U45: Official Ettenmoors/PvMP Updates Discussion

[Wheresthefight]

PSA: We have taken existing posts from the original Ettenmoors Preview to create this Feedback Thread. If you had been posting in the General thread on these topics, please continue your conversation here. Thank you!

~Kehleyr

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Ettenmoors Changes

Quests and Tower Control

Just to clarify, as Tower and Keep are used quite a bit in your post, are both terms meaning Lug/TR themselves, or their little towery bits off to the sides?

Defenders at Tírith Rhaw and Lugazag

We reduced the number of defenders at the towers and will be buffing them to be more dangerous in a future Bullroarer.​

Can you increase their aggro radius? Reducing NPC counts and making them much stronger is fine but we're already at the point where you can run through 2/3 of the keep without actually aggroing anything at this point, meaning when being chased within your own keep offers almost no protection.

Hoarhallow and Grothum

In an effort to give players a reason to visit the two static villages in the Ettenmoors, we are adding two new targets rotating that provide benefits to the towers when they are alive.​

Towers, or keeps? This idea seems neat, and 5% isn't too drastic, please do keep these 5% buffs (all two of them, one per side) the furthest extent of +Damage buffing provided to a side that can afford to send people off around the map to delete NPCs for buffs.

Additionally, please can you review the morale pools of Bok, Gasham, Alf, and that other escort NPC by HH whose name escapes me? These NPCs also have huge respawn times, and some are quest hand-ins for newbie creeps. +700k morale would probably suffice.

Alf is so pathetic that the Goblin sappers can one-shot him lol.

The Forward Camps

There are exits into the basements of the two towers accessible from the Underseaths.​

Again this depends on whether or not "tower" means TR/Lug or the towers beside these keeps, but are you saying that you can get into an enemy controlled keep, with gates/doors built, by capturing the nearby forward camp and using the "basement access" to get in?

Relics in the Underseaths

To access the relics, players or monsters players must throw a lever on the opposite side of The Underseaths, near the egress point to the corresponding forward camp. This will open the door on the opposite side of the Underseaths and allow a player or monster player to interact with the opposition’s relic.​

So you need a player by hanging around by Lug (for instance) to flip a lever to open a door by TR for access to the corresponding relic?

PvMP/Ettenmoors

• In order to restore a measure of parity to the March! for Monster Players and Mount skills for traditional Players, we have increased the induction duration on the March skill by .75 seconds.

While we're discussing the parity of March! vs Horses, can we also have it so that nearly every Freep class doesn't have a long-ranged CC/interrupt that can instantly break March!, while only a single Creep has this functionality? Or, give Creeps some equivalent utilities.

Further, can you increase March! to +68%, most Freeps are using 68% horses, so they'll slowly gain on you until they get you.

Further further, Beornings Wanderlust is just dumb in the Moors, it confers a gigantic movement advantage for catching Creeps and putting them in combat, can you just disable this skill in the Moors? It is also faster than March! and an instant toggle, no induction, and doesn't break in keeps.

PREVIEW ONLY:

• Quests to build cauldrons at Lugazag, Tírith Rhaw, and Tol Ascranen now require location owners to also own the Isendeep Mine.

Not sure I'm a huge fan of this, but also not sure what Preview Only really means, not a change that'll ever see live, something you're just testing? Often the map is 90:10 blue:red (or vice versa), so having a significant portion of your keep's defence gated behind needing the numbers to capture and hold multiple POIs simultaneously just seems once again like a thing that "the losing side" is going to struggle with.

LotRO's PvMP already heavily benefits whichever side has the greater numbers, so as you may be able to tell from what I've written in my comments above I'm quite keen to see counterplay to the numbers game, and avoid making it even easier for the winning side to continue the zerg.

• Quests to build gates at Lugazag and Tírith Rhaw now require the tower owners to also control the Grimwood Lumber Camp.

See above. I like the lore/theme, but not sure how viable this is going to be. The losing side being able to capture and quickly fortify a keep to defend against overwhelming numbers of attackers seems more important than the theme of having to take LC, then go bolster TR, but oh no the winning side just re-capped LC 60 seconds later.

• Lugazag, Tírith Rhaw, and Tol Ascarnen are now their own areas of the Ettenmoors. This provides more control over buffs and debuffs present at these locations.

Does this include server-line amendments? The lag in the giant TA circle at the moment when more than 20 players exist on each side is just unplayable.


Final question: Can you implement a keep/camp flip cooldown, something like 10 minutes?

Edit:
- Brands/Insignias/Slow Cures still bugged.
- Fulgurite Runestone grants an insurmountable movement advantage in both pushes & retreats to Freepside, allowing 3-4 RKs with any sort of heal support to retreat across the map indefinitely against any number of Creeps.
- +Warg Shadow stance 150k morale buff? +Percing Claws returns the morale it takes from an enemy to the Warg? Something for Wargs??? Anything?
- Guards still sprint significantly faster than horses with 50% uptime.

 

[Orion]

Just to clarify, as Tower and Keep are used quite a bit in your post, are both terms meaning Lug/TR themselves, or their little towery bits off to the sides?

I apologize, I use the terms interchangeably way too often. Towers are Lug/TR. Keeps are technically TA, DG, and OR.

Can you increase their aggro radius? Reducing NPC counts and making them much stronger is fine but we're already at the point where you can run through 2/3 of the keep without actually aggroing anything at this point, meaning when being chased within your own keep offers almost no protection.

Tower defenders are all now in the path you need to take to reach the pinnacle.

Tol Ascarnen has not been updated in the same way that TR/Lug have been updated.

Towers, or keeps? This idea seems neat, and 5% isn't too drastic, please do keep these 5% buffs (all two of them, one per side) the furthest extent of +Damage buffing provided to a side that can afford to send people off around the map to delete NPCs for buffs.

In this case, it is Lug/TR/TA that benefit from the heroes being alive.

Additionally, please can you review the morale pools of Bok, Gasham, Alf, and that other escort NPC by HH whose name escapes me? These NPCs also have huge respawn times, and some are quest hand-ins for newbie creeps. +700k morale would probably suffice.

I don't think it made this release, but Bok and the Mayor will have more health and we will reduce their respawn timers.

Again this depends on whether or not "tower" means TR/Lug or the towers beside these keeps, but are you saying that you can get into an enemy controlled keep, with gates/doors built, by capturing the nearby forward camp and using the "basement access" to get in?

Yes, in this iteration of Bullroarer, by capturing a forward camp and gaining access to the Underseaths you can enter the towers of Lugazag and Tírith Rhaw through new access points into the basement.

Under consideration and dependent on feedback, access points from within the towers will allow defenders to enter the Underseaths from the towers. Feedback will determine if this is wanted or needed.

So you need a player by hanging around by Lug (for instance) to flip a lever to open a door by TR for access to the corresponding relic?

No, all of the mechanics for the Underseaths are within the tunnels.

While we're discussing the parity of March! vs Horses, can we also have it so that nearly every Freep class doesn't have a long-ranged CC/interrupt that can instantly break March!, while only a single Creep has this functionality? Or, give Creeps some equivalent utilities.

We're working on getting some more utility into the Creep side of the battle. It is an ongoing effort.

Further, can you increase March! to +68%, most Freeps are using 68% horses, so they'll slowly gain on you until they get you.

We can look at this.

Further further, Beornings Wanderlust is just dumb in the Moors, it confers a gigantic movement advantage for catching Creeps and putting them in combat, can you just disable this skill in the Moors? It is also faster than March! and an instant toggle, no induction, and doesn't break in keeps.

We can look to ensure that Wanderlust stops working in areas it should not.

Not sure I'm a huge fan of this, but also not sure what Preview Only really means, not a change that'll ever see live, something you're just testing? Often the map is 90:10 blue:red (or vice versa), so having a significant portion of your keep's defence gated behind needing the numbers to capture and hold multiple POIs simultaneously just seems once again like a thing that "the losing side" is going to struggle with.

Specifically, the issue with the mine being a must control in order to access the quests is preview only. We are looking to see what the impact is, and the fact that the mine is currently a controlled locatin with a long cooldown before being accessible, it may need to a) become a locale that resets more often, or b) control of the mine is not necessary for the cauldron quests to be active. We want to validate through the feedback we receive.

See above. I like the lore/theme, but not sure how viable this is going to be. The losing side being able to capture and quickly fortify a keep to defend against overwhelming numbers of attackers seems more important than the theme of having to take LC, then go bolster TR, but oh no the winning side just re-capped LC 60 seconds later.

By making these changes, we are attempting to break the current zerg mentality and provide a number of objectives feeding into one another and require a more strategic approach to play in the Ettenmoors. Disparate and related objectives provide the option. How it plays and is consumed is up to you, the players.

Does this include server-line amendments? The lag in the giant TA circle at the moment when more than 20 players exist on each side is just unplayable.

This is not a change to pinning, only to the functionality of the locations. Instead of being parth of Steps of Gram or Hithlad they are unique areas.

Final question: Can you implement a keep/camp flip cooldown, something like 10 minutes?

There are no plans for this.

Edit:
- Brands/Insignias/Slow Cures still bugged.

Yes, and we are working on a fix.

- Fulgurite Runestone grants an insurmountable movement advantage in both pushes & retreats to Freepside, allowing 3-4 RKs with any sort of heal support to retreat across the map indefinitely against any number of Creeps.
- +Warg Shadow stance 150k morale buff? +Percing Claws returns the morale it takes from an enemy to the Warg? Something for Wargs??? Anything?
- Guards still sprint significantly faster than horses with 50% uptime.

We see this feedback. We understand and we are working on portions of this.

 

[Wheresthefight]

Thanks for all the answers/clarifications

No, all of the mechanics for the Underseaths are within the tunnels.

With this, to clarify my question, I was asking more if you'll need someone in the furthest west-extent of the tunnel to activate a lever to open a door in the east, separating players/groups to open the doors, or are the levers kind of near the doors?

I guess I can just load up BR shortly and check myself at this point xD

 

[Wheresthefight]

We see this feedback. We understand and we are working on portions of this.

This fills me with hope, honestly

 

[Orion]

Thanks for all the answers/clarifications


With this, to clarify my question, I was asking more if you'll need someone in the furthest west-extent of the tunnel to activate a lever to open a door in the east, separating players/groups to open the doors, or are the levers kind of near the doors?

I guess I can just load up BR shortly and check myself at this point xD

Oh, yes, you will need someone to traverse the tunnel and locate the lever.

 

[Magneticthor]

We see this feedback. We understand and we are working on portions of this.

On the Fulgurite Runestone:

Is it possible to get the red/white enemy/friendly AoE ground effect visual for this implemented? So that enemies and allies can "see" , much like how some AoE visuals were recently implemented.

I think a reduction in Runestone (lightning mainly) area, for PvMP only, would be reasonable.

 

[Wheresthefight]

Initial feedback below.

• Space for feedback on the door and siege itself as not enough people online ATM to really test how the doors work/break and the ballistae.

Unimportant:

• The standards for capturing the forward bases on the map are just a bit oddly positioned, slap bang in the middle
• FOBs have no map markers which should probably change now that they'll be actual POIs
• The levers in the Underseath just say "Monster players cannot do that" and likely the same for Freeps for their respective non-usable lever, naming the lever so it's obvious which lever you're even at, might help a little
• "You feckless wretches! The Free People are build at Tírith Rhaw. Take the tower, now!" - Regional alert with typo
• Some of the lighting in the cave just spawns out of thin air, no torch or anything visible, looks odd
• The siege equipment tooltips don't really state that a Ballista can only be placed as a defender and a Battering Ram as an attacker, should probably adjust this.

A bit important:

• There are no NPCs in the FOBs so what stops solo Creeps/Freeps just non-stop flipping these? I'd add some NPCs to reduce griefing, but if trying to avoid that overhead, some gigantic troll or ent that has 50 million HP and does ludicrously insane DPS would be good instead, though, and just delete a Norbog to pay for it
• Breaking legs when dropping off the cliffs in the Underseath is a bit of a slog, I've seen parts of the game where you don't take fall damage, can these cliffs be the same?
• The defence quest requires wood, which is the most obnoxious quest resource to get, and will be even moreso if everybody's got to farm it. I recommend giving us some other sources of the wood that we happen upon in the day-to-day action in the Moors.

Important:

• Needing Grodris for cauldron stuff is going to be annoying given her huge CD, can you just reinstate how Isendeep used to be and relocate some bits to keep Grodris as-is?
• The gates seem entirely redundant if a raid can flip the FOB and run through the cave system to get into your keep within about 45 seconds of discovering there's a gate at the front of Lug, probably easier with TR given the lack of huge cliff
• Battering Rams seem really weak, I think they'll be destroyed by ranged enemies really fast, this is going to be 5x as potent on Freepside where the vast majority of Freep DPS comes from a handful of overperforming tactical DPS classes that will stand on the ramparts and obliterate the battering ram in seconds.
• You are held in combat for the full three minutes a ram lives (or its 5 and I waited 2 to start? idk), assuming this is its expected lifespan, there was no door to test with so I'm not sure if it might last longer sometimes.
• Wasn't able to place a battering ram outside TR, only in the tower.
• Fighting in the Underseath will be absolutely tremendously horrible when RKs can spam Fulgurite Runestone which has an aura that is wider than the caves themselves. Honestly it will be impossible for Creeps to fight here until something's changed with that skill, it's bad enough in open field.....

 

[Nickgt]

Thoughts-

New underseaths area was neat. I can see the color-coded regions on map for creep/freep relic, and layout seemed intuitive to the moors map above with regards to where entrances/exits led. Question i have is, where does the relic go once I pick it up? Also wasn't clear on what the hoarfall arena does; I saw the buff when entering the area about relics being 'cleansed' with fights or something, and wouldn't mind learning more about that.

Building the door: Was a bit unclear to some online how many turn-ins were needed to build the gate, eventually found out it was 10. Perhaps adding a flag/progress item like with cauldrons could be helpful (maybe this already existed somewhat with the broadcasts)?

Longer induction on march didn't feel good, especially since combat bug still exists and creeps will need to toggle march off to complete quests when stuck in combat. Toggling back and forth doesn't make for a good experience already, don't see how increasing the induction will make things better.

The heros! I enjoyed fighting them. The goblin was more interesting to fight than Wilmac, perhaps more built out. I noticed wilmac also applied a bleed and had a daze but he hardly used them against my creep. Not sure if the attacks are morale based attacks or he just doesn't use them as often?

Great to see changes out in the moors!

 

[Orion]

Thoughts-

New underseaths area was neat. I can see the color-coded regions on map for creep/freep relic, and layout seemed intuitive to the moors map above with regards to where entrances/exits led. Question i have is, where does the relic go once I pick it up? Also wasn't clear on what the hoarfall arena does; I saw the buff when entering the area about relics being 'cleansed' with fights or something, and wouldn't mind learning more about that.

Sadly, the Relics and gates were bugged, so the full experience was not available. There will be some changes made to accommodate a measure of testing we were able to do.

To obtain the relic, the gate must be opened by pulling a lever on the other side of the Underseaths. Then your allies can collect the relic.

The relic bearer takes damage while carrying the relic within the tunnels until they reach The Hoarfall. This will negate the damaging effect of holding such a pure or impure item. From there, the relic bearer and all members of their Fellowship can battle and defeat enemies. Each enemy they manage to defeat increases outgoing and incoming damage, commendation, and infamy earning. This effect tiers up to 10 times. At the 11th successful defeat, the relic is cleansed and destroyed. The fellowship effect becomes a longer duration buff of 15 minutes, 15% outgoing and incoming damage, and comm/infamy earning. This effect persists through defeat and expires after the 15-minute window ends.

The effect tiers up with each kill, and will tier down every 90 seconds that it is not improved.

Building the door: Was a bit unclear to some online how many turn-ins were needed to build the gate, eventually found out it was 10. Perhaps adding a flag/progress item like with cauldrons could be helpful (maybe this already existed somewhat with the broadcasts)?

There are announcements at 1, 5, 9, and 10. This will likely suffice. If it proves to difficult to learn, we may need another solution.

Longer induction on march didn't feel good, especially since combat bug still exists and creeps will need to toggle march off to complete quests when stuck in combat. Toggling back and forth doesn't make for a good experience already, don't see how increasing the induction will make things better.

It's an equity change. We should have done this a while ago. The small increase will likely not have a far reaching impact.

The heros! I enjoyed fighting them. The goblin was more interesting to fight than Wilmac, perhaps more built out. I noticed wilmac also applied a bleed and had a daze but he hardly used them against my creep. Not sure if the attacks are morale based attacks or he just doesn't use them as often?

Wilmac was missing a few skills. I updated him today. I also increased the health of the heroes significantly.

 

[Orion]

Initial feedback below.

• Space for feedback on the door and siege itself as not enough people online ATM to really test how the doors work/break and the ballistae.

After discussion with the players present on Bullroarer last night, the following changes will be made to doors:

• Doors will have names, Hardened Door
• Door gain mitigations and reduce all damage from players and monster players by 99%
• Doors will not mitigate the damage from Battering Rams at the same rate
• A future iteration may add doors to the interior, and we will discuss during the first real round of BR
• A future iteration will add bonus health to doors

Unimportant:

• The standards for capturing the forward bases on the map are just a bit oddly positioned, slap bang in the middle

By design, defend your flag capper.

• FOBs have no map markers which should probably change now that they'll be actual POIs

Map notes will be added as a result of this feedback.

• The levers in the Underseath just say "Monster players cannot do that" and likely the same for Freeps for their respective non-usable lever, naming the lever so it's obvious which lever you're even at, might help a little

Levers will get names as a result of this feedback.

• "You feckless wretches! The Free People are build at Tírith Rhaw. Take the tower, now!" - Regional alert with typo

Typo will be fixed.

• Some of the lighting in the cave just spawns out of thin air, no torch or anything visible, looks odd

In my internal testing and during the experiences last evening on BR, I did not see any of this behavior. If you can post locations next time, I can take a deeper look.

• The siege equipment tooltips don't really state that a Ballista can only be placed as a defender and a Battering Ram as an attacker, should probably adjust

We are making a pass at clearing up the tooltips on the schematics, and more importantly, the flags that provide information that siege equipment can be built.

A bit important:

• There are no NPCs in the FOBs so what stops solo Creeps/Freeps just non-stop flipping these? I'd add some NPCs to reduce griefing, but if trying to avoid that overhead, some gigantic troll or ent that has 50 million HP and does ludicrously insane DPS would be good instead, though, and just delete a Norbog to pay for it

Based on this feedback and discussion with the players in Bullroarer last evening, defenders will arrive at the forward bases when they are captured.

• Breaking legs when dropping off the cliffs in the Underseath is a bit of a slog, I've seen parts of the game where you don't take fall damage, can these cliffs be the same?

By design, as is the run to the exit, you are committing to the Underseaths. Perhaps we can put a pedestal to cut the fall by a little.

• The defence quest requires wood, which is the most obnoxious quest resource to get, and will be even moreso if everybody's got to farm it. I recommend giving us some other sources of the wood that we happen upon in the day-to-day action in the Moors.

We reduced the number of items needed. However, it is important to note, part of this is to push players to explore the map more, so part of it is to drive you to collect more.

Important:

• Needing Grodris for cauldron stuff is going to be annoying given her huge CD, can you just reinstate how Isendeep used to be and relocate some bits to keep Grodris as-is?

I will likely be removing the need to control the mine. I think increasing the frequency the matron appears would be more detrimental than forcing ownership of the mine. You will still need to collect the iron.

• The gates seem entirely redundant if a raid can flip the FOB and run through the cave system to get into your keep within about 45 seconds of discovering there's a gate at the front of Lug, probably easier with TR given the lack of huge cliff

Again, the goal is to force a different style of play. A single point or a single raid trying to push may not succeed as well as in the past. Committing resources to various spots across the map may become a necessity. Play, of course, will still be dictated by players on the server.

• Battering Rams seem really weak, I think they'll be destroyed by ranged enemies really fast, this is going to be 5x as potent on Freepside where the vast majority of Freep DPS comes from a handful of overperforming tactical DPS classes that will stand on the ramparts and obliterate the battering ram in seconds.

We can make adjustments to the mitigations on the battering rams and change the interaction it has with oil, which is the intent.

• You are held in combat for the full three minutes a ram lives (or its 5 and I waited 2 to start? idk), assuming this is its expected lifespan, there was no door to test with so I'm not sure if it might last longer sometimes.

I am disappointed to hear this is still happening. We will need to look into why this is occurring. The duration is roughly 3 minutes.

• Wasn't able to place a battering ram outside TR, only in the tower.

I will be looking into this.

 

[Orion]

I want to thank everyone for coming out to the Ettenmoors last evening. Though it may not have seemed super helpful, chatting through the changes with you all was incredibly helpful.

One change that we will be making over the next few days is the inclusion of a chest at Lugazag and Tirith Rhaw. The chest appears after you control the tower for one hour. Any member of your side of the battle can loot the chest once spawned and claim the Spoils of Lugazag and Tirih Rhaw, respectively. The loot is placeholder at the moment, but will become Marta and Commendations. After looting the chest at either location, you will be flagged as having recently looted Lugazag or Tirith Rhaw. This effect lasts for two hours, after which you can loot the chest again.

Final loot and loot right cooldown durations will be discussed and determined throughout the upcoming Bullroarer sessions.

 

[Vilan]

Am I the only one seeing players immediately running all their alts to the chest to collect mountains of marta/comms? Doesn't really matter if you lose the fight, just fire up your alts on the other side.

 

[Orion]

Am I the only one seeing players immediately running all their alts to the chest to collect mountains of marta/comms? Doesn't really matter if you lose the fight, just fire up your alts on the other side.

Hence, beta. Hence, long cooldowns. Hence, modest rewards.

 

[Orion]

Hence, beta. Hence, long cooldowns. Hence, modest rewards.

Not in this round of Bullroarer, but the next round.

Taking the towers will now generate a key upon defeating the Captain-General or Tyrant at each location. This key is usable on the chest that generates one hour after taking and maintaining ownership of the location. This key is required to open the chests, and the chests still apply the "recently looted" cooldown effect onto players who loot the reward chest at each location.

 

[Kehleyr]

PSA: We have taken existing posts from the original Ettenmoors Preview to create this Feedback Thread. If you had been posting in the General thread on these topics, please continue your conversation here. Thank you!

 

[Orion]

Changes coming for next week's Bullroarer:

Banners at forward camps now consistently spawn and despawn when used by players or monster players, and the defenders at these locations also spawn in correctly.

Battering Rams now deal significant damage to the gates. They will destroy a gate in 10 hits, unless the gates are reinforced.

Batter Rams can no longer be summoned near one another - the fix called upon an incorrect flag to stop their summoning.

Descriptions on the schematics now clearly describe that Ballista can only be used while defending, and battering rams can only be used while attacking.

Elf Camp is larger. You should no longer be able to climb on the rocks or walk through walls.

The relic bearer buff from the Underseaths is now correctly bestowed and correctly removed when a player or monster player achieves the completion of cleansing the relic.

The relic bearer buff from the Underseaths is now correctly applying the tier down effect when the current version expires.

Underseath Relics respawns were adjusted after a bug was discovered that kept removing them from the world.

Landmarks for the forward camps should now appear when controlled by each faction.

The Captain-general and Tyrant occupying the Grimwood Lumber Camp have wizened up. They will no longer chase you outside the modest shelter of the encampment.

The new outpost vendors summoned when you control an outpost now sell the Marta buffs for Commendation or Marta.

Buffs granted by the Marta potions will overwrite store-bought equivalents, and a warning has been placed on the potions alerting players that this will occur.

Levers in the Undersraths are now labeled to inform players of what they control.

Ballista will now fire consistently every 8 seconds.

The range of Ballistas was reduced to 50m.

Cauldrons are no longer triggered by friendly gates.

Cosmetic outfits and goat/boar mounts will now function in the Underseaths. Yes, this time they will, there was a second set of files that needed adjustment.

Altered the Battle Promotion for monster players and players to front-load the effects of morale, power, and damage.

New quests to reinforce the gates at Tírith Rhaw and Lugazag have been added. Complete these up to five times to provide the gate with extra health.

The Warleader skill Field Promotion can no longer be used on troll session players.

 

[Snowlock2007]

Lumber camp is going to be under heavy action. I'm not sure I'm super excited for not being able to ninja it anymore. Willing to give it a try, but a quick hook back to the old way on a hotfix may be in order.

I hate invisible walls in general, so not loving them at EC. Saw the vid of creeps getting through unopposed so its understandable, but if they're limiting freep movement inside I'd rather they come down. Not being able to climb the rocks in the back is a miss. If a player is good enough or smart enough to climb them while under attack he should be able to. Don't need to dumb that down.

 

[Ryzer]

The Warleader skill Field Promotion can no longer be used on troll session players.

Best change of the whole post

 

[Orion]

We will be making a change to how Troll and Rangers are accessed in the Ettenmoors. Currently, the method allows sessions to become available when the number of outposts and other held objectives creates a deficit for opponents. We are returning to the difference in the number of players in the Ettenmoors being the driving factor to unlock troll and ranger sessions.

 

[hobbit_m]

Here's some feedback regarding the understeaths. I'll write some pros and some cons, based on my experience today on bullroarer. More might be coming.

Pros

- I like that it is short, much shorter than the Delving of Frór. You can travel through the Ettenmoors quickly, but at some risk;
- The color system is useful for guidance, and the winding passages are interesting;
- I like that the old new camps are being used, it felt like wasted oportunity to leave them empty;

Cons

- The central arena should be more obvious as an arena. It doesn't say it's the hoarfall, and the only indication it is an arena is the red color, being at center and the buff indicating you're at hoarfall. It should have a more arena like appearance, maybe different decoration, platform, lots of skulls, gates or something like that;
- I see an issue with the entrances to the underseaths. You can easily snipe the two forward camps with a small team, and close off the entrance to the caves. There should be a way to enter them regardless of who's controlling the camps, maybe place an entrance at isendeep and at grimwood;
- The platforms at the caves are dangerous for farmers. It should have a hole instead, where you'd drop, like the cave at urugarth or the mirkstone tunnels;


Regarding the forward camps

Like I said it's easy to control them. You should get a buff like on the outposts with "capture available", you get the buff once you defeat the defenders. Else the camps will be switching sides non stop. I tested on bullroarer, as a warg and with a warleader fellow, he attracted the mobs out and I captured the flag. Took around one minute. It shouldn't be this easy.

A few minor bugs and things noticed at the camps:

The captain general respawns if you stand at (You are on Bullroarer server 21 at r1 lx1271 ly1074 ox140.90 oy49.38 oz387.55 h270.0. Game timestamp 16957.386.). So standing in that spot makes him useless.

Also the forward orc camp still has orcs sleeping in the tents. Which is fine when the area is controlled by creeps, but seeing orcs take a nap when the camp is controlled by freeps was odd.

But other than that, I like the new additions.