Helm's Deeper, Faster, Harder, More.

[March]

While I'm certainly not going to gainsay anything that a dedicated player like Stormwaltz will feel... I'll just chirp in that as someone who desperately *wanted* to like this game, and has returned to it many, many times... changing how combat works is something I will certainly check-out.  I also (tried) to make the Loremaster my main, but I could never get past the very long cooldowns and slow combat.  I'm not in any way advocating for twitch combat (heck, I'm fiddling with Might&Magic Legacy and think turn-based is a lost art), but from the beginning combat always drove me away from LoTR... for a game predicated on killing things, I just didn't like doing that with their mechanics.

But... will I come back and give them money for these changes?  I'm skeptical; the game is old, the character graphics and animations are dated... and more fundamentally, the world is not LoTR (this is a meta complaint difficult to put in words...) nor is it fun to explore - these are critical failings that improved combat will not fix for me, and nothing I read seem to address these "problems" (if they are even seen as such by the public at large).

So, on the one hand, I am curious to vette the changes... while simultaneously wondering why they are making them.  Pour moi?  That's not a good idea, then.

[Kageru]

Sounds like low-budget desperation.. no money in the kitty to do big changes and a dwindling revenue stream.

...and more fundamentally, the world is not LoTR (this is a meta complaint difficult to put in words...)

It's a sort of miniaturized theme-park version. Still, playing as a lore-master didn't help... they might be awesome at high levels but damn it was boring as far as I got.

[rattran]

Well, there have been a lot of QoL changes since I last played, and the +100% xp bonus until Nov 17 has made leveling by just doing the Epic line much more pleasurable. I'm kinda looking forward to Helms Deep, and having someplace to spend the ~8000 toilet paper points my account has accumulated.

[Ginaz]

I was going to try things out a bit again and take advantage of the 100% bonus xp gain but I can't even log in.  It keeps saying "no active subscription found" or some such thing.  Huh???

[Stormwaltz]

I noticed something this weekend. Maybe it's just me not paying close attention before now, but; all of the class revamp diaries were written by devs I've never heard of before.

Verizal, Deviled_Egg, Jinjaah, and HoarseDev are all new names to me. And the Warden dev diary doesn't have an author listed at all.

[Nyght]

I noticed something this weekend. Maybe it's just me not paying close attention before now, but; all of the class revamp diaries were written by devs I've never heard of before.

Verizal, Deviled_Egg, Jinjaah, and HoarseDev are all new names to me. And the Warden dev diary doesn't have an author listed at all.

Fills one with confidence no?     

There are rumblings about an NGE level reaction on release. This is probably a bit overstated but I don't see good things coming from the class revamps.

[luckton]

As someone who's tried to get into this game again and again and loosing interest at around lvl 20, the revamp is exciting to me.  Rolled a new Hobbit Warden the other day.

[Modern Angel]

As someone who's always loved it, the revamp is exciting me. Because the game really does need to be shaken up a bit.

I'm unfortunately one expansion behind already.

[Nebu]

As someone who's tried to get into this game again and again and loosing interest at around lvl 20, the revamp is exciting to me.  Rolled a new Hobbit Warden the other day.

Good choice.  Warden is about the only class in that game with engaging combat mechanics.

Lotro is a game that I wanted to love, but I never really got attached to.  The world was wonderful, but the mechanics just turned me off.  It hasn't aged well.

[luckton]

NDA has dropped.  Enjoy the info dump 

[Soln]

Many ragequit threads? 

[rattran]

Seems like mostly ragequit or 'class X sucks now' threads.

[Ingmar]

I'm still waiting for luckton's promised infodump!

[Modern Angel]

The drama is deep but I don't think anyone is covering themselves in glory here. The pro-change folks are some of the more toadying forum folks I've read in a good while. The anti-change folks are freaking out over what are some very needed changes.

I don't see how this ends without fracturing the community. Today there was a minor but kind of gross moment where someone mentioned the impending removal of Traveler's Rations and making porting free. Sapience said "You know it's been like that on live for awhile now, right?" Which, uh, it's not. So this guy who is apparently a VERY well respected forum guide writer (Fredalas is the name, I believe) very calmly writes some stuff about how there was no need for the head CM to snark on some guy like that when it could've been phrased as "That change is actually on live" or something more neutral and, further, that that sort of thing on the beta forums was really contributing to a bad atmosphere. He was permabanned. I scrolled through the dude's posts to see if there was any real rationale for it and, nope; the guy was always respectful, measured in tone, and several levels smarter than the average forum poster.

I dunno. The changes are necessary. I bought RoR to check it out and on my very average geared Warden, first time playing in two years, I could take on 20 odd mobs solo. And everyone admits that their classes, all classes, are overpowered. Because all your shit is just there and available to you. High DPS with killer CC and maybe off-tanking? Let's fucking do this.

But nobody wants to give it up, even as they're admitting that it's too much. And I can't blame them in the sense that why not just let it ride? There's no more group content in the game, or at least nothing which requires a group, so who gives a fuck if you can solo explicitly soloable content. There's no army of new customers coming in. Let the legacy game have its legacy crowd, even if it's a less interesting approach than choice as you level.

[Soln]

O Hell!  If it's solo-to-victory and fast leveling they can have my monies.  Love to go back and raise my 70 to whatever the cap is now.  I thought it was just more uninspired content and token grinds.

[Stormwaltz]

And everyone admits that their classes, all classes, are overpowered.

As a non-raiding, non-PvPing casual player, I can assure you that my Lore-Master never, ever felt overpowered in the last six years, and the early levels were outright pain.

[Modern Angel]

O Hell!  If it's solo-to-victory and fast leveling they can have my monies.  Love to go back and raise my 70 to whatever the cap is now.  I thought it was just more uninspired content and token grinds.

Content probably is still uninspired. I mean, LOTRO is gorgeous (I don't know why the hell complaints about the look are suddenly popping up everywhere; 7 years on and it's still gorgeous) but it's still boar asses. I'm enough of a Tolkien geek that that's never bothered me but RoR feels like a slog, even as it's some of the best looking areas they've created yet.

It's been solo-centric for awhile now, too. Hell, RoR didn't even consider it a priority to launch with an instance cluster and there's not going to be one at all for HD. Now, while I dislike forced grouping, I think that's a shame. I really liked LOTRO's instances back in the day.

[March]

Starting point for data dump

https://www.lotro.com/forums/showthread.php?529680-Helm-s-Deep-NDA-Dropped-as-of-Today-November-4-2013

[Ingmar]

Ouch, Dire Need is a spec skill, first thing I don't like champ-wise.

[Soln]

Wait.  All the classes have been nerfed?  Or people just feel overpowered?  I want to play with more power the better.  Don't give a shit about balance. 

[rattran]

Apparently the NGE to make the classes more balanced and simpler to play has resulted in Wardens getting more buttons. 30 combat buttons now according to one of the beta people.

[Stormwaltz]

As of the last time I'd checked, Lore-Masters lost all their healing skills... unless you trait yellow-line.

In which case, you've sacrificed DPS (red-line) and pet tank ability (blue-line), so you need healing even more to survive a fight.

Genius game design at work. Hope you like buying those no-cooldown healing pots from the store!

[proudft]

Apparently the NGE to make the classes more balanced and simpler to play has resulted in Wardens getting more buttons. 30 combat buttons now according to one of the beta people.

I thought the whole point of Wardens was that you didn't need bunches of buttons because you did your little combo dealies?

I only ever really played Captain and Loremaster.  I think my Loremaster hit HOLY SHIT number of buttons around level 20, but I just ignored half of them.

[rattran]

Well, there's already ~6 javelin skills, and 4 buttons for basic combo stuff, the 9 combo-combo builders, and a spare handful of other situational combat things. Then there's pots, heal skills, etc. Plus a good number of musters and things that don't count as they're non-combat.

[Stormwaltz]

Doubtless in preparation for the housing upgrade they've been putting off for three years, house chests have be revamped to work more like bank vaults. Which is fine if you're a vet who has the current storage unlocked, but going forward new house owners will be paying hundreds of times more.

http://www.lotro.com/forums/showthread.php?529727-Helm-s-Deep-Housing-Chest-Changes

Current prices:
First chest - 100 silver
Second chest - 500 silver
Each housing chest can store 30 items.

Helm's Deep prices
15 Space = 1g = Total of 15
Next 15 = 5g = Total of 30
Next 15 = 25g = Total of 45
Next 15 = 125g or 100 mithril coins = Total of 60 (note this is equal to the current amount of space)

No further slots available for Standard or Deluxe housing with coin.
Next 15 = 100 Mithril = Total of 75
Next 15 = 100 Mithril = Total of 90
Next 15 = 100 Mithril = Total of 105
Next 15 = 100 Mithril = Total of 120

Cost of 60-item storage currently: 600 silver
Cost of 60-item storage in HD: 156 gold

It's worth nothing here that until I reached Rohan, I never had more than 50-60 gold to my name at any point. But hey! You can buy Mithril coins with real money and buy more!

The more is revealed of this expansion, the deeper and more obvious the money grabs.

[Modern Angel]

That is bananas

[Ginaz]

The more is revealed of this expansion, the deeper and more obvious the money grabs.

I'm beginning to think that, too.  It seems like all these changes are just ways to make it easier to monetize even more.  I've been playing a bit here and there the past few weeks but if it turns out they're going to try and nickle and dime me for every little thing, then I'll be done with the game for good.  Hopefully the combat changes are an improvement since combat has always been LOTRO weakest feature, IMO.  However, I have yet to see an MMO that has made drastic changes to how the game is played be successful (see swg and the nge for the most famous example).

[Yegolev]

I figure I'll wait until they make this live before I cancel.  I don't want to be a hanging chad.

[rattran]

Isn't the license up for renewal/expiry early in spring? Perhaps it's a last minute money grab, damn the future, full pockets ahead.

[Nyght]

Yes, I am suspicious of this. When asked (repeatedly) about the license renewal/extension,  the answers have been weaselly worded corporate speak like 'We plan to support the game for years to come' and in the best evar from their wonderful CR, 'We have answered that repeatedly'.

So no real dollars from me until it verified as renewed or perhaps ever. I hate fucking corporate bullshit like this.

[Modern Angel]

Word is that Turbine has the option to extend for another however many years, not TE.

[Modern Angel]

Well I legit feel bad for Turbine right now.

Apparently a large data center went down last night due to the storms, the backup power didn't fire, and a whole bunch of shit went down. LOTRO's entire infrastructure was part of it. Judging by the Facebook posts, they've only just gotten the servers back up in the past hour or so. AND they had to delay the expansion launch until they don't know yet. So all-nighters, pissed off customers, delayed expansion, and it's not their fault, for once.

[Nyght]

I think most of the servers are back up. At least the ones I play on are.

Yes, unfortunate but unlikely to have any impact in the longer run. A day or two delay in release will be completely forgotten in a few weeks.

[Stormwaltz]

A day or two delay in release will be completely forgotten in a few weeks.

Yes, in two weeks they'll probably be screaming about the class revamps and broken/missing content instead.  

[luckton]

Bah, and on my birthday no less.  Ah well