Recent "Ask the Dev Team"

[Mrbloodworth]

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We recently asked players to submit questions to the dev team. We had originally planned to publish 10-12 of the most common questions and their answers. Due to the number of questions we received, however, we’ve decided to publish several sets of questions and answers over the next few weeks.
 

General

Q: Is riding a horse going to become a toggle skill in Siege of Mirkwood? If so, can we use the track resource toggle skills at the same time?
A: The ability to use resource tracking skills while mounted is just one of many changes coming for the mount system with Siege of Mirkwood. We’ll have an entire Developer Diary on all the changes to mounts!

Q: Are there any plans to open up the UI to customizations and plug-ins?
A: We do not have any plans to open up the UI to full customization and plugins at this time. However, we do have some changes that will allow for more personalization coming with Siege of Mirkwood that we think players will appreciate.

Q: Is there any chance of a shared bank slot for easier trading among characters on an account?
A: We recognize some players want to be able to move materials and items between characters on the same account without having to use the mail system or using housing chests, and it’s something we want to make available to players. We’ll have full details shortly.

Q: Will we be seeing any improvements to the mail system, like multiple attachments?
A: While we do not have plans to add multiple attachments at this time we are adding a new feature to the mail system!

Mail dropdown: When typing into the "To:" field while composing mail, you will now get an auto-complete box which contains a filtered list of people that match the letters you've typed into the box. These people are pulled from your friends list, your kinship list, and your alternate characters on the current account.

Gameplay

Q: Why is the combat system set up the way it is? It sometimes feels laggy and unresponsive.
A: We’ve heard a lot of feedback on the combat system and we’ve been looking at ways to improve the feel of the system for some time now. With Siege of Mirkwood, we’ve had an opportunity to address this. Look for an upcoming dev diary to explain all of the changes and improvements to the system.
Q: Why do the drops for Legendary Books and pages seem to be more difficult to find since Book 8? Is this something that will be addressed soon?
A: We’re reworking how legendary books and pages are acquired for Siege of Mirkwood, and we’re looking at giving players multiple ways to finish these quests.
 

Raids/Instances

Q: Why was the decision made to go the route of radiance gating? Were there other options on the table other than gear? Couldn’t it be placed on a trait?
A: The team wanted a means of gating content behind a progressively difficult barrier that could be overcome. At the time a popular method to gating raid content was to require players to go through long sequences of quests strung throughout instanced content. Instead LotRo chose to have players acquire tangible rewards in the form of radiance-statted gear.

We think that the look and the attributes of our “Tier Sets” are rather rewarding in and of themselves. That they further unlock the ability to acquire even more powerful gear is a big plus. Trait-based gating feels less rewarding as players progress through the various milestones of the process so we’ve decided to stick with using radiance gear to gate access to our raids.

That said, there is a rather significant change to radiance coming with our next update that should give players a better means of gearing up to more easily defeat the encounters of our raid zones:

Players will no longer cower at anything greater than 8 dread levels. Starting at 8 dread players will cower at the same rate as they currently do at 5 dread on live. All current penalties to attributes and skill levels still apply as they do currently on live though so you’ll still have to do some level of gearing prior to entering the new raid zone. Only the cowering behavior is being modified to allow for greater discrepancy between the radiance level on a player’s gear and the gloom level of the raid zone.

Further, content is planning to somewhat relax the amount of gloom experienced throughout raid zones while incrementally increasing it for boss encounters and challenge modes. The amount of gloom experienced from cluster to cluster will gradually increase as it has in the past; but it should be easier to gain initial access to raid zones as well as overcome the gloom of a given raid zone in order to get back on the hope side of the scale via consumables.

Coupled with the upcoming changes to make dungeon-rewarded radiance gear more easily obtainable, we hope that this change to our dread system provides an easier ramp-up to those frustrated with the old means of radiance gating. At the same we expect to provide a suitable challenge for top-end kinships looking to push the envelope. Again, more success should equal more gear which in turn should equal an easier time overcoming our raid content.

Traits and Deeds

Classes

Q: Why can a burglar be attacked and seen while in Hide In Plain Sight? Is this a bug or working as intended?
A: Please bug occurrences of this – include the monster names of what saw you, what level you are, what level the monster was. You can file a bug report by typing /bug while in the game, or use the Report a Bug link on the LOTRO forums.

Q: Is there a reason for the freeze animation during minstrel heals? Is there a chance that it will be changed so we can heal on the move?
A: Minstrel heals were not designed to be used on the move, and we have no plans at this time to change it.

Combat

Legendary items

Q: Is anything being done to reduce the randomness of the Legendary Item system, specifically in regards to legacies and relic crafting?
A: We have significant changes to the Legendary Item system in the works for Siege of Mirkwood. We’re taking a look at everything from the experience required to level items to how legacies are added. We’re also planning on revamping the selection pools themselves to remove some of the less desirable legacies entirely.

Q: Will Lore-masters ever get legendary swords?
A: Every class has two legendary items to slot – Lore-masters have staves and their books. If we allow this for Lore-masters, they would have a third legendary item to slot, breaking the balance of the system.

Q: Are there any plans for Guardians to be able to have legendary Shields?
A: As with the Lore-master, the Guardian already two legendary items: his weapon and his belt. We don’t have any plans to provide a third item type to all classes at this time.

PvMP

Q: What are your plans for the effects of PVP changes in the PVE game world and vice versa? Can a PVP zone simply disable or alter character settings while in that zone?
A: When making changes to PvMP, we’re very careful to not impact the PvE game. While we have some effects in place that give benefits to the PvE world as a result of successfully meeting goals and objectives in the Ettenmoors, we choose things that are least likely to upset our PvE-only players.

Our current tech does allow us to disable various skills or settings while in PvP zones. For example, cosmetic gear is disabled in the Ettenmoors to prevent players from hiding their true class under another class’s armor type. There are also skills, such as the Hunter’s Desperate Flight, that are disabled within the Ettenmoors.

Q: Can we look forward to a new PvMP zone soon?
A: Currently, we have no plans for a new PvMP zone.

[Yegolev]

Mail dropdown: When typing into the "To:" field while composing mail, you will now get an auto-complete box which contains a filtered list of people that match the letters you've typed into the box. These people are pulled from your friends list, your kinship list, and your alternate characters on the current account.

Overdue.  Years overdue.

Previous questions bore a striking similarity to Mirkwood bullet points.

[Mrbloodworth]

The questions were written by forum users in the "Ask the dev" thread.

[Yegolev]

Yes.  Seems the forums are full of huge idiots.

[Brogarn]

Yes.  Seems the forums are full of huge idiots.

Also; The sun is big and hot.

[Stormwaltz]

Yes.  Seems the forums are full of huge idiots.

Also; The sun is big and hot.

WTF?!?!?! TURDBINE LEID 2 ME!!!1 SON IZ NOT SPOSED 2 B HOT!!!

[Yegolev]

Totally off topic, but I am reminded of They Might Be Giants' sequel to their "Why Does The Sun Shine", titled "Why Does The Sun Really Shine?"

To avoid a mess:
Original "Why Does The Sun Shine"
New "Why Does The Sun Shine"
"Why Does The Sun Really Shine"

I'm partial to the new one.

[Stormwaltz]

Another batch posted. Their first answer is pure :

Q: Why is so much gear "Bind on Acquire"? If it is just to stop trading, why not "bind on Account"?
A: We want to have certain items be bound to the specific character. Bind on account would not accomplish this.

Okay, there's more to their answer than just that, but seriously.

http://www.lotro.com/gameinfo/feature-articles/504-feature-article-qask-the-dev-team-part-2q

[Sky]

EQ2 recently changed a bunch of stuff to basically bind onto the account, called Heirloom. Real nice change, but they've always been about trying to make the game more user-friendly. It really shows when you play other games.

[Yegolev]

To be fair, Turbine has been taking that tack as well, but they are obviously way behind SOE.  The thing I don't get is why they make things hard in the first place.

Some things make sense to be character bound, but some things could easily be account bound.  Like, maybe, all those various reward items that anyone who has played for any length of time has.  Or the costumey rep items like Jar of Fireflies; I don't REALLY want to get my Mathom rep all the way up on EVERY character... but then those are tradeable but tied to rep level directly... so...?

Maybe I don't know what I am talking about.

[Mrbloodworth]

EQ2 shipped on November 8, 2004.

LOTRO on April 24, 2007.

Someone had a bit of a head start as far as this comparison goes.

I have not played EQ2 in a while, but I do know that turbine has at least one developer solely devoted to revamping and smoothing rough spots. But, I am quite sure eq2 also has some "gerrrr" items and requirements to items, they did when I played.

I think some of the rep-items are just top rewards for doing that rep. Nothing more. Its not unique to LOTRO. There is a ton of other things to do anyway, heh.

[Yegolev]

I'm still having a tough time thinking of something that I'd really like to have account-bound instead of character-bound, assuming the rep items are not up for consideration.  Well, maybe various quest items since I do get rewards that I don't want for one reason or another.  I can't really justify that, though, since running quests is the meat of this game.

I have not played EQ2 in quite a while either, but it was after they did the New Player Experience thing where they put newbies on a bug-riddled island before introducing them to the world.  I think I went to Qeynos and everything was Brown.  I made a bright blue froglok in retaliation against the game's graphical direction.   Maybe it is a LOT better now, I don't know, but those gameplay elements would have to be superb to offset the oppressive feeling I got from the world.  Not planning on finding out since I am already playing Fallen Earth.

[Sky]

Hey, I'm not trying to sell EQ2. I like it, but at the end of the day it's just an mmo. Either you like certain ones or not (and there are parts of EQ2 I bitterly dislike). I was just pointing out how they've made smoothing out the rough spots (I like that expression) a priority over the years and the game is much better for it. Dropping the whole 'vision' mindset when it comes to the day to day playing experience is a definite strong point with the EQ2 team and has been for a long time.

Account-bound wouldn't have to be for the super quest items or whatever, though something like a j-boots analogue would be nice to pass to alts. Even simple things like the purple medium armor I had to sell to the vendor because I moved up to heavy armor at level twenty and had two alts that could've used it. It's a little thing, and it would've been nice.

[Tarami]

I would like to see a system where any BoE item can be taken to an "antiquarian" and in exchange for a sum of money and tokens (amounts depending on the item level) can be bound to your account permanently. An added bonus could be that you get to name it as it's bound. That way you can kind of "meta-craft" a set for your account.

[Zetor]

WOW's bind-on-account / heirloom system [introduced in wotlk] is pretty damn good imo. For a relatively small one-time investment at max level, you can basically outfit all of your alts* with a melee+ranged weapon, 2 pieces of armor and two trinkets that level with them and are pretty much best-in-slot until level80; this doesn't sound much, but the armor also gives you a 20% always-on xp bonus, which is nice and definitely noticable.

* you do need to get different heirlooms for melee / casters, obviously :p