Thread: Sapience please anwer - PvMP balance

Originally Posted by Stevo6

2.) Yeah because creeps a few hours old are totally effective in the moors.

I bet your few hours old creep is far more effective in the moors than my few hours old freep.

Originally Posted by PhantomPunkk

But Creeps will never = Freeps. And what is more, player skill will never be equal either. So your point is profoundly worthless. And as I said, again, even if Freep efficacy =Creep efficacy did occur, the populations would obviously change

You claim my point is "profoundly worthless" then you proceed to repeat it to support your statement. Nice.

Originally Posted by PhantomPunkk

. And as I said, again, even if Freep efficacy =Creep efficacy did occur, the populations would obviously change. Should I say it again? .

No, dont say it again, please. Just site your source. Or did you just make that up? A hypothetical, maybe?

It is sad to see that this thread is down to "I play freep nerf creeps i like to pwn".

I think we all want to have fine PvP in the Moors, we all want to have fun.

Being a cannon fodder is not fun.

When zerging is the only way to kill someone it is not fun.

Complete balance is not possible, we all know it. Thats why in my OP there was nothing about RK EC crits, Champ bubles and so on. I mention only two classes that are so OP that it kills the fun for creeps.

If creeps will go away from Moors Im not sure if Moors will be fun for freeps.

Originally Posted by doug01

No, dont say it again, please. Just site your source. Or did you just make that up? A hypothetical, maybe?

My source? The concept of causality.

Originally Posted by PhantomPunkk

My source? The concept of causality.

Humm..





















































LOLOLOLOLOLOL

Originally Posted by Chupakabara

It is sad to see that this thread is down to "I play freep nerf creeps i like to pwn".

I think we all want to have fine PvP in the Moors, we all want to have fun.

Being a cannon fodder is not fun.

When zerging is the only way to kill someone it is not fun.

Complete balance is not possible, we all know it. Thats why in my OP there was nothing about RK EC crits, Champ bubles and so on. I mention only two classes that are so OP that it kills the fun for creeps.

If creeps will go away from Moors Im not sure if Moors will be fun for freeps.

Im going to go roll yet another creep knowing I'm going to get rickrolled by freeps, then I going to come to the forums and QQ about it. Yea, I knew what I was getting into, I got into it, it happened just as I expected, and now I'm crying about it cause I dont like it.

Good news is, GW2 is on its way.

Originally Posted by l4j

I hear this over and over, that it's "so much easier" to rank up a Creep than it is to level and gear a Freep. While, technically, it takes more hours of seat time to get a Freep from 1st to 75th than it would take to get a Creep from Rank 0 to, say, rank 6, it misses the point.

A rand 0 creep can join a raid right away and be marginally useful. Ettenmoors is raid versus raid essentially and it's by design. Good 1v1 isn't really going to work out there without a slavish devotion to balance by several devs, and it's a side issue given that we're at war and not prone to civilized hero versus hero battles.

So once you accept that it's group oriented combat a lot of perspectives change. Creeps are easier to get going, you don't need to spend a year getting ready before you're useful, thus creeps are intended by design to outnumber freeps. Freeps are intended by design to be tougher and better equipped. This fits the lore. Both sides can be equally balanced if they compare larger numbers versus better equipped and stop focusing on 1v1.

PvMP should not be looked at the same way as horde versus alliance, or a guild wars style arena contest. Believe me if they do answer everyone's dreams and put som PvMP in Helm's Deep it will have even less focus on 1v1 and more focus about freeps being overwhelmed by large numbers of orcs.

so many opinions. Good reads, bad reads...PVE making like they own the game...again

First thing I will say, is I'm a raider. I lead raids on Elendilmir as well as small tribe groups or just small groups in general. I pretty much don't solo. There are times here and there that I do...but it is rare. And I play a spider 99.999999% of the time. When I have solo'd...I get beat by some classes (minstrel included), and I beat some. I hear a lot of complaining about a couple classes being overpowered, and freeps in general having the stronger hand...This is probably true. I for one will be someone that thinks that the minstrels have a few more resources then what would be considered fair in a 1v1.

So my thought process is this... This is a sandbox PVP area. It is open. there are no solo areas for 1v1s. There are no arenas. and this is an MMO. Massive MULTIPLAYER Online RPG. My guess is, that Turbine has designed the moors for group play. Creeps are weaker. Stop running into a group of 3 by yourself like a dolt and then complaining about it that they are op.

I find this amusing, Being a lower creep in SOA like all the others. A lot of creeps are saying it needs to go back to SOA. (I agree. that was the most fun) but Balance? Do you not remember that 1 freep could still take on 2 to 3 creeps. Is that different than today? Not really. The real difference is, that back then, it took probably 5 minutes for those 3 creeps to die. Now it takes 2 minutes. That, and 4 years later, people are more heated due to a long time of balance swings, False reports of updates, and general spit on by the community.

But back to what I was saying. After having some really heavy fights this weekend on E, I was looking at some of the statistics behind it. Raiding for probably 4-5 hours saturday night. Creep raid had probably 18-20 + Tag alongs. Freep raid had 24 + Tag alongs. Creeps tracked 34. I dont know what freeps had on track. Probably about the same. multiple Engagements led to wipes on both sides. Overall at the end of the night infamy/renoun wise, Freeps won coming in with 11K-12K Renoun while creeps pulled in 8K-9K. However. a 2K difference tells me something. The balance wasn't too far off. Both sides wiped, both sides came out close in points, and no one was thinking that OMG OP so and so.

So I have to come to this mind set. It is a multiplayer game. Group up. If you get smacked by a warg pack. Get your friends. If you get rolled by a group of minstrels, or a group of anything...Group up. That is what the moors are meant to be in my opinion.


Oh and I have said this before and I will say it again. People that say "oh this is a pve game...no moors blah blah blah" until Turbine comes out and says "we do not support PVP because it isn't supposed to be here", it is part of the game and deserves to be looked at just like your precious raids do...so pipe down and realize it is here. It is a product of the game and being that it requires a subscription to play freep, probably one of the few things that pay the bills. So being that we pay for your raid...We get a say. Bye bye

Originally Posted by doug01

Humm..





















































LOLOLOLOLOLOL

Impressive rebuttal, as always.

Exactly what part of "Either use the moors debuff on freeps to tone down their ridiculous aspects, or leave freeps as is but revamp creeps to match them" is so hard for the PvE crowd to get?

Originally Posted by Delmore

so many opinions. Good reads, bad reads...PVE making like they own the game...again

First thing I will say, is I'm a raider. I lead raids on Elendilmir as well as small tribe groups or just small groups in general. I pretty much don't solo. There are times here and there that I do...but it is rare. And I play a spider 99.999999% of the time. When I have solo'd...I get beat by some classes (minstrel included), and I beat some. I hear a lot of complaining about a couple classes being overpowered, and freeps in general having the stronger hand...This is probably true. I for one will be someone that thinks that the minstrels have a few more resources then what would be considered fair in a 1v1.

So my thought process is this... This is a sandbox PVP area. It is open. there are no solo areas for 1v1s. There are no arenas. and this is an MMO. Massive MULTIPLAYER Online RPG. My guess is, that Turbine has designed the moors for group play. Creeps are weaker. Stop running into a group of 3 by yourself like a dolt and then complaining about it that they are op.

I find this amusing, Being a lower creep in SOA like all the others. A lot of creeps are saying it needs to go back to SOA. (I agree. that was the most fun) but Balance? Do you not remember that 1 freep could still take on 2 to 3 creeps. Is that different than today? Not really. The real difference is, that back then, it took probably 5 minutes for those 3 creeps to die. Now it takes 2 minutes. That, and 4 years later, people are more heated due to a long time of balance swings, False reports of updates, and general spit on by the community.

But back to what I was saying. After having some really heavy fights this weekend on E, I was looking at some of the statistics behind it. Raiding for probably 4-5 hours saturday night. Creep raid had probably 18-20 + Tag alongs. Freep raid had 24 + Tag alongs. Creeps tracked 34. I dont know what freeps had on track. Probably about the same. multiple Engagements led to wipes on both sides. Overall at the end of the night infamy/renoun wise, Freeps won coming in with 11K-12K Renoun while creeps pulled in 8K-9K. However. a 2K difference tells me something. The balance wasn't too far off. Both sides wiped, both sides came out close in points, and no one was thinking that OMG OP so and so.

So I have to come to this mind set. It is a multiplayer game. Group up. If you get smacked by a warg pack. Get your friends. If you get rolled by a group of minstrels, or a group of anything...Group up. That is what the moors are meant to be in my opinion.


Oh and I have said this before and I will say it again. People that say "oh this is a pve game...no moors blah blah blah" until Turbine comes out and says "we do not support PVP because it isn't supposed to be here", it is part of the game and deserves to be looked at just like your precious raids do...so pipe down and realize it is here. It is a product of the game and being that it requires a subscription to play freep, probably one of the few things that pay the bills. So being that we pay for your raid...We get a say. Bye bye

I rarely reply just to say things like this, but:

Good post, dude.

(Good luck getting the "1v1>all" and "PvE>all" folks to understand, though. )

Without knowing time played, the statistics shown have little meaning in terms of population numbers. Plenty of creeps swap toons for OPs/Keeps, many freeps flip for the same reasons. Plenty of variance in there. I think a fair statement is that the population is 60-40 in favor of creeps as a mean number. I worked Surugi to rank 6 cutoff for 5/13-5/19, to try and ignore the casuals/PvE'ers on both sides and found some interesting data, of course can be inferred differently by others:

1.) High Percentage of Stalkers. Of course the number of wargs is staggering, but I blame Turbine. Wargs aren't "OP", its simply given the options among creep classes, it is certainly the most attractive to play. This will only lead to more burglars as average freeps get sick of being attacked from stealth.

2.) Hunters top Freep Class. For all the complaining about how terrible hunters are out in the moors, it is still the most popular freep class. If its such a traumatizing experience to play a hunter in the moors I guess they all must be gluttons for punishment. Should be playing a creep.

3.) Over 1300 Wargs r6+. Absurd how popular this class is. IMO, around rank 9 is when a creep will generally be extremely tough(barring TP purchases), tough times ahead for warg haters.

4.) Weaver's lowest infamy intake. On average, lowest infamy earner in the moors. Not sure about this one, given the update spiders had. Is damage lacking? Is it a soloing heavy playstyle?

5.) More R9+ Freeps than Creeps(!). This was surprising in that I figured with the ability to go F2P creepside that there would be far more creeps, good thing for high turnover to keep the farm running for Ma and Pa Freep.

6.) 4 F2P servers are relatively healthy for PvP. All 4 are among the tops for average Inf/Ren. Despite having low populations on some, looks like some dedicted Pvp'ers there. It looks as though the PvP may be lacking on the smaller older servers however.

7.) Populations of Brandy, E are roughly twice the size of the rest of the servers. In the cases of Crickhollow/Dwarrowdelf, active Pvper pool on E/Brandy is 4 times as large. The average player sees class balance through the lens of small group action.

Now your argument that Freeps are OP because of population is absurd. for one thing, PvE implications drive class design and balance. Secondly, It was already stated by the devs that design intent was not for creeps to have more numbers anymore. There are simply too many variables currently for that to be a rational design intent.

Was going to type some responses to the above, but frankly by this time none of us should expect anything to really change. If by some random chance balance 1:1 is approached in the future, you can rest assure it is likely not by design and will be short lived with another update around the corner (or even shorter as seen in the past). Too many variables (non-mirror sides, with different power curves and different "leveling" environments and experiences etc) when matched with too little dev time/resources to manage "balance" on an ongoing basis.

Unchanged the moors is going to suffer though imo.....

-Creep retention will suffer (new creeps aren't sticking around and vet creeps are leaving/logging in less)
-balance/comms/and solo playability are encouraging warg rolls on creepside (approaching 40%+ of pop now)
-large warg pop is limiting solo/small group viability of freepside for many players/classes
-this leads to zerg v zerg on larger servers during primetime....(often one sided map roll)
-...and lots PVE boredom on small servers and outside primetime on the larger ones.

Prolly the most relevant comment in this thread.....

Originally Posted by doug01

Good news is, GW2 is on its way.

Originally Posted by PhantomPunkk

Impressive rebuttal, as always.

Okay.

Originally Posted by PhantomPunkk

My source? <I have none>.

Fixed that for you. Your other response was so utterly inane that I can stop laughing at you everytime I read it


Causality in a hypothetical is your source....LOL...LOLOL

Originally Posted by Chupakabara

Hours yeah, skill or difficulty no. Yeah, sure, fighting green bears in bree is the same as beeing a food for freep gank team, not being able to finish at least a quest to earn 1/1000 of needed comms.
.

I ranked a Reaver in SoA when there was NO PvE infamy. It took me about a weekend.

Originally Posted by Chupakabara

Lol, go and start a defiler. Rank it to r5, then we will talk. After five years of LOTRO on my server there are only 78 defilers r6 or above. After five fn years. Yesterday (was sunday) only 7 defilers r6 or above got infamy.

It is such a pain to rank a defiler, that even if minster would need to level to lvl 99 it wont still be the same..

I just took a warg to R3 in less than 4 hours of /played. Extrapolating even conservatively means R6 in under 50 hours. That's NOTHING compared to leveling a freep. A SPECK compared to the hundreds of hours required freepside to even GET to the moors.

As for your statistics, 7 defilers above R6 playing in one day isn't really statistically significant.

Originally Posted by Chupakabara

Yeah man, you are right, creeps get more powerfull with ranks.... if they get that ranks. Do you know how long does it take to get to rank 8 at least?
.

Not long. In fact, it's nearly nothing in todays terms. I remember when R8 took over a year. Now adays. It's just focused play for LESS THAN FREEPS REQUIRE TO GET IN THE MOORS.

Originally Posted by Chupakabara

Freeps have no such power curve, right. They start at max right away. They go to the Moors when they feel they are ready for it, when they have LI, gear, everything. And dont start please about how hard it is to get good gear, lotro PvE is a faceroll, I know this because Ive done all of it (ok, all but Saruman T2 and FF T2 challenge, didnt have time to try it aafter u7). Creeps start with nothing, they have only moors to play and maxxed freeps as an enemy, not bree bears.
.

What I'm saying is freeps have no PvMP powercurve. A R5 Champ is pretty close to as powerful as a R14 Champ. In fact, one could suggest the R0 is likely more powerful because he's had more time to raid in PvE...all other things being the same.

And here's a newsflash.

It's ALL faceroll. VERY FEW fights PvE, or PvMp, are non-trivial. It's not about effort or toughness. It's about Time. Time served, nothing more. Never has been never will be.



Editing to add one thing: Across all servers...last week...R6 and above...There were more Defilers who earned infamy than Champions who earned Renown. 344 to 339.

Champions.

Take a minute. Let that sink in. THE sole freepside melee dps class in the game from day one. Supposedly OP. Compared to a creepside Healing class (in EVERY MMO always more rare than dps) added far far later into the development cycle.

http://surugi.com/lotrostats/index.p...ar=2012&rank=6

Originally Posted by Thane9

I just took a warg to R3 in less than 4 hours of /played. Extrapolating even conservatively means R6 in under 50 hours. That's NOTHING compared to leveling a freep. A SPECK compared to the hundreds of hours required freepside to even GET to the moors.

You're comparing apples and oranges. Why this fixation on /timeplayed......player versus player is more interesting then timeplayed vs timeplayed.

Originally Posted by Thane9

Editing to add one thing: Across all servers...last week...R6 and above...There were more Defilers who earned infamy than Champions who earned Renown. 344 to 339.

Champions.

Take a minute. Let that sink in. THE sole freepside melee dps class in the game from day one. Supposedly OP. Compared to a creepside Healing class (in EVERY MMO always more rare than dps) added far far later into the development cycle.

http://surugi.com/lotrostats/index.p...ar=2012&rank=6

Again your making a poor comparison. From a % stand point champs are right where you'd expect them at about 11-12% of the freep pop (ie 1 of 9 classes), defilers are at ~ 1/2 the pop they should be if all creep classes were deemed "equally attractive" to play.

Originally Posted by doug01

Okay.



Fixed that for you. Your other response was so utterly inane that I can stop laughing at you everytime I read it


Causality in a hypothetical is your source....LOL...LOLOL

Are you seriously trying to argue that when you change things, things contingent upon the things changed, don't change?

Originally Posted by apb8808

4.) Weaver's lowest infamy intake. On average, lowest infamy earner in the moors. Not sure about this one, given the update spiders had. Is damage lacking? Is it a soloing heavy playstyle?

From what i have looked at, damage lacking. There are a lot of checks that a weaver has to go through before their damage lands.

Audacity. at max you are removing 30% of my damage. Tactical Mitigation which traited can take out another 20%-30%, then resistances which is another 20%. so damage wise my tooltip says that I would be hitting for roughly 500 acid. with all of the checks through mits/resist/aud... I typically hit for 200 initial and just under 100 per tick on my dot(meduim armor)

Heavy: 150 initial, 65 per tick

light: 250 initial, 110 per tick.

compared to other classes...our damage is pretty low.

Originally Posted by doug01

http://www.surugi.com/lotrostats/?se...ar=2012&rank=3


http://dailystats.theblackappendage....ison?w=us&d=30


You really should research a bit before you assume others are making generalizations.

There is no dubt that the population on every server swings at times, but on average creeps easily control the popluation. Its not even remotely close on any server. To try to claim otherwise is just living in denile.

theres only two US servers that have equal flow of renown/infamy. ALL the rest favor creeps, by a large margin in some cases. You'll never achieve OPvP balance with a population so far outta wack unless you make it so that the outnumbered side is notably stronger on an individual comparison...Humm...where do we see that at?

You should really take a second to think about how those stats you just quoted are compiled:

To quote you,

Originally Posted by doug01

You really should research a bit before you assume.

The creep population goes up by 1 even if that creep was only logged on to flip an Outpost. Most Freeps will have only one main while most creeps will have one of every class; even if it's just to do daily quests.

You can click the renown tab to see what it looks like with the lowest numbers on the top and you will see that it is ~ 8:1 creeps down there.

There is not ONE US server where the average infamy is greater than the average renown gained. That alone shows us that freeps, on average, are doing better than creeps.

Why? It's is because many people, freeps included, make creeps to quest with during slow times. If the stats showed accounts logged per day the graph would be very different.

Tl;dr

Me logging in my 6 creeps to hand in daily quests to get commendations for my main creep =/= 6 creeps in the Moors at once.

Freeps flipping to creeps to quest for commendations =/= a creep that is affecting the balance of PvMP.

The simple fact is the numbers are far more balanced than you would like others to believe.

Originally Posted by Thane9

<snip>
I just took a warg to R3 in less than 4 hours of /played. Extrapolating even conservatively means R6 in under 50 hours. That's NOTHING compared to leveling a freep. A SPECK compared to the hundreds of hours required freepside to even GET to the moors.

As for your statistics, 7 defilers above R6 playing in one day isn't really statistically significant.

Not long. In fact, it's nearly nothing in todays terms. I remember when R8 took over a year. Now adays. It's just focused play for LESS THAN FREEPS REQUIRE TO GET IN THE MOORS.

What is this obsession some Freepside players have with how long it takes to level? Do you hate the in game content that much that the only thing you care about is getting to the level cap?

Seriously. If you don't enjoy the game, why do you play? LoTRO is not, never has been, and never will be, a PvP focused game.

Originally Posted by Thane9

What I'm saying is freeps have no PvMP powercurve. A R5 Champ is pretty close to as powerful as a R14 Champ. In fact, one could suggest the R0 is likely more powerful because he's had more time to raid in PvE...all other things being the same.

And here's a newsflash.

It's ALL faceroll. VERY FEW fights PvE, or PvMp, are non-trivial. It's not about effort or toughness. It's about Time. Time served, nothing more. Never has been never will be.

Doesn't that kind of make the point though? Considering how great the difference is between R0 and, say R9, Creepside?

And I will still argue that it's faster to get a Freep leveled and geared than it is to get a Creep over, say, Rank 10 or 12. Let alone 15.

I can name a lot of Freeps with 1st age 75's, maxed armor, capped jewelry, etc. How many R15 Creeps can you name?

Originally Posted by Thane9

Editing to add one thing: Across all servers...last week...R6 and above...There were more Defilers who earned infamy than Champions who earned Renown. 344 to 339.

Champions.

Take a minute. Let that sink in. THE sole freepside melee dps class in the game from day one. Supposedly OP. Compared to a creepside Healing class (in EVERY MMO always more rare than dps) added far far later into the development cycle.

Take a minute. Let this sink in. Statistics taken out of context are meaningless.

sapience isn't a dev, hes just the community manager, which means his job is just to socialize pretty much, and do announcements on occasion. So he isn't really authorized to say anything really as far as development is concerned since it would be bad for him if he went ahead and said something that the devs ended up deciding against. Pretty much the only person who would say anything is the poor individual they locked in the dark room for a month known as the pvmp development office. But the crowd is so disgruntled here, its no surprise they would stay silent.

Originally Posted by Notaforumguy007

sapience isn't a dev, hes just the community manager, which means his job is just to socialize pretty much, and do announcements on occasion. So he isn't really authorized to say anything really as far as development is concerned since it would be bad for him if he went ahead and said something that the devs ended up deciding against. Pretty much the only person who would say anything is the poor individual they locked in the dark room for a month known as the pvmp development office. But the crowd is so disgruntled here, its no surprise they would stay silent.

I know who Sapience is. His job is to comunicate with us. I dont know who dev is and honestly I dont really care. I dont expect Sapience to make a decision "ok, we will nerf this and buff that" by himself, I expect him to send a message to authorized persons and then tell us the answer.

BTW: Didnt you think that the crowd is so disgruntled here just because that "individual they locked in the dark room for a month" doesnt do his job that well? I dont know whose job is to communicate with us about PvMP (section of the game they charge money for), but the fact is that I cant remember when was the last post from devs here. Threads are ignored, nobody gives a damn about whats going on here. But Im sure that if I will make a thread "I want to pay you money to buy PvMP skills/Creep char/whateverPvMP but cant. Help me." I will get a response in 24 hours.

Originally Posted by ksjock

You should really take a second to think about how those stats you just quoted are compiled:

To quote you,

The creep population goes up by 1 even if that creep was only logged on to flip an Outpost. Most Freeps will have only one main while most creeps will have one of every class; even if it's just to do daily quests.

The freep population goes up by 1 even if that freep was only logged on to flip an Outpost. Most freeps will have only one main , which is by definition of being a "main", but I would never make the assumption that most freepside PVPers only have one level capped toon. In fact, IMO most PvPer have multiple level capped toons.

Originally Posted by ksjock

You can click the renown tab to see what it looks like with the lowest numbers on the top and you will see that it is ~ 8:1 creeps down there.

Even if you start at rank 6, creeps outnumber freeps 4:3. You can still try to argue those are just keep flipper though.

Originally Posted by ksjock

There is not ONE US server where the average infamy is greater than the average renown gained. That alone shows us that freeps, on average, are doing better than creeps.

Well, if your using average infamy to guage how well freeps/creeps are doing then use r8 cut off then compare. You see creeps are doing fine if not slightly better than freeps. So, its balanced at high ranks?

Originally Posted by ksjock

The simple fact is the numbers are far more balanced than you would like others to believe.

Simple fact? Please show me how you came to that fact? You have nothing other that anecdotal evidence that supports your "fact". There mounds of data over 5 years that shown, not only now, but through out the course of this game creeps have almost aways out numbered freeps. You have nothing outside of you own experience and opinion to support your "fact". When looking a data sets, unless you have real (as in not opinions or personal experiences) data to show otherwise you must treat the data set the same. IOW, you can't say a creep only logs in for a few minutes each day to flip keeps and then assume freeps don't do the same in a similar percentage when you have nothing other than opinon to support that assumption.

Simple fact is many more creeps log into the moors than freeps. At r3 and higher its .6 freeps to every creep. That is a fact.

If there was any creep number influx, or creep infamy influx, I would think it be less to do with more creep players.

Know how much PvE 'action' goes on since commendations?

Originally Posted by PhantomPunkk

Are you seriously trying to argue that when you change things, things contingent upon the things changed, don't change?

What was asked for is your source of information that you insist is true as to what will happen if freepside becomes F2P. It's never happened in LOTRO and since LOTRO has a pretty unique model for PvP and P2P/F2P options there is no way to know for sure. Any guess as to the effects on the freep/creep population is pure speculation.

Well, unless you're a prophet ...

Stating "causality" as your source in regards to predicting specific changes and their outcome is absolutely laughable. Its a general statement that make no specific claims as you did. Thats why I continue to laugh at you.

Originally Posted by doug01

Simple fact is many more creeps log into the moors than freeps. At r3 and higher its .6 freeps to every creep. That is a fact.

This is probably true.

However, I wonder how many of those creeps are 1.) R0 Freavers or 2.) Going to go PvE to grind up some comms. The ones at #2 generally only come on to PvE and avoid PvP if they can help it. Thats how it goes on Ridder anyways.

Originally Posted by PhantomPunkk

1. Track
2. Mount up
3. Now select tracking target.
4. ? ? ?
5. Profit

It isn't bad at all atm. If your server is full of raids of Wargs that refuse to engage anything that isn't alone that isn't a fault of the class.

I think it's funny you want to provide huge disincentive for stealth on Creep and think it would somehow be something akin to parity if you did the same to Burg. Freeps and Creeps have the same aoe/ranged/escape skill potential, after all, right?

Creep needs a strong stealth class. That or provide all the Creep classes similar utility skills that ALL the Freep classes have. You probably don't see as many Burgs as Wargs because the Freeps are all on Minstrels/RKs/Champs.

Btw the difference is 11% run speed betwen a legacied Find the Path and Fleetness Hunt and a stealthed Warg who is stacking run speed traits. Yeah they can go into March...but that infinitesimal induction has been the death of many a Warg - not to mention it would reveal the Warg to all the Freeps around you, who, if you aren't mounted to track, definitely are.

The only real nerf, I think, that'd be good idea to Warg stealth is their hips. The trait shouldn't halve the cooldown on it. It is pretty damn ridiculous to deal with Wargs who run 5 Min Sprint and Hips cooldowns.

Firstly to Untg99: Yea we tried that, it was quite succesful too. But it was still a matter of offering them something. So in order to make a warg pack of around 6 come up to ambush the one High Value target, you would have to make sure they would beat you, so we stayed as two hunters and one warden. Ambush and the 5 second knockdown was enough to kill off one warg at least. Still if we had offered less incentive, like adding a captain and therefore surivability, there would have been no success in it since there would not have been any more fights. This was before RoI though. With the brands and stuff this might not work again on these targets.

To Phantom Punkk: Yeah I said this works. But it works for one warg only. And when I see a pack of wargs running away from my group just out of sheer fear of death, though they might win if they consolidated their powers it is just frustrating. Still even when ambushed like surprising them trying to kill off a single target. You will only get the slackers, the dumb and the bold, meaning the ones that deserve it the least. There lies my problem.

And yes you can blame turbine and the class for the behaviour of these wargs, because they have created the incentive to play like this. I guess these people are not behaving like dicks all the time outside of the game but as soon as they step into this warg they do. I can not even really blame them. Some people are naturally prone to this kind of behaviour, aspect of human nature to get what you want with the least effort. And there is the reason to remove this incentive.

Of course the problem really lies in individuals on our server. People standing in the back screaming "Yeah, right!" while the fools and minions get slaughtered in the front. These are the HVT I was going on about and they know how to make a run since they are always the first to run. And not running to fight another day, but to run another day. Quite philosophical I know.

Right now it is the trend for them to come out in no stance, go into flayer to get the most defenses (though there is no need since they vastly outnumber) and if danger is ahead (like the ISB from a fresh hunter coming down of GY, dealing 2k damage) to drop flayer and hit disappear. Before these people would just give out targets out of stealth. So I guess it is an improvement, since now you can see them.

Originally Posted by Untg99

If there was any creep number influx, or creep infamy influx, I would think it be less to do with more creep players.

Know how much PvE 'action' goes on since commendations?

Yeah and this works both ways too. Especially before commendations you could see people roaming around the whole map doing quests. On both sides. At least that opened up more of the moors as a battlefield. Yet with commendations I agree there were a few freeps logging onto creeps to get them, myself included. That is mainly because the maps dish out so many commendations. Right now I guess this ceased because it was mainly the high ranks doing this, i.e the frequent PvPers. I guess the average player does not have the time to farm commendations an hour a day in order to be able to PvP on his freep in a couple of weeks time. Not by a vast number nevertheless.

Originally Posted by l4j

And I will still argue that it's faster to get a Freep leveled and geared than it is to get a Creep over, say, Rank 10 or 12. Let alone 15.

I can name a lot of Freeps with 1st age 75's, maxed armor, capped jewelry, etc. How many R15 Creeps can you name?

It takes around 5-6 days /played just to hit the level cap.

Then 6-8 r14 virtues.

6-8 LIs which unless you are extremely lucky will only include maybe 2 1st ages that will need on average 12 empowerment scrolls each along with the 3 star-lit crystals each and delving scrolls for each of them. And then you need the titles for those and depending on your class getting titles for 6-8 weapons takes either 2 weeks of daily solo instances or ~3 weeks of farming tokens for the +stat titles, and if you are really maxing out your character your main LI will require swapping titles which admittedly isn't hard at all after you get your other weapons/items their titles. And before any of those are even worth thinking about you need to actually get the symbols and an enormous amount of IXP even more IXP if you don't get extremely lucky with legacies, millions more leveling up 3rd ages to lvl31 for the legacy scrolls. And after all that you need (again depending on class) roughly 60 t6 relics and ~20 t8 along with around 20-25k shards. Let's not forget legacy stat scrolls that you need to farm lvl65 content for (inefficient any other way). And then crafted relics which means after you cap your crafting you need to spend ~3 weeks on maxing out your guild crafting and then the weekly CD on that relic really starts to slow progress down.

Then the faction rep which ranges from useful to needed.

Jewellery wise it not only requires rep (^^^) but either raid dropped or skirmish raid dropped often having 2 of your BiS the same so not only do you have to go in and hope it drops the first week but again the next, a few decent pieces you can craft. And for a select few classes moors jewellery is BiS for certain specs. Then you need orthanc sigils for your necklace and a clasp. Throwing cloaks in here you need a few scales another clasp or 2 and depending on class a few more scales or a +stealth cloak.

Then the audacity which for most classes isn't BiS past a certain point, which means you need ToO gear. And on every class if you are constantly running audacity gear you are doing it wrong, moors gear with the exception of certain set bonuses is only even close to BiS if you are being targeted. So basically if your goal is to max out your character you need a swap option that gives 7 audacity and that may be one set or 2 half sets whichever set bonuses you need. And then depending on class you need the ToO set and the bonuses from those you need. And then you need the rift set (captain especially) for the shadow clicky.


I'm going to stop here, I could go on but I think my point is made.

Keep in mind that 90% of that is going to be trashed as soon as the next expansion hits, or earlier.

And for a freep that has played since launch they have had to trash a huge amount of gear and LIs along with several other things.

I can and have hit r9 at 1 week /played many others have too. As long as you actually play the game it's easy to keep between 500-1500 or more infamy coming in per hour depending on play style and group size. 15 solo kills in an hour is easy enough even on slow days. And if it really is too slow to even get that much per hour you can either log off because PvP happens to be dead at that time or PvE and pull in more per hour, though quests offer a finite amount per character per day so it's just a time filler until people start to show up.

Rank only goes one way, when the next expansion comes around it will take maybe 2 days /played (for casual PvP players) to get any new skills and the next set of audacity and during that time I expect the faster leveling crowd will just be getting to the new level cap (we haven't seen how long it will take to get from lvl75 to lvl85 but I'm betting on ~30h for the fastest).

Originally Posted by Selebrimbor

However, I wonder how many of those creeps are 1.) R0 Freavers

None of them are, the cut off is rank 3 and higher. Even if you set the cut off at r6 which, IMO, eliminates most, if not all non-PVP creeps you'll see creeps still enjoy a significant population advantage.

Originally Posted by Selebrimbor

or 2.) Going to go PvE to grind up some comms. The ones at #2 generally only come on to PvE and avoid PvP if they can help it. Thats how it goes on Ridder anyways.

Yea, I think the ones in #2 do effect the number of actual PvP creeps, but unfortunately theres no data available that is capable of sorting those out from creeps that actually PvP.

I'm sorry but you don't get to drag out the old "it takes time to lvl a freep QQ and then go right on to claim that freeps are running about with as many Moors alts, to flip OP's and such, as creeps.

Originally Posted by doug01

I bet your few hours old creep is far more effective in the moors than my few hours old freep.

And as for your garbage about only low ranked creep toons will be used for farming commendations; check my rank 9 spider's history (markwebber, Elendilmir) or look at any of my other creeps, they aren't hidden. I don't have a single creep below rank 7 but I only play 2, warg and my BA sometimes when the freep zerg is about flipping keeps. This is due to commendations. Every time the others are logged on it has been to do quests. I might get the odd kill while doing it but most of their inf would be from map quests.

Is my experience unique? I hardly think so.

To me you just come across as a petulant mini that will grasp at anything rather than accepting the obvious truth; you are playing (and loving it too I'd say) the most unbalanced class ever to roam the Ettenmoors.
So I’m going stick with the opinion of 90% of the high ranked Mini’s out there who admit they are OP and are calling for their class to be adjusted so that they can play them again in the moors without feeling cheap.


P.s. I'm also going to call shenanigans on the "mini's need to be this way for PvE" BS.

I was talking to a well respected creep, in my tribe, just last night about her Freep main that is a mini. She informed me that she is soloing some of the lvl 75 three man instances. Now I don't know about you all but if Turbine designed these to be run by a small fellowship and a mini is soloing them, easily, then there is something wrong with the class as a whole not just in PvMP.

Originally Posted by ksjock

And as for your garbage about only low ranked creep toons will be used for farming commendations; check my rank 9 spider's history (markwebber, Elendilmir) or look at any of my other creeps, they aren't hidden. I don't have a single creep below rank 7 but I only play 1 ATM due to commendations. Every time the others are logged on it has been to do quests.

Not sure you have the right guy. I never said low ranked creeps are used for farming comms, In fact I dont believe that all. I think all creeps farm comms. I think all high ranked creep were at one point low ranked so to assume the only purpose that low ranked creeps are played is to farm comms is absurd. .

Originally Posted by ksjock

To me you just come across as a petulant mini that will grasp at anything rather than accepting the obvious truth; you are playing (and loving it too I'd say) the most unbalanced class ever to roam the Ettenmoors.

I hadn't realized this thread was about balancing minis. Every post (asides from trolling Phantom) has been about the obvious numbers advantage that creeps have and putting forth that that advantage has to be considered when you look a OPvP balance and the 'moors. Class to class, 1:1 comparisons, freeps most definately have the advantage, Minis being the worst offenders. Now If I could only find a PvP area were 1:1 ratios exist so those 1:1 comparisons would have merit.

Originally Posted by ksjock

<Mini rage rant>.

PvE=/=PvP

Try to keep that in mind.

Originally Posted by doug01

obvious numbers advantage that creeps have

I dont know for whom it is obvious, not for me. I dont give a damn about those numbers you show because of many reasons we have already discussed here. I belive my eyes. Almost every time on peak hours on my server (which falls under your "creeps have advantage looks at those stats" category), apart from times when raid is formed (1-2 times per day), there are equal or more freeps then creeps doing PvP(and this means gets involved in freeps vs creeps action, not farms norbogs). Right now as im writing this we are being farmed at lug gy (with 5 minies and 3 wardens on their side ofc).

On weekends we sometimes get outnumbered buff.

Sure, nights, mornings, there are ten times more creeps than freeps (cuz freeps load creeps to farm comms). But on peak hours when most people play it is the other way round.

Thats why i dont give a f about those .6 numbers.

Originally Posted by n38

It takes around 5-6 days /played just to hit the level cap.

Then 6-8 r14 virtues.

6-8 LIs which unless you are extremely lucky will only include maybe 2 1st ages that will need on average 12 empowerment scrolls each along with the 3 star-lit crystals each and delving scrolls for each of them. And then you need the titles for those and depending on your class getting titles for 6-8 weapons takes either 2 weeks of daily solo instances or ~3 weeks of farming tokens for the +stat titles, and if you are really maxing out your character your main LI will require swapping titles which admittedly isn't hard at all after you get your other weapons/items their titles. And before any of those are even worth thinking about you need to actually get the symbols and an enormous amount of IXP even more IXP if you don't get extremely lucky with legacies, millions more leveling up 3rd ages to lvl31 for the legacy scrolls. And after all that you need (again depending on class) roughly 60 t6 relics and ~20 t8 along with around 20-25k shards. Let's not forget legacy stat scrolls that you need to farm lvl65 content for (inefficient any other way). And then crafted relics which means after you cap your crafting you need to spend ~3 weeks on maxing out your guild crafting and then the weekly CD on that relic really starts to slow progress down.

Then the faction rep which ranges from useful to needed.

Jewellery wise it not only requires rep (^^^) but either raid dropped or skirmish raid dropped often having 2 of your BiS the same so not only do you have to go in and hope it drops the first week but again the next, a few decent pieces you can craft. And for a select few classes moors jewellery is BiS for certain specs. Then you need orthanc sigils for your necklace and a clasp. Throwing cloaks in here you need a few scales another clasp or 2 and depending on class a few more scales or a +stealth cloak.

Then the audacity which for most classes isn't BiS past a certain point, which means you need ToO gear. And on every class if you are constantly running audacity gear you are doing it wrong, moors gear with the exception of certain set bonuses is only even close to BiS if you are being targeted. So basically if your goal is to max out your character you need a swap option that gives 7 audacity and that may be one set or 2 half sets whichever set bonuses you need. And then depending on class you need the ToO set and the bonuses from those you need. And then you need the rift set (captain especially) for the shadow clicky.


I'm going to stop here, I could go on but I think my point is made.

Keep in mind that 90% of that is going to be trashed as soon as the next expansion hits, or earlier.

And for a freep that has played since launch they have had to trash a huge amount of gear and LIs along with several other things.

I can and have hit r9 at 1 week /played many others have too. As long as you actually play the game it's easy to keep between 500-1500 or more infamy coming in per hour depending on play style and group size. 15 solo kills in an hour is easy enough even on slow days. And if it really is too slow to even get that much per hour you can either log off because PvP happens to be dead at that time or PvE and pull in more per hour, though quests offer a finite amount per character per day so it's just a time filler until people start to show up.

Rank only goes one way, when the next expansion comes around it will take maybe 2 days /played (for casual PvP players) to get any new skills and the next set of audacity and during that time I expect the faster leveling crowd will just be getting to the new level cap (we haven't seen how long it will take to get from lvl75 to lvl85 but I'm betting on ~30h for the fastest).

Well said. Many of the creepside concerns will be alleviated once they get the benefit of that "gained" time while freeps have to grind their new levels/gear

lots of negativity in this thread, that's for sure!
Increase the creep dps (insert % here). that is all

Originally Posted by doug01

What was asked for is your source of information that you insist is true as to what will happen if freepside becomes F2P. It's never happened in LOTRO and since LOTRO has a pretty unique model for PvP and P2P/F2P options there is no way to know for sure. Any guess as to the effects on the freep/creep population is pure speculation.

Well, unless you're a prophet ...

Stating "causality" as your source in regards to predicting specific changes and their outcome is absolutely laughable. Its a general statement that make no specific claims as you did. Thats why I continue to laugh at you.

I didn't say how the populations would change, only that they would. Because the factors that decide the populations would change, aka class availability and effectiveness. You seem to be rather amused at your lack of reading comprehension. But I guess anything to try and disagree with me, huh.

Originally Posted by Thane9

Well said. Many of the creepside concerns will be alleviated once they get the benefit of that "gained" time while freeps have to grind their new levels/gear

Create a reaver. Play on peak hours only. Dont feed him comms from freep or high level creeps. Rank him to r7, get yor maps (yeah, TR map also), skills, audacity, corruptions and so on. Do /played. Tell us the result. Do it now, in the current state of balance with current comms grind.

I do PvE and I do PvP. I have 5 lvl 75 toons. Ive done ToO with all of them, have top tier jewelery, ToO set, draigoch cloak, maxxed out LIs (my main has FA, others have SA), legacies and so on. So i know what I am talking about.

PvE is a faceroll grind. All you need is time. PvP is the same grind for comms where you are constantly ganked by freeps and can do nothing with it. If you play on mornings it may take you month to get to r8, if you play on peak hours you may rage quit after a week.

n38 wrote about 15 solo kills per hour. Yeah sure, but you cant kill anyone solo till at least rank 6-7.

I ranked my warg and i was trying to rank a spider. Its fn crazy, i cant kill anyone, i cant pew pew cuz of range, i cant even do a fn quests cuz Im being constantly ganked by pathetic freeps (killing r0-r2 creeps that are trying to quest is pathetic). TR is constantly blue in my playing time, TA is blue in 70% of time. HH is full of ganking teams, ID as well. Raid leaders wont take me to the raid because of low rank.

Im not QQ about how PvP works, OK its normal. Im only trying to say that you cant just say "freeps need this this this this and that and creeps need only to rank". If you play other creep character than warg its is a long and frustrating journey.

PS I am talking about my server, all servers are different so might be your experience.

Originally Posted by Chupakabara

Create a reaver. Play on peak hours only. Dont feed him comms from freep or high level creeps. Rank him to r7, get yor maps (yeah, TR map also), skills, audacity, corruptions and so on. Do /played. Tell us the result. Do it now, in the current state of balance with current comms grind.

I do PvE and I do PvP. I have 5 lvl 75 toons. Ive done ToO with all of them, have top tier jewelery, ToO set, draigoch cloak, maxxed out LIs (my main has FA, others have SA), legacies and so on. So i know what I am talking about.

PvE is a faceroll grind. All you need is time. PvP is the same grind for comms where you are constantly ganked by freeps and can do nothing with it. If you play on mornings it may take you month to get to r8, if you play on peak hours you may rage quit after a week.

n38 wrote about 15 solo kills per hour. Yeah sure, but you cant kill anyone solo till at least rank 6-7.

I ranked my warg and i was trying to rank a spider. Its fn crazy, i cant kill anyone, i cant pew pew cuz of range, i cant even do a fn quests cuz Im being constantly ganked by pathetic freeps (killing r0-r2 creeps that are trying to quest is pathetic). TR is constantly blue in my playing time, TA is blue in 70% of time. HH is full of ganking teams, ID as well. Raid leaders wont take me to the raid because of low rank.

Im not QQ about how PvP works, OK its normal. Im only trying to say that you cant just say "freeps need this this this this and that and creeps need only to rank". If you play other creep character than warg its is a long and frustrating journey.

PS I am talking about my server, all servers are different so might be your experience.

Yeah I dont get the "Freeps have to grind blah blah" I also geared/virute/LI's out 4 75 toons, and I'd gear out 4 more before I'd start a reaver again from scratch. Why? Because I didn't experience any frustration and could progress on MY terms. My reaver taught me a lot about patience and frankly, was unenjoyable.

Originally Posted by apb8808

Yeah I dont get the "Freeps have to grind blah blah" I also geared/virute/LI's out 4 75 toons, and I'd gear out 4 more before I'd start a reaver again from scratch. Why? Because I didn't experience any frustration and could progress on MY terms. My reaver taught me a lot about patience and frankly, was unenjoyable.

Well said.

What's worse, they seem to consider doing hundreds of different quests, in different areas, with different options, to be a "Grind." A lot of the argument seems to be centered on how long it takes, without any consideration of what they're doing during that time.

Don't like starting in the shire? Head to Archet. Don't like Erid Luine? Head to Celondim (sorry, don't care about spelling this morning). Rather do Lone Lands than North Downs? Enjoy. Want to spend extra time in Forochel because the skies are cool? Go for it. Hate Angmar because it reminds you of parts of New Jersey? Then knock out the few quests you need and move on.

We've got the Moors. We've got maybe 50 quests total (I haven't actually counted them, but I don't think it's much more then that), many of which we can't get to if the map's blue, and others we can't do if the map's red.

Freeple, Freeple. You get content to level and work on.

We don't.

I had to laugh at the comment saying it was easy to just go out and get 15 solo kills. At rank < 6 it's more like "It's easy to go out and get 15 solo killed's" Seriously. And if all the Freeps believe that same "Gotta have maxed out everything to be competitive!" your chance of consistently killing them 1v1 at rank 10 is pretty slim.

So . . . yeah.

Oh, and that grind? Might I introduce you kind and gentle Freeple to the LoTRO store. Where you will find, for your perusal, a broad range of accelerators, virtues, Legacies, and Stat Tomes that will make your life ever so much easier.

Originally Posted by l4j

Well said.

What's worse, they seem to consider doing hundreds of different quests, in different areas, with different options, to be a "Grind." A lot of the argument seems to be centered on how long it takes, without any consideration of what they're doing during that time.

Don't like starting in the shire? Head to Archet. Don't like Erid Luine? Head to Celondim (sorry, don't care about spelling this morning). Rather do Lone Lands than North Downs? Enjoy. Want to spend extra time in Forochel because the skies are cool? Go for it. Hate Angmar because it reminds you of parts of New Jersey? Then knock out the few quests you need and move on.

We've got the Moors. We've got maybe 50 quests total (I haven't actually counted them, but I don't think it's much more then that), many of which we can't get to if the map's blue, and others we can't do if the map's red.

Freeple, Freeple. You get content to level and work on.

We don't.

I had to laugh at the comment saying it was easy to just go out and get 15 solo kills. At rank < 6 it's more like "It's easy to go out and get 15 solo killed's" Seriously. And if all the Freeps believe that same "Gotta have maxed out everything to be competitive!" your chance of consistently killing them 1v1 at rank 10 is pretty slim.

So . . . yeah.

Oh, and that grind? Might I introduce you kind and gentle Freeple to the LoTRO store. Where you will find, for your perusal, a broad range of accelerators, virtues, Legacies, and Stat Tomes that will make your life ever so much easier.

+Rep

/10chars

I greatly support the concept of devs addressing the balance by replying to this thread. However, there are still some people on freepside who are blind to the imbalance and they object to virtually every possible change that would buff creeps.

Not only that but, devs arent interested in hearing it.