Thread: Update 6: Commendations Developer Diary

Any1 got info on armor price? How many com pet piece?

Originally Posted by biologic

Any1 got info on armor price? How many com pet piece?

approximately 3000 - 4000 per piece

As I understand, DP will be only be obtainable in PvE through levelling, not by doing repeatable quests such as Igash Lash or the Moria instance ones (Kill 100 enemies in 16th Hall).

Is that correct?

Originally Posted by uw1975

As I understand, DP will be only be obtainable in PvE through levelling, not by doing repeatable quests such as Igash Lash or the Moria instance ones (Kill 100 enemies in 16th Hall).

Is that correct?

Yes, that is correct.

What's the ETA on the Perks' replacement dev diary?

I'm sorry, but I think the 'commendations' are utterly ridiculous. My biggest problem is how much harder it is to get commendations than DP... The creep quest to take an outpost gave 2000 DP, now it gives a mere 100 commendations, and yet, my skills cost the same amount of commendations as they did DP before, and many things are MORE expensive. (7500 for a skin? please...) One of the things I liked about PvMP on the creep side was that I felt like I could get progress without spending hours upon hours grinding. (at least at my low rank) I dont feel that way anymore.. Hopefully you at the very least, increase the amount of commendations you get for quests, back to what it was in DP. This was foolish, turbine.

Originally Posted by LordSephiran

I'm sorry, but I think the 'commendations' are utterly ridiculous. My biggest problem is how much harder it is to get commendations than DP... The creep quest to take an outpost gave 2000 DP, now it gives a mere 100 commendations, and yet, my skills cost the same amount of commendations as they did DP before, and many things are MORE expensive. (7500 for a skin? please...) One of the things I liked about PvMP on the creep side was that I felt like I could get progress without spending hours upon hours grinding. (at least at my low rank) I dont feel that way anymore.. Hopefully you at the very least, increase the amount of commendations you get for quests, back to what it was in DP. This was foolish, turbine.

Totally agree, this "improvement" really lacks in good implementation. Reeks of incompetence but you know what we got a new war tab. Valuable Dev time and resources were spent on revamping the already revamped war tab, dont worry about the balance, the war tab takes much higher priority.

Seriously Turbine? Seriously? Do you guys even remember the "goals/objectives for the year" so far you made the Moors more imbalanced, introduced an awful new currency, exploited the store/p2w model, made an area of the Ettenmoors completely obsolete. But dont worry you guys fixed the war tab. Now I just got to contended with ministrels, champs, burgs, constantly zerg's flipping the maps for commendations, and farming 6k for audacity to make me more competitive, Ettenmoors is so much more fun since your contributions.

Originally Posted by LordSephiran

I'm sorry, but I think the 'commendations' are utterly ridiculous. My biggest problem is how much harder it is to get commendations than DP... The creep quest to take an outpost gave 2000 DP, now it gives a mere 100 commendations, and yet, my skills cost the same amount of commendations as they did DP before, and many things are MORE expensive. (7500 for a skin? please...) One of the things I liked about PvMP on the creep side was that I felt like I could get progress without spending hours upon hours grinding. (at least at my low rank) I dont feel that way anymore.. Hopefully you at the very least, increase the amount of commendations you get for quests, back to what it was in DP. This was foolish, turbine.

./agree

Not to mention that certain creeps and freeps on my server have been switching between sides taking keeps. Blue then red, then blue then red. From OPs to Keeps.

You have created a PvE zone. I don't want to spend all day questing to gather 40 commendations per quest. Neither do I support rolling the map blue and then red to farm commendations just to get one skill. 2,000 commendations for a R1 stance (warg)? Really? I've been playing all day - questing or chasing freeps (if they stopped their commendation farming to pay attention to me) to gather commendations. I managed to get it up from 285 to ±1700. All day nearly. And then what? I'll spend it on the skill tomorrow.. and then I'll have to farm again to gather 6,000 for audacity!

Not only are the commendations given for each quest too little, the quests have a HUGE cooldown of what? 12hrs? 24hrs?

Either:

1. Increase commendations given for each quest.
2. Reduce the cooldown of quests to maybe an hour.

And you could also give DoF its purpose back. Let us farm stones so we can barter them for commendations.

*edit* And to be honest, I'm a rank 9 warg. I've been playing this game since launch. I don't find it fair that I have to farm all over again to get a Rank 1 skill...

I think the purpose of the revamp was to make the Moors LESS of a pve zone. By reducing the rewards from pve quests in the Moors they are encouraging people to do more pvp and less questing.

Originally Posted by LordSephiran

I'm sorry, but I think the 'commendations' are utterly ridiculous. My biggest problem is how much harder it is to get commendations than DP... The creep quest to take an outpost gave 2000 DP, now it gives a mere 100 commendations, and yet, my skills cost the same amount of commendations as they did DP before, and many things are MORE expensive. (7500 for a skin? please...) One of the things I liked about PvMP on the creep side was that I felt like I could get progress without spending hours upon hours grinding. (at least at my low rank) I dont feel that way anymore.. Hopefully you at the very least, increase the amount of commendations you get for quests, back to what it was in DP. This was foolish, turbine.

/agree

PvMP was a fun place to spend time, but now new system forces the player to spend much more time in order to get a small reward. The ratio effort/reward is then only balanced by some Store purchases. And so PvMP is not fun anymore.

Originally Posted by mmdur1

I think the purpose of the revamp was to make the Moors LESS of a pve zone. By reducing the rewards from pve quests in the Moors they are encouraging people to do more pvp and less questing.

And it failed.. miserably. You should have been on my server today to see the map being continuously switched from one colour to the other to gain commendations. That was not PvP... that was PvE with a hint of PvP.

If you're raiding your commendation earning will be very low. Even solo the max I got commendations was 100 (and that only happened once). If you're getting 10-20 commendations per kill and you need 2,000 - 6,000 for skills/passives.. well... what can I say...

I saw r10+ wargs grinding all the way today on quests to get a skill for RANK 1 LOL WTH??!?!?
Same goes with Weavers!HOW are these ppl gonna even try these skills/revamps out?
These skills should be available to higher rank creeps by default.By the time freeps get full pvp set
with full Audacity and be ready creeps will be still begging to finish commendations to buy skills
I feel like a guinea pig in their little experiment for negative reinforcement and they will be like:
Lets have creeps to grind for skills also, even if its like 10 ranks below requirement and see what happens...
Hehe you got your skill right?nice ,here take your cheese(skill).
You wanna know how i feel from what i saw today? I FEEL ENRAGED
After that you are going crazy cause all that grind wasnt in vain ofc NOOOO it wasnt right?
but you will have TO GRIND ALL OVER AGAIN to GET AUDACITY.something that the freep side will achieve faster
And go grind for quests in an open pvp region...Well good luck with that


You see that dev who thought of that said that this would eliminate the pve chaos
But look at this!you are making things worse and WORSE.Seriously these are stupid ways to keep players occupied thinking that hopefully something might change while you think that you are achieving smth.

Originally Posted by Tangaar

I saw r10+ wargs grinding all the way today on quests to get a skill for RANK 1 LOL WTH??!?!?
Same goes with Weavers!HOW are these ppl gonna even try these skills/revamps out?
These skills should be available to higher rank creeps by default.By the time freeps get full pvp set
with full Audacity and be ready creeps will be still begging to finish commendations to buy skills
I feel like a guinea pig in their little experiment for negative reinforcement and they will be like:
Lets have creeps to grind for skills also, even if its like 10 ranks below requirement and see what happens...
Hehe you got your skill right?nice ,here take your cheese(skill).
You wanna know how i feel from what i saw today? I FEEL ENRAGED
After that you are going crazy cause all that grind wasnt in vain ofc NOOOO it wasnt right?
but you will have TO GRIND ALL OVER AGAIN to GET AUDACITY.something that the freep side will achieve faster
And go grind for quests in an open pvp region...Well good luck with that


You see that dev who thought of that said that this would eliminate the pve chaos
But look at this!you are making things worse and WORSE.Seriously these are stupid ways to keep players occupied thinking that hopefully something might change while you think that you are achieving smth.

Totally agree, and posted about it here in the Creep Forum.

I have a rank 6 Weaver, and now I have to regrind for all lower rank skills and Audacity for ranks 2-6.

Sorry, but this isn't good enough. This is the sort of system that cheap MMO's, flying by the seat of their pants, implement. For a AAA company like Turbine to treat their customers like this is absolutely shocking.

For me, it's a matter of principle. I have always refused to regrind, or restart characters, after large changes to systems. If this is required, it's usually a sign to move on to a new MMO.

EDIT: An easy solution to this would be to make skills/audacity (or at least lower rank ones) still purchasable with Destiny Points. This would prevent regrind for those with banked DP.

Must add that the "in-famous" commendations actually strikes both sides... today i entered with my main freep, my grd, and noticed that my "old" gear who should be geared by earning ranks, is now able to all kind of levels, but more disgusting to notices that i've ranked to close r9 for nothing, and now i must grind the comms to pick another gear.
Apart from that, as creep player i must grind and grind again with my creeps!!, all this process with every char...
Definitely that was a pretty bad implementation, a big fail, if you tried to improve PvP, start to think on PvP, not on making money by the people who likes pvp, and the newbies is apart, buy your creep at store *facepalm*, there was more ways to balance PvP, but i'm sure that people who played a creep and earned rank with years playing must be Happy to see how the effort they made is valued 30$...

Turbine and Warner just are making updates and improvements to fill their bags, at the cost of the loyal players who really like Tolkien's Universe... Store, pay to win, and now that #### called commendations... I just want to make a call, to all the people to NOT use the Store, we are the ones who must say NO, who must say STOP, and Turbine, please starting on your costumers service, a service last time we used took 4 hours on had a reply, start to think we want a real game, not a bussines project, got thousands of ways to improve our gameplay, but You guys always choose the only who affect us.

Greetings and Have fun

What ticks me off most about this new system is how people who have been playing for years have nothing to show for it. Wargs and reavers have to grind for low rank skills, freeps have to grind all over for the new armour because the current pvmp sets were just made useless, and none of the completed deeds gave us the commendations they will now give to new people.

Originally Posted by Fendrone

...and none of the completed deeds gave us the commendations they will now give to new people.

Psh, but freeps totally got those sick cloaks after Isen, right? Right?

I mean...what he said.

Originally Posted by Fendrone

.. and none of the completed deeds gave us the commendations they will now give to new people.

No, but they already gave you a reward, so unless everybody get the reward twice, neither should you.

Originally Posted by Spordo

No, but they already gave you a reward, so unless everybody get the reward twice, neither should you.

But they've rendered the old reward (Destiny Points) void (at least for Creeps).

So, by all means, don't award it twice, but at least let us spend the old reward (dp) on the same things the new reward (commies) can buy (skills/audacity).

Without this ability, on creepside, we have to regrind skills for ranks we've already passed (not sure how this plays out for freeps).

Originally Posted by Fledermaus

But they've rendered the old reward (Destiny Points) void (at least for Creeps).

So, by all means, don't award it twice, but at least let us spend the old reward (dp) on the same things the new reward (commies) can buy (skills/audacity).

Without this ability, on creepside, we have to regrind skills for ranks we've already passed (not sure how this plays out for freeps).

I'm sorry but so what? So you have to grind for a new skill which happens to be available at a lower rank than your current rank. You still have your previously bought skills, don't you? Skills a new player is still required to grind for.

Q. Why cap Commendations?
The cap is designed to limit exploitive behavior and encourage player participation with each content update. Additionally, by applying a cap, we are able to relax the restrictions placed on PvMP rewards, namely the rank requirements.

"encourage player participation with each content update" rather than rewarding past participation.

Making Commendations something you gain from current activities which theoretically would lead to more constant activity in the moors. Requiring people to actually play to advance rather than live on old accomplishments.

Originally Posted by Spordo

I'm sorry but so what? So you have to grind for a new skill which happens to be available at a lower rank than your current rank. You still have your previously bought skills, don't you? Skills a new player is still required to grind for.


"encourage player participation with each content update" rather than rewarding past participation.

Making Commendations something you gain from current activities which theoretically would lead to more constant activity in the moors. Requiring people to actually play to advance rather than live on old accomplishments.

Ah, but taking away "old accomplishments" is one of the worst possible things you can do in an MMO.

It creates an atmosphere where you are never sure if the developers are going to make a drastic system change and take away your previous work. Why grind again when it might be wiped out in a future update?

If the object is to encourage Moors activity, there are far better ways.

This was the lesson of the Star Wars NGE debacle. And we all know how that worked out for them.

Originally Posted by Fledermaus

Ah, but taking away "old accomplishments" is one of the worst possible things you can do in an MMO.

It creates an atmosphere where you are never sure if the developers are going to make a drastic system change and take away your previous work. Why grind again when it might be wiped out in a future update?

If the object is to encourage Moors activity, there are far better ways.

This was the lesson of the Star Wars NGE debacle. And we all know how that worked out for them.

They haven't removed anything. You still have all your skills, ranks, traits, deeds, titles, cosmetic items and so on and so forth. The only thing they have changed is the fact that you now have to do something to get the new things.

So...first off, we had to wait two years to even get updated armor in the Ettenmoors.

Then, when we finally got it, they changed it to where you would need stones and crests to get it.

Then it got changed to crests and brooches.

Now it's commendations.

All the while, those of us that play in the 'Moors casually (or that didn't exploit their crests and brooches) have had to, pretty much, repeat everything over three times since the first change to the gear.

Seriously, should we even BOTHER to try to get commendations, or is the currency system going to get changed AGAIN with Update 7 and/or Riders of Rohan???

Come on, Turbine, get your &*^% together and make up your @#$%^&* minds. I'm getting tired of the barter currency getting changed every time a new update comes out.

And what am I supposed to do with the crests, brooches and stones that are sitting in my wallet now considering that they are useless???

And why is there a 10k limit on commendations? Do you plan on selling us a way to raise it or something?

Originally Posted by Spordo

Making Commendations something you gain from current activities which theoretically would lead to more constant activity in the moors. Requiring people to actually play to advance rather than live on old accomplishments.

Until they decide to change things around again.

"Past accomplishments" include having to go through, now, three different currency changes since they've actually started doing things with PvP. Four if you count DP for creeps. Why should I bother getting commendations now if they are probably just going to change it AGAIN with the next update where I'll just have to grind the same stuff all over again to get the same armor?

Originally Posted by mmdur1

I think the purpose of the revamp was to make the Moors LESS of a pve zone. By reducing the rewards from pve quests in the Moors they are encouraging people to do more pvp and less questing.

If they want people to do less questing then why did they tie commendations to quests? Why not just take quests out of the Ettenmoors all together?

Originally Posted by Lykena

And it failed.. miserably. You should have been on my server today to see the map being continuously switched from one colour to the other to gain commendations. That was not PvP... that was PvE with a hint of PvP.

Same thing is happening on my server. The map was blue, then a creep zerg game out and flipped it to red, then a freep zerg game out and switched it back to blue, then - as of right now - it's back to red again, and the zerg even took the relic. All the while, there are NO freeps currently on. But, as soon as they flip everything, I'm sure they'll be on their freeps flipping the map back.

really???!!!! turbine???? you change the skill unlock using commendation instead of DP ? whats more easier? how bout the low rank freeps do they need to grind that much for commendations instead DP?

Originally Posted by Elderban

Until they decide to change things around again.

"Past accomplishments" include having to go through, now, three different currency changes since they've actually started doing things with PvP. Four if you count DP for creeps. Why should I bother getting commendations now if they are probably just going to change it AGAIN with the next update where I'll just have to grind the same stuff all over again to get the same armor?

Why should you bother? Because without them you won't be able to advance at all?

What with the cap on the Comendations it's not like you can hoard them anyways so you'll be spending them on skills you would've spent DP on before, I don't see how that's nay different.

To be honest, I feel violated....thats right, the same feeling as when you have had something stolen from you. I was sitting on hundreds of stones, enough chieftain/tyrant badges for 2 pieces of armour and 500k Dp....What did it equate to? 700 Comms....thats right, enough for a few pots, not enough for one sodding skill! It took another 3 hours of grind (avoiding the newly deified wardens) to get enough points to just buy the 2 skills for my spider to take advantage of the new venom mechanism.......

On top of it, I then find that you get a heap for gettiing the various maps - would it really have been beyond the wit of man to realise who had already earnt maps and back-awarded the comms?

So the aim was to engender more PvP? Was this thought through - I mean really? It strikes me that all it has done is increase the grind - and will probably see people rolling alts just to farm maps which appear to be the easiest way to get comms.

I have 2 other questions if anyone can answer?

- What is the point of DoF now there are no stones? (and therefore outposts)

- If Audacity R2 is 6k comms, are subsequent tiers also 6k or is there inflation - and if so what level can you get to before the 10k cap bites?

Originally Posted by Oren

To be honest, I feel violated....thats right, the same feeling as when you have had something stolen from you. I was sitting on hundreds of stones, enough chieftain/tyrant badges for 2 pieces of armour and 500k Dp....What did it equate to? 700 Comms....

exactly same feelings

Originally Posted by Spordo

They haven't removed anything. You still have all your skills, ranks, traits, deeds, titles, cosmetic items and so on and so forth. The only thing they have changed is the fact that you now have to do something to get the new things.

They completely took away the value that was created by grinding in Destiny Points (as it applied to buying skills), and almost eliminated that created in farming DoF stones.

Before the release of Update 6, it appeared there was going to be a fair translation of the value players created in the old system to the new currency. This turned out to be absolutely not the case, with people reporting getting only a fraction of the value of their banked stones when they were turned into commendations.

In terms of Destiny Points, the value as they apply to perks is not lost. But as they apply to buying skills they sure are. Not being able to buy skills at future ranks in DP was an acceptable trade-off to me, as commendations would be earned in the course of play while ranking up to those levels.

Not being able to buy under-ranked skills, however, negates the value of the time I spent ranking up. The value of that time is expressed in the DP I amassed. To have to go down rank again and reaquire new tokens that I already paid for with my labour is particularly galling.

Originally Posted by Oren

I have 2 other questions if anyone can answer?

- What is the point of DoF now there are no stones? (and therefore outposts)

Some mobs drop consumables, that's about all DoF is good for now, haven't heard of any other use for it so far.

Originally Posted by Oren

- If Audacity R2 is 6k comms, are subsequent tiers also 6k or is there inflation - and if so what level can you get to before the 10k cap bites?

As far as I understand, you can gather the 6k coms required for Audacity, purchase it and then grind for more comms if you like. Haven't seen any clear evidence stating otherwise, I might have missed it though.

Originally Posted by Fledermaus

They completely took away the value that was created by grinding in Destiny Points (as it applied to buying skills), and almost eliminated that created in farming DoF stones.

Before the release of Update 6, it appeared there was going to be a fair translation of the value players created in the old system to the new currency. This turned out to be absolutely not the case, with people reporting getting only a fraction of the value of their banked stones when they were turned into commendations.

Which they clearly stated up front that they would, there was even a conversion rate posted for the DoF-stones by some player once BR was up and running. Inflated DP-wallets has been a very common issue and I've seen people state that they have millions of DP.

Originally Posted by Fledermaus

In terms of Destiny Points, the value as they apply to perks is not lost. But as they apply to buying skills they sure are. Not being able to buy skills at future ranks in DP was an acceptable trade-off to me, as commendations would be earned in the course of play while ranking up to those levels.

Not being able to buy under-ranked skills, however, negates the value of the time I spent ranking up. The value of that time is expressed in the DP I amassed. To have to go down rank again and reaquire new tokens that I already paid for with my labour is particularly galling.

How is that any different from purchasing skills obtainable at a rank you have yet to achieve? It's a new skill which everybody is required to purchase if they want it. Calling that an issue and making a fuss about it seems rather petty to me.

Originally Posted by Spordo

As far as I understand, you can gather the 6k coms required for Audacity, purchase it and then grind for more comms if you like. Haven't seen any clear evidence stating otherwise, I might have missed it though.

I will rephrase the question - Is each level of audacity 6k - or is level 2 - 6k, level 3 - 7k, level 4 -8k etc?

Originally Posted by Oren

I will rephrase the question - Is each level of audacity 6k - or is level 2 - 6k, level 3 - 7k, level 4 -8k etc?

Audacity costa 6K per level, period. So 6K, 6K, 6K, 6K...

serious question: Can audacity be purchased at the store with TP?

Originally Posted by Thorgrum

serious question: Can audacity be purchased at the store with TP?

I bet my 1.2 million dp it will be added to appease the community backlash. Turbine are doing it as a favour to us.

Originally Posted by VoodooJack_EU

I bet my 1.2 million dp it will be added to appease the community backlash. Turbine are doing it as a favour to us.

Seems like the commendations are pretty high and demand would dictate a –convenient- solution to obtaining audacity faster. I doubt very highly that this was an intended consequence and there must be some mistake, has to be tied into previous deeds not awarding commendations, has to be….

I have kept my negative comments on previous pvmp updates quiet but I feel the need to voice my opinion on this Commendations/Destiny point change.... Dev's I think the commendation currency, as currently rolled out, is going to be misunderstood and not appreciated by the creep community. Please revert back to the old system and release changes in new updates that are better suited to fit the pvp community.

To the existing high rank creeps and freeps: I sympathize with what has happened and I agree you have taken a hit however I am most worried about the new low rank creeps than anyone else.

I speak as a creep and freep. Ive got 2 freeps that play the moors. Ive got 5 creeps currently and 3 are at a solid rank that allows me to solo and not die during every battle. That's basically what I want in pvp. Im not looking to be the OP mini or BA. What I want is good battles that come frequently. Honestly I am not concerned with how the commendations is going to impact my toons, both creep and freep alike. I am happy that I have enough classes on both sides that I will be able to obtain comms as needed to be good enough to advance. However if I was to be a new pvp player, primarily on the creeps, I would be very discouraged. I believe the comms are going to make it quite difficult and take an unreasonable amount of time to acquire a decent creep with enough skills/traits/corruptions purchased.

Regarding low rank creeps r0-3. So everyone is saying grinding maps is going to be the best way to get comms as a creep. If that is the best way I think it's a pretty poor option. 500 comms per crude map and 10 quests per map. That's no easy chore considering the quest givers are often freep controlled and your quests will all be on cooldown shortly. To buy 1 skill, 1 trait, and 1 corruption the total cost is 4500 comms. That is a total of 9 crude map deeds or 90 quests. Its been a while since I started a new creep but Im guessing in the first 3 levels a creep should obtain at least 6-8 skills/traits/corruptions. Without them that young creep is going to be pretty vulnerable and certainly poor at head to head battle. Unless your server is different than mine I find it common for greenie creeps to be left behind when it comes to grouping. So they are left to fight for themselves and ninja kills during bigger battles. Obviously the freeps are picking off the low rank creeps right away during a fight so how many commendations will they acquire during battle in a 2 hour period? They spend most of the time running back from rez. As a freep I acquired 500-600 comms in about 2-3 hours. Any creep class other than a BA is likely going to be lucky to get 200 comms in a 2 hour period (assuming they are low rank).

So what is a rank 0-3 creep going to do now when they try out the moors? They will find it very time consuming to acquire skills, traits, and corruptions (forget about appearances @ 7500 comms! seriously??). They will have a hard time surviving while trying to grind maps doing quests because the roaming freeps will slaughter them as usual. They will have a hard time grouping during larger battles when they have some chance of seeing some action. So the pvp experience is going to discourage new creep players. To me that is a big deal because we must have new players to account for the loss of existing ones. We can't assume the veteran ranked creeps to stick around forever. Inevitably some go and others must fill their place. Its the balance of creeps and freeps that make the pvp environment sustainable. If your population slowly becomes out of ratio then the play suffers.

I expect Turbine to offer some new options in the store in the next few weeks. Most skills, corruptions, and traits are already available for tp. Am I to assume that turbine is shrugging their shoulders and expecting the players to just cash in for more tp? Sure I guess that is a viable option for us. It will make all the difference for those that don't want to grind for weeks to earn the comms at a low level. However is that part of the mission statement for Turbine and LOTRO? Do you want an MMO in which the devs expect that players to spend cash to build their toons? That's ok if you do, its your business. But the following statements imply that the reason is of genuine concern to minimize pve, encourage player commitment, and make a universal currency (who was complaining about these aspects of the moors?)...

"-Make PvMP combat the primary source of Commendations, reducing the need to PvE for PvMP advancement.
-Place a cap on Commendations as part of a move to create a “PvMP Seasons” mechanic that encourages/requires player investment with each content update."

1. Commendations do not reduce the need to pve for pvmp advancement. If anything it is going to be equal if not more pve (for low ranked creeps).

2. A cap on commendations to encourage spiked efforts shortly after an update is understood but a bad long term plan. Reason for this is the spike is a temporary gain in play. You dont want everyone rushing to play for 2 weeks and then they all leave until the next new update. PvP population will dwindle once those high level toons have acquired the items they are buying (assuming that's how fickle the players are). A better model for sustained participation is to focus on the environment and encourage a desire to return to the moors day in day out. Ask the community what they like and try to accomodate them. So release new content within the moors rather than change the mechanics of how items and skills are purchased. Change the location of battle zones, change the structures themselves, add new npc mobs with new quests tied to them. Remove and replace quests for a change. Add new classes. Change the topography. I dont care if you leave the armor sets, skills and abilities, and defense stats alone. Some classes are inherently more OP than others under certain circumstances. As long as you create an environment that is desirable the players will be happy. But all I see from the moors updates is tweaks to the stats and skills. Messing with the commendations is now a totally misguided idea and in my opinion it is a missed attempt to improve the experience.

So obviously you are thinking "what this guy is saying will cost more money for development. is he willing to pay more for those changes?" Yes, actually I am. If you need to release an expansion for a new PvP environment that would require even VIP's to buy I would do that. If you need to increase the montly premium for better development then I am in favor of that. Make your money through the monthly premium not through the lotro store.

The moors was not broken before and it isnt broken now after update 6. I am asking you to stop devoting time and resources to aspects of the game that are of minimal concern. Work on something of greater need instead.

Voter

I for one play freep side and creep side cos i like the diversity.

I kinda abandoned freep side cos I'm fed up with the mindnumbing grinding, creep side gave a good alternative for that even though I could still use all the experience from freep side ...

Goal here was fun and ranking my char, but then the quests came and I felt unhappy because in some way i felt obliged to finish the quests first before pvmp'ing as it's gives lots of infamy. I know I didn't have to do them, but then again, a goal is a goal and I would feel guilty if I just didn't do them, kinda felt forced grinding again ...

Now, what else i have to do for a whole year except grinding, by the time i have my warg and weaver fully updated, my ba defiler and reaver full audacity and my other freeps the audacity as well, next to the new sets of the new update jewelry raids etc stuff ... there will be only pve and then have the new changes implemented again so rince and repeat ...

Makes me only very frustrated in a way after years of playing, its a drag to login now... exploring new mmo's willl be the next grind for me I guess ... hope to come back when people who change this game actually start playing the game and find out whats needed to be changed.. small things and improvements pls nothing else!

Originally Posted by Voter

The moors was not broken before and it isnt broken now after update 6.

You could have saved us some time had you started the post with this sentence. The problem isYou made some decent points in your remarks but you ended with this comment. This is an absolute statement and since the context of what you wrote was broad we certainly have to take it in a broad context. You of course are wrong, the moors was broken before U6 and is broken after. The reason why is Freep damage was increased dramatically with the uncapping of stats for the ROI expansion, creeps were not adjusted adequately to account for this. Audacity for all its promise has been implemented incorrectly, it should be a creep only fix. That distraction aside, this other distraction called commendations is a problem because it penalizes players who have put in the time and ground their deeds to get DP. Commendations were to replace DP but we simply didn’t get a conversion for any DP we had, we were told to spend them. The correct implementation would have been to afford some conversion to accrued DP, or a barter exchange where the toon could determine how much of the DP he/she earned could be converted.

So yes the moors were broken pre U6 and are still broken. Commendations are just a distraction from the DPS issue.

Thorgrum, I like your comments and agree with much of what you said.

Maybe what you and I are going to disagree on is just semantics. I am not ready to say the moors is "broke" because it is currently my favorite place to be on lotro. A lot of other players feel that way too. If the battles continue and we have some back and forth with the swing of dominance then it is working. Im sure you and I both have had some nights where we logged off disgusted, but we still come back.

The freep stats are not balanced with the creeps. Agreed. However it only takes one maybe two more creeps depending on their rank to compensate for this. We've all seen it before, you've got a raid of creeps barely staying alive against 12 freeps. A 2:1 ratio is clearly showing the difference in abilities. So my opinion on the stat discrepency is we creeps can overcome that with grouping and larger numbers.

The point in which creeps need to be in the majority to compensate for the freep stats is supporting my concern about the low level creeps not being able to rank up before they quit and take the easy route as a freep.

In a way the overwhelming number of orcs over men is quite in sync with the lore. Rohan didn't have 10 to 1 odds against the white hand. It was the other way around. I would love to see the freeps get overrun by a raid of low level reavers. How cool would that be?

Voter