Once upon a time, a gamer played another MMO that she loved and became disillusioned with the number of people hacking the game.  The developers allowed everyone to create macros and bots.  The hackers used this as evidence that node-stealing, gold-farming and hacking PvP rank was not only allowed, but encouraged.  The behavior of those people towards the general gaming public became elitist and denigrating - clearly anyone who was not exploiting the ability to make real-world money or to bully other people in game were weak.

Frustrated with the state of the game and the GMs lack of control over the negative and bullying behaviors, the gamer left to find a better community.  She stumbled upon Lord of the Rings Online and was certain she had found a new home with like-minded people.  The guidelines appeared to support everything she felt would encourage respectful play between members of the community in general. 

She lived in peace, accepting that human nature would be negative or destructive at times, but that truly unfair practices would be weeded out by the Game Management.

One unfortunate day she stumbled into her beloved PvP zone to find a single player who had 6 separate computers and accounts strung together onto one keyboard.  This player was very outspoken, encouraging others to multi-box and bragging that he was untouchable - that Turbine would not ban him because what he was doing was legal.  Soon after, another multi-boxer followed him to the Moors. 

The gamer looked at her disabled items, her inability to wear cosmetic outfits, and other player skills that had been changed to promote fairness in PvP.  She wondered why the GMs would turn a blind eye to this.  One player, pressing one button, instantly firing off six quickshots equaling thousands of points of damage to a single target was allowed.  Yet she could not click her +20% healing bracelet or wear a dress instead of her real armour?  Was this called fairplay? 

Disillusioned with the lack of balance in how the EULA is perceived, she has decided to leave the server she loves, if not permanantly, at least until she can understand the decisions or lack of communication about multi-boxing from game management.

THE END

I hope to see you all soon.  I can be found PvMPing on Landroval Creepside for the time being and playing DDO for free at Argonnessen server.

I have a little problem… well, a bug.  I tried to remove someone from my friends list by visiting their player page and clicking ‘x cancel friendship.’  It showed that it was completed and offered the ‘x request friendship’ option on that players page.  I moved along… the person was still on my list.  I tried again… and again.  Apparently, I’m bugged.  :(  However, the bad news is that in attempting to remove this person, MyLotRO actually removed some of the people who I wanted to REMAIN on my list.  So far, I have found one of them and re-requested.  The other two I am still searching for, as they are players whose blogs I like to frequent.

Anyway, I wanted to post here to let those who may have accidentally been cancelled that it was certainly not intentional.  Sending my apologies!  Please re-request or let me know if you were accidentally dropped.

PS:  I never thought I would ever feel the need to remove someone from my friends list.  I prefer not to discuss the situation, but the removal is justified.  /hugs to all

What is really changing with Diminishing Returns in PvMP?  After seeing a comparison of what was listed for the PvMP updates in Book 14, I am really failing to see where the proposed changes to crowd control are going to have any impact at all in the Moors.  Please post a comment if you can tell me if this will really make any noticeable difference.

The following is quoted from a post by kniff3 at this thread: http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.php?t=297804&page=2  Many thanks for researching and posting that comparison!

Book 14: The Ring-forges of Eregion 

Diminishing Returns

Root and daze effects will now share diminishing returns. This means that dazes and roots will be considered the same effect in terms of consecutive applications for diminishing returns. As an example: When a player dazes another player, then roots him, the root will be considered the second application in terms of diminishing returns.
The new root/daze diminishing return duration progression for each application of root/daze is as follows:

First application = 50% of the root/daze’s duration
Second application = 25% of the root/daze’s duration
Third - Ninth applications = 5% of the root/daze’s duration
After the 10th application, the root/daze will no longer affect the target
Diminishing return durations for stun effects have been reduced to address issues with crowd control in PvMP combat. The duration progression for each application of stun is as follows:

First application = 100% of the stun’s duration
Second application = 50% of the stun’s duration
Fourth - Ninth applications = 1 second stun duration
After the 10th application, the root/daze will no longer affect the target.
Diminishing return durations for fear effects have been reduced to address issues with crowd control in PvMP combat. The duration progression for each application of fear is as follows:

First application = 100% of the fear’s duration
Second application = 50% of the fear’s duration
Fourth - Ninth applications applications = 1 second fear duration
After the 10th application, the root/daze will no longer affect the target

Now
Originally Posted by Frelorn

While I don’t have any comments yet about the mount system as we are still doing testing on some things, I did ask about giving some information about what is coming for SoM. So aside from creeps getting auto-leveled to 65, here is another change that is coming…

Changes to CC Diminishing Returns

All crowd control effects (fears, roots, stuns, and dazes) are now on the same application counter. This means that for purposes of diminishing returns in PvMP (and in PvMP ONLY), each application of any crowd control effect is counted against the duration of the type of crowd control.

For reference, the duration tables of each crowd control effect vs. application counter are below:

Roots/Dazes

First Application = 50% of the root/daze duration
Second Application = 25% of the root/daze duration
Third - Ninth Application = 5% of the root/daze duration
After the Tenth Application, the root/daze will no longer affect the target
Stuns

First Application = 100% of the stun’s duration
Second Application = 50% of the stun’s duration
Third Application = 25% of the stun’s duration
Fourth - Ninth Application = 1 second stun duration
After the Tenth Application, the stun will no longer affect the target.
Fears (please note that this applies only to crowd control fears - this does not apply to debuffs with resistance type: fear)

First Application = 100% of the fear’s duration
Second Application = 50% of the fear’s duration
Third Application = 25% of the fear’s duration
Fourth - Ninth Application = 1 second fear duration
After the Tenth Application, the fear will no longer affect the target.
For an example with this application counter change:

You are hit with a daze effect in PvMP. It is counted as the first application of a CC effect, and the daze effect duration is 50%. After it wears off, you are then hit with a stun. It is counted as the second application of a CC effect, and the stun effect duration is 50%. After it wears off, you are hit with a root. It is counted as the third application of a CC effect, and the root effect duration is 5%. After it wears off, you are hit with a fear. It is counted as the fourth application of a CC effect, and the fear effect duration is 1 second. Please note that the diminishing returns application counter is not permanent - if you are not hit with any crowd control effects for 45 seconds, the application counter will reset.

______________________________

If I am understanding this, the only change is that dazes and roots were originally on the same DR. timer in the original update.  Now fears (except certain debuffs with resistance type: fear), stuns, roots and dazes will be on the same timer.  There is nothing mentioned about CJ stuns, which currently only have a 10s immunity associated with then.  So in 45 seconds, will it really make any difference at all if you get immunity after getting hit with 10 different forms of diminished CC?  It sure doesn’t seem like it to me when you factor CJs into the equasion.  :\

For those who may have missed it, the GMs have returned to the forums and some long-awaited information regarding the Ettenmoors has been released.

First, thanks to Frelorn, Monster Players have received confirmation that they will auto-level to 65 with the release of SoM.  The auto-level will be applied whether or not the player has purchased the expansion.  http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.php?t=296326

Second, Frelorn has posted some details of the changes to Crowd Control skills in the Ettenmoors with the SoM release.  Most Crowd Control skills will now have diminishing returns in the Ettenmoors, with full immunity occuring after the 10th skill is applied during a 45 second duration.  For the full post, visit this thread: http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.php?t=296676&page=2

In addition, GMs have returned to the forums and /glff on our server which is a pleasant surprise!  Many thanks to Jesenne and others who are reaching out to the players again.  It makes us feel all warm and fuzzy to know that shucks, you really do care… even if you are just in it for the pie.

[Oh and for you minstrels out there, Sapience posted a hint in our forums that they are currently looking at the WAI healing post-animation root and an update/fix might be coming as soon as December! http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.php?t=297021&page=2]

The future is looking bleak in the eyes of Meneldor’s creeps… and the freeps who hunt them.  In the past few weeks, we’ve had a mass exodus of ranked creeps and veteran PvMPers due to a lack of information about changes for the Moors with the upcoming expansion.  LotRO, please address PvMP updates before it’s too late! *begs and grovels*

The sheer numbers of players who participate in Monster Play is a large percentage of the game population and it seems that this is really hurting the overall subscription base.  Not only are we losing creeps or freeps, we are losing their friendships, their loyalty to LotRO and their knowledge earned from years of playing the game.

I can’t say how many exactly, but at least 10+ of our ranked creeps have recently left to play other PvP games because they feel that LotRO no longer cares about Monster Play.  Many others have transferred to Elendilmir or Brandywine because the Moors activity is slowing down on other servers.  (The ability to transfer creeps between servers has also really hurt us - we have lost nearly every experienced raid leader on creepside.)

While I understand that the constant criticism from an outspoken PvMP community must be frustrating to the devs, I wish they would not give up hope.  Because there are so many different views of what needs to be done to balance it, it tends to result in heated discussions on the forum - but keep in mind that this is because players fervently care about the game they love (otherwise they would have left long ago, right?)  At this time, PvMPers would be happy just to hear that someone is planning to update the creeps levels to 65 with SoM, or even as many have said, adding a single tree to the landscape or a minor change would let us know that we are not forgotten.

In the meantime, the community itself is trying to right itself the best we can to keep PvMP alive.  I’ll be posting in upcoming blog(s) some of the more interesting ideas that I’ve come across.  There are many that could be implemented, some as simple as updating nodes to level cap resources to giving creeps passive skill maps.

Thanks for reading!  Please show your support for PvMP by posting a comment.

(More to come…)

Tomorrow, Saturday the 19th, is International Talk Like a Pirate Day!

This Public Service Announcement is brought to you by the number 6 and the letter P.

For those who know me in game or in MyLotRO, I just popped in to let everyone know that I am AFKing from the game for a while.  (Have been gone for about 2 weeks anyway, but didn’t want to just vanish. ;)) 

I am planning to enjoy the nice weather while it lasts and decided that spending my summer at the computer was bringing me down.  Anyway, I plan to be back in a less active stance in the near future.

Hope you are all having a great summer and see you in game soon!

~Aethniniel & alts

In an effort to increase awareness about minstreling and its ups and downs, I thought I would share my list of things I wish other classes knew about us - our abilities, limitations, roles, etc.

Roles:

While in general we are considered main healer in every group, minstrels are also useful as DPS and backup healers.  Having multiple minstrels in a group can be a plus, particularly if one is heal traited and another DPS traited.  The key is aggro control - our heals and our DPS draw huge amounts of attention, so we need to have a good tank and use our aggro-reducers wisely and often. 

In addition, our attacks also provide some really sweet group buffs (limited duration) including increased melee damage, evade chance, resists to fear/fire/poison/wound, in combat morale regeneration, in combat run speed and vitality (to name a few.)  We have some nice debuffs of limited duration such as increased vulnerability to tactical and light damage, slows to attack duration and run speed of enemies.  In addition, our melee skills can remove corruption from an npc and heal our group members with each hit.

In a pinch, we can help with crowd control, too.  Song of the Dead is a very nice mezz attack we can use to keep an undead creature temporarily out of the fight.  Song of Distraction if cast out of combat can reduce an npc’s detection range to a small area just in front of their faces, allowing the group to split pull or run past without aggro.  Our Piercing Cry skill when traited properly can give us almost unfailing ability to get a 3 second stun on an opponent.  (As with all stuns, we need to use this with caution if grouped with another more effective stunning class such as burglar or lore-master.  NPCs get 10 seconds of stun immunity following a stun, so its best to let the pros do their magic instead in a long battle.)  And finally, we have a fear attack which causes npcs to run in the opposite direction, although we must use with caution since they may bring back friends if it expires in range of other npcs.

Buffs:

Unlike many of the sweet buffs captains can give an individual or a group, minstrel buffs are not ‘apply to target’.  They require that a player is grouped with them and is either in range when it is cast or, in the case of our tales, must be standing within range of the minstrel (tales are like an AoE buff centered on the minstrel.)  Buffs can include one of the following: frost and fire defense increase; hope and will increase; vitality increase; armour value + radiance increase; or in the case of those traited with the legendary line Master of Tales, two of those might be combined into one tale (ex: hope, will, armour and radiance.)  A minstrel can only have one active tale running at a time.  In a group with multiple minstrels, these buffs do not stack, but they each can run a different tale to increase the bonuses to their group.

Interruptions:

Due to many long inductions on our healing skills, too much aggro can be the minstrel’s bane.  Creatures with quick attacks like bats and birds (particularly in swarms) continuously knock back our progress while casting and can cause it to interrupt, forcing us to start all over at square one.   While we do have some nice aggro reduction skills, often times it just isn’t enough due to the high aggro draw from healing.  When in a group where you know there will be swarming or summoned npcs, please be aware that any new addition that is not receiving aggro from a fellowship member will most likely make a bee-line for the healer.  At these times we will often call out for someone to take the aggro off of us - trust me, we do this for the good of the group, not to complain.  Too much aggro = reduced healing = dead group members.

Bugged Skills:

Currently, many of us are having problems with skills lining up in queue but never starting up.  It seems to be random - I have found no pattern to what is causing this and originally thought it might be lag.  The skills that are being affected in my case are unfortunately some of my ‘oh cr@p!’ buttons.  This would include two major heals:  Triumphant Spirit - a huge group heal with a long cool down and Fellowship’s Heart - a large heal over time that lasts 30 seconds (legendary trait.)  In addition, Anthem of the Wizards - a DPS legendary skill that does AoE slow + damage is affected.  What is the cause?  I couldn’t say for sure, but it is frequent and only started after the Book 8 Update.

Rooted:

Also more annoying since the update is the root effect we experience after completing any of our healing skills.  It has worsened to the point that a Bolster Courage (our bread and butter heal) now takes @ 2.5 seconds to cast and has a 2 second root afterwards.  This is a huge problem in many instances where we are expected to keep our group alive while dodging acid, fire, and moving AoE attacks.  The only two heals we can cast while on the run are Triumphant Spirit (our big AoE instant group heal with 20 minute cooldown) and Soliloquy of Spirit (which does very little as a heal over time effect even when traited to the maximum.) 

This makes it imperative that fellows are aware of where they stand in relation to their minstrels, since we often cannot move to get a better line of sight.   We can do very little if the group is spread out expecting us to run to each person and cast heals which require us to stand still.  Keeping in mind the length of cast time for a heal, kiting circles around large barriers in a room is also not recommended.  Even if we begin a heal the moment someone is in line of sight and the heal is available they are often out of view by the time our induction is completed.  By then we have wasted @3 seconds that we could have used to heal other group members.

Rezzing:

Minstrels have a nice rez  with a short cooldown.  However, it cannot be used in  combat.  We do have a skill called Rally! which is a legendary trait that allows us one in-combat rez every 30 minutes if traited.  Because of this limitation, Captains tend to be the best at rezzing in-combat.  This is important to remember in long instances and in groups/raids in the Moors since it is nearly impossible for us to break combat.  (So please don’t be offended if we aren’t able to help when you ask for a rez.)

In addition, Song of Restoration can be used out of combat to remove the dread from defeat off another player.  This takes forever to cast (at least 5 seconds) so don’t be hasty!  We cannot use the skill on ourselves and it has a pretty long cooldown, so we use it sparingly.

DPSing:

Healers can do some nice damage, at a price.  We have the ability to toggle on a skill that unlocks several high damage attacks.  However, when we have Warspeech on, our healing effectiveness is reduced by up to 50%.  In addition, a minstrel in Warspeech can draw large amounts of aggro which can become a problem if they need to drop out of it to heal because of the interruptions on the healing skill inductions.

 While this is just the tip of the iceburg, hopefully some of the information above will be helpful to those who have yet to roll a minstrel and experience the joy and frustration of being a main healer.  Please feel free to post comments with additional advice and information that might help us all to group more efficiently.  I’m sure there is plenty that I have missed!

Bullroarer Notes - Book 8 Update

 
Suillad! A few more notes on the new content and UI changes seen on Bullroarer Test Server. I spent a better part of the night working on the new book 8 quests last night and found some nice little changes to the UI as well.  So far Book 8 has been a nice challenge and very entertaining for the most part… (I’ll get into that later.)
 
 
 

UI Updates:

Our pleading and begging for more bag space has been answered!  Many of our food, potion, crafting and reputation items have had increases to the number per stack.  A few of the icons have had updates as well, for example the Leaves of Lothlorien which are quite pretty!
 

New Gold Leaf and Silver Branch icons

Noticed this morning that there are some nice little changes to the crafting system.  I recall mention of new crit items in the Release Notes, but there’s more.  To save us time, the vendors now all purchases in full stacks, single items, a stack of your choice, or you can just top off whatever stacks you have in your bag.
 
 
 

Shift key buys a full stack

Tab key tops off your stack

Alt key selects amount

Also, they have added a handy little “make all” button to the crafting UI to save us some extra mouse clicks.  The devs also corrected the default number of items to craft from zero back to one.

Although I haven’t been experimenting with the new crit items or attempted to obtain any, here is an example of the new tooltips for crit items.  Much easier to figure out what profession wants it and why!

The Profession and Tier are noted

Book 8 Updates:

 
NOTE:   If you don’t want spoilers about book 8, skip this post!
 
 
 

To start out the quest you speak to Haldir, that lovely elf up in the flet above the Nimrodel.  He sends you to Moria to speak to some of the Galadhrim located in the midst of the Foundations of Stone.  Hopefully you already have the stable here or its going to be a fun run!

As you set forth on your task, be prepared for the most unexpected of foes!  (This is the makeshift loading screen that greets you! LOL)

Oh noes!!

 
 
The first instance is solo and your quest is to help determine the fate of Mazog, leader of the Moria orcs who you helped capture in Book 7.  Depending on your choice, you might have a different experience than me, but needless to say, I asked myself “What would Gandalf do?” and carried on.

My journey called for me to escort Mazog out of Durin’s Throneroom through all of his devoted servants.  Not a bad little journey, since you have a flag in battle areas which allows you to command your allies behavior - ie: give me morale, give me power, give me defensive support, give me offensive support.  I believe at each battle you need to make a choice or they default to the standard “not very helpful/protect me NPC” that we are used to from the escort quests of the world.  But with offensive support they did a nice bit of damage while I feared and healed them and threw the occasional ear-splitting Mini dps at them.

Corunothiel is not cooperating...

Submit to my will, Mazog!

 
 
The next instance is a might bit more difficult and could be compared to a 3-man School of Tham Merdain run at level.  Incidentally, this is one of the new three man instances, which is located in Zirakzigil.  Volume 2, Book 8, Chapter 3 quest is located in this instance, however you can run it with your friends as you like.

The instance consists of many underground mountain passages with mirrors set up to redirect the light filtering in from a single light source.  Those crafty dwarves found a way to use the light to cause doors to open throughout the cavern system (similar to the statues in Forgotten Treasury.)  Be prepared for wolves, multiple mobs with swarms of bats (the summoned ones come in groups of 5+ and have 1700 morale each o.O), and merrevail.  Bring some Windex to clean up those mirrors as needed!  There are some very tricky spots where the mobs are thick and do a lot of summoning, so having a tank and a healer is going to add a lot to your survivability in here.  Also, as with Tham Merdain, load yourself down with food and pots!  You’ll thank me for the reminder.

Currently the big boss, which is the new token dropper for first age weps and radiance gear, gets bugged out and decides she isn’t in the mood for fighting halfway through the battle.  So, she is on the “to be fixed” list and probably won’t be updated during the test sessions.

Minstrels beware.  If you hate bat swarms you’ll have your hands full in first .  I call them “Minstrel’s Bane” because as soon as I cast a single heal the whole flock pecks me to pieces (ie: No heals for you!  Interruptions on inductions are not so nice to healybots.)  Since our grouping options were limited at 1am on the test server, we ran this instance with a 60 Lore-master and a 60 Hunter.  Of course this was not an optimal grouping for a 3 man, but we made due as best we could without anybody to tank.  A Champion would have been wonderful to draw the aggro off (a la the broodlings in Skumfil), but I did my best by bubbling myself and kiting the swarms while my fellows burned down the summoners.  Not an ideal strategy, but c’est la vie!

Clearing mobs and adjusting mirrors

Light armour quest reward 2.8.3

 
 
 
Next up is the second of the new 3 man instances which is located in Waterworks.  I have yet to try this one, but look for my next update for details.  I also hope to make it to the Summerfest, although with holiday festivities of my own it may be a few days.  Enjoy the long weekend if it applies to you and many thanks for stopping by!  Dollen lle, mellon.

Bullroarer Report - Book 8

Well, since I do not have full radiance armour, I have little to report on the new 12-man raids. There is however a thread going at the forums started by Maelstrom members who ran several raids last night. Check it out ::here::

Also, I am sorry to report, one must have completed the quests for Book 7 to participate in Book 8. Since I am a lazy minstrel who only dinged 60 two weeks ago (whose main agenda is radiance gear), I spent most of the night running quests that I will have to redo on Meneldor later. Woops! heheh This prevented me from visiting the summer festival activities as well…

The good news!

I did find out a few interesting little tidbits for the 50+ characters that weren’t in the release notes:

• Caras Galadhon now has a bard! No more journeys to 21st Hall for retraiting
• Echad Andestel is the home of several new class traders who will accept tokens in trade for the brand new 3 piece radiance armour sets.  There is also a bard in the camp.
• The Class Traders in Imlad Lalaith accept the tokens to exchange for First Age weapons.  Cost is 4 tokens for level 59 weapon of your choice, or 6 tokens for a level 60 First Age class weapon.
• For those headed to Imladris, the stablemaster inside Caras Galadhon has added quick travel service to Rivendell. There is still quick travel to 21st Hall, too. For us elves, it does little good since we already have quick travel to Imladris, but good for when you’re on cooldown and need to get to a fast stable for Eregion, or if you don’t equip the Travel to Rivendell racial trait.

Some not-so-good or impartial news!

• Our champion friends seem to have taken the fervour nerf quite badly, in fact some of them have turned emo on us! I heard reports of champions torturing themselves with unspecified types of damage last night during battles, not to mention getting damage from us healers! I guess for champions, no pain no gain when it comes to healing. (I’m assuming its a bug related to the fervour nerf that will be fixed.)
• Minstrels, don’t get too attached to those icons yet. The ballad icons have changed yet again! Luckily they are not as drastic as the book 7 changes and may actually be helpful to new players. The color of backgrounds has remained the same, but your tiered ballads have new icons with musical notes to indicate tier level. The button colors are a little brighter than before, or maybe its just my aversion to neon pinks that make them seem that way. (Wear sunglasses for the Ballad of Unshakable Will, staring directly into the pinkness will make your eyes bleed!)
• Hunters have also had a few icon changes, one of them being the trap icon. Since I am not a hunter, I cannot comment, but there seems to be some unhappy pew-pew’ers at the forums.
• Lore-masters can now smoke their pipes while in combat for a +20 hope buff! … Just kidding, but it would be funny. I mean, it did seem to help Gandalf a lot, maybe they will consider it for the next update.

Well, I have little else to report for now. I do plan to jump in and explore some more tonight after some ‘Strange Happenings’ and will report back with more news and hopefully some screenshots. (Sorry no screenshots of the handsome new Lothlorien bard. He’s taken.)

More posts about the new updates in the Bullroarer forum ::here::

The full Book 8 release notes are located ::here::