being unable to web anything with stun immunity. Warg dps is neutered with the animation bug, and to top things off, shadow damage is becoming useless against many freeps.

8. Fix the bloody murder holes in TA. Patch notes have said you nerfed the damage, but the things have never worked!

9. Lore doesn't make a fun game for both sides. Make creeps equal to their freep counterparts. That's the only way to balance as it stands now with more freeps than creeps on our server.

Originally Posted by stranger7

My concern is if Freep CC and other abilities are going to be nerfed to make creeps better able to break CC (and because of this attack us more often), then creeps should not have the rediculous amount of HP that they have. I mean unranked creeps can start out at over 4k hp while many freep classes would have to cripple themselves statwise to get that high. I have to fight ranked creeps with over 8k hp while I have 2.5k HP. It gets a little frustrating. There are Warleaders who can solo the 44k hp bosses in the delving thanks to their high HP.
So, if your going to even the playing field for the creeps in one area, then please throw us freeps a bone too.

Ridiculous! Pure morale means nothing against freep dps, and I have never seen a creep with 8k morale. If there is one, he's crippled himself in other areas. A couple of creep classes may be tough, but the rest aren't. Spiders and wargs are very squishy in comparison. If not for hips and sprint, a warg would be nothing but an ancient iron node to be harvested.

As for soloing 44k bosses, I have seen minstrels do the same thing with much less morale.

Originally Posted by Wisdomandlore

1. Weavers need serious help.

On weavers, here are the immediate post B12 spider issues that need fixing before larger balance concerns can even be addressed.

This first batch are known bugs with no estimate given of when they will be fixed:

1. Steelweave trait after B12 was supposed to increase web length from 16 to 24 seconds; at present it does nothing and weaver web length caps at 16 seconds;

2. Loremaster stun immunity also prevents webbing; ergo a LM with stun immunity on cannot be either stunned or webbed; needs to be fixed so webs work on stun-immune LM

3. Born to Shadow, the passive trait, untoggles when the spider is stunned and goes to its one minute cooldown; this and other similarly bugged passive skills need to be fixed so they do not untoggle when stunned

This second batch have not been officially confirmed as bugs, but need to be looked at closely as to whether they are operating as intended:

4. Burglar Find Footing skill will also break the Burglar out of being webbed; not clear if this is what was intended;

5. Hatchlings will not attack targets that are webbed (I have heard this is common to the pet codes regarding CC, but Hatchlings are not really pets, as you have no control over them); needless to say any game mechanic that says spiders won't attack webbed prey needs looking at from a logical standpoint, but this is arguably also a severe disadvantage to their use especially in small fights.

6. In the comments right after B12 was released, Orion has suggested the chance of spider webs breaking would be reset from low to moderate; this is a change that definitely needs to happen sooner than later

7. Right now, stunning the webbed target breaks the web state automatically; given how few significant stuns/roots the creeps have, having a stun auto-free a target from webbing seems a bit much; should be looked at

8. This is an old issue, dating back to when Hatchlings were first introduced; Hatchlings run SLOW; it is easy for any Freep to outrun Hatchlings. Given that they are a DOT, delay reaction weapon that only lasts for 45 seconds (and is on a 2 minute cool-down) it is irksome to watch them fruitlessly chasing their Freep targets for those 45 seconds; please look into giving Hatchlings a speed boost so they can at least keep up. They can already be dealt with in so many other ways, and they can also aggro onto things other than the target (e.g. NPC that will then aggro on the spider); having slow Hatchlings makes them even weaker than they should be.

Aside from these, I would endorse the following two issues on balance:

- if spider CC is being weakened, they need compensation elsewhere to remain viable, e.g. more DPS or some other specialized role to add to their repetoire

- high-ranking weavers, like all high-ranking creeps, need to have the various enhancements they get for ranking boosted; right now several of the rewards for grinding tens of thousands of infamy are pitifully minor increases in resistances (e.g. weaver ranking from R7 to R8). Creeps that spend the time to rank up high are few and far between and we should be getting some love so that we can at least strike fear into a lone Freep; right now most decently-equipped level 50 Freeps can easily solo most sig Creeps no matter their rank.

Originally Posted by stranger7

My concern is if Freep CC and other abilities are going to be nerfed to make creeps better able to break CC (and because of this attack us more often), then creeps should not have the rediculous amount of HP that they have. I mean unranked creeps can start out at over 4k hp while many freep classes would have to cripple themselves statwise to get that high. I have to fight ranked creeps with over 8k hp while I have 2.5k HP. It gets a little frustrating. There are Warleaders who can solo the 44k hp bosses in the delving thanks to their high HP.
So, if your going to even the playing field for the creeps in one area, then please throw us freeps a bone too.

Also remember that freeps do considerably more damage individually than creeps do. Grouped up freep damage increases exponentially.

Yes, post rank 6, a warleader can solo one of the bosses in the Delving. Anything that drains power is death. The morale has nothing to do with it other than remove the lucky string of a boss doing three crits in a row. I did one today in approximately 35 minutes. Seems incredibly overpowered if you ask me. (/sarcasm off)

Minstrels can solo nemesis mobs. Just because one class can do something like that given unlimited time and no interference has nothing to do with playability against another thinking being.

Now, onto the tar: I have no issue with tar as long as it affects everyone who crosses it. It should also be flammable and a dot for any class that has fire to ignite.

Session players: Even freeps have to agree that it's just funny when trolls start playing freep golf. I know if I was hurled off the parapet and over a cliff it would be far more entertaining than dropping dead at the grams one-shots without ever entering combat. "~insertnamehere has drained your power for 1929 of unspecified". There is never any damage shown just insta-death.

Fix the bugs on both sides.

There are bugs that have gone on far too long that have been ignored. Fixing bugs should be a priority. I suggest starting a new bug list thread.


Keeps
This has been suggested by others and well received several times already. If you control all the keeps, lessen the number of guards on the keeps further from GF or GV. So if freeps control all the keeps, Lug would have much weaker defense than TR.

On the other hand, if you only control one keep. Say for example Freeps again only Hold TR, More guards should be available.

And vise versa for creeps.

Hot Spot debuffs
They hold no importance at all. Most of the time when taking a keep they are ignored. Guard distribution also needs to be re-looked at on all of them for both sides. The one sided nature of them needs to be thrown out also. Make them more important for taking keeps, so it might actually encourage people to take and defend them. Give the people defending them the rewards for taking the keep. For example if my group is holding one of the TR hot spots for the main raid, and TR is taken, my group if in the area of the TR hotspot should get the keep take reward also.

Originally Posted by Thane9

1> Risk v Reward : Renown/Infamy. Pre B12 there was a significant advantage to solo play and their ability to tag/damage or otherwise leech renown from raids. I am not suggesting a revert to those days or that problem, I do believe that the solution is far worse than the problem was in the first place. As a solution the amount of renown/infamy granted to a raid was increased. IMHO it was increased far too much. So now a raid of 24 killing an opponent gets approximately 360 renown. A solo killing the exact same mob would get 100, and a group of 6 would get 100. All numbers are totals. This becomes rapidly apparent that anyone looking for renown should be ganging up into groups of 24. Not to mention the kill is typically far easier/safer to achieve with a group of 24 than it would be solo or with a group

Per individual the totally infamy is still greater for the solo/small fellowship. On average when raided up I am getting between 10 – 24 infamy, the few times I have logged on and started fighting waiting for a raid invite I have gotten between 30 – 40 infamy per kill (just for leeching off the raid).

I for one do not want to see any changes to the infamy/renown gain. I spent too much time prior to book 12 gaining 1 – 9 infamy on average per kill because other people preferred to leech off the raid (IE benefitting them selves and not the raid that actually does all the work). Those who like to solo or run in small fellowships have lost nothing, you still gain infamy at the same rate prior to book 12 and you still have the benefit of running to the back of the raid incase the cr*p hits the fan.

PS. This is based on my observations from my server.

Originally Posted by Thane9

1> Tweek renown/infamy again (shudder) so that the alternative to huge zergs of raids clashing against each other is viable from a renown/infamy per time/risk spent playing. I would suggest Raids should have a net sum of renown = to that of a solo kill, but not split by multiple entities. Example: Raid 1 (composed of 24 people), Raid 2 (composed of 20 people) 2 solo guys, 1 group of 6 all manage to 'tag/damage' a player who dies. Raid 1 should get 100 renown/24 each so about 4 renown. Raid 2 should get 100 renown/20 or 5 renown. The solo guys should each get 100/5 = 20 renown, due to 5 'entities' tagging the mob. and the Group should get (100/5(total entities)) / 6(total players in group) for a total of 100, but only 17 each player. All of which could then be modified by %damage done to the player in question as it stands now. But the base concept of reward should be somewhere like this. Otherwise it's just too much in favour of raids. As it stands now no one in their right mind would run in 4 seperate groups of 6 instead of a whole raid of 24. There is no reason to do this, because the rewards in a raid are better than in a group.

First of all how would Turbine implement this? Would the freep/creep actually need to be solo (IE not in a group or raid)? As is just because you run across a solo freep/creep does not mean that they are not in a group or raid. If Turbine were treat everyone as being solo regardless if they were in a group or raid then those who were in a raid would truly get the shaft. Let me give you an example.. there is a large freep force pushing into Lug. There is a creep raid and several small creep fellowships there to defend. The creep raid is the meat shield/dps machine and with out that creep raid the freeps will more than likely have their way. In essence it is the creep raid that is taking the most damage and dealing out the most dps for the betterment of all the creeps. Why should the smaller creep forces receive more infamy than those doing the most work?

By your calculations a solo creep/small fellowship that tags the larger raids targets should get more infamy. Sounds like a win win for those who solo!

Originally Posted by Odysses

Please fix TA so we can finally have murder holes up and working for both sides.

Today on Vilya we finally got the murder holes up and working. The thing is once someone turns in one of the quest it is then closed for anyone else trying to get the quest (IE if you are the only one to get the quest and you turn it in then no one else can pick up the quest). The best thing to do is to have everyone that is in TA when the creeps take it back to run in and grab both quest but have no one turn it in until you are sure that at least 10 or more people have the quest and they are planning on completing it.

This is just a work around until Turbine gets it fixed.

Originally Posted by Frelorn

Just so there is no confusion, Orion is still going to have his presence here on the forums. He is however a Developer and has been very busy working on Developer type stuff, which can cut into posting time.

Thats where I come in. As part of the OCR team here at Turbine, I can spend some more time both here and in-game gathering feedback and information that we can use.

And I am sure that Orion will be more than happy to come here and smack me around if I get out of line.

Stun immunities should last longer.

Hindering shot is needs to be downgraded. BA damage could be upgraded.

Battles are more fun when the emphasis is on damage/healing and not CC superiority.

An issue I have is getting yeild at cuz of my pet, as a LRM. Captains can us banners in PvMP but we LRM need to still run our pets. I love having a pet, I love summons in games so I want my pet. IDK how pets can be improved for PvMP but any thing would be welcomed. or at worse LRM may need an alternative to pets

And whats with the MPs being able to brake my mez or root and i am stuck rooted or mez/stunned forever?!
There should be able use pot like the MPs to brake root/webs and stuns.