By now you’re probably aware of the dev chat from yesterday regarding the upcoming Helm’s Deep class changes. After the results were posted, I combed through the answers to try and separate the “wheat from the chaff” (so to speak) or the good, new, solid information from the non-answers or fluff. I was happy to see that they shared so much information about hunters! So much, in fact, that I sectioned it off from the general information. Following is a list of the things we now know about the upcoming changes, followed by a citation of which answer I pulled the information from (A1 = Answer 1, etc.):
- Virtues will remain unchanged (A1)
- Will earn skill tree points through leveling and completing deeds (A3), characters who are currently high-level will receive credit for levels and deeds already completed (A27, A27a) (get ready to spend some time setting up your skill tree!)
- Bonuses can be unlocked per specialization as you spend points (A5 & A5a)
- We will be able to see all specializations and trees before choosing to spend points (A25)
- 2 trait ‘setups’ for free, (similar to war-steed trees) (A6)
- Legendaries will be available for purchase at the end of the trait tree (A8a)(like a capstone?) + a specialization-specific legendary passive bonus (A8b)
- No bard needed to re-spec (A12)
- No trainers needed to train skills (A23)
- Re-speccing similar to mounted combat tree (A12a) (for in game gold?)
- Re-speccing will allow you to chose a new specialization (A22)
- Re-speccing means starting the whole tree over (“all or nothing” – Hoarsedev)(A33)
- LI’s and legacies will be re-vamped for the new system (A16)
- Should have about 20 skills after spending all points (A15) & about 20 skills available per specialization (A21) Some skills will be auto-granted upon leveling (A23)
- “use skill x” deeds, legendary page deeds & (class?) quests will now reward trait points (A37)
- No trait trees for creeps (A9)
Hunter info:
- bowmaster and huntsman (A20), and “yellow line” (A29) specializations were all mentioned
- bowmaster – greater range, must plant feet to deal dmg (A20b)
- huntsman – less range, can induct on the move (A20a)
- Traps are becoming skills (A31), will be usable in combat & have their potency (effectiveness) changed (increased) (A31a), and will have individual cooldowns (A34)
Whew, that’s a lot of wheat! What do you think about all of this new information?
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To me, by far the most significant point made, and most of the other points are tributaries to it, is:
Should have about 20 skills after spending all points (A15) & about 20 skills available per specialization (A21) Some skills will be auto-granted upon leveling (A23)
At the risk of being a negative Kaleigh, I have to say that this both terrifies me and makes me pretty sore. First, the terrifying:
These sorts of games are very new to me, so others can say better than I, but of the few I have dabbled with {World of Warcraft for a few weeks, Guild Wars 2, and Star Wars for not so long), the two things I see that make Middle Earth special are the incredible story and depth that it is founded upon, and that we have so much choice, and flexibility, and the freedom to be who we wish to be, within limits, and so many implements (skills) with which to do so.
I love mounted combat as an idea, and it is fun to rumble about the landscape, but the actual combat itself bores me to tears. Why? Because there are only six skills or so we can bring to bear and, after initially choosing which few to begin with, it is merely a matter of choosing whichever one is not on cooldown for the rest of the fight.
I found the same for the most part in those other lands I mentioned. Guild Wars has 15 skills maximum that can be used at once, and it was really just using whichever one was available at any given time, rather than truly engaging in the battle, and having the choices available to make the most of our greatest tool: our minds, that ruled the day there.
Removing choice is never an answer to anything, unless you feel more control is needed over things. How do parents keep their children safe and under their wing? By removing choice, whether through playpens, or closing doors, or removing everything around them they can get their hands on.
Must we truly be treated like children, in order to bring about ‘balance’, or for whatever reason the Overlords have chosen to do this?
Now for the ‘sore’ part: 🙂
There are so many things that the Free-peoples would like to see in our lands: New housing plans, so that we choose [There is that word again! ;)) how best to decorate our homes, new Instances of danger, where we might battle the evils of our time, new Classes with which to do so, more musical instruments and a better method with which to play them, and the list goes on. It goes on forever, really.
But the list as to why we will only ever have so many of these things is very, very short. It is one reason, and one reason alone.
“There is only so much development time and resources to do these things.”
The decision to use that precious and valuable development time to remove choice, **to remove things within the game that more of the precious development time was used to create**, is mind-blowing. I really hope that it will be worth it, but I am not sure how it could be, really. To use so much of that precious time to imitate, rather than differentiate, our lands from the others who seek citizens as well, makes no sense to me at all.
So… how is the Fellowship Walk coming along? 🙂
This is an excellent comment & point, Kaleigh. I tend to agree about the dangers of simplifying the interface too much and the removal of choice. Turbine has touted choice a lot when referencing class changes, but that is usually in reference to traiting your character, and not about choice during actual combat. I also agree that the 20 skill number brings up a LOT of questions for me.
I think it is too early to really know if choice is being removed. We have no idea on how induction times and all the other stuff will work. Also I think they had to reduce skills so we can get new ones. It was boring in Rohan when our characters only received 1 new skill and two upgrades. They have to do something to allow us to receive new skills without overwhelming the player. I simply see this as a change to allow us to have plenty of new skills in future expansions.
I hear this type of complaint a lot, but the answer seems obvious – they need to simplify and unify the classes in order to make game development and balancing of new content easier and less painful for them. If we really want new raids, new content, we should appreciate that Turbine knows what they’re doing and trust them to be laying the groundwork for future content and development with these changes.
The current system is ALL OVER THE PLACE, surely you can see that. I respect that they’ve put a lot of work into this new system, and I refuse to gripe about it until I’ve actually had a chance to work with it myself. Everyone is speculating and coming up with ‘potential problems’ without having actually tried out the new system.
“I hear this type of complaint a lot, but the answer seems obvious – they need to simplify and unify the classes in order to make game development and balancing of new content easier and less painful for them.”
Why is this necessarily true? Yes, it is easier to balance things when there are less options, but there will be a cost in playability and the ability to differentiate. Most of these skills have existed for 6 years now. How can they not be balanced, or at least within a margin of balance?
And we will likely be paying $60-90 for the next expansion, if the rate increase is constant. I think that should buy us the chance to have at least as much choice as we have now.
“The current system is ALL OVER THE PLACE, surely you can see that.”
I love that! I love that my cousin, who is a Captain, can believe that putting a couple of traits in the tanking line, even though she only does that accidentally, is worth it for having the ability to Mark foes with no cooldown. I love that I can choose to be better at throwing Dust in the Eyes of my foes, so I can get 3 at once, and then stun all three with a Startling Twist!
Many captains and Scouts choose to do things differently, for any number of reasons. Choice reigns supreme.
It is true that we have not tried out the new system. But it is equally true that the reason developers have Q&A’s and Chats with us is to give us information.
The more information, and more specificity we have the earlier in the development cycle, the more chance we will be able to have a say in how things eventually end up.
I’m waiting until I see it to make any real judgement on skill consolidation.
Sure, 20 skills seems like it’s not enough and severely limiting.
On the other hand, each and every one of my characters has 4 quickbars full of junk and only 1.5 to 2 of them see any action.
except for my warden – he has one quick bar half full of things.
Loved the Hunter part. The bowmaster/huntsman division sounds captivating. And I really hope the yellow line will remain “trapmaster” themed. More generally, I love the idea that the same class must be played differently depending on the build.
Currently, even though there are were some minimal variations regarding movement and CC, I felt that they were completely irrelevant in any challenging combat. I do use traps, fear and stun sometimes when soloing, but most of the time I got the feeling they were more like “combat emotes” I used to make the fight visually attractive, rather than actually helpful moves.
More regarding the skill consolidation and the worry that a lot of people have regarding the “20 skills” consolidation. This was posted by a dev “RockX”:
So, the “20 skills” issue is something I’d like to address.
First, it is referring to skills which actively impact gameplay. Things such as teleports, pets, stances, and fluff skills (and probably another category which I’m not thinking of off the top of my head) will not count against that amount.
Second, the “20 skills” is not a hard and fast number, but more of a general guideline. You may end up with more or less, depending on your specialization.
Third, each class has a pool of general skills (skills we feel are important to all three specialization lines) and more specific skills. How you choose to invest your traits will have an impact on what skills are available to you. I’ll use the Burglar as an example. Please bear in mind some of the specific skills I’m mentioning are new, and we’ll discuss their impact at a later time.
Some general skills every single Burglar will eventually have access to include (but are not limited to): Riddle, Subtle Stab, Double-edged Strike, Reveal Weakness and Hide in Plain Sight. Now, if I choose to specialize as a Gambler, I’ll immediately gain access to Lucky Strike and Hedge Your Bet. From here, I could completely fill in the Gambler tree, picking up skills such as Gambler’s Advantage, Trip and All In. Or, I could choose to not invest all of my points in Gambler to pick up Stun Dust from the Quiet Knife line and Trick: Dust in the Eyes from the Mischief-maker line.
The exact number of skills you have will vary, based on how you choose to specialize your character and spend your trait points.
https://www.lotro.com/forums/showthread.php?521014-TRANSCRIPT-Twitter-Dev-Chat-August-21-2013-Class-Changes/page3
This is great clarification, Sig – thanks. I understand 20 is not a hard limit, but even as an average it’s well below what we’re used to. Does that mean worse? Meh, who knows? Personally, I thought Kaliegh’s post was excellent because she gave specific examples of where fewer skills did not relate to better gameplay in her opinion. At this point, experience with similar models is all we have to go by.
I’m actually mostly optimistic about the changes. I don’t fear change 🙂
I did see that. Without knowing specifics, it is difficult to speak specifically, of course 🙂
But of all those skills he spoke of that were restricted in some way, currently they are all present and all able to be used, and by all Scouts, freely: Lucky Strike, Trip, Dust in the Eyes. Or they are new skills, likely merged from more than one previous skill, or that at least take the place of old skills: Gambler’s Advantage, All In, Stun Dust.
I use six skill bars, and each spot is filled. Some have emotes, some potions and draughts. I count 40 skills used in combat, and to have that number halved is very scary for playability, I have to say. From the way it sounds, it is likely one would have to choose a poor point allocation to get many more.
Goodness, looking at it further, the fact that staples of the Scout’s arsenal, like Trip and Dust in the Eyes, are restricted is *very* worrisome.
“I wish none of this had happened…”
“So do all who live to see such times, but that is not for them to decide. All you have to decide is what to do with the *skills* that are given to you.” 🙂
That is a great use of that quote! It made my day. Thanks Kaleigh!
I might actually come back if my Isi can run and shoot at the same time. She’s a hunstman, though and through. The skill tree is captivating to me since I have that present set up on Rift. I can put into my character what I want and leave out what I don’t want. Not so sure I am thrilled about my range being held back, but if I can run and shoot I can live with it.