Let’s Discuss Monster Play

[Hobbit_bounder]

I don't have much to add in great detail, because balancing is difficult with all of the skills available.

What I will say is that I enjoyed PvMP the most in the first couple of years of Lotro. I'd prefer it to be balanced and for it to go back like it was before (With the Elf / orc camps at the original location). The Delving of Fror and the outposts were fine as they used to be in my opinion, but I don't know. I would prefer many weaker npc's instead of fewer strong ones in the keeps and towers, but performance is important for pvmp. If this is the only way to better it, then sure. Perhaps it's possible to improve your servers instead. It's not just a problem for pvmp, but pve as well.

Adding a new area doesn't work in my opinion (in case this is a possibility). Osgiliath proved (in my experience) that most players will stay in the Ettenmoors. Having a bigger pvmp area also means more land to cover on your character and the chance of running into players of the other side is lower.

I really like the PvMP of Lotro and it's different from other games. It's an original concept and I like the Ettenmoors map with its keeps, towers, camps and npc's. Personally I wouldn't want it to change too much, only for it to be improved. I think the main issue is balance. I'd be happy if you could at least improve this. To buff the creep side (stats, skills, morale etc.), so that it won't effect the pve content.

[AldoRaine]

I want to say bold changes and new features.

[...]

Where we go from here is based on minor adjustments with perceptible and measurable impact, coupled with a potentially bold action if I can convince Raninia of its potential value and then it delivers on that value. (Side note: Thus far, Raninia is open to the bold action I am suggesting.)

A huge downer for many people (and I hear this ofter on world chat or forums) is not being able to PvP with their own crafted characters when it comes to Creeps.

Playing as Creeps at PvP for many players is similar to playing dungeon groups and raids as a new Gondorian Soldier from a session play with a new tool bar of actions and a new skill tree that's only limited and able for raid/dungeon content (like Creeps to PvMP content). It's like a crippled alt.

This wouldn't be the case in games that are FPS (Counter-strike, Left 4 Dead) or MOBA (League of Legends, DOTA) in which players do not build their characters through hundreds of hours of gameplay, but play randomly through different characters and build them in a span of a 30 minute session with no Endgame or Meta in mind. So, players don't feel attached to progress or their characters like it happens in a large MMO like Lotro.

Many folks are used to their own toons because they had been building an entire Ego with them (spending hundreds of hours questing/doing tasks/completing content/doing cosmetics and becoming more powerful). Stuff that you cannot do with a Creep because the gameplay it's reduced to PvMP only.


Which leads me to the next question:

- Wouldn't it be better to character-bound progress from 1 Creep to 1 specific Freep character?

Let each character have its own Creep bounded to him, so, each player is able to play at times with its character-bounded Creep and build progress to a main character & Creep NPC and viceversa by playing with any of both (creep or freep).

It's a win-win scenario. Player will progress on a specific Freep character on PvMP while playing as a Creep and their character-bounded Creep will progress too at the same time when he plays with the Freep bounded to the Creep (each character would be able to have up to 1 creep bounded to him). This will be default, but players will still be able to play as Creeps as separated alts, as it's now if they want.

So, it doesn't matter if you play as Freep or Creep because both would help you to move foward with both toons (main toon and crippled NPC alt at the same time).

Right now it does matter if you play as Creep or Freep because Freep is VIP for a reason (because many people chooses to play with their main toons PvP rather than a crippled alt only functional to PvMP).

[Hephburz-2]

A huge downer for many people (and I hear this ofter on world chat or forums) is not being able to PvP with their own crafted characters when it comes to Creeps.

Playing as Creeps at PvP for many players is similar to playing dungeon groups and raids as a new Gondorian Soldier from a session play with a new tool bar of actions and a new skill tree that's only limited and able for raid/dungeon content (like Creeps to PvMP content). It's like a crippled alt.

This wouldn't be the case in games that are FPS (Counter-strike, Left 4 Dead) or MOBA (League of Legends, DOTA) in which players do not build their characters through hundreds of hours of gameplay, but play randomly through different characters and build them in a span of a 30 minute session with no Endgame or Meta in mind. So, players don't feel attached to progress or their characters like it happens in a large MMO like Lotro.

Many folks are used to their own toons because they had been building an entire Ego with them (spending hundreds of hours questing/doing tasks/completing content/doing cosmetics and becoming more powerful). Stuff that you cannot do with a Creep because the gameplay it's reduced to PvMP only.


Which leads me to the next question:

- Wouldn't it be better to character-bound progress from 1 Creep to 1 specific Freep character?

Let each character have its own Creep bounded to him, so, each player is able to play at times with its character-bounded Creep and build progress to a main character & Creep NPC and viceversa by playing with any of both (creep or freep).

It's a win-win scenario. Player will progress on a specific Freep character on PvMP while playing as a Creep and their character-bounded Creep will progress too at the same time when he plays with the Freep bounded to the Creep (each character would be able to have up to 1 creep bounded to him). This will be default, but players will still be able to play as Creeps as separated alts, as it's now if they want.

So, it doesn't matter if you play as Freep or Creep because both would help you to move foward with both toons (main toon and crippled NPC alt at the same time).

Right now it does matter if you play as Creep or Freep because Freep is VIP for a reason (because many people chooses to play with their main toons PvP rather than a crippled alt only functional to PvMP).

What are you even talking about?

[Digital_Necromancer]

Balancing PvMP between Freeps and Creeps is a very tough endeavor, as any class changes (such as damage and healing reductions/increases) to Freeps are not restricted to the Ettenmoors only, but affect the rest of the game's balance as well, especially PvE which is admittedly the most popular side of the game. At the same time, as PvE progresses and new raids and instances are added, the PvMP balance is also directly affected as Commendation gear slowly grows obsolete and Freeps use more and more PvE endgame drops instead.

My suggestion is as follows: introduce Class-specific Commendation sets back to the Ettenmoors, with the same 3 tiers of sets as the current Light/Medium/Heavy armor equipment (the first and weakest buyable with silver, the rest with Commendations and progressively stronger). Audacity should be given not by the gear pieces themselves, but as a 14-item set bonus of the Commendation class sets. By having each class *forced* to wear only specific armors, you can balance each class' output by balancing the stats on the equipment itself. It is by no means a perfect solution, however it greatly eases the current issues with balancing. Tying Audacity to a full PvMP armor set bonus also removes the ability of high tier raiders mix and matching gear to gain the minimum Audacity required for CC reduction etc. while storming in with overpowered raid gear. The re-introduction of class specific sets would also allow the addition of set bonuses that would also help with balance.

An alternative to this would be a zone wide Freep debuff on damage, health, healing and mitigations which is completed counteracted when one has the maximum possible Audacity (38 at the moment iirc). PvE equipment should have no place in a PvMP zone, the same way that PvMP armor has no place outside the Ettenmoors.

I would also like to see Osgiliath brought back in some way. Perhaps make it a temporary event zone open only during specific weekends, where Commendation and Renown/Infamy would be heavily boosted.

[Bard85]

I enjoy PvP, but every time I happen to rank, I feel an irrepressible deincentivization when I realize the time it will take time rank again is almost double the effort completed to date. I don't even want to start. Eventually I get back to it, but it's hard. I really need more incremental motivations to want to play. I relish the sense of achievement in an MMO, but it is WAY too far in between milestones in PvP. I would be much more likely to play more frequently if there were SOME kind of stepping stones in between ranks that made me feel like I was actually progressing/achieving something. There has to be a way to achieve that without decreasing the achievement of those who have gone before. What if you were able to unlock Moors mobility, locations, abilities, emotes, loot, cosmetics, portrait frames, SOMETHING, by getting to Rank 7.1, 7.2 or 7.3 instead of just between 7 & 8 for example.. Thanks.

[AldoRaine]

What are you even talking about?

Freeps are VIP because playing as Creep sucks for the majority of people. Because Creeps are a crippled alts you've to learn from scratch and limited to PvMP, meanwhile Freeps are the toons we play for everything and toons we already know because we had been playing with them for a long time.


If devs bound progress from a creep to a freep, both characters will mutually benefit from their PvMP achievements and actions, which means that more people would play Creeps to benefit their Freeps, or play Freeps to benefit their Creeps. It won't matter anymore.

[lynlai]

Welcome back, Orion!

There's one thing I have to disagree with, and it's this:



While it's true that some healing abilities are too strong, it's actually not the main reason why there's such an abundance of healing. It is, and I'm sure you read this somewhere already, caused by the reward system. Update 8 (riders of rohan, your notes are correct) made healing a valid contribution. That in itself wouldn't really be an issue, but sadly as with a lot of things in this game, it wasn't implemented properly. There are no restrictions. The removal of the 80m distance limit (if a player died, you had to be 80m or less away to receive rewards) made is exponentially worse.

Reasonable restrictions would've been:
- the player you heal has to be in combat
- you need to do effective healing (morale below 100%)
- some sort of expiration time / your contribution is reset once the player is out of combat again
- keeping the distance limit

Right now, you can put a single heal over time on someone who is out of combat with 100% morale in your base, and if that person ports to the other side of the map and kills someone, then he has to share his points with you. That's beyond ridiculous. Being a healer is the most effective way to farm infamy/renown and commendations. That's the reason why for every DPS player in the moors, there are probably 3 healers. If you reduce the incentive to be a healer, you'd fix a part of the problem. We need more incentives for solo roaming and small group play. Stop encouraging mindless zerg culture.

The first step would be to re-introduce the 80m distance limit. If you're able to, then please revert the reward system to how it used to be pre U8. I'm sure there are backup files somewhere. If it's not possible, then just delete healing as a valid contribution, because let's be honest, it's probably easier than implementing all those restrictions from above.

Fixing this should be somewhere at the top of the priority list, and I'm sure this is not just my opinion.

This is was the final straw that made me leave PvMP. After the server mergers, in came the heal tagging mentality from other servers. Heal tag to rank! I remember multiple full raids and our raid leader stopping by the another raid group and told all healers throw a heal on every single player in the other raid. I refused to do so and I'm VERY proud to say that I earned my R15 the ol' fashioned way which took me a few years to do. It just became so annoying to be standing in GV or out in the field and have every healer out there come tag you. And if you said anything about it, they'd follow you and just troll you with heals.

Please consider Daenirion's post. Thanks and, again, welcome back!
PS The things you posted sound like a great start in the right direction. I am once again interested in following this topic for the first time in a few years.

[J-Moneyforever]

Let’s Discuss Monster Play

Welcome back Orion. To this day the most fun I've ever had in a video game was 2011-2013 PvMP. Thank you for how you contributed to those times. I have no specific suggestions about current state of the game as I've been barely active in the game over the last five years. My one suggestion is to be cautious when probing the current community/forums for ideas. You said it yourself Lotro PvMP took a steep downward dive after RoR. And the reality is a lot of the people that made PvP in this game great are gone now because of the reduction in quality. The population that remained is not always the best for suggestions. While it's true they were fiercely loyal to lotro pvp, they became jaded and have a very warped perspective of what lotro pvp should or could be. You were a big part of what made lotro PvP great in the early 2010s. I would advise care when taking suggestions from the current PvPers as they have been participating in a shadow of what PvP used to be. Your own ideas are more likely to bring life to the zone than ideas of those who have been living in a dead zone for five years. Of what you mentioned I personally think your DOF ideas are A+. Mainly because it's a rethinking of the reward structure for PvP. Good luck as you go forward with this and I hope you're able to revitalize the ettenmoors.
Thank you.

[Strider5548]

Let’s Discuss Monster Play

First off, glad to have you back and happy to hear you are going to have some focus on PvMP. As someone who spent an absurd amount of time in the Moors as far back as 15 years ago on both Freep/Creep side, my personal opinion is that the best PvP this game ever had was during Shadows of Angmar.

I'll just make 2 points here as I know you have a lot to get through, hopefully you find them helpful:

1) PvMP will never maintain proper balance if the concept of PvE gear, LI's, virtues, and trait points exists as things characters progress over time through increasing level caps. As stats, tracery slots, and trait points increase the class balance dynamic completely shifts with every level cap increase. Freeps constantly becoming more powerful not only makes it so that SSG needs to constantly rebalance Creeps, but it also excludes low level players from PvP because scaling will never work if it's a moving target. My first suggestion is a big one, and that is to force 100% PvP gear (including weapons to replace LI's) as a requirement for PvMP. Make sure players can acquire a full set of gear even at rank 0, and have gear improve with ranks and by bartering. In addition to full PvP gear/weapons, trait points for freeps should be capped at a pre-determined level (pick your favorite level cap) and everyone in the Moors should have access to 100% of the available trait points.

Think of it like if you enter the Moors, you should have a whole new set of trait set-ups and gear configurations. If SSG could build a UI around this so players don't have to manage multiple sets of gear in bags it would be ideal.

With everyone's gear coming from the same pool and trait points capped, the only thing left to scale is stats from virtues. If we can get consistent scaling here then any player from low level to 140 through to future level caps should be able to engage in PvMP in a consistently balanced way. Most importantly this will create a system that can be managed over time.


2) PvMP should be available to everyone. I mean everyone. VIPS, F2Ps, low levels, high levels, and legendary server players. PvMP is endless repeatable content, it's hugely valuable to keep as many players as possible busy so that SSG does not need to rush out content that isn't ready. More important than anything else, it's simply not fair to exclude certain players from this part of the game, everyone should have the opportunity to PvMP.


If we can get these two things figured out, imo everything else is secondary. The goals should be simple, let's create fun, balanced, repeatable PvMP content that everyone can participate in.

[Askelin]

Welcome back, King!
I'm very happy to hear that there's still an interest in looking into the Ettenmoors. I don't think anyone who has been here long enough to understand really thinks there'll be some miracle update that'll fix every issue. I'd like to remain optimistic if I can, and I salute you sincerely for the willingness to set up a server, even if there moments of cringe and infighting, there was some fantastic discussions and I am lead to believe it ultimately helped a great deal in figuring out how to tackle this behemoth.

What has been mentioned in the OP is a fantastic base to start off with. And it really is about reverting some of the less favored updates over the years and bringing relevance to some neglected features.
This change I'd like to see in particular...
Camp Relocation – Orc and Elf

I just want to add here that if this happens, the camps themselves should also need to be restored to their original layout and functionality, at the very least allow players to shoot out of them and jump out of them and flee if the camp is overwhelmed, as they are they are naught but death traps. With the camps places being put to their original positions or something nearabouts, it should help with the natural flow of fights a little, and hopefully we can get more focus around TA and less GV-TR or Grams-LC shuffles.

Looking forward to this, and I appreciate the down to earth nature of the OP. I just hope this thread isn't derailed by people who don't even pvp looking to throw shade.

[-Aran-]

Before these, the lag problem should be solved...

[theblackeagles]

Welcome Orion! Your feedback is greatly appreciated!
The idea of replacing the EC and OC is a good one. Their current location is far too bad. When setting up their original location, will the camps return to their original appearance, or the current appearance?

I could also suggest creating a monster class (respecting lore, not brawler 2.0 ^^):
-a haradrim mage
-a goblin sapper.
It might create more PvP.

I would also like to be able to recapture TA bridges. The fighting would be more present there, the objective being to put the battlefield back towards TA.

Finally, there is this problem of lag which is of course far too present. And that obviously destroys the game.
Thanks Orion.

[Yicky]

Good to see you back Orion.

Unfortunately most of what I see is surface and is not really going to promote any ideal growth or balance in bringing people back to PVP. The biggest issue outside of lag is the fact that you are working advanced customizable main game classes(freeps) vs basic NPC based secondary classes(creeps). With now Easier customizable LIs, gear, trait trees, and general management of freep classes you will never be able to properly balance the sides out to make it enjoyable. Unless you re-work the moors and build out an instanced based PVP to bring equal balance closer to center, changing the map around, adding more PVE(including outside moors rewards which doesn't help anything for creeps), and reducing healing(which will add more imbalance), you are just going to end up with broken system. Start.From.Scratch. That is really all you can do at this point as things are so broken, you have hardly anything to pick up and put back together. SOA was some of the closest balance you are going to find. If you try to limit one thing on freeps, they will find a new build design that will break the balance and benefit yet again. Until you equal the design of both sides, you are going to be lost.

Just my opinion.

[AldoRaine]

First off, glad to have you back and happy to hear you are going to have some focus on PvMP. As someone who spent an absurd amount of time in the Moors as far back as 15 years ago on both Freep/Creep side, my personal opinion is that the best PvP this game ever had was during Shadows of Angmar.

I'll just make 2 points here as I know you have a lot to get through, hopefully you find them helpful:

1) PvMP will never maintain proper balance if the concept of PvE gear, LI's, virtues, and trait points exists as things characters progress over time through increasing level caps. As stats, tracery slots, and trait points increase the class balance dynamic completely shifts with every level cap increase. Freeps constantly becoming more powerful not only makes it so that SSG needs to constantly rebalance Creeps, but it also excludes low level players from PvP because scaling will never work if it's a moving target. My first suggestion is a big one, and that is to force 100% PvP gear (including weapons to replace LI's) as a requirement for PvMP. Make sure players can acquire a full set of gear even at rank 0, and have gear improve with ranks and by bartering. In addition to full PvP gear/weapons, trait points for freeps should be capped at a pre-determined level (pick your favorite level cap) and everyone in the Moors should have access to 100% of the available trait points.

Think of it like if you enter the Moors, you should have a whole new set of trait set-ups and gear configurations. If SSG could build a UI around this so players don't have to manage multiple sets of gear in bags it would be ideal.

With everyone's gear coming from the same pool and trait points capped, the only thing left to scale is stats from virtues. If we can get consistent scaling here then any player from low level to 140 through to future level caps should be able to engage in PvMP in a consistently balanced way. Most importantly this will create a system that can be managed over time.


2) PvMP should be available to everyone. I mean everyone. VIPS, F2Ps, low levels, high levels, and legendary server players. PvMP is endless repeatable content, it's hugely valuable to keep as many players as possible busy so that SSG does not need to rush out content that isn't ready. More important than anything else, it's simply not fair to exclude certain players from this part of the game, everyone should have the opportunity to PvMP.


If we can get these two things figured out, imo everything else is secondary. The goals should be simple, let's create fun, balanced, repeatable PvMP content that everyone can participate in.

Awesome suggestions.

Adding to that, there should be a PvMP reward track account-wide.

If there's no actual reason to play Creeps besides improving a crippled alt that no one asked for to get negative rep that no one asked for, there's always going to be unbalance from Freeps vs Creeps side (the majority of people will choose to play their main toons).

There must be something that bounds all that stuff together, and a PvMP reward track may do the trick. With rewards related to PvMP content (non-PvE rewards) plus 3 month seasons, like reward track currently works.

[Ryvick]

Quite frankly the only way I see PvMP as ever eventually getting to an acceptable place for everyone involved would be to rip Freeps out of the Moors altogether and setting up a Free Creep system (Identical but Mirrored to Creeps) in its place. I simply do not see any other method that would allow Devs to make changes that wouldn't in some way affect players in the rest of the PvE world and allow Devs to easily alter PvMP on a whim.

As it is Freeps will always be far more nuanced and prone to over or under performing at ANY PvE change. While creeps can swing to over or under performing at some possible NPC changes. By making both Creeps AND Freeps as Free Creeps changes made become mirrored and would allow Devs to make more meaningful changes affecting PvMP ONLY that then wouldn't propagate out into the world at large (except perhaps to the occasional overpowered NPC skill that could be /bugged and fixed PvE side).

[AldoRaine]

Quite frankly the only way I see PvMP as ever eventually getting to an acceptable place for everyone involved would be to rip Freeps out of the Moors altogether and setting up a Free Creep system (Identical but Mirrored to Creeps) in its place. I simply do not see any other method that would allow Devs to make changes that wouldn't in some way affect players in the rest of the PvE world and allow Devs to easily alter PvMP on a whim.

As it is Freeps will always be far more nuanced and prone to over or under performing at ANY PvE change. While creeps can swing to over or under performing at some possible NPC changes. By making both Creeps AND Freeps as Free Creeps changes made become mirrored and would allow Devs to make more meaningful changes affecting PvMP ONLY that then wouldn't propagate out into the world at large (except perhaps to the occasional overpowered NPC skill that could be /bugged and fixed PvE side).

Honestly, I find it hard to think how people playing PvP with NPCs vs NPCs is going to make things better.


SSG may as well release a Middle Earth First Person Shooter non-related to Lotro and it may have more success as a separated project. Like Overwatch without guns.

There's no need to put Playable NPCs vs Playable NPCs on a battleground if that has nothing to do with main player's character and progression.


The Playable NPC vs normal characters already ruined half of the fun for PvP, which is to progress and build up your toon (not a PvMP exclusive NPC) through another meta that's not PvE raiding.

It'd be like playing Raids as a Rohan soldier NPC. Not fun.

[Lurkerinthemist]

It will be interesting to see what mechanisms you use to collect player feedback this time, Orion. Threads like these? Another player's council?
I see a lot of good comments here already so I will add just one of my observations - one of the reasons I left creepside was because there was no stability playing as a creep. Just when things felt fun, and if not balanced at least something that felt competitive, a patch or update would come along and absolutely destroy play in the Moors. And then we'd wait 6-12 months for a fix. Or an exploit would be found and immediately taken to the Moors, and it would take weeks to fix and in the meantime we couldn't get anyone suspended or banned for using the exploits. "Emerging gameplay" is a term I remember being used. Whatever, it would empty the Moors, both sides for months at a time.

On the plus side, seeing this thread made me remember some really fun times in the Moors and I actually logged in on my BA for a few minutes for the first time in years, just to see if I recognized anyone (did not, logged back off).

[BotLike]

Unless performance is fixed , i'm afraid any changes won't do much good. Having a raid v raid lag out the entire zone for 1 minute in 2022 is just insane.
That said , moors are unique , showing love to pvmp will be a great investment to keep players engaged with the game instead of quitting.

I am hoping you'll consider modernising the game down the line. Most mmo's pvp is based on arenas nowadays. In Lotro you spend too much time running around , with very few dopamine boosts in between.
And when that time comes , you just pray you won't lag out.

Think this is all a step towards the right direction , but considering how bad game performance is - with so few people compared to other games - perhaps the future should be focused on cross-server pvp arenas imo.

[TearMaker]

Let’s Discuss Monster Play



Camp Relocation – Orc and Elf

Tol Ascarnen is the central fort and what should be the main battle location in the Ettenmoors. The EC and OC camps were crucial fallback and push positions that actively contributed to the battle space. I am considering moving these camps back to0 their original locations.

The Delving of Frór

By removing the active effort needed to access The Delving we removed a crucial set of battle points in the Ettenmoors and just made the underground haven another place to ambush players and monster players. The loot within diminished in value and while updated somewhat has lost some relevance. Additionally, there are no secondary end game reasons to enter the Delving.

To address this, I am proposing the following:

• Restore the Coldfells Outpost at the south center of the map.
• Restore the requirement that at least two outposts must be under control to access The Delving of Frór.
• Update and add corruptions to monster play advancement to bring them in line with players. Place the barter items necessary for these new corruptions into the Delving loot system.
• Update the barter rewards for the players in the delving to include itemization relevant to end game out of the ‘moors and update to other important end game treasure lines.
• Give meaning to outpost status – player, monster player, and neutral owned within The Delving of Frór.

Keep and Tower Revision

Battles in the Ettenmoors revolve around keep and tower ownership. The NPCs in the towers hold importance but their abundance and the scripting involved in handling their reactions is a likely contributor to performance concerns. An adjustment will reduce the number of defenders but increase their difficulty commensurately. The halo effect here will provide more opportune moments for counter offensives.

Healing Modifiers

Healing prolongs battles and undermines the competitive nature of fights. There is no silver bullet in “fixing” this. My intent would be applying an Ettenmoors only effect that reduces the incoming healing to drive combats to a swifter conclusion. Dynamic implementation allows us to modify this effect without waiting for a patch to make the change.

Should this prove successful, we will look at how this style of effect modifier can address other imbalances we know exist in the moment-to-moment experiences.

After the first pass reading your OP - I have a couple of things that spring right out at me.

a) moving OC/EC is great but they have to be the old iteration or of the same ilk and not the invisible wall affair that it is now. Personally I don't care that the new camps looked visually beautiful - they weren't functional.

b) I would close the DoF and concentrate on the core part of the game. The keeps and OP and making the scaling non patch way of adjusting the INC Healing - which will have a far larger aspect. Then if there is any budget left play with the Delving to your hearts content. But, it isn't an issue that is needed.

[Estelher]

Non-pvpers do not need to engage in PvMP. This is a choice. Always has been and always will be... addressing the issue with current availability is handled elsewhere.

Quite a few of the problems with PvP/PvE debates (and also raider/non-raider, hardcore/casual) that seem perennially to crop up is an apparent lack of co-ordination between two aspects of the game. It may seem simpler to take the "we'll do this whatever the consequences; the other lot can do what they like" view, but that presupposes a hard division between two player bases and systems that doesn't exist, and almost inevitably leads to anger, resentment and backtracking and fixes in the future.

How many times have we seen the howls of fury when one game option provides rewards unavailable to its counterpart, particularly when those rewards affect both aspects of the game? I do beg you to consider doing everything possible not only to co-ordinate with the non-PvMP developers when it comes to rewards, but just as importantly to let us know that this is so - rather than risk giving the false impression that any related PVE issues may or may not be dealt with, but you're not fussed by them.

I'd have been more encouraged by a response along the lines of "We know this and will be working with the rest of the team to ensure that both paths offer similarly viable rewards".

[Turin347]

Some changes that will make the Pvmp a proper mode that will pull lotro forward like all the pvp modes are doing for all the multiplayer games:


- Scale the fighters to some fixed level (like 50 or 100)

- Disable legendary items in Pvmp areas and make exclusive (old-style) weapons for Pvmp, without weird huge modifiers for any skill.

- Move the creeps on the same tech as the freeps: just make standard characters skinned as monster players, and convert the corruption traits into equipments that use the freeps' slots of equipment

- Apply modifiers to all of the skills so that they can have an exclusive damage/value/heal for the moors areas. Such like a (x0 +value) to reset the skill and make it exclusively tweakable for the Pvmp. Then u can arbitrarly make changes and tweaks on the go without affecting PVE

- Make a better use of the regional global modifier. Critical hits have insane multipliers that should be better controlled and tuned. Monster Hunter chose to make criticals a +30% of the original damage, and this is already huge and hard to balance.

- Right now, both heals and dmgs make for ridiculous fights, they should be both well below the maximum health of the fighters. There should not be a stituation where it's either be immortal or die in 8 secs

- Give rewards meaningful also for the pve aspect


Those who dont want to commit with pvp will have their usual (actual) way, but right now those that strongly prefer PVP over PVE are just giving up the game cause they can hardly bother with PVE progression if they do not enjoy their time.
As of now, even if Pvmp would be "fun", PVP lovers would just try some endgame farm and leave the game.

Both PVE and PVP should be equally available and relevant for the on level progression of the character. Why discriminate pvp enjoyers? The game should appeal to both the personal preferences of the players without zoning out someone, nor should abruptly force one aspect on someone who would not enjoy it: overtime they will just leave the game.

For the sake of making money, give the lotro PVP some dignity so that it may appeal to the general PVP enjoyers.

[Manrock]

I will write the ideas in order of priority:

1) Of course we need new servers. I assume that you have not changed them for 15 years and it is very problematic to play without nerves. If you don't solve this problem making other edits is practically useless. We old players know about this problem and used to but if you are counting on new players joining us it will scare them.
2) We need a system of local events: create a set of ~ 10 pieces and let the server runs them at random in a random place in the location notifying all the players in the chat and creating a special area-hint on the map. I do not think that everyone is so important that this will be the event, so you can use the classic scheme of PVE:

- Monster players can be given an event to steal one of the NPCs in the free peoples castle. He will need to get to his fortress as quickly as possible, any.
- And the free peoples to give the reverse event: NPC himself escaped from one of the fortresses and need to bring it to the nearest allied fortress.
- Caravan: several NPCs with horses and free peoples supplies can deliver food from one fortress / Glân Vraig to another place and they will need to be protected on one side and vice versa try to disrupt delivery on the other side.

You can think of many such events, but I think the point is clear: to create additional clashes between players. The main problem - we do not know how many people will be at the event, it will be a raid of 20 people, or come just 1 player so it is difficult to balance them - so I would suggest running both events and label them for clarity: One small event for a group < 3 people, and the second large event for a group > 6 people. Ideally I would do area restriction: you have a dynamic layer system, if you can adapt it and divide players into groups with it that would be great.

3) The current situation is that for many years now PvMP is mostly designed for group battles, but as a player with 11 years of experience I remember a long time ago SOLO / DUO battles flourished because there were so many players running around the location without a group and it was awesome so I would think about solving this problem too. Partially it can be solved by the previous point with the creation of events for a small number of players, but the rest of the time the problem will remain relevant. I will propose my version but if you think carefully I'm sure others will find solutions not worse or even better: to encourage players to play without a group or in a small group of 2-3 people you can do scaling points a player gets for killing a player - it's easy if you're not in a group and playing solo you get for example 30% more points than he would have been with someone in a group together. If there are two of you in a group you get 10% more points than if there were three of you... I think the point is clear: penalties and bonuses depending on the number of players in the group. This is a controversial decision and can scare the group players I understand and do not insist on this solution, but I, like not a few other players saddened by the lack of opportunities to play yourself because the group of 6 + people will kill you at the first opportunity. Maybe better to do the penalty if it happens: check if there are no other players in the radius - if not then the group will not get any points at all, or even minus for killing you in a crowd. This is a tricky topic here, you need a lot of other opinions and thoughts.

[chandeepa90]

Can one of these bold changes be opening up pvmp in legendary servers? This will significantly increase player interest in the legendary servers and make them more robust than they currently are. Either scale everyone in pvmp zones to level cap or limit creeps, npcs, gear and rewards to the prevailing level cap.

[Joedangod]

So, to that end, I look forward to hearing your thoughts on these proposed changes, and any that you might think I have missed.

Think something needs to be done to address just how bad starting out on creep side is. Take Warg as an example, rank 0 is pretty much worthless since it doesn't even have Shadow stance. It's a struggle to do even basic questing on this character and you're worthless in a fight until you've farmed out rank 5 at a minimum. For someone new to PvMP that's probably ~15-20 hours of miserable solo questing, more experienced PvMPers know that they're better off just trying to leech from a craid for a few hours instead.

Core rotational abilities/passives/stances need to be available from the beginning, you need to have players start with a few more basic corruptions (and room to slot them). The Brand of the Tyrant should honestly be removed and just set as an innate skill all creep classes have at R0. Audacity bonuses should be way more frontloaded with 1/3rd to 1/2 of the max bonus given at R1. Food bonuses should be purchasable at earlier ranks than they currently are.

PvMP needs to be enjoyable for newbies right from the start. If it takes 2-3 hours of leeching from a craid or 15+ hours of solo questing to get to a point where you are actually in danger of enjoying yourself...well, there are better PvP games out there that don't require such an investment to get started.

[GoshDiggityDarnit]

Dear Orion,

I am writing to you here on the forums using my alternative account (my main account has been hacked and is still under investigation by Lotro Support... for almost a year already ;-;)
Me, Alexanda and a few other good friends have worked out a huge document (unfortunately now outdated in terms of stats) with polls and everything for PvMP changes.
In case you would like to have insight in the polls, please let me know. :)

Check out the document here!

However, since PvMP was neglected for so long, we kind of gave up... hence the outdated stats and such.

We've been PvMP fans for so long and we're super stoked to see you are on the team now to work things out with PvMP! It'd be an honour if you could read through it and share with us what you think!
My personal special highlight would definitely be the classes I designed & wrote out. It'd be so cool to see more classes for Monster Play!

We're excited to hear back from you.

Sincerely,
Peter (aka. SlopranoDark)