The Bullroarer test server is as of this writing up for patching and testing for the newest patch to LOTRO, 15.1, and comes with it’s own set of patch notes. I have listed some of the more interesting ones below, but be sure to check the link for the full list:
General
- You can now use “Track Nearby Quests” in interior locations
Beornings
- Iorelen’s Camp should now have a barter vendor that sells Beorning specific Rift gear.
Armor, Items and Gear
- Beorning Erebor and Greater Erebor armour sets should now be available at all skirmish camps.
Epic Battles, Quests and Instances
- Quartermaster’s Rewards now being granted for ALL Helm’s Deep battles & secondaries.
Pelargir
A fellowship version of Retaking Pelargir is now ready for limited release on Bullroarer, where we’ll be taking important balance feedback from preview players. The timing of its release will depend on the feedback we get about this new version.
The fellowship version of Retaking Pelargir features two new secondaries: The Ship-slaves and The Thrice-blown Horn. Additionally, all Epic Foes have been re-statted for group challenge.
- In Retaking Pelargir, secondary objectives now contribute towards total merit of primary battle. Log messages now display the points at which merit is updated during battle.
- The timing of Kisung Teng’s arrival has been made more reliable
- Time required to earn merit on all Epic Foe secondaries has been significantly reduced.
- A failure objective for Retaking Pelargir has been rephrased from “The Great Gate must open” (a bit vague) to “The Gate Winch must survive” (hopefully much clearer)
- Some bad entrance animations at the end of the battle have been fixed
- The Army of the Dead now glows prettily when they enter Pelargir the same way they do at piers
- Fixed a bug where some enemies in the middle of the city keep spawning after the pillagers are supposed to have been routed
- City guards are a little sturdier than they used to be
- Corsairs bearing torches can be found in the Fellowship version of Retaking Pelargir
- Pelargir Rings have been re-statted so that they are no longer missing some stat value and that they are not identical.
- Siege weapons in Pelargir will now build at a normal & reasonable rate
- Winch no longer (subtly) spontaneously combusts when the great gate is opened
Mac
- The help page and /bug should now load correctly on OSX
- OSX: Drop-down menus now work in the in-game browser
- Upgraded the embedded Awesomium browser for OSX to v1.7.4.2 to fix issues with the store not loading on OSX Yosemite.
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I think this a very solid 15.x update. I like that Pelargir is getting the extra polish and clarifications. I also like the fact that we should be able to get Platinums in the Solo now. I am super excited for the 6 man version of Pelargir. I really do think its a fun zone. Nice to actually see the Mac client get some love. The interior quest tracker is nice.
On a side note I would like to throw out my thoughts on the current state game updates. I think we are seeing a transition back into better quality updates were the focus is feedback and fixing. The fact that they are asking for your top 10 Bugs and making “quality of life” passes at the game. We are seeing quarterly updates to content . I am getting a slight “SoA” tingle going on.
If anyone watched the Frelorn stream yesterday, it should be noted that they are going to be rolling back the Music System (soon) too.
“Time required to earn merit on all Epic Foe secondaries has been significantly reduced.” This is great news…hmmm what? Anyone know what the requirement was before? Vagueness drizzled with a spot of vague over a heaping mound of vague. I love it.
Yeah, I think that means it extends time window to get them killed to be able to get platinum merit for the side and main quest, but it almost sounds like they’re reducing the time. Can’t tell which, and I hope it’s not reducing for solo, some of my classes can’t dish out enough damage as is.
Based on what I saw on a livestream, it reduced the time at a more rapid rate to complete the various epic foe side objectives (ie half troll or sorcerer in the defensive phase with the barricades/citizens, & archer or minstrel foe in the last phase), should we going for Platinum.
Basically, as soon as you see one of these objectives pop up, we’ll need to be a bit more on our game to get to the respective spot and DPS the foe as quickly as possible, in order to attain as high of a mark as we can. Then again, this is all subject to change, yadda yadda.
A nice fix – based on feedback:
“West Gondor – Endgame – Quest: Bait Ball: Fail timer increased from two minutes to five minutes.”
Now I may be able to complete the dock runs on my alts… ’cause those are some sweet class boots!