Thread: Dev Diary Feedback: The Ettenmoors

I like it!
looking forward to seeing this thing evolve.

I don't get the complains about the zone turning even more to pve.
With the current system pve does nothing more then give you a way around pvmp to get levelled.
With the planned system pve and pvp will go hand in hand and one will inevitably lead to the other.
This will make pvmp more dynamic then it is now.

if you want pure pvp challenge someone to a spar.

Most of the projected changes look just terrible.

1) They say that domination is encouraged, and capturing all the keeps and outposts will be giving great boosts. Even now there are many ezmoders who flip to the winning side at every opportunity. Basically, one side will be facerolling with all the buffs and the map being blue/red, while the other one will be suffering. And vice versa. This doesn't encourage pvp.
2) The population on many of the servers is quite limited. If the game mechanics encourages players to smallgroup and capture outposts and keeps, we are not going to have massive interesting fights. Instead, we will have a lot of ninja groups running all over the map and rarely interacting with each other. Even now it is sometimes a problem (one raid is taking one keep, the other - another keep; they don't even meet to fight).
3) Most of the servers are creep-dominated already. And they say that they are going to give creeps boosts? Most of the time when I log onto my freep we have to fight 5 vs 10 or 15. Naturally, it leads to us being slaughtered. Now if you give creeps boosts, will there be any action at all? I am no kamikadze, thank you.
4) Ranger sessions are widely frowned upon and have a prohibitive cost. I don't think they will really help establish balance. In fact, I haven't seen a ranger for a few months - no one buys that service.

Rank-gated LIs and decreasing commendation costs for creeps' traits and skills - that's nice.

Originally Posted by Kalderic

I don't get the complains about the zone turning even more to pve.
With the current system pve does nothing more then give you a way around pvmp to get levelled.
With the planned system pve and pvp will go hand in hand and one will inevitably lead to the other.
This will make pvmp more dynamic then it is now.

if you want pure pvp challenge someone to a spar.

Haha, this.

I get the idea of "pure PvP", but it has one serious problem: it relies on players to create content out of some... trees and obstacles? distances from rez circle? some artificial arrangement about numbers and rules? Might as well play on 2D textur-less rectangle with mirror classes.. oh, wait, we don't have mirrors even now.

Most players are also mediocre, predictable and unimaginative, this is not a criticism-from-my-basement, it is bloody Gauss curve, natural thing, the same reason most are "meh" at reciting poetry or training soccer teams. Leaving creating content up to them results in mediocre, predictable and unimaginative manure known as STAB/EC shuffle, molesting NPCs etc. There are exceptions, people who can engineer great fights having only box of matches and some gum and I always had fun when they happened to be around - but they will remain exceptional regardless of mechanics. This kind of change, that gives a reason to mobility, detachments, cooperation and more *significant* variables can only promote their skills - or give incentive for others to advance their own.

If those variables are not significant enough ("nerf bonuses!" sentiment), then it's back to my "2D rectangle" hyperbole. It would be at least somewhat reasonable if we had any kind of "balance" now. Or if soloing was not a subject to "bad matchups" from the moment you leave GV.


That said, dear Devs, I believe it is impossible *not* to stumble upon certain suggestions by now, they are being given by both "I like it" and "Ewww" people and I'd risk a guess we could agree about them even while PvP-ing forum - style:

- reduce detrimental effect of people auto-flipping sides - standard "prohibitive CD" at worst, "flipping allowed depending on current red/blue balance" if possible;

- if Trolls / Rangers are supposed to be The Ultimate Answer for one side overwhelming another, then make them truly Ultimate... and give great rewards from killing them too, so it's not always "run to the hills! my rating, my rating!"

- some small zone for 1vs1 afficionados in already secluded place - I mean, it's not like mere presence of such zone *hurts* anyone in any way, right? Unless it is some sort of "programming nightmare", no reason not to include it - diversity is always welcome;

While it's nice Lotro PvMP finally got some attention, the changes even further narrow the ability for people to CHOOSE a playstyle. You're forcing people to raid - not just group - but raid. Why? I don't want to have to raid to advance.

Secondly, unless you fix the flip timer, this is all just going to be even more of a joke.

Originally Posted by Ferthcott

Haha, this.

I get the idea of "pure PvP", but it has one serious problem: it relies on players to create content out of some... trees and obstacles? distances from rez circle? some artificial arrangement about numbers and rules? Might as well play on 2D textur-less rectangle with mirror classes.. oh, wait, we don't have mirrors even now.

Most players are also mediocre, predictable and unimaginative, this is not a criticism-from-my-basement, it is bloody Gauss curve, natural thing, the same reason most are "meh" at reciting poetry or training soccer teams. Leaving creating content up to them results in mediocre, predictable and unimaginative manure known as STAB/EC shuffle, molesting NPCs etc. There are exceptions, people who can engineer great fights having only box of matches and some gum and I always had fun when they happened to be around - but they will remain exceptional regardless of mechanics. This kind of change, that gives a reason to mobility, detachments, cooperation and more *significant* variables can only promote their skills - or give incentive for others to advance their own.

If those variables are not significant enough ("nerf bonuses!" sentiment), then it's back to my "2D rectangle" hyperbole. It would be at least somewhat reasonable if we had any kind of "balance" now. Or if soloing was not a subject to "bad matchups" from the moment you leave GV.


That said, dear Devs, I believe it is impossible *not* to stumble upon certain suggestions by now, they are being given by both "I like it" and "Ewww" people and I'd risk a guess we could agree about them even while PvP-ing forum - style:

- reduce detrimental effect of people auto-flipping sides - standard "prohibitive CD" at worst, "flipping allowed depending on current red/blue balance" if possible;

- if Trolls / Rangers are supposed to be The Ultimate Answer for one side overwhelming another, then make them truly Ultimate... and give great rewards from killing them too, so it's not always "run to the hills! my rating, my rating!"

- some small zone for 1vs1 afficionados in already secluded place - I mean, it's not like mere presence of such zone *hurts* anyone in any way, right? Unless it is some sort of "programming nightmare", no reason not to include it - diversity is always welcome;

Quoted for Truth and awesomeness.

Originally Posted by Otdanon

2) The population on many of the servers is quite limited. If the game mechanics encourages players to smallgroup and capture outposts and keeps, we are not going to have massive interesting fights. Instead, we will have a lot of ninja groups running all over the map and rarely interacting with each other. Even now it is sometimes a problem (one raid is taking one keep, the other - another keep; they don't even meet to fight).

If population is limited, big fights are not always happening anyway. If big fights are interesting enough for enough people, they will still happen - unless, of course, they are not *that* interesting for most. Oh, and someone mentioned lag? There is literally nothing that can be done to low pop servers other than "design content to match both high and low pop requirements" ( huh...) or... increase pop, somehow

Finally, if people are stuck @ running from one exclusively-NPC keep to another for more than few times and still wonder "y no infamy/comms???", then there is something wrong with *them*, not with content itself. Definition of insanity follows.

Originally Posted by Gillianrial

While it's nice Lotro PvMP finally got some attention, the changes even further narrow the ability for people to CHOOSE a playstyle. You're forcing people to raid - not just group - but raid. Why? I don't want to have to raid to advance.

Not really - I can't imagine single raid being able to fully control the situation all the time. Low pop servers - possibly, but still spread around into smaller groups. Nobody prevents those who detest being in a raid from communicating via IMs or OOC instead. I mean it's less effective, but *shrug*. In any case, nobody stops anyone from roaming the map solo either - it's not like it is always going to be "one side with all buffs". How does it even matter if a Minstrel gets +20% to mits, he's going to melt faces anyway, nothing new. But imagine that Minstrel against a ranked creep with seriously stacked buffs - suddenly it is not that hopeless as usual. Meanwhile, outside of extreme matchups - you can deal with Creep Joe with ease today, and you will have to focus a bit tomorrow. Then you will have to break a sweat next week when Joe gets more Audacity. I believe this is called diversity and less predictable fights with changes happening around the clock. If soloers around here prefer current repetition, then I guess it's "different strokes".

Originally Posted by Ferthcott

Might as well play on 2D textur-less rectangle with mirror classes..

Have you been to Abbots Flatland??

"tell her you're a circle. Flatland gals are all hot for circles!"

Don't believe it, watch this

Remember that your imagination doesn't cost you any commendations !!

Will we keep all of our current commendations when RoR launches, or will we lose them all and out wallet set to 0? We need to know one way or the other. I have 4,000 now - am I going to lose them if I do not use them??

I have only been playing Lotro for about 4 months and Creep side even less, so forgive me if I don't perhaps fully understand the "season" side of things. I have also read every post on this thread and some of my questions have been asked, and indeed at least one answered, but not by a Dev that I can see, so could the following questions please be clarified:

1. Will all existing Audacity rank be reset back to 0/1 or is there some conversion system for your current Audacity level?
2. Does a "season" always equate to an update like this? (sorry slightly off topic I know)
3. Do existing commendations get reset also? (Think answer is "No" based on previous posts, but official clarity would be nice)

As I only have 1 creep, and I have been collecting maps like crazy to buy Audacity (currently rank 3) what I basically want to know from the above question is should I stop spending now and ensure I am capped at 10,000 coms when the new "season" starts?

Overall I like a lot of the changes - a few pieces of feedback though:

1. Audacity IS the new radiance - at least for creeps. Freeps will have to grind a new armout set, but this is kinda to be expected with a 10-level cap raise. Creeps on the other hand don't just have to grind the new audacity ranks, but will also have to buy all of the old audacity levels as well. This is just silly and unfair. Rolling a new creep is just going to suck.

2. The stated goal of the changes is to decrease pve in the moors, but I don't think that's what's going to happen. In fact, I would bet that this is going to encourage MORE pve, especially over the relics and outposts. A 10% DPS and healting buff PER OUTPOST is simply enormous and destabilizing. If your side has all five OPs you will be unstoppable unless you are hit with double your numbers, and that likely won't happen - at least not on my server.

3. Fair 1v1s are going to be largely impossible unless the OPs are in NPC hands and the relics are evenly distributed.

4. If strategic objectives for a raid are going to be map-wide, then we need to remove the proximity restriction for renown / infamy gain. To elaborate, suppose I am trying to defend TA from a largish group of freeps. I notice that they have DPS / healing buffs from the OPs, and this is just too much for me to manage. I need to dispatch a group of 8 creeps or so from my raid to sneak out and capture a couple of OPs. Problem is, no one is going to want to go as they will miss out on any kills the main raid group gets while they are off killing NPCs. The idea of these changes is to have fights be more fluid, with more utilization of the entire map space. To make that really work I think folks should get credit for any kill by their raid regardless of distance (you would probably need to add a check to see if someone is AFK or parked in Grams or GV to avoid exploits).

5. Infamy / renown gains are going to be huge now. This will tend to help creeps more than freeps, and that's probably a good thing.

6. I cannot believe that they left the burg Unseen (and to a less extent the cappy Command set) set bonus intact. It serves no purpose really in pvp, and is OP for PvE. Strange that they also left the hunter and RK DPS set bonuses as-is, when I'm pretty sure that the general impression of them is that they are &&&& (the RK healing set, on the other hand, is OP as hell and it is left as-is - though at least it is only useful for pvp). Turbine itemization staff clearly don't play their own game.

7. I would bet that these changes are going to decimate the freep population in the Moors. Freeps are awfully used to EZ-mode and they won't have that any more. Add to this the fact that the map will almost always be red (because there are a lot of folks that only play creep, and those folks have no choice but to do stuff in the Moors, while freeps have other options), and you have a recipe for new freeps to decide that it's not worth the effort.

8. Who is the brilliant person that decided that wargs needed MORE ability to cut and run? Two minute CDs for sprint and disappear mean that only a really stupid warg will get killed outside of a raid-level zerg. How exactly does this help pvp?

9. The DoF infamy / renown bonuses are just nuts. I understand that they realized that they killed the Delving with the intro of Comms, and are searching for a way to make it relevant again, but OMG 40% for the Rogmul? And it is stackable with keep and other DoF buffs? And it is not time-dependent (i.e., one side gets the buff until the other side gets another on the same boss). Again, I thought that the idea was to encourage PVP, not more PVE in the Moors.

10. These changes are going to make the moors MORE zergy, not less. For those of us that like small group or solo action, the writing is on the wall.

Oh and one more thing to add - the first month or more after RoR comes ou is just going to SUCK for creeps. No reliable way to get the comms they need for audacity or the skill upgrades since almost no freeps in the Moors.

This is going to make it even harder for freeps when they finally do get geared and back out to the Moors, as they are going to have to face +50% damage healing from creeps (the OPs will likely be red), plus the audacity hit from the relic, plus the infamy gains from the keeps.

Well i hope this promotes more team play in Ettens, so far whenever i go there everyone wants to play by themselves or in tight groups of 3 and never invite new comers. So the veterans of Ettens shall remain vets and the new comers will forever be left alone lol

I love the new LM armour sets..the Guardian sets are not good at all imo unless you get one of those new pvmp legendary weapons to take off stagger crit (I say pvmp ones as i assume there will be different legacies for pvmp only) since it wont be needed in one of the sets? The RK ones seem ok

From someone who plays Ettens a lot..will these changes bring a less back and forth over the bridge attitude? or just promote more of that back and forth running nonsense? I would like to know

Originally Posted by mithelenthor

Have you been to Abbots Flatland??

"tell her you're a circle. Flatland gals are all hot for circles!"

Eww, math confuses me :P (see below)


One more time - unless you know what is your "base" damage/healing output and use that number on daily basis, I believe "50%" is grossly misleading to many. It's going to be 25-ish % increase of specific skill based on tooltip damage - ie. the numbers we see all the time on our quickbars. Or even less if RoR goes crazy with Mastery increase.

Still big in terms of "fullly buffed", but that "fully buffed" problem is going to be easily remedied into more manageable version via a cuple of "ninja OP". Obviously, if I am wrong and that bonus is indeed going to be "50% of total output" then yes, it's over-the-top, even on "we will tweak these soon" basis.

============================== ============================== ==============================

I can't find that post anymore, but I believe someone suggested a debuff for people hiding in keeps - it seems like a good idea for small servers, where 6 people will often fight 5 people, ninjaflipping would require stopping PvP entirely and one group might simply say "psh, you can have those buffs, we have Tyrant, activate Hugging Protocol".

While Keep-wide debuff is something I am not exactly enthusiastic about, imagine something else:

Tyrant Blablaface (TM): "You worthless pile of slug goo, you let them inside, I have to do everything myself!"

Every creep present inside Tyrant's room when he is aggroed by a freep group receives instant debuff of 5 Dread (or more ^^) that decreases over time while creeps are recovering from shame and regain confidence seeing Tyrant leading the charge. Leaving the room does NOT remove debuff nor increases recovery ratio; resetting Tyrant removes it though. Debuff is, obviously, called "Cowardice".


I am not sure how to apply the same for freepside, possibly CG activating "Denethor Mode" and crying how "All is lost!". But essentially - hugging Tyrant is over, it would become truly last - ditch effort and all Keep-related stuff is therefore confined to less NPC-infested halls and corridors. Well, I assume Devs ARE reducing internal population.

Originally Posted by mmdur1

2. The stated goal of the changes is to decrease pve in the moors, but I don't think that's what's going to happen. In fact, I would bet that this is going to encourage MORE pve, especially over the relics and outposts. A 10% DPS and healting buff PER OUTPOST is simply enormous and destabilizing. If your side has all five OPs you will be unstoppable unless you are hit with double your numbers, and that likely won't happen - at least not on my server.

First, there are now going to be 4 OPs, not 5 and they will be a little more centrally located. If OPs and the relic are going to be so important, don't you think this will encourage groups to PvP to defend them instead of "Oh there are some freeps taking ROP? Not worth going...I'll just stand here and camp EC instead."? Also they said it's a 10% mastery boost but that is less than a 10% DPS boost.

4. To elaborate, suppose I am trying to defend TA from a largish group of freeps. I notice that they have DPS / healing buffs from the OPs, and this is just too much for me to manage. I need to dispatch a group of 8 creeps or so from my raid to sneak out and capture a couple of OPs.
...
10. These changes are going to make the moors MORE zergy, not less. For those of us that like small group or solo action, the writing is on the wall.

Your point 4 really illustrates why point 10 is not true, at least if things work as planned.

9. The DoF infamy / renown bonuses are just nuts. I understand that they realized that they killed the Delving with the intro of Comms, and are searching for a way to make it relevant again, but OMG 40% for the Rogmul? And it is stackable with keep and other DoF buffs? And it is not time-dependent (i.e., one side gets the buff until the other side gets another on the same boss). Again, I thought that the idea was to encourage PVP, not more PVE in the Moors.

Dev diary says, "Similar to the outposts, [the Delving buffs] will return to neutral after 6 hours if not claimed by the other side."

How can you create a system that interferes with balance in such a great way? Up to 30% (I guess) more damage? I do not know about every server but the default state on Morthond is that the Moors are red. Of course things get flipped once a day for the quest but I do not see a change in a thing that has been like this since April 2007. There are more creeps out there than freeps, that is a fact, they are, firstly by numbers the dominating side. With the new system the dominating side (whichever that is, there are bound to be a servers where numbers are the other way around) is gaining a regular advantage, making it harder for one side to get out of their graveyards. Say the side with the upperhand is camping in front of grams or gy with the full buff up, you will need way more people from the already supressed side to fend them off. Additionally the dominating side will gain more renown and comms as well, therefore creating even more incentive to log on to that side.

Furthermore how can you say that this new system increases PvP activity? So little groups will spend the whole day flipping the outposts and keeps, while the zergers and raids will do PvP? You just brought more PvE-Fights to the moors.

Furthermore. I enjoy soloing a lot. As do so many other players on both sides. So where is the incentive to do so now. Either way one side is going to lose. If I run around with a 30% damage buff there is nothing solo out there to stop me. Same with a solo creep. So therefore the suppressed side will band together and run around in twos and threes or more, or stick to the zerg. So no incentive to solo any longer, either you get stuffed all the way or you will be up against whole groups.

I do greatly appreciate the reduction of commendation costs though.

The new armour sets, well I give you a C for trying, still for me the bonuses suck. There now is one not too bad on every set, the power cost as well as the skill reset with needful haste is still &&&& though. I am not into the other classes to comment there.

I can not comment on balance and the new skills until I see how things work out, especially concerning the hunter class. The underlying big changes though sound really bad to me though.

About timer. I know there are switchers, but there are also ppl that switching to side, that is lower in numbers to help them (like me, for example, this really happening!). From that point of view switching is not so bad. Anyway, I would welcome timer, but timer that only applies when side from you want to switch have population buff (or link it to amount of creeps/freeps in some other way) I think that would be more "elegant" way of solving switchers problem.

If this is possible it would be a great way to go about things.

Hmmm, not as much QQing from the Freeps as I thought there would be...nevertheless there is some. Be patient guys, you'll get your own dev diary notes.

Hello! One quick thing I'd like to address; Audacity is being increased to rank 13, not 14. Apologies for not catching this typo before it made it out.

Originally Posted by asearchforreason

First, there are now going to be 4 OPs, not 5 and they will be a little more centrally located. If OPs and the relic are going to be so important, don't you think this will encourage groups to PvP to defend them instead of "Oh there are some freeps taking ROP? Not worth going...I'll just stand here and camp EC instead."? Also they said it's a 10% mastery boost but that is less than a 10% DPS boost.


Your point 4 really illustrates why point 10 is not true, at least if things work as planned.


Dev diary says, "Similar to the outposts, [the Delving buffs] will return to neutral after 6 hours if not claimed by the other side."

Thank you for catching the bit about the Delving buffs - I missed that. If that is the case and the buff is only six hours then I am guessing that the Delving will be just as barren in terms of activity as it is now.

Don't get me wrong, I think that there is a lot to like about this update, but I don't think that it is really going to encourage pvp other than the zergy variety. Also, I am guessing that a 10% mastery buff once we get to RoR is actually going to be substantially MORE than 10% extra damage. Once we get 10 more levels I would not be surprised at all if freeps are running around with 40k plus mastery. A 10% buff would then be 4k mastery, which is about 15% increase to damage output. Since there is no DR on mastery (except for healing).

I guess it depends on how you do the math - if I am at 40k mastery that would translate into about 143% damage increase off of base skills. You give me a 10% mastery buff and now I am at 44k mastery and a roughly 157% damage increase off base. Now I assume that the addition is additive rather than multiplicative, so having all four OPs would 'only' give you a 16k mastery increase instead of 18.6k, but it is still a big, big increase - 143% damage increase from mastery vs almost 200% if you had all four OPs.

Originally Posted by mmdur1

Thank you for catching the bit about the Delving buffs - I missed that. If that is the case and the buff is only six hours then I am guessing that the Delving will be just as barren in terms of activity as it is now.

Don't get me wrong, I think that there is a lot to like about this update, but I don't think that it is really going to encourage pvp other than the zergy variety. Also, I am guessing that a 10% mastery buff once we get to RoR is actually going to be substantially MORE than 10% extra damage. Once we get 10 more levels I would not be surprised at all if freeps are running around with 40k plus mastery. A 10% buff would then be 4k mastery, which is about 15% increase to damage output. Since there is no DR on mastery (except for healing).

I guess it depends on how you do the math - if I am at 40k mastery that would translate into about 143% damage increase off of base skills. You give me a 10% mastery buff and now I am at 44k mastery and a roughly 157% damage increase off base. Now I assume that the addition is additive rather than multiplicative, so having all four OPs would 'only' give you a 16k mastery increase instead of 18.6k, but it is still a big, big increase - 143% damage increase from mastery vs almost 200% if you had all four OPs.

If they have to have such a large bonus, the additional bonus from holding more and more outposts should diminish as you hold more outposts. You still want to keep the other side from getting 1-2 outposts, as the bonus for the first few outposts remains quite large, but you don't have as high of a ceiling on what you can reach if you control all the outposts. As it is now, this is going to be too large of a damage increase.

There's too much concern over these Outposts and the buffs associated with them. Even on large servers, there are not enough players to protect everything. Things are going to be flipping back and forth no side will have a 20, 30 or 40% buff for very long. Hell, you can roll 3 trolls or 3 rangers to flip them back.

The only concern I have with landscape is the delving bosses. Increased commendations or infamy gain is not enough, I don't think to make people detour from the action to go after these guys. It should be something else. If the Rogmul is under TA like I think he is, then having him alive should add potency to trash mobs in the keeps. Same with the Tree under Lugz and the Dragon under TR. Back in the day when holding a keep meant something, raid leaders would send teams to secure hotspots while holding off the enemy to reinforce the keep. I think the delving bosses would fit this bill.

Originally Posted by Gillianrial

While it's nice Lotro PvMP finally got some attention, the changes even further narrow the ability for people to CHOOSE a playstyle. You're forcing people to raid - not just group - but raid. Why? I don't want to have to raid to advance.

Secondly, unless you fix the flip timer, this is all just going to be even more of a joke.

Not true since I doubt people would form a raid simply to take an Outpost, they would only need a Group or less.

Raid = Keeps

Group = Outposts

Solo = HH/Grothum (I guess )

Originally Posted by ColorSpecs

There's too much concern over these Outposts and the buffs associated with them. Even on large servers, there are not enough players to protect everything. Things are going to be flipping back and forth no side will have a 20, 30 or 40% buff for very long. Hell, you can roll 3 trolls or 3 rangers to flip them back.

But rangers/trolls cost 5000 commies right? So I doubt they would flip keeps/OPs etc every night, maybe not at all; I doubt players would be willing to cough up 5K commies with 13 ranks of Audacity now.

Originally Posted by mmdur1

Also, I am guessing that a 10% mastery buff once we get to RoR is actually going to be substantially MORE than 10% extra damage. Once we get 10 more levels I would not be surprised at all if freeps are running around with 40k plus mastery. A 10% buff would then be 4k mastery, which is about 15% increase to damage output. Since there is no DR on mastery (except for healing).

Hah, we don't know that... diary is not exactly clear.

Either you are right and it is 10% out of your current Mastery => roflstomping ensues.

...or it's 10% added to that number we get while hovering over Mastery value on Character screen. In that case it's 10% out of hidden, "base" damage, so - proportionally - less and less with each wave of Mastery - infused gear.

Originally Posted by Brandybardard

But rangers/trolls cost 5000 commies right? So I doubt they would flip keeps/OPs etc every night, maybe not at all; I doubt players would be willing to cough up 5K commies with 13 ranks of Audacity now.

Yeah, one more thing to add to the list of demands:/


How about lowering the cost of Troll/Ranger proportionally to their available numbers, something like "4k if one, 2k if two, 1k if three"? Then again, it could be called "incentive to keep losing *a bit* longer"

Originally Posted by DEViled_Egg

Hello! One quick thing I'd like to address; Audacity is being increased to rank 13, not 14. Apologies for not catching this typo before it made it out.

Another Turbine employee braves the forums. Welcome!

Are you just the squirrel who does the editing before we see the dev diaries or do you have other responsibilities as well?

Originally Posted by ColorSpecs

There's too much concern over these Outposts and the buffs associated with them. Even on large servers, there are not enough players to protect everything. Things are going to be flipping back and forth no side will have a 20, 30 or 40% buff for very long. Hell, you can roll 3 trolls or 3 rangers to flip them back.

I hope you are right. But when things get too uneven (folks keep getting ganked coming out of GV/grams or rez circles, if you have any rez circles), rather than get motivated to reverse it, some folks tend to:
1) rage log
2) hug their remaining keep, if any
3) sit/spar in GV/grams and complain in OOC
4) go afk in GV/grams, and hope things magically get better

Having mechanisms where the currently stronger faction can get stronger yet seems like the wrong approach to me. And if the faction is much stronger, they can park a warg/burg near the outposts and bring on the gank squad when you show up. But hopefully you are correct...

Originally Posted by Ferthcott

Yeah, one more thing to add to the list of demands:/


How about lowering the cost of Troll/Ranger proportionally to their available numbers, something like "4k if one, 2k if two, 1k if three"? Then again, it could be called "incentive to keep losing *a bit* longer"

Luckily skills/traits/etc cost less commies But I do agree the pricing for commies needs to drop like you said, I haven't seen a ranger/troll in ages apart from one random ranger sniping me off near LC lol

Originally Posted by DelgonTheWise

I hope you are right. But when things get too uneven (folks keep getting ganked coming out of GV/grams or rez circles, if you have any rez circles), rather than get motivated to reverse it, some folks tend to:
1) rage log
2) hug their remaining keep, if any
3) sit/spar in GV/grams and complain in OOC
4) go afk in GV/grams, and hope things magically get better

Having mechanisms where the currently stronger faction can get stronger yet seems like the wrong approach to me. And if the faction is much stronger, they can park a warg/burg near the outposts and bring on the gank squad when you show up. But hopefully you are correct...

True. Creeps have it easier here since they can just port anywhere on the map within ten seconds and therefore can pop up anywhere they like and quickly take a bunch of outposts. Freeps have two exits that can be camped easily. Now unless there is a access to the delving from Grams and GV.

I jsut think this is all but thought through, as always.

Originally Posted by DelgonTheWise

I hope you are right. But when things get too uneven (folks keep getting ganked coming out of GV/grams or rez circles, if you have any rez circles), rather than get motivated to reverse it, some folks tend to:
1) rage log
2) hug their remaining keep, if any
3) sit/spar in GV/grams and complain in OOC
4) go afk in GV/grams, and hope things magically get better

Having mechanisms where the currently stronger faction can get stronger yet seems like the wrong approach to me. And if the faction is much stronger, they can park a warg/burg near the outposts and bring on the gank squad when you show up. But hopefully you are correct...

This.

On my server the default situation of the Moors is all-red, largely because freeps can go do other stuff, while folks that mainly enjoy creepside have nothing else really to do, and need the keeps to be red to turn in quests and stuff to get their maps. Couple this with freeps in general being very used to EZ-mode, and I can see this turning the moors into a freep-free zone except when they can form a large raid.

You know one thing that this revamp of the Ettenmoors doesn't address? That Premium and F2P players still can't participate on the Freep side.

Originally Posted by mmdur1

This.

On my server the default situation of the Moors is all-red, largely because freeps can go do other stuff, while folks that mainly enjoy creepside have nothing else really to do, and need the keeps to be red to turn in quests and stuff to get their maps. Couple this with freeps in general being very used to EZ-mode, and I can see this turning the moors into a freep-free zone except when they can form a large raid.

Well, this will sound kind of harsh, and I don't mean it to be, but that's not Turbine's problem, imo. That's a lack of initiative or imagination on the part of the freeps. Its open world pvp. Turbine is giving us options, if freeps choose not to explore these options they have no one to blame but themselves.

The intial weeks are going to be very difficult for freeps, they will be leveling and newly minted 85's. Their gear will be sub par in the LI and ancillary dept's (jewelry, cloaks, offhands, shields). They're going to have to take lumps while compiling more audacity - a STUPID mechanic. And they're going to have to adapt to the changes and deal with the numbers that the creep pendulum swing is going to bring. But none of that makes the zone anything less than a significant upgrade, imo.

Adaptions and imagination are the key. Already the lack of imagination is startling. Some just said "Well creeps have maps to bop around and take stuff with" - paraphrasing. But now the freeps have the delving which is a latticework of tunnels connecting points around the map. And even though the freep entrance is at ost and the creep entrance is at DG, the Delving is significantly smaller than the Ettenmoors map. Its going to be hugely beneficial in moving around and avoiding larger forces. If players use their imaginations and creativity to make use of this new feature.

And if not, it's their own fault. This is open world pvp.

Originally Posted by ColorSpecs

Well, this will sound kind of harsh, and I don't mean it to be, but that's not Turbine's problem, imo. That's a lack of initiative or imagination on the part of the freeps. Its open world pvp. Turbine is giving us options, if freeps choose not to explore these options they have no one to blame but themselves.

The intial weeks are going to be very difficult for freeps, they will be leveling and newly minted 85's. Their gear will be sub par in the LI and ancillary dept's (jewelry, cloaks, offhands, shields). They're going to have to take lumps while compiling more audacity - a STUPID mechanic. And they're going to have to adapt to the changes and deal with the numbers that the creep pendulum swing is going to bring. But none of that makes the zone anything less than a significant upgrade, imo.

Adaptions and imagination are the key. Already the lack of imagination is startling. Some just said "Well creeps have maps to bop around and take stuff with" - paraphrasing. But now the freeps have the delving which is a latticework of tunnels connecting points around the map. And even though the freep entrance is at ost and the creep entrance is at DG, the Delving is significantly smaller than the Ettenmoors map. Its going to be hugely beneficial in moving around and avoiding larger forces. If players use their imaginations and creativity to make use of this new feature.

And if not, it's their own fault. This is open world pvp.

Well, I agree with you that it is going to be harsh for freeps for the first month or so, but I think that is always the case after a level-cap increase, so that's ok. I also agree that the changes will bring a lot more options to both sides that can make things more interesting if folks figure out how to utilize them.

But I disagree with you that it is not Turbine's problem if people don't adapt. The stated reason for these changes is that they feel the Moors is an under-utilized region. It logically follows that one of their goals is to get people to play MORE in the Moors. If people are turned off by the changes and decide to sit in GV AFK or just to quit PvP then the changes have failed in their stated intention.

Of course, we don't know what we don't know. This may be the best thing to ever happen to the Moors. I love the buffs that creeeps are getting (except for lower CD on sprint and disappear for wargs - don't really get how that is helpful). I love taking comms away from keep captures. I like a lot of the ideas. I just worry that some of these changes may backfire.

We'll see in a couple months.

With regards to soloing, I don't think soloing is going to be dead with these changes.

I think what might happen is this: Classes you couldn't solo previously will be more soloable if your side has all the buffs, and classes you could solo previously will be much less soloable if their side has the buffs.

I suspect if a soloer plays his cards right based on who has the buffs, he can go far. He'll just have to choose his targets carefully.

So let's not doom and gloom about soloing yet until we've tried it out. *crosses fingers*

Originally Posted by ColorSpecs

Well, this will sound kind of harsh, and I don't mean it to be, but that's not Turbine's problem, imo. That's a lack of initiative or imagination on the part of the freeps. Its open world pvp. Turbine is giving us options, if freeps choose not to explore these options they have no one to blame but themselves.

Ok. But can we agree on a few things?
1) The currently stronger faction will generally control more (if not all) of the outposts
2) This will make them stronger yet, and make it even more of an uphill battle for the weaker faction.

Compare the "outnumbered" buff, which helps the side that is on the short end of things, with the
outpost control buff, which generally empowers the side that is currently stronger. I don't see the logic.
I see the reasons to want to make outposts/keeps worth taking, but don't see that making the
stronger faction more powerful will encourage a good moors experience.

IMHO, it is a good goal to try and have folks coming out to the moors have some reasonable activity/objectives/rewards when
1) Their faction is much weaker than the other faction
2) Their faction is slightly weaker than the other faction
3) Their faction is about even with the other faction
4) Their faction is slightly stronger than the other faction
5) Their faction is much stronger than the other faction

I think that game mechanics should, where possible, use rewards and incentives that
move things towards the middle of this scale. When factional strength is comparable,
seems to me like the best fights happen. If you don't have useful things to do when your
faction is much weaker, generally it will be harder to build critical mass to go out
and change things...

Given that commendation costs for the first half of the soon-to-be 13 ranks of Audacity will be drastically reduced, has there been any discussion about whether or not monster players will be refunded, prorated, whatever... to "make them whole" for the Audacity ranks they've already purchased prior to the expansion?

The changes sound cool.

Just a pondering I had some months back..
Why don't you create freeps from a template similar to the current creeps.. You travel to the moors and enter freep mode. Have pvp freeps totally seperate from pve freeps, reduce the need to balance pve land vs pvp. No armor, jewels or weapon slots. Just have it so you build up your pvp freep the same as your creep. Seems like it would reduce alot of the headaches and whining of balance. It could also allow say level 20 f2p freeps to enter the moors and have a 75-85 freep to work on. So level 10 pve toon lets you creep/s and level 20 pve toon lets you start your freep/s. Possibly even have it so pve level 30, 40, 50 etc let you have more freep classes..
More incentive for new players to freep.. less balancing issues.. and no nerfing of pve toons because of pvp and no radiance necessary(ahem sorry audacity) . Would probably reduce lag too..

Originally Posted by Silverbullets

With regards to soloing, I don't think soloing is going to be dead with these changes.

I think what might happen is this: Classes you couldn't solo previously will be more soloable if your side has all the buffs, and classes you could solo previously will be much less soloable if their side has the buffs.

I suspect if a soloer plays his cards right based on who has the buffs, he can go far. He'll just have to choose his targets carefully.

So let's not doom and gloom about soloing yet until we've tried it out. *crosses fingers*

True enough, but I want to solo when I want to solo and not when game mechanics allow me to. Having a hard time as is, right now, I severley doubt that creeps will let the freeps buff stack up often enough to make a difference in my class's solo capability. Even then what hinders people to band together then to stand a chance against a buffed minstrel? Either way I see more of 1 buffed vs. 3 unbuffed. The huge difference in solo capabilities through all classes put the balance way more off with this change in game mechanics.

To my further foreposters. I acknowledge adding the delviong as some kind of fast-travel system but there is one major flaw. There is no entrance in uncap. When suppressed you can not sneak your way into delving pop up behind them and take them by surprise. Both entracnes are likely to be camped at. Furthermore, since it seems that you can flip the delving by defeating the bosses I guess there will be NPCS there still, either neutral wights, or orcs, making it harder for anything but a group to shoulder your way through. This is a guess now of course but a probable one.

Dynamic change in mechanics do not confront the real issues in the moors. If one side is significantly weaker in either numbers or balance (like creeps arguably are now, since the huge amount of low-ranks) or both, adding a scaling mechanism that buffs one side does not help at all. Who says that the already dominating side will not take further advantage of this system, therefore resulting in even more off-balance? That is a risk and does not have to happen, but if it does consistently then the moors are badly hurt.

I still daresay that right now the creeps have that advantage of being more mobile when suppressed due to maps and teleporting around unseen. There are a dozen ways to get out of grams but only two out of GY. Furthermore (this applies to both sides) it takes you longer or as long to get from one entrance to the other than it takes anyone camping to patrol between the two entrances. Another major flaw. I just do not see people running out freely from GY or Grams to the delving without being noticed, reported, or attacked before they can enter the delving and get the ability to come up where they want. Also do the outpost not offer entrances to the delving as well as exits? Or did I read that wrong? So you might come out in an hostile zone?

Originally Posted by Roberticus

Given that commendation costs for the first half of the soon-to-be 13 ranks of Audacity will be drastically reduced, has there been any discussion about whether or not monster players will be refunded, prorated, whatever... to "make them whole" for the Audacity ranks they've already purchased prior to the expansion?

Why would they be? If you buy something when it's new and shiny, you pay more than those who buy it later when it's no longer the top of the line item.

People are "made whole" when they've been wronged in some way, and that's not applicable here. It'll be even less applicable (if that's possible) to anyone who decides to buy ranks of Audacity between now and RoR, since we now know that those first few ranks will be much cheaper in 6-7 weeks.

The dev diary changes sound like they'll greatly improve the quality of life in the Ettenmoors and will do a lot to encourage actual PvP.


...If they make comms faction-specific rather than account-bound.

Just to add another thought on solo abilities. I do not want to let the game dictate me, when soloing is preferable or possible at all. With all buffs up I will roll over any Creep, while standing no chance when the buffs are opposing? How is this enhancing my fun in the Moors? If I win any 1vs1 or any fight I want to know that it was me that done the work and achievment, not some kind of stupid statistic working in the background either making it easy or impossible. There is no point in it.

Even if the buff is not maxed all the time for either side, I am relying on other people to enhance my soloing experience by conquering outposts and therefore not doing PvP either.

I think everyone needs to keep somethings in mind.

This is a game yes. But, this game is supported by a buisness. If the buisness cant turn a profit it will fail and the game well cease to exisist.

Turbine has a limited amount of money and man power to do everything that needs to be done for this game.

RoR is introducing a brand new mounted combat system, Im sure this is where 80-90% of resources are going right now.

So, that leaves 10-20% for mounts, festivals, cosmetics, the Moors etc........

Simply put they dont have the resources to do everything as well as they could in the time they have.

So, they want to give us a new PVP map but cant. But, they know they want/need to do something. So, they compromise. Take the exisiting map and give it a facelift. They have moved things around. Added travel routes etc..... No, its not a new map. But, it is different than it was. So, in essence its new. We now have a different sand box than we did.

OP's can be flipped by a single person if left alone. At least I know my RK can solo them. Im sure other classes can to. But, a small group of 3-4 can quickly take these down. All these new mechanics open up a ton of new ways to mix things up. Several small groups working together to take OP's from the other side etc.......

Raids splitting there force to hit multiple targets. Gureilla warfare anyone? And so many other options.

The ranger/troll sessions should still be Tokens of Valor IMO.

I only have one question. Where is my invite to Bullroarer?? I want to get in there and see this ASAP.