Summary: Cari and Layanor talk about the Producer's Livestream, and Sapience's news. Audio Version: What We Did in Game Layanor Level 100 Cari Quested with the old cgang in the Paths of the Dead Level 96 News Live Chat with the Executive Producer https://www.lotro.com/forums/showthread.php?544616-LOTRO-Livestreams-Notes-on-what-was-said&p=7203694#post7203694 Producer's Letter First off, there will not be a second level cap raise. Which he thinks is huge. They’re going to take that energy and reinvest it in updating and – daresay – fixing the LI system. Sapience – Asks Rowan what he means by fixing and updating. Rowan – What they found when they were looking at the level cap is that a lot of players were saying they’d love a level cap raise, but they don’t want to do it with LI as it is right now. So what they’re going to do instead is focus on fixing that pain point of “I have this item, I put all this time and energy into it, and when I come to the next level cap I want to build the exact same item and I have to destroy my old one, put all the pieces together and build a new one.” Instead they’re going to say that if we love our items so much and we want to lock in its abilities, we can imbue the item, lock it in and then it will just start to earn experience and level up, and each of the attributes, each of the legacies will level up and develop as well. So they’re going to change that system at cap, which is 100 right now. Sapience – So basically that’s going to become an advancement and progression method in and of itself. Rowan – It will be an advancement method all in itself, and it will give them opportunities later to do new things with it, like introduce new legacies that are only available to imbued items. Introduce new content or aspects of content where we can go back and use these imbued items and gain new abilities or new effects for them – advance them – by completing content. Really change up the game dramatically in terms of what we can do so that when we’re at cap we’re still advancing, we’re still developing a character but we’re doing it in different directions and in different ways. Could we decide on making our Beorning level 50 or level 1? Rowan – Says their answer around Beornings is, they found for a number of reasons – including player feedback on the leveling experience and how much we enjoy the earlier Eriador zones – but also simply watching MadeOfLions trying to find reasons that Gandalf would accept us, that Frodo would want to talk to us, that all of these characters would want to interact with us when we are a level 50 Beorning who’d never talked to any of them before, that was painful. So they decided not to put MadeOfLions through that process of pain, and instead let us start at level one. We still can buy a Gift of the Valar and attach that to our Beorning and jump right to 50 and get going further if we want to, in fact they’ll probably offer a bundle around that to make it easier for us. But this gives us the choice. Sapience – Actually now that’s kind of true of any class. Rowan – Sure. Sapience – If players want they can roll up a warden and start at level 50 right outside Moria, or a hunter – it doesn’t have to be one of the ‘additional’ classes. Group Content Why is there no new group content with U14? Sapience and Rowan – But there is. Rowan – There is an entirely new area, and all the feedback he’s been getting about that is that the quests are actually challenging, and for the most part require a balanced group. He recommends we gird up our grouping skills and make sure we have a healer and a tank and have a good time. Sapience – There are lots of questions about group content. Rowan – Says he’s not going to try to sidestep the base question that comes up, which is, “When are we getting new small group, large group content, when are we getting new raids, etc.?
