Draigoch still buggy

Tonight, Draigoch bugged out three times in a row, always in the last phase.

Even knowing we would not get a satisfactory answer, we did put a ticket in, and got the standard reply, that they were not able to do anything and that we should make a bug report.

After telling them, that we had done that several times they replied:

XXXXX: But, why is it that it takes so long for you to fix gamebreaking bugs like this? It should have been taken care of ages ago..
+YYYYYY+: A fix for the bug will be released with a future update.

There are two points: They do have a frigging fix, but are just unwilling/unable to release the update. And they tell the customer, to bug-report it, even though they already have a fix for it.

This is not really how I would treat my customers. Especially if there is a new game coming out soon which a lot of our kin will go and play.

Draigoch - Buggy as Hell - Trouble with GMs

I was in several runs on Draigoch, two of which were successful (with Tier 2 Challenge).

But today, Saturday, after the update, he bugged out three times in the third phase, so we spent over four hours on three attempts without anything to show for.

So of course we sent a ticket, which was the usual useless response (Sadly, we can't do anything). After the third time, they just closed the ticket without responding.

Draigoch, being several months late, is somehow fun, but extremely buggy. The second team of our kin had also one game bugging out... It mostly seems to happen with fellowship movements. So we tried to avoid them, but got a random one.

We did an other ticket, which got closed without an answer. A second ticket was sent and the sender was threatened by GM.

Even though we told him, that out of five fights, he bugged out four times in the same manner, didn't help.

"+Algar+: The number of occurrences does not change the fact that this fight is much to complex to fix manually for you."

So he asked

"(Name) tell +Algar+, 'you want to come into the raid and one shot him so this is ended with everyone happy?'"

"+Algar+: Nobody in our department is going to do that for you, (Name). If we could fix this for you, we happily would do so."


+Algar+ did not respond to tells, for more than ten minutes and did not close the ticket either. Which is fucking stupid, as they did ban one player of our kin, after not replying to a GM after ten minutes.

We then asked to get a senior GM, but after half an hour, we still did not have a response. After a long day at the office and five hours in the raid, I'm off to bed.

Warner Bros and Turbine are not offering the customer service you would expect from a North Korean company. Warner Bros should really think hard, if they want to be associate with such bad service.

Factually, we  almost tenmanned it, as one player crashed and couln't get back in and one person lagged so badly, that he was not able to contribute a lot to the fight.

The one raid Turbine managed to deliver, months after they had promissed to do so, the only raid at level-cap fails four out of five times. The real challenge for Draigoch is no the raid, it is being lucky enough to not have Draigoch bug out...

This is neither fun nor good customer service. Anyone got better experience with Turbine GMs? Tell me your worst stories!

Rise of Isengard

It has been some time, over four months actually, since I last posted. Even thought I have been away from here, I haven’t been away from LotRO. I did spend some more time in World of Tanks, but haven't touched that game for some weeks.

There have been a lot of posts regarding Isengard, so much I will write here, you might have heard somewhere else.

What have I done in the expansion? First I have leveled my Hunter, Minstrel and Captain to level 75. Triple-boxing has been a less positive experience with Rise of Isengard, as the amount of client-crashes has exploded. These crashes mostly happen in high-traffic areas, say Galtrev, or when moving from one part of the world to an other (say, entering the vault in Galtrev or an instance on three characters at the same time.

Even thought I had taken some days off, I didn’t hit level-cap as fast as I had planned. I did like most regions of the expansion and the Epic Book, the parts I didn’t like were Dunbog and the Pit of Iron, the latter mostly because of the buggy tracks and the missing map.

My favorite parts were in the Epic Story as well as the Gap of Rohan quests.

After getting three characters to level-cap, I started gearing my Hunter and my Minstrel. I did some twelve-man skirmishes and some of the upgraded three- and six-mans. I really like them and they seem to be a bit easier than they have been before. I am looking forward to triple-boxing the school and library again.
I started leveling my next two characters, Burglar and Rune-Keeper. They are at level 69ish and Champion and Lore-Master will be next.

Hunter seems to play more or less the same as before the update. Minstrel and Captain have changed a lot. I didn’t spend a lot of time on my Captain but like the changes for my Minstrel a lot.
We also visited Draigoch, the big, bad (?) dragon. The raid well done. I sadly was always too late for the first few 'failed' attempts but was lucky enough to bring my Hunter to the first Tier 2 and Challenge run. I even won the coin for the head-piece.

Draigoch fights in his pit which has three levels. A small part of the raid does the tanking on the upper level, whilst the rest fights the paws on the lower and central levels. After ‚killing’ the paws, Draigoch falls to the ground whilst the raid hits his body. Fellowship movements are important, as a specific series of twelve FMs weakens the paws. After a bit, the dragon wakes up again and this repeats over and over again. Withe the FMs weakening the paws, less time is needed to ‚kill’ these and the phase to attack the body will start sooner.

There are three phases, as I have only been on the dps team, and the first and second phase seem to be different mainly for the tanking team. I also think that a Rune-Keeper is a better healer for the tanking team as a Minstrel should be in line-of-sight with the boss to play ballads, which is not recommended with Draigoch.

The third team is quite easy if you have lots of ranged dps. Even though melee dps get a better buff than the ranged dps, the Hunters and Lore-Masters don’t suffer from the distributed attacks of the paws.

After a long time, the fight takes about 90 minutes, he was finally dead. I was very happy to be on an other server-first. Four chests spawn. Most sought after were the scales, three of which are needed to craft an epic cloak. Three scales dropped on the first run, four on the second. Then we had two coins fort he set on the first run and three on the second run and on the first run, we got an Worn Symbol of Celebrimbor. Some teal items (jewelery and amour) and some runes and settings completed the loot.

With three accounts, I spent around US$ 150.00 for the Rise of Isengard expansion. Money well spent? Yes, I think so. Even with the buggy Pit of Iron and the failure to have enough quests to get to level-cap without having to do repeatables and tasks, I like the expansion.

Frothmar (Ost Dunhoth, Poison) on Tier 2 and Challenge done!

Frothmar is an other fight I like. And finally, after loads of tries, we managed to get him down.

The twelve people are split up in four groups of three. One of each group stays on the platform most of the time. We used healers for the far two platforms (from the entry) and Hunters for the close two. Setup is two tanks (again, probably Guardians), two Captains, two healers (probably Minstrels). These stay close to the door on the other side of the room.

The rear needs one healer (we used a Rune-Keeper) and a Lore-Master. The rest are dps, Hunters probably are best (high range). They can either stand in the center or to the left and right of the room, between the platforms.

To not fail the challenge, someone has to stay on the platform at any time of the fight. This means, you can't loose a platform, which happens when more than two people stand on a platform, or two people stand on the platform for too long.

Knock-backs seem to be the highest risk to fail the challenge, so those not standing on the platform should stay far away from them as possible (in the center) and the switching should happen after knock-backs.

It is not an extremely difficult fight, but it is very easy to fail it, as it only takes one mistake. So if you have laggy Internet-connection, this might not be the fight for you...

Even though the sentiment in the kin was not to do it again, I would really like to keep doing or at least keep trying it. Again, I don't think this is difficult to do. If you fail, you can reset the fight easily. The fight itself does not take very long. It just takes some practice and a lot of concentration.

Doing this challenge was very rewarding. Not only because I got my second Symbol of the Elder King which I used for a First Age Burglar Dagger.

I had thought long, what I should do with the symbol. I have a First Age Bow for my Hunter which is maxed out. On my Minstrel, Rune-Keeper and Captain, I have lots of ixp-runes. My Minstrel is one of my mains, but we have a lot of Minstrels at the moment. As I usually have been asked to either bring my Hunter, Burglar or Lore-Master, the choice was between the Burglar or the Lore-Master.

If I win a next Symbol, I might go Lore-Master or Minstrel or Captain. As I already have won two symbols and lots of people haven't won one, I am not sure, if I should roll on the next few symbols. An idea would be to roll on them, but if I win one, to pass on it, so that if I won a forth roll, I could get a third symbol.

Mammoths (Ost Dunhoth, Wounds) on Tier 2

Sadly we did not manage to get the Challenge. We did manage to kill one Mammoth in time. Does not seem impossible to do, but will take some more practice.

We learned a lot. For one, when you finish the fight, you can walk back through the corridors and see, that the gates and levers are actually colour-coded. So:

The middle (green) lever opens the right gate,
the right (purple) lever opens the left gate,
the left (orange) lever opens the middle gate,
the middle (blue) lever opens the left gate,
the left (purple) lever opens the right gate and last but not least,
the right (white) lever opens the middle gate.

Even the first gate has the same colour as the gates, which houses the mammoths.

Balancing the dps is a bit of a challenge as you don't want people to have to wait for other groups pulling their levers.

The Good, the Bad, the Ugly

It has been two weeks since my last post and a lot has happened since.

The Good

I have been doing a lot of runs in the School and Library in Eregion and if I have enough time, I get ten Supreme Third Marks per day. This has become quite easy and I can’t remember having a wipe these last two weeks.

Some of the S3Ms I have used to complete my sets, with the rest, I have been crafting lots of level 65 Second Agers (hoping to get more than three legacies on identification).

If I understand the patchnotes, it makes sence not to decon Legendary Items at the moment. If I did decon them now, I would miss out on the Legendary Replacement Scrolls and the new shards. But on the other side, I have only some Legendary Fragments left, which I need to make more Second Agers. Seems the Auction House is the way to go...

We have been running Barad Guldur lots of times. BG I and II are on farm. The Lieutenant on the other side, can still be a bitch. In most cases, it is not that much his fault, than a mistake of a kinnie or sometimes a technical issue. Luckily my internet connection is solid and I never had a disconnect during a boss-fight (once while fighting the trash-mobs). The tactics how to kill the Lieutenant are clear and we have recovered many times, even with several Morfears.

The Ugly

But we seem to have one or more players, that have a high risk of causing wipes. I still think, that 150 radiance should be required to do that fight in the hard-mode. But some still join the fight with some 15-radiance-pieces even thought the 25-radiance-pieces are easy to get. If you are a hunter, there is no reason not to have the full Epic-Helegrod-set (when I fight the LT, I use the Epic-Helegrod-set for the first phase of the fight and when the LT dismounts, I switch to the BG-set), as the set-bonus is great. The same person has no morale-pots and in the three attempts yesterday, he got killed first two times...

The Bad

When I speak out, I get reprimanded... The same person expresses suprise, when other people join instances, when they are locked to win an armour piece.

The Good

I got twenty pieces on five characters. On three further toons, I have done one or more successful runs without winning a piece. My Champion is the only character I have, which has not yet successfully done BG. Hunter and Minstrel are my mains and they both have five pieces (both missing the shoulders). My Rune-Keeper has the first four pieces. Burglar and Lore-Master have three of the four first pieces.

We have a rule, that each player can only win one coin fort he Barad Guldur set a week.

Probably, I have the most BG-parts in our kin, I would be on the same level than the next one I know of, but I won two pieces on my last run (I had won one on Durcheset but noone did need the second gloves that dropped, so I got two pieces). Do I feel bad that I probably have the most? No. I do think that I have put a lot of effort in all my characters and that I know how to do the fight on every position needed. With this, I can support my kin, and I am not feeling that I am leeching from other players.

Some officers don’t roll for coins they lead themselves or only roll on their mains. I did pass on rolling for the other four characters, but might start to roll on them too, if I have BG I and II parts on all the other characters. The longer we do this instance, the more often, we will get coins, noone can use...

Yesterday, I brought my Captain to the LT, which was his first time up the tower. We had an almost perfect first try which ended with a wipe when the LT had less than 10k morale. Second fight was one to rather not remember. But the third one was successful.

And behold, in the end, after killing the Lieutenant over twenty times, we got the Unwelcome Mat for the kin-house. Yay, never thought it would drop at all...

Besides BG and the three-mans, I have been running some other instances, but mostly just to help other people or have a fun time.

The Merry

We did have a social night with a movie-quiz followed by karaoke and some Dwarven Wrestling. We were asked to roll a level 10 Dwarven Champion and were handed standard axes. Then we sparred for a Legendary Belt. It was a fun night.

I also like going to the Ettenmoors with a Kin-Raid. I hardly join PvP without some kinnies but it can be addicting. The most important reason that I don’t go into the moors more often is lag. I rather spend my time pawning some noobs in TF2.

An other event I am looking forward too, is the Kin-Meet in Amsterdam. It will be the first one I am able to join and Kin-Meets seem to involve a lot of drinking.

Since many weeks, I have been making plans for a social-night in Middle Earth. It still needs a bit of work but I am really looking forward to that.

The Updates

I’ve been scouting the forums less than in recent updates. On one hand, I would like to see the new instances, on the other hand, I still want to be able to explore them myself, when the update goes live.

I couldn’t keep myself from reading the developers diaries. Most of the changes I like. Minstrel and Hunter are my mains and Burglar is my fourth character (third would be my Rune-Keeper) and what I have seen in the diaries is positive.

The Burglar updates were not overwhelming. I would have hoped, that Burglars got a bit more love, but at least, we didn’t get nerfed.

With the Character Panel update, they did a great job. Having two more outfit-slots is very nice. I am not a big fan of the stats part, but that is not extremely important to me.

Radiance Removal was an other topic. I like the idea of Radiance, probably one of the few people who do. The fault was to connect Radiance with equipment / armour. If we had gotten Radiance through deeds, say slaying the Watcher gives you a one-time Radiance gain, so does ever other Raid-boss. Some Raids could be gated by Radiance, so that you would have to have done several Raids successfully to do some of the new content.

I can’t talk much about the Monster Play diary.

The Legendary Item changes are welcome too. I am not too sure, how they will affect game-play. Grinding will still be a major part of the game if you want to have the perfect equipment and I don’t mind the amount of grind in LotRO.

Conclusions

I am still enjoying the game and our kin and am really looking forward to the new content. I love having a new raid and some other instances. From what I have heard, they are going to keep us interested and challenged for the months to come.

The Question

How important is loot? We had some discussions about the importance of loot versus the fun of playing in a friendly group. There was a similiar discussion a few months ago, about succeeding in raids.

I am a bit emotional and I like loot and I like to do raids successfully. So when things went wrong (we wiped and wiped and wiped) I could express my emotions. I think I have managed to keep it down these last weeks and when things go wrong, I just turn off my mike.

Back to the point. There seems to be no easy and fair way to distribute loot. DKP seems to be the fairest option, but it is a lot of work. Other options are easier, but not fairer (even though fairness is no universal standard). Should those only missing one part of a set have priority or a better chance?

New things to come

It started with a letter. Bungo Grubb from Oatbarton wrote to Mayor Whitfoot, that a "tall stone block bearing unpleasant symbols" had appeared in his field. My first thought was 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Logging my Minstrel, I rode to Oatbarton and soon found the stone and talked to the people around it. The rock was oozing a green mist and around it, a large part of the field it stood in, was dead.

A new deed popped up too, called Mysterious Relics. This deed showed, that there were more of these relics hidden in Middle Earth. Sadly, there was no information given where to search. So after a short google, I found the other places (no, I am not spoiling it myself here, google it yourself).

I would have liked it better, if some hints had been given, so I would have been able to find them myself (not just by riding through the whole of Middle Earth).

The last quest sends you to the Prancing Pony with the innkeeper promising to help.

There had been a lot of rumours, that the next raid would concern the Gaunt-Lords.

We have alread met Ivar the Blood-hand in the swamps of Garth Agarwen in the Lone-lands, Drugoth the Death-monger who you can meet in Helegrod where he is part of the Dragon-instance, most have killed Thadúr the Ravager who hides in the Great Barrow and porbalby gets a lot of beating these days (thanks to Superior Third Marks), Ferndúr the Virulent who is the one I have seen the least of yet, as he resides in Imlad Bachorth, Angmar, where I hardly have gone to and, last but not least: Gortheron the Doom-caller. We have seen him in one of the quests in Lhe Colvarn in the Lich Bluffs and is probably our next target.

So we got five Gaunt-Lords and five Relics. Each of the relics has his colour. For pictures, please go here.

I would arrange the Gaunt-Lords differently than the OP does, so here is my suggestion:

Oatbarton - green - poison - Thadúr the Ravager
North Downs - red - blood - Ivar the Blood-hand
Forochel - purple - fear - Drugoth the Death-monger
Trollshaws - yellow - disease - Ferndúr the Virulent
Thror's Coomb - no colour (yet?) - Gortheron the Doom-caller

This is of course pure speculation. Some make more sence than others.

Some of the relics have new locations nearby.

In Oatbarton, there is a village to the north-west.
In the North Downs, there is a new settlement called Stoneheight.
Thror's Coomb bunny castle in the south-west could be the hot location for Gortheron, bring ye holy hand grenade.
Trollshows has no new location, but Elrond talks about the place behind the locked door.
In Forochel, I didn't see a new location either, but there easily could be an expanded castle further to the north-east.

I guess, the Enedwaidth stone will start to 'bleed' (or ooze) too and that this will happen, when the new raid-cluster goes life. As in Helegrod, I think that you need to defeat the 'old' Gaunt-Lords (all four of them), before you can fight Gortheron.

Even though I only got a new title, I like the way they are introducing the new raid.

Are you ready to rumble?

Now that most of the instances can be reached by the skirmish-menu, probably much to the relief of Captains, our raids seem to start with much less delay.

What is deplorable is that many people lack the consumables needed.

Highest on the list are tokens. I usually have three stacks of plus five tokens on each of my raiding characters (usually one stack 40 minutes, 30 minutes and 15 minutes). It is always the same group of people who pop tokens before the fight and the same slackers that cry for one after a rez even though you know, they didn't pop one to start with. This gets on my fucking nerves...

Sadly, you can't inspect bags before the raid. Even more sad, that you should be able to do that in a kin.

I understand, that not everyone has a jeweller. But four of the seven vocations have prospector as one of the three professions. I am more than happy to craft tokens for those kinnies, who don't have a jeweller, just bring me the mats. If you are a historian and need tokens, trade some scrolls for tokens.

If you have only a yeoman, you can provide food for the raid. As a woodsman, you can at least do some farming.

Crafting does not take that much time. I usually use a warden to farm scholar- and prospector-nodes (yes, I got more than one warden). The out-of-combat-run-speed-skill does make farming nodes easier. I sometimes even triple-box, running from node to node on two accounts, crafting on my third account (this gets me killed in some places though...)

About one hour work gives enough consumables for one month heavy raiding. Some of my produce I put in the raid-chest or send to officers and friends.

So when it is this easy, why do I complain? Because when someone dies, get rezed and has to beg for a token, this wastes time and risks that he dies again (as due to dread, his health is reduced a lot). As many of the new fights punishes deaths, a further death increases the risk of a wipe.