Ettenmoors Outline - 2025

[Orion]

It has been a few weeks since our letter to the players went live, and in the intervening time, we've seen a steady population of Creeps and Freeps make their way into the Ettenmoors. This enduring, and dare we say renewed, vigor for the Ettenmoors is refreshing. We mentioned in the letter that some changes are coming to the Ettenmoors, and we wanted to discuss what those will be sooner rather than later. This post serves as a primer for the discussion and current thoughts on the future of the Ettenmoors.

First, let us establish what we see as some of the issues currently facing the Ettenmoors.

Performance
Generally, the shift to 64-bit servers helped performance in the Ettenmoors. When battles occur across a spread of non-pinned land-block boundaries between a reasonable number of monster players and players (let's call that number 24 v 24,) performance is noticeably better. There is a point when players move between the pinned server boundaries and a number exceeding fifty, where performance degrades. This is unfortunate. However, we are making adjustments on the engineering and content fronts. The first server-side changes arrive with Update 44.

We adjusted the pinning pattern based on the behavior witnessed across the Ettenmoors during peak battle times. This new pinning structure moves the server boundaries on the outskirts of the map to surround the Lug-TA-TR circle in the center of the map. This change places these three locations and their resurrection circles onto one pinned server to stop the migration from one to another. Making this change allows players defeated in this area of the map to stay on the current server registry when moving to the respective rez circles. The intent is to mitigate the orphaning of pets and the dreaded, in-combat bug plaguing the Ettenmoors. We know this change will not eliminate the issue, but we expect it will reduce the frequency at the most egregious locations.

Other content and systems changes are planned for the U45 release to address some of the persistent performance issues.

Establish New Goals and Objectives for Players - AKA Spread Out

We want to address the shuffle. We do. There is a manifold problem with the shuffle.

1. Grams and GV Camps are monotonous and create bad performance and experience
2. Having a limited # of impactful objectives in the Ettenmoors drives the gameplay to set locations
3. A rotation of MP-Raid vs. P-Raid is the preferred method of battle
4. Glory is still earned at too high a rate while multiple raids are involved
5. There is less incentive for wandering group play

How do we address these concerns?

Here is the current train of thought:

1. Establish more and more tightly integrated gameplay loops
2. Establish important different locations and active targets
3. Restore some older gameplay elements
4. Provide incentives to adventure and battle in smaller groups

Now, the next question is, of course, how?

Siege! Integration
When we discussed the initial inclusion of Siege and began testing it in Bullroarer, it quickly became apparent it needed more time and polish before we pressed the start button. We pulled it back and made some adjustments, and we are ready to bring it back into the testing fold in the earliest rounds of U45 beta to get appropriate, actionable feedback before bringing it out to all of you. Yes, there is a measure of contradiction in stating that Siege is meant to separate the populace since its very nature suggests a mass of people standing before a massive structure laying waste to another mass of people; I beg you, bear with me.

Siege integration begins with removing the unsightly hotspots we used in the initial round of implementation. You will not need to set the siege weaponry up in prescribed locations; well, you will, but there won't be lines drawn on the ground to indicate where you can place siege weaponry. Rather, the siege weaponry can only be built in certain locations.

Catapults are unavailable in this iteration. While we did address their functionality and placement, we want to hold off on making them a feature of the siege at Lugazag and Tírith Rhaw. Ballistas must be placed near or within the confines of the tower proper. Battering rams will slowly make their way toward the gates, so it will be wise to build them close to the doors.

Speaking of doors. Once a tower is captured, doors in the lower level will immediately spawn. This will block the opposition from entering and seal in any defenders. Leaving the tower requires jumping off the ramparts for the opposition or controllers, or using a flag to leave for current owners, but beware, re-entry to the tower becomes more difficult.

New EC and New OC - Repurposed
Towers now have two methods for infiltration. Batter down the doors or capture a forward camp and make your way to the back door through interconnected tunnels.

The camps of New EC and New OC begin uncontrolled when U45 opens. You must capture the flag at the location to claim it for your side of the battle. Once claimed, it will stay yours, and you can freely enter the tunnels under the Ettenmoors. This is not the Delving of Frór. Rather, these are a snaking set of tunnels dug beneath the surface of the Ettenmoors connecting the towers of Lugazag and Tírith Rhaw to the forward camps. Traversal through this underground complex allows you to infiltrate or return to the towers you control, without dealing with roving bands on the landscape. Of course, if the opposition holds one of the forward camps, they may have scouts lurking in the tunnels.

Direct access to the locations is available when you control them at both your main base and your artifact keep.

Grimwood and Isendeep - Repurposed
As stated, the entry doors immediately spawn when TR or Lug is captured. These doors will be tougher and require battering rams to break. If you want to reinforce the exterior door or construct the interior door, you must own the Grimwood Lumber Camp. If you desire to enhance the defences and increase the damage done by the boiling cauldrons, you must own the Isendeep Mine.

Owning these respective locations unlocks a set of quests allowing the defenders to enhance the defenses by depositing the materials found in abundance at these locations.

Importance of Towers
Towers already provide bonuses when controlled. We are changing the way the bonuses are applied. The proposed change alters the bonus you receive for controlling the tower to increase the longer you hold the location. There is a cap.

Tol Ascarnen?
No major changes to Tol Ascarnen aside from adding the flags back to the bridges.

Please weigh in here and on the Official Discord.

 

[Red]

Thanks for the feedback

 

[Louvine]

I’m going to be perfectly honest.

I don’t know any PvMP player who is genuinely looking forward to the introduction of siege, I’m sure there are- I just haven’t met any, and I also don’t know any PvMPer who asked for it either - I genuinely think it’s a huge waste of ettenmoor development time, and doesn’t it kind of defeat the whole idea of wanting players to spend more time on PvMP and less time on PvE? I agree the keeps should be worth while and well defended, but, this just seems entirely unnecessary and will probably massively fail.

I also think that given how the servers have always struggled with the Ettenmoors (see Orcrist), adding such a complex system which will simply add to the lag doesn’t seem very well thought out. Adding an underground tunnel network alongside the existence of DoF (even though it closed), again, doesn’t strike me as a good idea for lag.

My thoughts;

- An arena for various sized fights, 2v2 / 3v3 etc.
- A general refresh of the map, it’s been the same for too long, move things around.. add new stuff… do something.
- Some kind of hard renown or infamy penalty when you die, making you less valuable to kill (prevents rank farming too), I understand rating is supposed to achieve this, but it doesn’t. You should give 90% less renown/infamy when you die for 2minutes.
- Extend the range of the one shotters around Grams/Lug or simply reduce the renown/infamy gain for players within the range of the one shotters, which forces people to move out and away from these camp spots.
- Encourage players to move around the map by adding new map events and/or rare mobs that provide a small time limited buff of some kind (nothing OP). Allow multiple of these spawns and to spawn at the same time, hopefully encouraging players to split up (think veil of the nine).
- The changes to EC and OC feel unnecessary, as do their respective tunnel plans, we wanted to get rid of the whole jumping in/out of DoF, keeps and backdoors, and to keep the action very much in a single layer, not spread between the world and the subterranean.

Probably more ideas, but if siege is where we’re headed.. I worry about the Ettens..

 

[Branson]

If there is a penalty for dying, then everyone will log and not try vs a zerg. Even as it is people log instead of trying.

Given this topic is rather fresh, I will also like to point out that the lack of customer support in regards to abusing in Ettenmoors should improve as it is heavily affecting the gameplay. The fact that there are the same 2-3 multiboxers for yeeears running around with a group of 10 characters for years just to flip the map and deny gameplay for players when there's not enough people is causing many to just quit playing pvp. This isn't something hard to identify either when there's 10 characters casting the same ability at the same time.

If everyone would start doing that we'd all be playing an RTS.

 

[Louvine]

If there is a penalty for dying, then everyone will log and not try vs a zerg.

The penalty I proposed above is that you as a player will give the opposing side less renown/infamy if they kill you again - nothing to do with your own personal renown or infamy gain.

 

[Karac Avalron]

I’m going to be perfectly honest.

I don’t know any PvMP player who is genuinely looking forward to the introduction of siege, I’m sure there are- I just haven’t met any, and I also don’t know any PvMPer who asked for it either - I genuinely think it’s a huge waste of ettenmoor development time, and doesn’t it kind of defeat the whole idea of wanting players to spend more time on PvMP and less time on PvE? I agree the keeps should be worth while and well defended, but, this just seems entirely unnecessary and will probably massively fail.

I also think that given how the servers have always struggled with the Ettenmoors (see Orcrist), adding such a complex system which will simply add to the lag doesn’t seem very well thought out. Adding an underground tunnel network alongside the existence of DoF (even though it closed), again, doesn’t strike me as a good idea for lag.

My thoughts;

- An arena for various sized fights, 2v2 / 3v3 etc.
- A general refresh of the map, it’s been the same for too long, move things around.. add new stuff… do something.
- Some kind of hard renown or infamy penalty when you die, making you less valuable to kill (prevents rank farming too), I understand rating is supposed to achieve this, but it doesn’t. You should give 90% less renown/infamy when you die for 2minutes.
- Extend the range of the one shotters around Grams/Lug or simply reduce the renown/infamy gain for players within the range of the one shotters, which forces people to move out and away from these camp spots.
- Encourage players to move around the map by adding new map events and/or rare mobs that provide a small time limited buff of some kind (nothing OP). Allow multiple of these spawns and to spawn at the same time, hopefully encouraging players to split up (think veil of the nine).
- The changes to EC and OC feel unnecessary, as do their respective tunnel plans, we wanted to get rid of the whole jumping in/out of DoF, keeps and backdoors, and to keep the action very much in a single layer, not spread between the world and the subterranean.

Probably more ideas, but if siege is where we’re headed.. I worry about the Ettens..

100% agree on siege. This is a mistake and knowing how things go in SSG development cycles its too late to reverse it, even if players will hate it (they will).

An arena should have been done years ago with enforced rules (no ganks, lol). Candy Mountain we had some good times. Raids would come through and zerg and that sucked but on more then one server there was a robust 1v1 community.

You are right again, Rating is meaningless in how the moors plays, everyone is getting zerged and killed. No one cares if they get 3 points or 30. Everything is divided now anyway with other people (it wasn't always like this). Reducing the amount you get on a tap isn't a game changer, even 90% less isnt going to stop people from zerging you, lol.

the most underutilized asset in the moors is the delving of the fror. It's just sitting there, underneath us all and is rarely utilized. Boss fights there that give buffs (which we have, but better buffs) can move people around well. I dont have a good answer as to what buffs, or timing but flipping gary every few hours just for a small buff no one really cares about seems a waste of a vast region of the moors. I would much rather have that explored then siege.

I'm back out in the moors for the 64 bit servers, its been decent but my time has passed as a dedicated player. I am not sure who they are serving with this siege mechanic, nearly everyone I am seeing out there are casual players looking for an hour or two of game play 1-2 times a week. None of them are talking about siege, its never come up.

 

[Leokid]

Performance
Generally, the shift to 64-bit servers helped performance in the Ettenmoors. When battles occur across a spread of non-pinned land-block boundaries between a reasonable number of monster players and players (let's call that number 24 v 24,) performance is noticeably better.

No, it did not.
The best performance you had, was on Arkenstone, after you did some changes to the server part, before the new server. It was handling around 40vs40 just fine, with small and SMOOTH lag delay of somewhat like 1-2 seconds max.

64 bit server can't handle even 10vs10 after working for more then 12 hours. They need constant restarts to unbug all the NPCS and cleanup memory.
It feels like you have way too many memory leaks here and there, NPCS getting bugged on players non stop, or being stuck mid-way to their destination (FM AN, TA Tyrant, Goldie) - IDK, maybe try to make some scheduled job to scan through NPCs and reset them every 30mins or so if they are stuck.
They don't feel at all like production ready servers. I'd focus all SSG attention to actually polish new servers, instead of doing ANY other development right now.

We adjusted the pinning pattern based on the behavior witnessed across the Ettenmoors during peak battle times. This new pinning structure moves the server boundaries on the outskirts of the map to surround the Lug-TA-TR circle in the center of the map. This change places these three locations and their resurrection circles onto one pinned server to stop the migration from one to another. Making this change allows players defeated in this area of the map to stay on the current server registry when moving to the respective rez circles. The intent is to mitigate the orphaning of pets and the dreaded, in-combat bug plaguing the Ettenmoors. We know this change will not eliminate the issue, but we expect it will reduce the frequency at the most egregious locations.

Other content and systems changes are planned for the U45 release to address some of the persistent performance issues.

This is very good move though. Making server borders adjustable can definitely help with performance, but you cannot skip what I have said above regarding new servers general performance/memory management/cleanup.

Siege! Integration

As some previous posters said - and as THE ACTUAL PVP community says, since I'm part of it, unlike SSG - this is junk we never asked for...And it won't be liked. This is another SAPLING/Osgi map you've introduced and which is being useless and forgotten, just hanging there for no reason.
However, sapling aka "most wanted" visible for everyone status - is actually a great idea, to spread action around the map, make more small groups action etc etc....But needs some rework and feedback from the actual/strong/with brains pvp community.

Not sure why I even reply here, since you have never listened to the most suggestions pvp community gave you (just check PVP forum and the list of actually good and valuable threads and suggestions which were ignored for ages, bugs which were never addressed laying here for 10+ years).
SSG lives in own "pink" reality of their own ideas for the PVP you barely play/feel like players do.

But, oh, well....

P.S.: Also, you don't monetize value from PVP almost at all. Skins/appearances/visual effects - is #1 right now in every online player versus player game (fps/mmo/etc) which brings the most monetization and allows free games to be free. This is just a free tip for you.

 

[Ishlan]

I believe in the old version you had a flag carrier quest from HH/grothum to TA (gives a damage buff to the owner faction around TA), is that being considered as re-adding old mechanics?

 

[TristianX]

Yeah, also gotta say I think that Siege is a huge waste of dev time with regards to the ettenmoors.. Nobody has asked for this.. There are so many other issues with the Ettensmoors that should be taking precedent here :/

Encourage players to move around the map by adding new map events and/or rare mobs that provide a small time limited buff of some kind (nothing OP). Allow multiple of these spawns and to spawn at the same time, hopefully encouraging players to split up (think veil of the nine).

Just want to say I really agree with this point:

SSG have tried with things like outposts etc. to encourage people to spread out, the problem is, they are both unrewarding and time consuming, you need **multiple** sporadic/random time limited mobs/events that spawn around the map and exist for a short period of time (5-10minutes max), which doesn't take too much effort to kill 3-4 players being enough (solo also an option, just longer ofc and more dangerous to go alone), that encourage players to split up and spread out in order to get all of them

 

[Ushrak]

Not only has the addition of siege mechanics has not been requested by the majority of the PvMP player base, but its addition would be premature in circumstances where the fundamentals required for good PvMP have not been nailed first.

The primary impediment to enjoyable PvMP at present is the intolerable lag that occurs whenever 40 or more players are engaged in combat against one another in the same area. That should be the main priority for developer resource allocation.

Beyond the above, I have some other thoughts for changes I would like to see.

In my view, the infamy/renown gain buffs granted by PvE need to be pared back significantly (only the infamy/renown aspects of the buffs, the commendation buffs are fine as is). The losing side that has no control of the map (often due to being the side with less players, or less organised players) ends up having no infamy/renown buffs and has little incentive to continue playing in those circumstances, when the reward for their effort is so low.

Control of Tol Ascarnen should give only a +25% buff. Control of Lugazag and Tirith Rhaw should each give only a +15% buff. Control of the Grimwood Lumber Camp should give only a +10% buff. Isendeep Mine should be restored as a keep and should also give only a +10% buff. The drake and its buff should be removed entirely (in what universe is a buff that one side can lock away for 6hrs, with little opportunity for the other side to contest it, even remotely enjoyable?). Each outpost should either give only a +5% buff or, alternatively (and my preference) no buff at all, and instead control of an outpost buffs or slightly debuffs the NPCs at the keep to which the outpost is linked, e.g. River OP affects Lugazag, Hithlad OP affects Grimwood, AE OP affects Isendeep Mine, and Isendeep OP affects Tirith Rhaw (swap the name of these two OPs to avoid confusion).

To offset the above, revert the rating system to how it used to be - so that it takes time accrue a high rating, and it's not completely annihilated by only one death. Balance infamy/renown gain on the basis that with all of the buffs above, a solo kill of a player with 2000 rating (being the maximum) will award 500 infamy/renown, and a solo kill of a player with 0 rating will award 50 infamy/renown. Where more than one player contributes to the kill, infamy/renown gain is to be divided between players in the usual manner, with the minimum award possible being 10 infamy/renown (and optionally make it bottom out at 5 infamy/renown where more than 30 players contribute to the kill).

The NPC keeps should be balanced such that Tol Ascarnen requires a 24man raid to flip. Lugazag and Tirith Rhaw should require 18 people, but the linked outpost is flipped to debuff the NPCs, it should be feasible with 12. Grimwood and Isendeep should require 12, but if the linked outpost is flipped and the NPCs are debuffed, it should be possible with 6. Outposts should require 6 players.

On another note, get rid of Creep Tribe traits. In my experience, these have only resulted in the majority of Creeps having sub-optimal outcomes in gameplay due to choosing an off-meta Tribe trait. A rank 0 Creep who makes that unfortunate mistake is doomed to have a bad time. My preference would be for the base stats for each Creep class to be normalised in line with how that class is intended to be played and the role it is essentially designed to perform, with the Corruption traits being restored as the means by which Creep stats can be fine-tuned (emphasis on the word fine-tuned).

 

[Nanganark]

I’m going to be perfectly honest.

I don’t know any PvMP player who is genuinely looking forward to the introduction of siege, I’m sure there are- I just haven’t met any, and I also don’t know any PvMPer who asked for it either - I genuinely think it’s a huge waste of ettenmoor development time, and doesn’t it kind of defeat the whole idea of wanting players to spend more time on PvMP and less time on PvE? I agree the keeps should be worth while and well defended, but, this just seems entirely unnecessary and will probably massively fail.

I also think that given how the servers have always struggled with the Ettenmoors (see Orcrist), adding such a complex system which will simply add to the lag doesn’t seem very well thought out. Adding an underground tunnel network alongside the existence of DoF (even though it closed), again, doesn’t strike me as a good idea for lag.

My thoughts;

- An arena for various sized fights, 2v2 / 3v3 etc.
- A general refresh of the map, it’s been the same for too long, move things around.. add new stuff… do something.
- Some kind of hard renown or infamy penalty when you die, making you less valuable to kill (prevents rank farming too), I understand rating is supposed to achieve this, but it doesn’t. You should give 90% less renown/infamy when you die for 2minutes.
- Extend the range of the one shotters around Grams/Lug or simply reduce the renown/infamy gain for players within the range of the one shotters, which forces people to move out and away from these camp spots.
- Encourage players to move around the map by adding new map events and/or rare mobs that provide a small time limited buff of some kind (nothing OP). Allow multiple of these spawns and to spawn at the same time, hopefully encouraging players to split up (think veil of the nine).
- The changes to EC and OC feel unnecessary, as do their respective tunnel plans, we wanted to get rid of the whole jumping in/out of DoF, keeps and backdoors, and to keep the action very much in a single layer, not spread between the world and the subterranean.

Probably more ideas, but if siege is where we’re headed.. I worry about the Ettens..

Just to also add my thoughts on those ''ideas'' of yours, i know many players wish for Arena sized 2v2 and 3v3 etc.., but it would also destroy the purpose for the Ettenmoors being ''here'' also i'm against it because as you described rank farming.., so this is a big, big NO to me.

and yes I am also in favor of changing the Ettenmoors map itself... move things, add new things etc., i also brought in the Idea to expand it to also include the ''Ettendales'' between Trollshaws and the ''Ettenmoors'' there is so much space between Trollshaws and the Ettenmoors itself to also include the ''Ettendales''.., but that's just a wish/idea of my own..

 

[Nanganark]

Here's what I feel should be done to the Moors:

- Find a way to make fights clearer where they're happening. People have gone silent in OOC lately because they're either in Discord or they're not wanting to alert spies (and to deal with a lot of spying, make it so you can only enter the Ettens at level cap). Maybe some icon on the radar that points out where an ally is in combat? Maybe temporary marks on the map that show where an ally has been defeated?
- Encourage congregation of fighting. Maybe make random areas on the map a "Fate/Doom Zone" where buffs to combat are given when fighting there that day, and they move somewhere else the next day.
- Fix the heals issue. They're far too overpowered, especially on Creep side. Too many occasions where I'm seeing a whole group of Freeps targetting a WL/Defi that won't go down because they just happen to be grouped with another WL/Defi. Heals should at most slow a death, not prevent it entirely.
- Either remove the pointless Relic/Outpost/Keep buffs, or make them so drastic that players have no other choice but to fight for them.
- Add doors to the CG/Tyrant rooms in keeps. The moment the CG/Tyrant gets activated, there's a 5 second window before the doors spawn and lock people in/out, with the only options out being to jump out the windows if you don't want it. That should limit the issue of people pulling the whole room when chasing an enemy, and then avoiding all consequences because it just resets the moment they walk out of the arch again like nothing happened.
- Remove the Warg root or make it breakable like other roots. You can't give a class with a sprint like theirs the ability to block their enemy from doing the same.
- Fix all the combat effect problems in the Moors. If you use a skill that says it provides immunity to stuns, dazes, roots, slows, etc., then have them ACTUALLY WORK. Too many times I've used these, only to get immediately stunned, dazed, rooted, slowed still.

With this i agree 100%!

Here's my more extreme changes that would never happen but I've always wanted:

- Shrink the map. Most of it is empty and unused, we'd only really need a map maybe that's just one side of the river. The rest can be just Creep PvE, but all PvP could easily be limited to a triangle space the size of OR to SOP to GV.
- Remove heals. Turn all heal skills into damage skills instead. No pots, no self-heals, nothing. Just damage.
- Remove all stealth. At most, keep a skill or two to temporarily disappear for a few seconds to use certain skills, but definitely no walking around invisible, and no stealthing to escape death.
- Remove all grouping. Without heals, there's no reason to group. "Raid vs Raid" would be a few dozen solos just fighting it out in the same place.
- Make Creeps mirrors of Freeps with skills and stats (would require making new Creep classes to match the number of Freep classes).

This is a HUGE NO to me! and i would never agree with such changes!

 

[Snowlock2007]

Not sure why I even reply here, since you have never listened to the most suggestions pvp community gave you

This is just patently false.

1) "we hate star farmers" - Got rid of stars.
2) "we hate being grey barred" - Added DR, insignias, Brands, stun and root pots.
3) "hot spots are too easy to exploit" - Removed hot spots.
4) "we hate EC/TA shuffle" - Added flags and npcs to bridges
5) "We hate EC camps" - Moved EC and OC
6) "It takes too long to hit R15" - Added infamy/renown to quests and buffs
7) "Freeps can get to CG in keeps too quickly" - banned horses from keeps
8) "Keeps are too easy/hard to take" - Added, removed flags.
9) "Keeps are too susceptible to ninja captures." - Added back doors.
10) "KB deeds are unfair to different classes" - Made KB's shared
11) "Rating is unfair to different classes" - Made rating shared
12) "Infamy/Renown distribution is unfair to healers" - Added points to healing.
13) "Balance is too hard to maintain" - Audacity stat is created to give devs more tools to adjust balance.
14) "If there's not enough people on to flip keeps, we can't spawn quest bestowers" Keep auto-flip functionality created.
15) "We're tired of the Ettenmoors as a player map" - Osgilliath added
16) "Freep set bonuses are OP" - Banned all non-audacity gear freepside.
17) "We need a place to 1v1" - Created arena south of DG
18) "there's too much lag in keeps" - Removed alot of NPCS.
19) "It's too hard to start a new creep" - Most skills granted by r5.
20) "Creeps aren't customizable enough " - Added blessings.

That's just the top 20. There's more.

 

[Snowlock2007]

Wandering play at all isn't fun, as said before you spend too much time running around

So you're either talking shuffles or arenas. Either of which is boring as hell.

 

[Wheresthefight]

@Orion Please, with these rounds of changes, can you address a couple of the really core problems that plague PvP at the moment? I'll highlight them (IMO) below:

1. Tank Specs in the Moors.
They serve no purpose other than to slow down action, cause aggravation and oppress Creeps until help can arrive. Blue Champs, Blue Beornings and to a lesser degree, Blue Guardians & Blue Brawlers are absolutely horrible to fight against, whilst realistically offering little to nothing for their Freep groups. Their existence is a scourge on PvMP and in my opinion is the definition of unsportsmanlike play.

2. Rune-keeper Fulgurite Runestone.
This massively hinders Group vs Group action. Pushing a raid of Freeps that are stacking RKs (every Fraid without fail) is just so hard when half of that raid can drop an aura-based 50% incurable slow with a pulsing stun.

I would recommend removing the slow from Fulgurite Runestone and, and just add a 30-40% single target slow to another skill. Chilling Rhetoric not having the daft "removed on any damage" flag would probably be fine, albeit 50% is too big a slow.

3. Freepside survivability, particularly in DPS specs.
Yellow RK is the most egregious, but RGuard and RBurg are also astonishingly over-kitted right now. Most of these classes have ~600-650k morale but take a solid 1.2 to 1.5m damage before going down. It'd be less problematic if classes like YRK weren't ~50% of all Freeps on account of it being so trivially easy to do huge damage on, with such over-potent survivability like Self Motivation.

4. Freepside ease of application of damage.
Red LM, Yellow RK and RMini are the most obvious but there are a bunch more. Red LM damage is comically easy to apply, the Lynx pet DOT alone (one skill click) is half a Creep's morale pool. All of these classes have the same core problems:

- Long range (Minis have 56 metres! FIFTY SIX METRES. For reference that is sometimes outside of your view range, you can be killed by a Freep you cannot see.)
- Trivially simple "rotations"
- Immune to kiting due to range/tactical nature
- Far too much survivability given all of the above

5. A very clear imbalance in which classes are the most capable with the least amount of skill required.
Every MMO will have FOTM classes, but please can you log into the Ettenmoors, find a sizeable Freep group and just tab through it? I guarantee you 90% of the classes will be Minstrel, RK and LM, and the other 10% will be all other classes combined.

Finally, please please can you fix the War Leader Aura bug? 5m radius until leaving and rejoining the group, it's so annoying :/

 

[Wheresthefight]

The penalty I proposed above is that you as a player will give the opposing side less renown/infamy if they kill you again - nothing to do with your own personal renown or infamy gain.

Sorry, this will achieve nothing. Zergers will run you down 30v1 whether you yield 1000 points/kill or 0. The trick really is to disincentivise it to the point where there is actually a loss for the zerging side. 30v1? -100 points per kill. The cutoff would have to be reasonable, a 6v1 is probably where I'd begin introducing negative points.

1 vs 1: 100% points
2 vs 1: 90% points (divided by 2)
3 vs 1: 50% (divided by 3)
4 vs 1: 30% (divided by 4)
5 vs 1: 0 points
6+ vs 1: -25 points
12+ vs 1: -50 points
24+ vs 1: -100 points

This sort of system will - in my opinion - make people think twice about mindlessly obliterating solos when they come across them 6v1. The above can just be applied to a "ratio" and the same applies. 12 vs 2: -25 points per kill.

"Spread out" is the opposite of what I'd want to see. Right now, it's annoying having to try to track down where the fighting is, you spend most of your time riding around an empty map, and occasionally jumped by invisible warg packs or ambushing duos that you can't fight back against anyway.

Wandering play at all isn't fun, as said before you spend too much time running around, and only favours PvP kins who can sit for hours in a 6-man group anyway.

Spreading out is a good thing, unless you enjoy shuffles and camps. Which it.. Does sound like you do? "Having to track down the fighting" is a part of an Open World PvP experience. I do agree it should be easier.

The only gameplay loop we need is "get to fight > fight > die > know where next fight is > repeat". It's fixing that 4th stage, of knowing where the fighting even is, that's the issue.

I do agree with you here, which is probably the only thing in your Wall of Text that I do agree with, the rest screams of mindless zerger opinion.

Guild Wars 2 WvW PvP has small counters in the zones that tell you how many people are near a given landmark, that would be huge for LotRO PvMP, to know that there are 20 people in Coldfells somewhere, without needing a spy or /who to discover it. Just hovering over a part of the map and seeing "0 players" will guarantee you don't waste your time going there. Less than 5 players in a zone should show 0.

 

[Nanganark]

@Orion Please, with these rounds of changes, can you address a couple of the really core problems that plague PvP at the moment? I'll highlight them (IMO) below:

1. Tank Specs in the Moors.
They serve no purpose other than to slow down action, cause aggravation and oppress Creeps until help can arrive. Blue Champs, Blue Beornings and to a lesser degree, Blue Guardians & Blue Brawlers are absolutely horrible to fight against, whilst realistically offering little to nothing for their Freep groups. Their existence is a scourge on PvMP and in my opinion is the definition of unsportsmanlike play.

2. Rune-keeper Fulgurite Runestone.
This massively hinders Group vs Group action. Pushing a raid of Freeps that are stacking RKs (every Fraid without fail) is just so hard when half of that raid can drop an aura-based 50% incurable slow with a pulsing stun.

I would recommend removing the slow from Fulgurite Runestone and, and just add a 30-40% single target slow to another skill. Chilling Rhetoric not having the daft "removed on any damage" flag would probably be fine, albeit 50% is too big a slow.

3. Freepside survivability, particularly in DPS specs.
Yellow RK is the most egregious, but RGuard and RBurg are also astonishingly over-kitted right now. Most of these classes have ~600-650k morale but take a solid 1.2 to 1.5m damage before going down. It'd be less problematic if classes like YRK weren't ~50% of all Freeps on account of it being so trivially easy to do huge damage on, with such over-potent survivability like Self Motivation.

4. Freepside ease of application of damage.
Red LM, Yellow RK and RMini are the most obvious but there are a bunch more. Red LM damage is comically easy to apply, the Lynx pet DOT alone (one skill click) is half a Creep's morale pool. All of these classes have the same core problems:

- Long range (Minis have 56 metres! FIFTY SIX METRES. For reference that is sometimes outside of your view range, you can be killed by a Freep you cannot see.)
- Trivially simple "rotations"
- Immune to kiting due to range/tactical nature
- Far too much survivability given all of the above

5. A very clear imbalance in which classes are the most capable with the least amount of skill required.
Every MMO will have FOTM classes, but please can you log into the Ettenmoors, find a sizeable Freep group and just tab through it? I guarantee you 90% of the classes will be Minstrel, RK and LM, and the other 10% will be all other classes combined.

Finally, please please can you fix the War Leader Aura bug? 5m radius until leaving and rejoining the group, it's so annoying :/

i hope this is a JOKE post from you.., there are far more Creeps which needs to be tuned down, before you can make any change to Freep.., why taking away the ''Range'' from RMini and RLM? there is no reason to do that; Spider can decrease your Range.., Blackarrow can also get to a range of like 46 or even 51 meters.., so there is like no reason for it to get removed.., RMini Survability.., is not given -> ''Still as Death'' is more kind of useless right now same goes for the Burglars ''Hide in Plain Sight'' aka Vanish.., they serve no real purpose to be existent.., creeps camp around you, while you are in ''Still as Death'' or even cancel it = useless
Burglar getting tracked down so ''Hide in Plain Sight'' is = useless
I don't really see your Problem here.., if Creeps would FIGHT as the Freeps do, you could easily wipe them.., but no.., Creeps camp at Grams and do not even get out of it.., always the same.., and then the Post of players like you arise, that it's not okay etc..^^

Edit; I've never said/wrote in any form that Creeps are OP in any way, what i've meant by this is, the Healing from Warleader and Defiler...

 

[Skoch]

Not sure about implementing more assets with the introduction of siege - worried it will contribute to server lag.
However, the underground tunnel network sounds neat! Separate instanced zones that are new and fresh to explore is a definite welcome!
Neeeeeed more shiney!!! Like an un updated shield, pweeeze & tankz!

 

[Orion]

Nothing is set in stone. This is why we are sharing the information earlier in the development cycle. If, after public testing, the addition of barricading doors and battering rams is too intrusive and non-performant, we'll likely sideline its inclusion until it can be realized more completely, or not at all. It is something new that aims to add a measure of dynamic and interlaced play to various areas of the battlespace by placing more onus on controlling and maintaining control over multiple locations. We'll see how it goes.

NPC defenders at TR and Lug will be further reduced. With a small group of defenders on the ground floor and another small group of defenders on the top floor. Quest givers will remain in the quest rooms, and we are considering moving them to their respective permanent keeps when the towers are under enemy control - this is a stretch goal.

 

[Wanderv]

Really? Some people say creeps should be tuned down? This is beyond joke.

Also I agree that keeps NPC should be buffed not nerfed. Keeps flipping is already too fast.