In a new blog post, developer Fantus broke down some of what the team is working on to revamp The Lord of the Rings Online's version of PvP, its Player versus Monster Player mode. The changes, while not extensive enough to fix all of the issues plaguing the mode, aims to start chipping away at the problems and improving it over time.
Fantus, who has been a developer on The Lord of the Rings Online for quite some time having worked on Moria through the Rohan additions on the World Building team, writes in the forum post that the changes previewed today are just a piece of the puzzle.
"We understand that there are a lot of issues with PvMP in general, but the goal of these changes isn’t to fix everything all at once. We are trying to slowly right the ship in terms of balance and accessibility, while addressing longstanding issues.The main goal of this update is to level up everything to the new level cap, create viable PvMP gear for freeps that is not PvE centric, and work on quality-of-life changes. In addition to the PvMP changes, there are several statting changes we are still working on - because of this we are planning on pushing the Bullroarer PvMP preview feedback to next week, likely 10/28. All of these changes are slated to go live with the Gundabad Expansion, though the higher level gear will be gated until the equivalent PvE content releases."
Some of the changes detailed on the forum post have to deal with Audacity rewards, such as legacy gear retaining Audactiy at a "suboptimal" rate. Additionally, new ranks of Audacity will be added, raising the ranks from 25 to 50. Fantus states that a goal here is to ensure that players will not have to do high-end raiding to get PvMP capable gear in order to compete. PvMP gear itself is getting some love with new gearsets being released in the PvE content, with some being purchaseable through gold while others through commendations. Audacity Jewelry is being added for Monster Players.
There will also be a new essence that is PvMP exclusive and may only be slotted in PvMP gear. The new essences will be released in waves with PvE content and will be gated by your rank. The upcoming update will also tackle some bug fixes, such as creeps being able to sneak into Glan Vraig, as well increasing the range of melee attacks by Monster Players to be on par with the Free Peoples of Middle-earth.
You can check out all the changes upcoming to Bullroarer on the official forums.
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