Update 18 Beta #1 Release Notes & Known Issues - PRELIMINARY AND NON-FINAL - BULLROARER ONLY

[Tybur]

Please join us this weekend to preview an Update 18 build. We welcome your feedback and would particularly appreciate feedback on the difficulty of the new instances, the PvMP performance override option, and availability of mobs when trying to complete quests in Far Anórien.

The following release notes are for the Bullroarer public test server only and may not reflect the final list of changes or updates included at release.

These notes are not final and should be viewed as a work in progress and subject to change.

Known Issues
The Eyes and Guard Tavern is open!
The character database has been wiped. You can re-copy your live characters using the transfer wizard on your live launcher. Remember, copied characters cannot be leveled up in the tavern.
The Epic book quests for this update will not be available during this open beta session
The new Battle of the Pelennor Fields instances and Featured Instance system do not yet have their rewards hooked up
German and French localization has not been completed for U18 content and features
In this build details will not display on character faces in character select or character generation
Resource nodes have not yet been placed in Far Anórien

Important Note: Please be aware that the build you are seeing here is a work in progress and is by no means the finished Update 18 product. There are items that are not yet complete. There may also be items missing from this initial list, this is not intentional and will be added as we progress.

This update includes the new region of Far Anórien and three new scaling instances in the Battle of the Pelennor Fields instance cluster. With Update 18 you can now advance to level 105. All scaling instances and skirmishes can now be played at level 105, however Epic Battles will remain capped at level 100 for now. We have added a rotating Featured Instance to Instance Finder for characters above level 99.

Eyes & Guard Tavern:

• Sarumango now lets you level up to 105.
• Eldorudo now has armour and jewellery for level 105 characters.
• Arbor has level 105 essences.
• Rock now gives out festival tokens.

New Features:

• Player characters can now advance to level 105. Monster player characters are now level 105.
• You can now access the Far Anórien region of Middle-earth
• The Instance Join panel has been updated to feature the new instances of Update 18 - The Battle of the Pelennor Fields. These new instances: Blood of the Black Serpent, Quays of the Harlond, and The Silent Street can be found under the Pelennor label in the Instance list and can be played from level 75 - 105.
• For characters level 100 and higher, the Featured Instance can be accessed through the Instance Finder Specific Tab and will award extra rewards once daily for completing the listed instance. The Featured Instance will change weekly.
• There's a new "PvMP Performance Override" option on the Graphics page. This option is turned on by default. With the option set, entering monsterplay areas will automatically set various advanced graphics and UI options to lower values temporarily to improve PvMP performance. Your settings will be restorted up leaving monsterplay areas.
• There is a new option in advanced graphics "Avatar Texture Compositing". Disabling this option reduces facial details displayed in game and may improve client performance

Quests and Festivals:

• Reduced the timer on Bingo Week 27, 'Bingo's Scattered Thoughts' (from eight minutes to two).
• Legolas and Sigferth in III.13.1 shouldn't fall through the floor anymore.
• Elladan's hair color should now match wherever he shows up in III.2.15.
• The enemies in III.13.8 should no longer become unattackable if the player vanishes during combat.
• It should now be impossible to wedge yourself between the stairs and the red barrier wall during III.2.8.
• New dyes have been added to the seasonal festivals! Look for four new exclusive dyes available in the Spring, Summer, Fall, and Winter festivals this year. In each festival, two of the new dyes will be available for festival currency, and two will be available for Mithril Coins. The dyes available for Mithril Coins this year will be available for festival currency next year, and vice versa.
• The Glorious Beer-mug trophy is now available to barter during the Anniversary festival.
• During seasonal festivals, festival tokens can now be bartered for each other by visiting the Token Exchange vendor at the Party Tree in Bywater.

Combat and Skills:

• The effect of Block, Parry, and Evade ratings on your avoidance chance and partial avoidance mitigation have changed. The caps and rating contribution have all been modified so that you are much more likely to partially avoid an attack, and partial avoidances mitigate more damage, while your chance to fully avoid an attack is reduced.
• Characters that wear medium armour will need less mitigation to reach their mitigation cap than heavy armour wearers do.
• The formula for converting physical/tactical/ranged mastery to damage bonus percent has been changed to remove diminishing returns - you can now get more damage bonus for higher mastery points to a level-based cap. The mastery cap increases above level 100.
• NPC formations, such as Corsair Captains and their allies, should path more smoothly relative to one another.
• Burglars can now use bows.
• Burglars now recieve 5 Tactical Mastery for every point of Agility.
• This change was in 17.2, but it looks like the release note didn't make it: Hunter Guide skill confirmation dialogues now have a countdown timer that indicates how long the player has to accept the travel.
• Swift Blade now counts towards the Champion deed "Swift to Anger".
• All types of archers now advance the Captain deed "Precise Ally".
• The Unique Gem of Faith and Unique Rune of Courage give less partial avoidance mitigation.

Other:

• You can now loot individual items out of open crafting nodes without getting dismounted.
• You can now use ó, as in Anórien in various search fields.
• Fixed an issue where fishing rods were not visible while fishing if the main-hand equipment was hidden. Cosmetically hidden fishing rods should now become visible while fishing.
• Items that can't be sold to vendors but have a monetary value no longer show their worth in examination tooltips.
• Crafting tutorial quests Introduction to Weaponsmithy and Introduction to Woodworking now offer more crafted weapon options to fulfill the quest.
• Horse-lord armour and jewellery recipes are now available from Hytbold barter vendors.
• You are now able to barter Hytbold tokens for Wold, Norcrofts, Entwash Vale, or Sutcrofts rep by talking to Rinwald.
• Non-unique special class quest items such as Ashen Gorthorog Horns will now stack up to 100.
• Fixed various cosmetic problems around weapon glows.
• Fixed a few minor UI problems in the Social/Fellowing/Open Fellowships tab.
• Client load and memory usage should be slightly reduced around Minas Tirith and greatly reduced in the Minas Tirith Epic Battles. This work is ongoing.
• Store - Opening the store should no longer cause client crashes.
• Store - After completing a PayPal transaction, the pop up window should now close.

[XKSR95]

characters that wear medium armour will need less mitigation to reach their mitigation cap than heavy armour wearers do.

thank you!

[Elgol]

"Important Note: Please be aware that the build you are seeing here is a work in progress and is by no means the finished Update 17.2 product. There are items that are not yet complete. There may also be items missing from this initial list, this is not intentional and will be added as we progress."


May want to fix this. As it is a copy from the 17.2 update.

[Elemiire]

Player characters can now advance to level 105.

Please, for the love of Tolkien, reconsider this.

[Strmi]

thank you!

and what rating is it exactly now?

[XbammyX]

• Characters that wear medium armour will need less mitigation to reach their mitigation cap than heavy armour wearers do.

Thank god.

• The formula for converting physical/tactical/ranged mastery to damage bonus percent has been changed to remove diminishing returns - you can now get more damage bonus for higher mastery points to a level-based cap. The mastery cap increases above level 100.

LOL 200k Phys Mastery here I come.

• Burglars can now use bows

wut

[mg83on]

''Burglars can now use bows''
...are you kidding???? this is a joke! burglars need improvements towards damage. Plus why do they need a bow?
Let me give you an idea: In the quiet knife spec, increase the cooldown of improved feint attack to something like 15-20 seconds and give full stealth bonuses from the skill towards cunning attack and surprise strike. Simple! Thats what burglars need, not bows. Its completely awkward to have that weapon in this class! Have you seen Bilbo using a bow? Have you?
This is a point blank, incendiary, 12 gauge shot in the face of the lore!

[SouthernBelle0927]

"Burglars can now use bows."

For the love of Eru....WHY???????????????????? ?????????????????????????????? ?????????????????????

Rethink this, please, and remove that option. If someone wants to play a melee class with a bow skill, they can roll a guardian.

If you're determined to give us a ranged skill, then give us a non-consumable throwing weapon. You did it for mounted combat, and it makes much more sense for the class. It's ridiculous for a burglar to have a skill that lets you hit a target at the distance an arrow carries. Thievery, by its very nature, is an up-close-and-personal activity. Using a bow is just phoning it in.

[Elemiire]

''Burglars can now use bows''
...are you kidding???? this is a joke! burglars need improvements towards damage. Plus why do they need a bow?
Let me give you an idea: In the quiet knife spec, increase the cooldown of improved feint attack to something like 15-20 seconds and give full stealth bonuses from the skill towards cunning attack and surprise strike. Simple! Thats what burglars need, not bows. Its completely awkward to have that weapon in this class! Have you seen Bilbo using a bow? Have you?
This is a point blank, incendiary, 12 gauge shot in the face of the lore!

Yes, that is just ridiculous.

If you want to give burgs a ranged skill, why not throwing knives? Not the consummables, a ranged auto attack that tosses a dagger. It's just as useless but less lore-breaking.

[SouthernBelle0927]

''Burglars can now use bows''
Have you seen Bilbo using a bow? Have you?
This is a point blank, incendiary, 12 gauge shot in the face of the lore!

^^^^^^THIS!!!! A thousand times this!!!!

You said it much better than I did.

[JPChaus54]

What kind of instances will these new ones be? 3-Mans, 6-mans, 12-Man raids, or 24-man Raids?

[Ardillatkd]

I had already canceled my vip and was testing other games to see where I would move after how much disappointed me Minas Tirith

but after reading these notes and screaming in excitement at every point , I think forget me moving and stay in LOTRO a long time

Thank you very much Turbine

[Derquin]

Bows for burglars!!! Yeah - at last!

We like it thanks very much. Not to be able to carry a bow is as ridiculous. A silent arrow/bolt is just a perfect fit.

Missing a cosmetic bowlike appearance made us hoping for this after the beornings got theirs.

[pittcrew1]

I agree that it's odd that burglars can use bows. I think I would prefer an auto-attack that tosses daggers or something. And just a ranged skill to do damage via a thrown dagger (animation already exists, should be somewhat easy to add). Plus burglars do already have a ranged-slot item, for FM's, and just covering that up with dps seems like yet another way to push FMs out of the way, rather than fixing them. (And people would likely replace the signals with a bow for more stats).

Other than that, like what I see. Want to see how/if imbued LIs play into level increases though...

[SouthernBelle0927]

Oh--and if you REALLY want to make a difference for burglars--how about making FMs on demand a worthwhile thing again? Right now they're more useful as a stun or a quick power or morale fix outside of instances that require them.

[peachykins]

Letting Burglars use bows is stupid. They already got a range weapon they can use.

[mg83on]

Yes, that is just ridiculous.

If you want to give burgs a ranged skill, why not throwing knives? Not the consummables, a ranged auto attack that tosses a dagger. It's just as useless but less lore-breaking.

Indeed!
Ive just heard a friend saying ''hey! it will be cool! It will bring extra stats like mastery and agility! You will be able to pull mobs like champs''.... ¬¬
1- if burglars need more stats, put it in the tools or in the signals.
2- for a ranged attack, read just above. its perfect, in comparison to what you are about to do.

This will just kill the whole point of the class: sneak, close in, land a hit that will cut off 80% or more of the mob's morale (if not killing it. oh I LOVE THAT), repeat. I say again, burglars need a solution to long-term fights. Not a weapon that will remove the class identity completely.

[Fulgurix]

Lore aside, i'd take a bow everyday over the crafted signals, since Fellowship Manouvres are extremely outdated and useless right now.

[ChromiteSwiftpaw]

Combat and Skills:

• Characters that wear medium armour will need less mitigation to reach their mitigation cap than heavy armour wearers do.

Thank you for this. That has really been a thorn in medium armor wearers' side since the changes.

• Burglars now recieve 5 Tactical Mastery for every point of Agility.

Ummm where is Hunter on that? Hunters could use that Tactical Mastery for every point of Agility as well. Bear Traps in Big Battles have their damage affected by Tactical Mastery.

Also, did you remove the Mastery Bonuses on Might for Wardens yet?

[commdorvis]

Burglars are probably the least played, and least in-demand class, so if letting them have a bow helps them at all, I guess I'm for it. I know that deeding on them is a pain in comparison to every other class. As for gripes about this clashing with their "identity"... I'm pretty sure LOTRO went past class identity with Helm's Deep. I can't bring myself to care. However, Burglars still face some big issues, like being a low single-target DPS class and like one of their original roles, and one of the funnest (to some) aspects of gameplay, FMs, being irrelevant now. Save the FMs.

The PvMP performance setting is cool, but it sure would be nice if you could make it apply outside of PvP, because we face the same issue in raids like OD/Fear, Poison, Ivar, and Gortheron where you have 12 people layering over a dozen effects on one mob, forcing the instance to be more about fighting the lag than fighting the boss.

I don't know what the partial vs. full avoidance change means, or why it was necessary. I already slotted partial avoidance relics on my Guardian, so it will be interesting to see if this is a nerf to our damage mitigation/avoidance or a buff, considering the relics themselves were nerfed... I'd say avoidances are already less useful than they ought to be for a lot of reasons, so I hope it's a buff.

And the medium armor mitigation curve being adjusted is good - it should help Burglars and Hunters out a bit, by freeing up some essences for them. Wardens may not have needed it because of their shield, but that's okay.

[Tarlywyn]

New Features:

• Player characters can now advance to level 105.

Quests and Festivals:

• During seasonal festivals, festival tokens can now be bartered for each other by visiting the Token Exchange vendor at the Party Tree in Bywater.

Combat and Skills:

• Burglars can now use bows.

Other:

• You are now able to barter Hytbold tokens for Wold, Norcrofts, Entwash Vale, or Sutcrofts rep by talking to Rinwald.

Thanks .

[Spilo]

Bows? Ridiculous.

Also, all I can see to the mitigations cap changes is "BUFF TO WARDENS AND BEORNINGS, DEAL WITH IT, CREEPS." While it's a change that I believe has been needed for sometime, something MUST be done (at least whenever in a PvP area) about this- it's the equivalent of receiving another free two essence slots for two of the most broken PvP classes in the game.

Also, can anyone give feedback on how the new mastery/outgoing damage calculator looks? It just sounds eerily of "Turbine messed with something, and it's going to be wildly broken."

[ceoligar]

Please, for the love of Tolkien, reconsider this.

Lol last update people were complaining that there was no level cap increase.
Now Turbine increases the level cap and people are still complaining...

U serious?

[Thorgrum]

Lol last update people were complaining that there was no level cap increase.
Now Turbine increases the level cap and people are still complaining...

U serious?

This is LOTRO, if turbine gave out free lunches some would be complaining about the temp of the room.

However I am interested in this

• The formula for converting physical/tactical/ranged mastery to damage bonus percent has been changed to remove diminishing returns - you can now get more damage bonus for higher mastery points to a level-based cap. The mastery cap increases above level 100.

Can someone test this out on a Warden please? If I am understanding this correctly, and I admit its been sometimes since I crunched numbers in lotro, damage might be increasing a great deal.

[Grahlwur]

The PvMP performance setting is cool, but it sure would be nice if you could make it apply outside of PvP, because we face the same issue in raids like OD/Fear, Poison, Ivar, and Gortheron where you have 12 people layering over a dozen effects on one mob, forcing the instance to be more about fighting the lag than fighting the boss.

You have a good point there. An idea would be to add a dropdown menu instead, with 3 options: "On in PVMP zones", "Always On", and "Off". That way, if this increases performance in PVE raids, you can easily toggle it when entering a raid.

Or just allow us to save and load different sets of settings manually, to allow for easy switching between between user defined settings.

Regards