DocHoliday posted this on January 19th, 2012.
Categorized as End Game, ettenmoors, lord of the rings online, lotro, moors, PvMP, pvp, Raid, Raids and End-game.
Shorthand Link:
Full link: http://docholidaymmo.com/2012/01/19/creep-mitigation-issues/
DocHoliday's MMO Saloon
DocHoliday's MMO Saloon - LOTRO, Secret World, & Rift with an End-Game View
I saw a short dev update on this, so I wanted to share it. Turbine has made a mess of creep-side mitigation in recent history by breaking them in Update 5, “fixing” them with Update 5.1, but that fix really didn’t quite work. Many on the forums had been reporting that, and finally we hear confirmation that there’s still an issue. Kelsen posted today that they know there’s an issue and they plan an upcoming fix to restore creep mitigations to the pre-Update 5 levels. Essentially the fix they tried, didn’t work the way the wanted it to and there’s still more to do. However, there’s no word on when that patch might see the servers.
I know this doesn’t solve anything, but at least they acknowledge the problem and are planning to fix it soon.
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DocHoliday posted this on January 17th, 2012.
Categorized as Draigoch, End Game, group, instances, isengard, legendary items, lord of the rings online, lotro, Patch Notes, Raid, Raids and End-game, Skirmishes, Update 5.
Shorthand Link:
Full link: http://docholidaymmo.com/2012/01/17/update-5-1-patch-notes-and-known-issues/
DocHoliday posted this on January 11th, 2012.
Categorized as beta, gambits, group, lord of the rings online, lotro, Raid, threat, Traits, update 6, Warden.
Shorthand Link:
Full link: http://docholidaymmo.com/2012/01/11/orion-teases-update-6-warden-changes/
DocHoliday's MMO Saloon
Last night, Orion posted a few teasers on what he has up his sleeve for the upcoming Warden changes planned (hopefully) for Update 6.
Orion didn’t give too many details, but laid out some ideas that sound interesting but I will admit it doesn’t sound like the class is getting any simpler. Keep in mind though that these ideas are still subject to change, but here’s what he’s thinking so far.
PB posted this on January 5th, 2012.
Categorized as End Game, group, hard-mode, lotro, Raid, Raids and End-game, Rise Of Isengard, tower of orthanc, Update 5.
Shorthand Link:
Full link: http://docholidaymmo.com/2012/01/05/update-5-instances-review/
DocHoliday's MMO Saloon
Luckily for me, unlike Doc I have had the chance over the past few weeks to play through all of the new instances and 3/6 wings of the new raid. I thought I’d jot down some quick impressions and give people an opportunity to post their reviews and thoughts on the Update 5 group content.
Overall I have to say that I’m extremely impressed. This is a content update that seems at least equal to the excellent In Your Absence cluster that was released last year. The first thing that stands out is the excellent visual design of the spaces. Imo you’d be hard pressed to fault these instances from a visual perspective, the landscapes and dungeons are interesting, varied, fit well with the lore and the real space that they exist in and are just fun to look at. I particularly love how the raid begins outside the Tower of Orthanc and then you head into the various wings – being able to see the building that houses the raid really adds to the immersion factor and is a really nice touch.
The three 3-person instances are all quite varied and I enjoy the various tricks and gimmicks in them. Some people have complained about the frogger in Fangorn’s edge or the punting in the Pits, but both are very manageable mechanics with a bit of awareness and positioning. The T2 fire troll trash in the pits can get pretty brutal, but once you figure out the positioning it’s quite doable. Of the three, I think Dargnákh Unleashed is the weakest. While the first few areas and particularly the first boss fight are quite fun, the final fight is a bit of a joke. There’s literally no DPS element to the fight so if you’re a pure DPS class you have absolutely nothing to do in the fight. It’s purely a healing/tanking check, and while that’s fun to have, surely they could have put some sort of DPS element in there. The difficulty level of these instances is pitched pretty well I think. T1s are all easily puggable and very flexible on class makeup (perfect for instance finder). T2 is tougher and for a smooth run you’ll pretty much want a proper tank (including champ) and healer (including captain), but people can challenge themselves with some success with more varied groups.
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PB posted this on December 12th, 2011.
Categorized as crowd control, DPS, End Game, Instance, Lore-Master, lore-mastery, loremaster, lotro, Raid, screenshot, soloing, Update 5.
Shorthand Link:
Full link: http://docholidaymmo.com/2011/12/12/lore-mastery-years-end/
DocHoliday's MMO Saloon
Given the christmas season and upcoming holidays, this will be my last column for the year. I’ll aim to return to posting in approximately mid-January. I was going to use this post as an opportunity to link some of my past posts for people who might be new to the column, and also solicit some feedback. I hope you’ll also forgive me a little indulgence too, I thought I’d go back through my screenshots and give a bit of a slideshow of my lore-master over the past year or so.
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DocHoliday posted this on December 12th, 2011.
Categorized as Armies of Isengard, End Game, group, instances, lord of the rings online, lotro, Patch Notes, Prince of Rohan, Raid, Raids and End-game, Update 5.
Shorthand Link:
Full link: http://docholidaymmo.com/2011/12/12/update-5-patch-notes-and-known-issues/
DocHoliday's MMO Saloon
While we’re all waiting for the servers to come back up, you can browse through not only the Patch Notes but also the Known Issues posted today.
The patch notes are pretty extensive with all sorts of things hanging especially for many classes. I highly suggest taking a read for your class of interest to see what’s new as there’s a ton for both the Freep side as well as creep side. A few that jumped out for me:
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DocHoliday posted this on December 9th, 2011.
Categorized as Armies of Isengard, Developer Diaries, End Game, Equipment, gear, group, instances, lord of the rings online, lotro, Prince of Rohan, Raid, Raids and End-game, Skirmishes, Update 5.
Shorthand Link:
Full link: http://docholidaymmo.com/2011/12/09/update-5-barter-currency-dev-diary/
DocHoliday's MMO Saloon
I know many, including myself, have been wondering how all these marks, medallions, and seals will work out and how our current stuff will transition to the new. Luckily Zombie Columbus puts it all out for us with a nice Q&A section to describe all the new currency changes coming with Update 5.
Overall I like the goal of consolidating and unifying between the new instances, the old scalable ones, and skirmishes. I think the biggest concern so far is with the availability of seals which are needed for the top tier armor sets.
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PB posted this on December 5th, 2011.
Categorized as cc, Debuff, DPS, End Game, group, instances, Lore-Master, lore-mastery, loremaster, lotro, Raid, Rise Of Isengard, Traits.
Shorthand Link:
Full link: http://docholidaymmo.com/2011/12/05/lore-mastery-two-is-the-lonliest-number/
DocHoliday's MMO Saloon
As you should know by now, I really like the lore-master class and I think it’s well designed and very useful in both group and solo situations. Today’s column, however, focuses on one of its weaknesses – lore-masters don’t play particularly well with other lore-masters in tougher group content, especially raids. While most other classes can quite happily stack with each other up to a point, a number of features of the lore-master class mean that it’s almost always less than ideal to take more than one lore-master along for a tough large fellowship instance or raid.
I want to be really clear here that what I’m talking about in this post is tougher large group content. In 3-person instances lore-masters play together wonderfully well, being able to simultaneously fill DPS and healing roles is really nice. Some of the best small group runs I’ve done have been with, like, 2 lore-masters and a hunter – stuff just melts and you’re still really survivable. And in easier large group content, including skirmish raids and Draigoch, there’s no harm in taking along a second or third lore-master – the content will get done, absolute efficiency in class makeup is not required.
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DocHoliday posted this on December 2nd, 2011.
Categorized as Armies of Isengard, Developer Diaries, End Game, gear, group, instances, isengard, lord of the rings online, lotro, Raid, Raids and End-game, Rise Of Isengard, Update 5.
Shorthand Link:
Full link: http://docholidaymmo.com/2011/12/02/update-5-developer-round-table/
DocHoliday's MMO Saloon
Instead of just a single Developer talking about the update, we’re given a healthy dose of the whole crew. The diary focuses on all the new instance spaces and gives some nice background from the team.
They start off with the smaller instances and have some nice fun discussions in there regarding the Ents. Initial discussions focus on the instance spaces in Fangorn and the Pits of Isengard.
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DocHoliday posted this on November 30th, 2011.
Categorized as Armies of Isengard, gear, group, hard-mode, instances, lord of the rings online, Lore-Master, lotro, lua, podcast, Prince of Rohan, Raid, scripting, Skirmishes, Update 5, Warden.
Shorthand Link:
Full link: http://docholidaymmo.com/2011/11/30/episode-26-what-now/
DocHoliday's MMO Saloon
This episode is a little old as I recorded it prior to the Thanksgiving holiday but never finished editing it. However, be on the look out for another episode this week as well as another Turbine Interview next week.
News
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