The Lord of the Rings Online Team Turbine, Inc.
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I talked this through with Rock, and want to clarify a bit.
The design intention here is not to route every tank (and their group) through the same instance cluster repeatedly. The goal is to give you motivation to go to multiple spaces, with available items for many classes in each cluster. The gear drops have been distributed across clusters.
I talked this through with Rock, and want to clarify a bit.
The design intention here is not to route every tank (and their group) through the same instance cluster repeatedly. The goal is to give you motivation to go to multiple spaces, with available items for many classes in each cluster. The gear drops have been distributed across clusters.
Which wasnt though very clearly said, but as the 'best in slots' were already kinda spread around I dont really see what change this actually brings.
I talked this through with Rock, and want to clarify a bit.
The design intention here is not to route every tank (and their group) through the same instance cluster repeatedly. The goal is to give you motivation to go to multiple spaces, with available items for many classes in each cluster. The gear drops have been distributed across clusters.
But surely this is what we had already, so why did Rock bother to mention it? Just in order to highlight that the old scaleable content is worth running? (which is not a bad thing) Well, I'm happy that its not 'tank cluster' 'dps cluster' etc, cheers for the confirmation
RockX, it certainly appears like you might want to clarify your "DPS Necklace go here, Tank Necklace go there" section.
[i]Edit: Okay, Rowan already clarified this for us, but a slight bit more clarification might be helpful. "[A]vailable items for many classes in each cluster" doesn't necessarily translate to "desirable items for many classes in each cluster."
Regarding another part of the dev diary, specifically this:
The greater sets require having the corresponding lesser piece, having completed Tier 2 of the appropriate raid, and some of the new gems which drop from the Erebor raids.
Um, why do we need to get the lesser armor piece first? I know that you've done something similar with the Saruman necklaces and the new Rohan barter rings, but that's for 1-2 pieces and seems somewhat reasonable.
Why make those people who are capable of and only doing the T2/T2C content bother with bartering first for the T1 armor? The only reason I can think of is "timesink", because the T1 armor is not something that we're going to bother wearing anyway. Throw in the fact that we'll have to spend the first X amount of seals we earn on the bag-filling T1 armor, and it really doesn't seem like you're doing anything other than artificially delaying the amount of time it's going to take people to get their T2 armor.
Ok, that covers sets and new gear drops, but what about the game changing stat change on power and agi. I more consered with what happens to my current gear. I will be using most of my curent gear for at least 6 month, unless I start raiding which i have done little of yet.
well, from my point of view, players morale is - literally - down from mindless grind. too often without any reward. i dont understand why the system working for five years had to be changed to worse. now reading that the remote-looting-bull&&&& will be expanded to other instance-clusters and instances will drop only class-specific stuff (... and the new golden stuff bein still ulta-rare ...) - well, its kinda time to look out for other mmorgp that may fit my kind of playstyle more.
i hope not all damage is done already, rockx please change your mind, you dont seem to know what you are doin to playerbase.
well, from my point of view, players morale is - literally - down from mindless grind. too often without any reward. i dont understand why the system working for five years had to be changed to worse. now reading that the remote-looting-bull&&&& will be expanded to other instance-clusters and instances will drop only class-specific stuff (... and the new golden stuff bein still ulta-rare ...) - well, its kinda time to look out for other mmorgp that may fit my kind of playstyle more.
i hope not all damage is done already, rockx please change your mind, you dont seem to know what you are doin to playerbase.
but again that is not what was definitively said, all we know is dps necklaces come from a different instance to tank ones. doesnt mean tank rings come from the same instances as the tank necklaces or that they dont come from the one with the dps necklaces for example. What we do really need though is it explained clearly as this confusion is silly.
Agreed with your final sentence. As it stands now, a lot of people like myself are fretting over the matter because the dev diary was vague, though Rowan's comments help). If it works the way you and some others are theorizing, then that will definitely ease my mind.
No, it wont be like this at all. You have little experience with MMO End games I suppose.
I've beaten every raid in the game on-level on the highest challenge condition. But whatevers.
Originally Posted by l0rd_tornado
What will happen is:
Instance X will have say DPS Necklace drop, Healer Bracelt Drop, and Tank Ring drop (example)
Maybe you don't have much experience in end-game MMOs so let me explain it to you. Healer doesn't want the teal bracelet from Cluster A because Healer is wearing/wanting the gold Horse-lords bracelet which is twice as powerful. Tank doesn't want the teal ring drop from Cluster A because Tank is wearing the gold Snowbourne barterable upgrade that he got with gem drops from the Erebor raids on T1.
You seem to think this will be some triumphant return to the Moria instances which everyone wanted to run. Those instances were successful because every class needed to run them for the armour sets. There is no such commonality here. In fact, because the epic jewelry is so much better than teal jewelry people will be even more divergent in the instances they want to run.
Sure, people will still run instances they don't want to run just to help their friends. Many others won't. The point is that the Developers are creating strong incentives for people to only run select instances. It's just stupid. The Developers have been making one decision failure after another of late. It's completely ridiculous.
The smart thing to do would be to allow all of the epic pieces to drop from all of the clusters and then balance the drop rates based on how often the content is run en masse. Consider this example:
Assumptions:
1. Turbine wants a 1% drop chance (who knows what they want really)
2. Turbine can track the number of instances that are run (they tell us they can)
3. Turbine can adjust drop rates periodically server-side (they tell us they can)
Objective:
1. Balance drop rates around the target rate (1%) to encourage running of lesser run content
Implementation:
1. Count instances run
2. Divided each Ravg into Ri and multiply by 1% to find a Dropi
3. Adjust drop rate for Instance i to Dropi
4. Communicate adjustments to community and let them decide what they want to run
Instancei
Runsi
Ravg/Ri
Dropi
E(Dropsi)
Warg Pens
200
1.0
1.0%
2
Halls of Night
100
2.0
2.0%
2
School at Tham Mirdan
50
4.0
4.0%
2
Sammath Gul
150
1.3
1.3%
2
Lost Temple
500
0.4
0.4%
2
Total
1,000
1.0%
10
The drop yield from each instance over any given period of time would be equal across all of them. Easier instances would be run to optimize on time, which would reduce the drop rate, which then encourages people to run tougher content. The drop rate then adjusts until you reach equilibrium. The algorithm is incredibly easy to implement with the tools that the Developers currently have available to them.
This would encourage all instances to be run on a regular basis. People could easily self-select into the instances they want based upon instance difficulty, their skill level, and the drop chance. Hell, the average player would actually be incented to use the Instance Finder since the expected value per unit time would all be the same once equilibrium is achieved.
I talked this through with Rock, and want to clarify a bit.
The design intention here is not to route every tank (and their group) through the same instance cluster repeatedly. The goal is to give you motivation to go to multiple spaces, with available items for many classes in each cluster. The gear drops have been distributed across clusters.
You appear to be wanting to prevent a "Grand Stairs" instance to gain all the gear. Bravo for that.
THIS though, isn't the way to do it. What this will do is leave classes left out, it will piss off players who can't get into a group because 300 pst'd when someone advertised for a specific class.
Just shuffle all of the gear evenly throughout each loot table. So in Lost Temple, for example, you have a chance to get a tanking piece, or a ranged dps piece, or a melee dps piece, or a tact piece etc.
Do it the other way and for example the tact dps piece you'll have the tank, whoever that is, and nothing but RK's, LM's and Mini's with no others in site. That's a net-reduction in content if I'm not of the class that instance's loot is for.
C'mon guys, you GOTTA START PLAYING THE GAME AGAIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!
Raiding is a fading MMO art form yet here it is getting a major treatment. Ah, well, I suppose it is okay to throw a bone to a dying breed but this is a bit much. All the golden tier loot in the world is not going to change the course of the current trend away from raiding.
Any arguments or links to a source to substantiate these claims?
I talked this through with Rock, and want to clarify a bit.
Is anyone else concerned that Rowan is just now talking to Rock about this? It really feels to me that Rock has gone rogue, and this just seems to confirm it. Are all of these major design decisions not being vetted by a larger Developer team before the penultimate update build?
No, it wont be like this at all. You have little experience with MMO End games I suppose.
Oh no he ditend!
Originally Posted by l0rd_tornado
What will happen is:
Instance X will have say DPS Necklace drop, Healer Bracelt Drop, and Tank Ring drop (example)
Instance Y will have say DPS Ring drop, Healer Necklace Drop, and Tank Bracelet Drop. (example)
If you say so. You're obviously the expert here. But even Rowan's clarification doesn't entirely clarify.
"Across a Cluster."
To me, this doesn't mean desirable gear will drop from each instance for each class (the same way it currently doesn't for new 3-mans and re-scaled DG), so you still have (for example) a Captain running SG knowing full well there's nothing there for him other than a 0.1% chance of a gold. So let's say the Captain doesn't want that gold (or already has the ones he wants). What wisdom would you care to offer that Captain to get him to tag along? A bribe? Wash his car for a month?
Right.
This new/existing "system" isn't going to get people to rehash more rehashed content, sorry. It's going to keep Tanks from wanting to do Instance A, Casters from wanting to do Instance B, Healers from wanting to do Instance C, etc... It's going to make Hunters beg people to run something no one has anything to gain from except that Hunter - assuming this is how it will continue to work.
If you want people to run content, you make the drops variable across the cluster, not pre-defined within instances of the cluster. I hope I am just reading into this wrong and they are in fact going to change it so that each instance has a chance to drop something potentially desirable for every main niche of player.
Originally Posted by l0rd_tornado
This will mean players need to run multiple different instances to gear out. Using this method you can make a whole series of instance clusters viable and important. There is no reason to have great instances sit abandoned and never run when they can be taken advantage of to give players new encounters, different scenery and different experiences.
Except when they've already been around for 4 years... But let's ignore that fact for now. The only way to prevent player's dependence on altruism is to offer everyone an equal reward (or equal chance at reward) for each player in every instance. Because if you don't have a kin or group of friend's looking out for you, good luck gearing up buddy. What bastiat1 mentioned is exactly what will happen.
Originally Posted by l0rd_tornado
Even if the system didnt work as I have it above, people would still run instances that dont necesarily drop an exact item for them, because there will be many more incentives to going along. I have a guardian and a champ, I would gladly tank an instance on my guardian for a minstrel to get their item, simply because I enjoy grouping and playing the game, and actually putting my gear which I spend so much time obtaining to use. I never unstand why ppl want to gear out in leet gear then never run anything. What is the point of gearing out? To run tough content!
Lets not even speak of difficulty here because it's subjective beyond all else. But what you do need to realize is someone who has played this game for 6 years is probably not going to run Warg Pens for some glff Minstrel just to see "new scenery" or have "new experiences" or just because they "like playing the game".
The game is becoming needlessly grindy enough with more and more recycled content every expac. Your co-inhabitants of virtual Middle Earth are going to be looking out for #1 above all else. Believe this fact...
Is anyone else concerned that Rowan is just now talking to Rock about this? It really feels to me that Rock has gone rogue, and this just seems to confirm it. Are all of these major design decisions not being vetted by a larger Developer team before the penultimate update build?
You say that as though there IS a larger design team. Things have been done piecemeal and with little consideration to other aspects of the game for a quite a while now. I assume turbine simply doesn't have the staff to both develop things AND coordinate the various developments in a cohesive manner.
The quote from RockX everyone is picking apart should simply be read "business as usual: different instance clusters drop different loot"
The explanation given for the changes in Armour set-bonuses doesn't hold water.
The only thing of note in this diary is that they are expanding on the dumb Legendary/Epic quality item system. Hytbolt was a grind with fixed outcomes and I'd tend to assume turbine realized that once people finished it, they never went back. The only way to keep people logging in and playing when you are relying on recycled content is to release items everyone will want, and jack up the drop rate to astronomical levels where even massive time investments won't guarantee you get what you are after. Awesome.
You say that as though there IS a larger design team. Things have been done piecemeal and with little consideration to other aspects of the game for a quite a while now. I assume turbine simply doesn't have the staff to both develop things AND coordinate the various developments in a cohesive manner.
Look, I hear you, the team over there is probably small, but there are other developers, and presumably if they were talking to each other a lot of dumb things wouldn't make it to Bullroarer much less Live. Rowan's clarification actually sounded like he had no idea what Rock was doing, walked over to his desk, talked it out, and then clarified for us. That is completely baffling and frankly, unacceptable, for a change that is currently in build 4 and about to be released.
The Fate changes, the virtual elimination of class skills arising from the Fate changes, the Horse-lords drop design, the T1 vs T2 drop disparities, the disparity in power on the new armour set bonuses and epic rings, and now these changes are just ridiculous. There is no coherence to their decisions, which makes me think that no one over there is talking to one another.
I have been playing this game a long time and I have never seen a string like this of completely incomprehensible design decisions. It's getting bad man- real bad. There are tons of posts of general dissatisfaction, puzzlement, and people calling Update 10 "a joke" or Lotro's "NGE".
If there were ever a time for real Developer communication, it is now. Sadly, I will bet 100g that they don't address any of these concerns in tomorrows Twitter chat.
If you want people to run content, you make the drops variable across the cluster, not pre-defined within instances of the cluster. I hope I am just reading into this wrong and they are in fact going to change it so that each instance has a chance to drop something potentially desirable for every main niche of player.
I've long been in favor of a system in which instance X drops the BiS necklace for every class, instance Y drops the BiS ring for every class, and so on. Of course, this system would mean that we'd need one instance per desirable item (necklace, ear, ring, bracelet, cloak, off-hand/shield, other(?)), which would require one of two things that aren't going to happen anyway.
Those two things? Either each expansion comes with an instance cluster that has 6-7 new instances, and that seems unlikely given the post-Moria expansions, or; Turbine stops scaling instances to focus on making new ones, and that's not happening either.
Maybe the cluster-based idea that RockX seems to favor could be combined with my proposal, though: DG - any DG instance - drops awesome necklaces for everyone; Annuminas drops rings; Fornost drops bracelets; etc. Even though people would likely only run the easiest instance from each place, it'd still be better than putting the same loot in every instance* or giving each class a specific cluster that favors it**.
*We've seen what happens when the rewards are fairly equal: people run only the easiest content (GS, SH).
**Most of you have covered this already. If the best tank items are in DG but the best healer items are in Fornost, good luck finding groups for either.
Oh, and it should go without saying that whatever the current new raid is should drop the BiS for everything.
I talked this through with Rock, and want to clarify a bit.
The design intention here is not to route every tank (and their group) through the same instance cluster repeatedly. The goal is to give you motivation to go to multiple spaces, with available items for many classes in each cluster. The gear drops have been distributed across clusters.
As others have pointed out, this is exactly how things work now. What actually changed?
Cainwen Ciaphas, Captain of Crickhollow, HERO OF MIDDLE EARTH!!!
Look, I hear you, the team over there is probably small, but there are other developers, and presumably if they were talking to each other a lot of dumb things wouldn't make it to Bullroarer much less Live. Rowan's clarification actually sounded like he had no idea what Rock was doing, walked over to his desk, talked it out, and then clarified for us. That is completely baffling and frankly, unacceptable, for a change that is currently in build 4 and about to be released.
Rowan's not on the item team (he's a Senior Producer for LOTRO as a whole -- check his forum signature), so actually it is perfectly acceptable and understandable that he would have to ask RockX for the details of what was done.
What's less acceptable is that the Dev Diary itself was so ambiguous about it.
Cainwen Ciaphas, Captain of Crickhollow, HERO OF MIDDLE EARTH!!!
Not wanting that players do the same unique content is one thing. But spreading them into clusters so that we are somewhat forced to do again the old ones.... Let me be clear. I'm only interested in the new content. Doing back an Ost Dunoth may be nice, but I don't feel doing it again for getting my BIS equipment...
Secondly, it does not seem that players were heard when they complained about the chaotic RNG. Legendary quality items will still be handled to lucky ones, more than deserving ones. I mean yes the RNG impact has been somewhat lessened via gates and currency, and that's what I was asking for...but assorting rarity with pure randomness.... Do you realize that unlucky players might never get any golden items in their lotro life? I mean the one clearing the content ofc. Did they do something wrong?
In addition, many other posters covered the issues with that new itemization policy, so I won't comment.
BUT
It's rare that I feel so much negativity from a dev diary.
It's the first time in a MMO I feel totally in disagreement with a developer.
Legendary quality items will still be handled to lucky ones, more than deserving ones..
Ah, yes, another special snowflake that thinks that if you don't play the game exactly as s/he does, and that if you get loot that he doesn't have yet, you aren't 'deserving'...
I was hoping more of you would go to Rift or WoW or the next new thing.
Anymore, anytime I see 'deserve' or a form of it, it's a big red flag for me. I've tanked and healed and done damage in raids for years, and not once did I ever say some other player wasn't 'deserving' if they participated in the raid. If they weren't doing their part, then they weren't *in* my raid, and if someone who wasn't raiding got something nice, I cheered for them, too, rather than getting jealous like a two-year-old if someone might possibly get some nice loot that might be near what I had.
.
Last edited by Loreineth; Feb 20 2013 at 09:16 PM.
so you still have (for example) a Captain running SG knowing full well there's nothing there for him other than a 0.1% chance of a gold. So let's say the Captain doesn't want that gold (or already has the ones he wants). What wisdom would you care to offer that Captain to get him to tag along? A bribe? Wash his car for a month?
.
If you can't get your friend or kin member to come along with you w/o the promise of loot, maybe you need new friends, or a better kin. Unless, of course, they do that to you because you yourself are known for not going anywhere w/o the promise of loot. You get what you give.
The quoted issue is not exactly Turbine's problem.
That IS turbines fault because Captain X will be busy farming the instance where captains loot drops. You see, captain X has a life outside lotro and when he gets to play lotro he plays for his own benefit.
Update:
I`ve had a word with captain X, he said he might be able to come on Thursday for maybe one run, but only if he managed to get his loot from the other cluster on Wednesday!
Are we going to start seeing loot dropping all the way down to the minimum instance level? Right now there is no loot below level 40 or 50 depending on the instance. A bunch of us in my kin have level 20 characters and are using the experience disabler pocket piece. It would be awesome to see some good level 20 loot in the new raids.
Helen - Lv 85 champ, Helenrk - Lv 85 RK, Stiiv - Lv 85 Burg, Evilhelen - Lv 75 Champion
Cle - Lv 85 Captain, Unplugged - Lv 75 Minstrel
The Force of Middle Earth, Silverlode
If you can't get your friend or kin member to come along with you w/o the promise of loot, maybe you need new friends, or a better kin. Unless, of course, they do that to you because you yourself are known for not going anywhere w/o the promise of loot. You get what you give.
(Responding to both posts)
I am sure that a good friend would run an instance or two to help a buddy get a piece of gear for him, but when there is a very low drop rate for these items anyway, they will be busy farming for their own gear because it will take them weeks to get it. Its fine if you can get something from luck, but there always need to be multiple paths to the same goal. If I can get it as a 0.000001% drop from a orc in Rohan, I should also have a chance to get it (hopefully higher) from running large group content. One path that is more luck based and one path that is more effort based seems a fine way to get the same piece of gear.
I like the change. What this will do is make lots of different instances popular rather than just one small core of instances that are run over and over and over again. I strongly support the idea of making more instances viable. I am a group junkie who simply loves grouping and playing a role in a group, and I love having multiple instances available and viable than just the same ones over and over every day.
These are the same instances over and over, I've been doing them for years.
Even within a cluster, I can guarantee you'll be doing Annuminas Gardens (Glinghant) many times over Ost Elendil or Haudh Valendil
Look, I hear you, the team over there is probably small, but there are other developers, and presumably if they were talking to each other a lot of dumb things wouldn't make it to Bullroarer much less Live. Rowan's clarification actually sounded like he had no idea what Rock was doing, walked over to his desk, talked it out, and then clarified for us. That is completely baffling and frankly, unacceptable, for a change that is currently in build 4 and about to be released.
I think we're pretty much on the same page here. Just to clarify my point: I get the sense that turbine is understaffed and most devs have their nose to the grindstone getting their own individual assignments done in time (or 6 months late in the case of these instances :P) and don't have the time/availability to effectively communicate with other devs about how things should work together. All the while there is no one filling the role of coordinating between various dev projects for them. Thats my perception of the last few xpacs at least.
I have to say I like the new changes to itemization, especially the mixing and matching of sets. There really is a lot like with this new update. You guys really need to tone down fate, however, it gives far to much icpr. We would all be better off if fate gave 3 crit and 3 icpr and you doubled the values of icpr slices.
Here are my two cents. I do not like this change at all. Like most of the posters here have voiced, What motivation would i have as a hunter or a tank to run a captain instance over and over and over with no chance of reward. same for the captain, what motivation would he have of the same for the hunter or the tank.
Now, if each of these instances dropped one Gem. and the participants of the raid, or 3 or 6 man rolled on that gem for their item, like they rift, each boss drops a gem for a piece of gear. EX School drops a barter Gem for an AWESOME necklace, +200 might for heavy classes, +200 agility for ranged etc.... for each class. and the library dropped a gem for a ring, halls of night for a Armour piece etc.. each class each participant would get a chance for a piece of gear.
Just my two Cents.
Last edited by blknight2; Feb 21 2013 at 01:00 AM.
Reason: .
Frekkles 85 hunter Torador 85 Guardian of Crimson Fury
In addition to all of this, there’s two new sets of gear to acquire from the new Erebor raids – the lesser and greater Erebor sets. Each class has a lesser and greater Erebor set for all three trait lines. The lesser sets are exchangeable for marks / medallions / seals at the various skirmish vendors, and require having completed Tier 1 of the new raids to unlock each piece. The greater sets require having the corresponding lesser piece, having completed Tier 2 of the appropriate raid, and some of the new gems which drop from the Erebor raids.
Just to clarify, will completing Tier 2 in the raid automatically grant Tier 1 completion? If so, this isn't such a big deal. If not, it will be annoying having to run Tier 1 just to get an armour set you don't really want so that you can run the Tier 2 raid and upgrade to the set you do want.
Maybe you don't have much experience in end-game MMOs so let me explain it to you. Healer doesn't want the teal bracelet from Cluster A because Healer is wearing/wanting the gold Horse-lords bracelet which is twice as powerful. Tank doesn't want the teal ring drop from Cluster A because Tank is wearing the gold Snowbourne barterable upgrade that he got with gem drops from the Erebor raids on T1.
Of course every tank and every healer have these... oh wait!
No we didn't have it in scalable classic instances (Fornost, Annum etc.). Actually they don't have good loot at all for now.
I meant the system rather than applied to those specific instances, but there was some serious ambiguity as to what Rock meant before Rowan's clarification.
All our scaling Classic Instances (aside from Helegrod, which is treated as a skirmish) have seen their loot totally revamped. Each instance cluster now makes use of Remote Looting.
Surely it's my lack of knowledge but last time I went to Helegrod it wasn't listed in the skirmish list but in the same list as the other classic scaled instances.. and I could surely not call my skirmish soldier when I was in there..
So could you elaborate what you mean with this and why it's being treated as a skirmish?
Also what's the difference between Helegrod and Ost Dunhoth (after the upcoming scaling changes) and will this be treated as a skirmish as well then?
Surely it's my lack of knowledge but last time I went to Helegrod it wasn't listed in the skirmish list but in the same list as the other classic scaled instances.. and I could surely not call my skirmish soldier when I was in there..
So could you elaborate what you mean with this and why it's being treated as a skirmish?
Also what's the difference between Helegrod and Ost Dunhoth (after the upcoming scaling changes) and will this be treated as a skirmish as well then?
Thank you
I reckon it's because a Helegrod wing gives 2 item level 96 incomparable loot pieces per chest the same way as a skraid, and is generally made available to run and get current loot from around the same time as skraids (read: at the beginning of the RoI lifecycle and the RoR lifecycle), and because a character gets weekly locks on the loot chests much like the loot chests in skraids. That is to say, they're treated like skraids in respect to itemization.
Without knowing the specifics of the new loottables I won't call the changes good/bad. Though I still think the best option would have been to just remove loot from instances completely and switch to a barter system (with deed gating and currency being scaled on a cooldown timer to reduce farming). Though that would require some new coding instead of editing the item database, so I guess it's too much to expect.
I rly dont see a real issue here.
Is situation much different now,speaking of loot?
No,it is exactly the same and i dont see problem with it.
Example,why would any tank want to run Prancing Pony skirm?There is 0 loot that can be used for tank,yet there are always tanks there or the skirmish itself wouldnt be run at all.And it is run,alot.
Same with SG?what good drops there for tanks?Or why would champ run Goblin Town,etc etc,there are numerous examples.
I am rly happy about scaling instances seeing new loot,regardless wich class will want to run wich cluster more.
Nothing is changing,it was always this way,you cant put 3-4 excellent drops in EVERY instances,that would be insane,and that was never the case,every (or majority) instance has some excellent loot for some class,and some less worthy loot.
Look, I hear you, the team over there is probably small, but there are other developers, and presumably if they were talking to each other a lot of dumb things wouldn't make it to Bullroarer much less Live. Rowan's clarification actually sounded like he had no idea what Rock was doing, walked over to his desk, talked it out, and then clarified for us. That is completely baffling and frankly, unacceptable, for a change that is currently in build 4 and about to be released.
The Fate changes, the virtual elimination of class skills arising from the Fate changes, the Horse-lords drop design, the T1 vs T2 drop disparities, the disparity in power on the new armour set bonuses and epic rings, and now these changes are just ridiculous. There is no coherence to their decisions, which makes me think that no one over there is talking to one another.
I have been playing this game a long time and I have never seen a string like this of completely incomprehensible design decisions. It's getting bad man- real bad. There are tons of posts of general dissatisfaction, puzzlement, and people calling Update 10 "a joke" or Lotro's "NGE".
If there were ever a time for real Developer communication, it is now. Sadly, I will bet 100g that they don't address any of these concerns in tomorrows Twitter chat.
If you can't get your friend or kin member to come along with you w/o the promise of loot, maybe you need new friends, or a better kin. Unless, of course, they do that to you because you yourself are known for not going anywhere w/o the promise of loot. You get what you give.
The quoted issue is not exactly Turbine's problem.
except with the way that the loot drops work since RoR, it's not like you would be asking someone to come for one run, or even two. you would probably need around 20 runs to have a reasonable expectation of getting the drop you want if it's a teal, and around 1000 runs to get the drop you want if it's a gold.
You say that as though there IS a larger design team. Things have been done piecemeal and with little consideration to other aspects of the game for a quite a while now. I assume turbine simply doesn't have the staff to both develop things AND coordinate the various developments in a cohesive manner.
The quote from RockX everyone is picking apart should simply be read "business as usual: different instance clusters drop different loot"
The explanation given for the changes in Armour set-bonuses doesn't hold water.
The only thing of note in this diary is that they are expanding on the dumb Legendary/Epic quality item system. Hytbolt was a grind with fixed outcomes and I'd tend to assume turbine realized that once people finished it, they never went back. The only way to keep people logging in and playing when you are relying on recycled content is to release items everyone will want, and jack up the drop rate to astronomical levels where even massive time investments won't guarantee you get what you are after. Awesome.
Totally well said. +rep if possible.
Originally Posted by Loreineth
Ah, yes, another special snowflake that thinks that if you don't play the game exactly as s/he does, and that if you get loot that he doesn't have yet, you aren't 'deserving'...
I was hoping more of you would go to Rift or WoW or the next new thing.
Your post is packed with so much assumptions and fallacies, I don't even know why I bother commenting it.
The reality is that only 'luck' enters in account regarding golden loot distribution. Only luck tell players apart. You know that luck and randomness being the main determining factors is really frustrating right? Because it defeats the purpose of trying to optimize your character. What's the use of trying to min maxing or improving your chance to clear the content, if in the end it has no impact?
The reality is I have tried hard to get any golden items: I have none.
I have done Barad T2 with a fellow pick hunter. His first run. That guy did terrible and he got the boots.
Yes you have to set a 'deserving system' so that players have a goal to strive for, and so that legendary items mean really something. Currently they are given to any average chump...makes me wonder why they are not in the lotro lottery, it would boil down to the same.
As for me being a special snowflake: hint I'm not a hardcore raider. But a goal, even unattainable is better than that absurd and &&&&&&&& lottery. I will never applause the developer responsible of that loot policy.
The Lord of the Rings Online Team
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Originally Posted by Rowan
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