Quote:Update 7: Bullroarer Release Notes (B0) - SUBJECT TO CHANGE
The following release notes are for the Bullroarer public test server only and may not reflect the final list of changes or updates included at release. Please be aware that everything here is subject to change. These notes are not final.



Of Special Note

Fornost Revamp
Venture to the fields of the North Downs to explore the revamped instance of Fornost, featuring substantial improvements to both graphics and gameplay. Once a great stronghold of Men, Fornost was amongst the last cities to fall to the Witch-king of Angmar. Forgotten for hundreds of years, Fornost has become infested with servants of the Enemy. With Update 7, Fornost will be split into four separate instances with two levels of difficulty for groups of six players from level 30 to 75. A full developer diary will be available soon.

Moria Revision : Part I

Highlights:
The quest “Moria's Iron Garrison” has been removed as the rep item changes made a while ago have made it somewhat obsolete. This quest has been replaced with informative comments on Bennt Sharp-eye that should help introduce new players to the idea of two factions.

We've removed two quests that are bestowed by all the stable masters in Moria, because they really mess up quest flow! These quests had no rewards attached to them, and were not the prereqs for any other content.

Moria now has tasks! There are taskboards in all of the major quest hubs, as well as collection boxes for when you're finished. The tasks will give reputation for the faction of your choosing (Iron Garrison Miners or Guards).

Moria Deeds: The standard exploration, slayer, and quest completion deeds of Moria can now be started at level 47 (lowered from the previous minimum of level 50). We're not sure we recommend braving the deeps at a lower level than intended, but the option is there!

Moria: The crafting resource instances are now lower level. The lower tier instances are at challenge level 53, and the higher tier instances are at challenge level 57.

Revisions of the later parts of Moria will be undertaken in future updates. A full developer diary will be available prior to the launch of Update 7.

New Skirmish: Storm on Methedras
Storm on Methedras supports groups from one to twelve players, level 70-75, and offers two tiers of difficulty for those who like a bigger challenge. Storm on Methedras is free to VIPs!


Star-lit Crystals for Legendary Items
Star-lit Crystals are now available as loot from monsters. These ancient crystals hold the harnessed power of starlight and are used on your Legendary Items to upgrade their power. Up to three Star-lit crystals can be used on every upgradeable Legendary Item. The current upgrade status of your Legendary Item is displayed as three empty star icons one of which is filled in after an upgrade.

Star-lit crystals will upgrade the DPS, tactical healing rating, tactical damage rating or shield use rank of your Legendary items. Additionally Star-lit crystals will upgrade any ratings based legacies as well as secondary ratings and stats. Star-lit crystals drop extremely rarely from Skirmish Lieutenants with an increase in drop frequency at each step of 3-man, 6-man and raids in both skirmishes and instances. Using a Star-lit crystal on your Legendary item will also reset the legend points spent on that Legendary Item.
NOTE: Champion Runes, Burglar tools and all quest rewarded Legendary Items are not targetable by Star-lit crystals at this time. We hope to allow Star-lit crystals to be used on Champion Runes and Burglar Tools in a future release.


By player request

Increased bag space!
Players have long requested additional bag space for their characters. We appreciate that storage is always at a premium and more space is always better. It’s also a very complicated thing to make happen. Engineering requirements, server performance, and database space all have to be considered. We’ve looked at the request from every angle and we’re very happy to report that a sixth inventory bag will be made available as part of the Riders of Rohan pre-purchase.

Update 7 will include the User Interface changes required to make this happen. So, while you may see new inventory buttons on your toolbar, the bag itself is not currently available. More details on how to acquire it will be coming very soon.

Release Notes

General
Made additional changes to address reports of unexpected travel route dismounts and related issues.
You no longer need to be Acquaintance with the elves of Lórien in order to pass the borders. People will need to be able to run through this land in order to access Mirkwood, the Great River, and the lands beyond. It's time for the Elves to be a little more trusting. (You are a friend of Gandalf, Elrond, and the Fellowship, after all.)

Classes

Burglar
The increased riddle duration granted by the 3-trait mischief-maker bonus will now only apply while a player is in Mischief

Captain
For Captain's Tactics buffs, the higher magnitude effect will overwrite the lower even if the Captain buffing is lower level. As a side effect of this change one Tactics buff will now overwrite a different Tactics buff. For example: a high level Captain drive-by buffs Tactics:On Guard but you really want Tactic:Focus. Now Tactic: Focus will overwrite the Tactic:On Guard buff regardless of the relative levels of the Captains involved.

Champion
The tooltip for Controlled Burn should no longer mention Ardent Flurry as one of the skill effects.
Fixed a bug where Red Haze was not adding Fervor over time.

Lore-master
ICPR on Lore-master's Lesser Giant Eagle's Aura of Nobility now scales with level.
Changed the name of “Improved Commune with Nature (Spirit Sabre-cat)” and “Improved Commune with Nature (Spirit Aurochs)” to
“Improved Commune with Nature (Sabre-cat)” and “Improved Commune with Nature (Aurochs)” so that they would fit inside the skill panel when it is at its narrowest.
Altering Sticky Gourd and Improved Sticky Gourd so that they cannot miss and cannot be evaded. This is in line with other Tactical Skills

Minstrel
Fixed a typo in the tool tip for the Minstrel skill “Song of the Hammerhand”
A bug was reintroduced where the threat reduction benefit gained by using a coda while under the effects of Anthem of Compassion. We have corrected this bug and you will once again see the reduction when the coda is used while under the effects of Anthem of Compassion.
A bug was reintroduced that returned the Dirge-singer gloves and chest piece to the state where they did not have finesse. This has been rectified and the gear will once again have finesse.
Changed the Minstrel trait, Lyrics of Bravery to add a bonus to Tactical Mitigation instead of tactical Defense.
Reduced the “Anthem of War” melee damage bonus from 10% to 5%.

Rune-keeper
The Tooltip for the Wondrous Foreshadowing trait now properly claims it reduces damage by 40%.
Steady Hands tooltip should no longer mention an immunity to silence
The skill tooltips for Fall to Fire/Storm/Winter better describe the actual effects of the skill.
When traited with Scathing Retort, Smouldering Wrath's tooltip should now mention the effects for Mystifying Flame as well as Writ of Fire.
All Riffler of Writs class items should now grant increased Tactical Mastery, a reduction to Writ power cost, and the ability to nullify attunement shift while the Rune-keeper is attuned. If they are Battle-Attuned, casting Writ of Health will no longer result in an attunement shift. If they are Healing-Attuned, casting Writ of Fire or Writ of Health will no longer result in an attunement shift.
The effects of Glorious Foreshadowing and Wondrous Foreshadowing will no longer stack
Essence of Storm no longer increments Winter-storm on a critical hit.
Mystifying Flame tooltip should no longer have typos. Probably.
Adjusted the trait set bonus for Calming Verse to boost movement speed +20% to match the tip.
Fixed a bug where the Rune-Keeper skill “Ceaseless Argument” was not receiving the appropriate damage increase from the Legacy.
Removed a tool tip for Essay of Exaltation that described an effect that did not occur
Fixed a typo in the tooltip for the set bonus of Solitary Thunder
Fixing a typo in the tooltip for the Solitary Thunder item set.
Winter-storm is no longer expended by an attack that is resisted or misses.
Fixed a bug to display damage while using the Rune-keeper “Flurry of Words” skill.
The Rune-keeper legacy replace scrolls should now appropriately list their effects in their names/descriptions:
Self-motivation Power Return has been changed to Self-motivation Cooldown
Ceaseless Argument Power Cost has been changed to Ceaseless Argument Damage Increase

Warden
Addressed an issue with Ranged Deft Strike where the animation would not show the Javelin leave the warden’s hand. Wardens should no longer look like they’re trying to fake out monsters.
The tooltips for the Master of (X) traits have been cleared up so that the mastery skill explain the correct bonuses that are applied when the skills are executed.
The Veteran trait now correctly modifies the application chance of the bleed for the builder skill Quick Toss.
The legacy Shield-Spear Gambit Threat Reduction Up has been changed to Shield-Spear Gambit Threat Down for clarity's sake. A string table error in the last rank while deconstructing the legacy has been fixed
The Warden armour sets bearing the bleed bonus for Power Attack, Mighty Blow and Unerring Strike will now correctly apply their bonus damage to the bleed from those skills.
Aggression has been modified to once again provide more “up-front” threat increase for the Warden.
Defiant Challenge has had its cooldown reduced to 210 seconds. This should allow you to get the overall cooldown to 120 seconds with a max legacy.
Dance of War, in Assailment stance, now reduces the warden's perceived threat for the duration of the evade effect.
Conviction healing buff is no longer is overwritten by another warden.
Renamed the In Combat Morale Regeneration - Determination legacy, which was named correctly but getting chopped off, to ICMR – Determination
All mastery skill tooltips now reference that they are masteries.
Assailment now has a better descriptor, allowing players to know that they are switching into a ranged stance.
There is now reference to the bonuses that are applied with the different Master of Trait enhancements when the buff is available on the mastery skills.
Fierce Resolve should now accurately reflect the lifetap.
The Shield Gambit Buff Duration Legacy is now display the bonus to duration.
The ranged self buff afforded by Celebration of Skill is no longer lengthened by the Fist Gambit Duration modifier.

Monsterplay
If the set bonus on your monster play rings are not working properly, your rings may be broken. Thankfully they are under warranty, and class vendors in Glan Vraig will allow you to trade in your old defective ring for a working piece.
The tooltip for Defiler trait “Enhanced Skill: Curse of Sticky Feet” now properly references Tactical Mastery rather than Fire Defence in its description
Removed mention of corruptors from Monster Play barter item tooltip descriptions
Fixed a typo in Warleader's “Power of Fear” tooltip description
The Warg skill “Brutal Fangs” should now be able to apply both debuffs appropriately
Weavers will now receive an error referencing venom when they have insufficient pips, rather than fervor
The Reaver's Resilience skill will now free them from leech hotspots and protect them from further slows for 10s
All PvMP gear have had their borders changed to red and are no longer sellable to vendors.
Lugzag - Several NPC's were not despawning following a keep flip
Gramsfoot - Ongburz Defiler does now has an orc defiler appearance.
Quests - Quests to create the horn of Tol Ascarnen on freep and creep side are no longer only completable by the first person to turn them in per capture
Quests - Defend Us - Now award commendations
Quests - Patching the Holes - Quest tracker now appears when quest is taken
NPCS - The spawn-in timer on the guards that surround the defeat locations has been lengthened to allow players that are killed just as a keep falls to not be killed again by unfriendly guards.
Monster play Trainers no longer reference Spirit Stones
Reaver -Responsiveness of Dying Rage, Glory in Victory, Blood Lust, Time Out, and Wrath have been improved.
Warleader-Power of Fear critical effect duration now refreshes when you score a critical hit while it's active.
Defiler-Blessing of Darkness: Defilers can no longer cast this on themselves.
Defiler-Enhanced Skill: Curse of Sticky Feet: Fire Defence debuff changed to Tactical Mitigation debuff. Duration increased from 10s to 15s.
Audacity now reduces skill power costs for each rank of Audacity
The three training dummies in Gramsfoot have had their stats adjusted and have been renamed to heavy, medium, and light dummies. Each of these dummies should have stats comparable to a Guardian, Warden, and Minstrel (respectively) in full sets of audacity gear.
Fixed a bug that was allowing some NPC monsters to grant Commendations on defeat to Creeps only. NPC Monsters no longer grant Commendations.
The tooltips for the Warg skills Savage Fangs and Claws now accurately state the skills' effects
Fixed the typos in the Defiler “Aurochs Masked” appearance traits
Added a note to the tooltip for Howl of Aggression, indicating that it disarms the target.
Fixed a bug where the buffs from Frenzy and Sudden Maul would cancel each other out.
Added a note to the Shadow stance skill noting that Bestial Claws, Sudden Maul, and Pounce act as from Stealth and cannot be Blocked, Parried, or Evaded.
Altered the “Throat Rip” skill so that targets who have protection against slow wont have their movement speed decreased as a result of Throat Rip
Fixed a bug where swapping stances would leave pack hunter and pack flayer effects on a target.
Removed Westernesse Mitigation from the Weaver trait “Swallower of Light”
Altered the Weaver's Poison Spray skill to do Acid Damage instead of Common Damage
Fixed a typo in the description of the Pack Alpha trait.
Added a tooltip to note the Brute Bonus on the Stalker skill “Eye Gash”

Raids, Skirmishes & Instances
Additional Skirmish Attribute Trait Slots become available at levels 25, 33,43,53, down from 35,43,53,61.
Worn Symbols of Celebrimbor have been moved out of the weekly locked Skirmish Raid / Helegrod chests. They are now available in the standard chests (or boss corpses) found when the Skirmish Raid (or Helegrod) is completed.
Boxes containing new “mystery” cosmetic rewards have been added to the Skirmish Cosmetic vendors found at the various Skirmish Camps of the world. (Known Issue: The “mystery” cosmetics are using inaccurate icons.)
Skirmish-Attack at Dawn - Contol points now show up on the mini map
Instance - The Foundry - Intro text and VO now match
Instance - The Foundry - Tier 1 and 2 quests no longer resets if player leaves and rejoins partially completed instance.
Instance - Epic: Volume 2, Book 6, Chapter 8, Solo: New Devilry -- Gloom-walker and flame-drinker floor areas now apply the correct effects.
Roots of Fangorn
Several mobs (inc bosses) now have more health.
Hunting Spiders are now Elite.
Cumulative Poison and Horrific Poison are no longer B/P/E-able in most cases.
T2 Mobs recieve a substantial bump in HP & Damage.
T2 Pods and add waves are larger and/or more frequent.
Instance now includes currency - and a way out.
Most adds no longer drop loot. Trash loot frequency reduced overall.
Roots of Fangorn instance quests now give limlight gorge reputation, xp, etc.
Some of the T2 orc spawns were accidentally appearing on T1 - Owie.
Added additional titles for the Roots of Fangorn instance and Limlight Lore deeds.
Wiping on the web-tender fights will no longer cause the fights to trigger prematurely, which could block progress.
Bonfire in Frushkul's room will no longer block LOS.
Roots of Fangorn challenge quest and chest will now reset on boss fight reset.
Maggot's Mushrooms
Hounds no longer get quest rings over their heads (still in radar though, can't prevent that currently)
Mushrooms are now larger and a good bit easier to spot.

Legendary items
Fixed a DPS error that caused 2nd Age weapons to have better damage than 1st Age weapons. In fixing this error the DPS values for other weapons were slightly tweaked downward at some levels (most notably rare 1-handed weapons at levels 55 to 57 and 66 to 72)
All second age IA maces should now have correct icons

Crafting
Adjusted the distribution of some stats on lower level crafted earrings.
All OLD farming items will be removed from the game in the Rohan expansion. This includes all specifically named seeds (ex: Shire Apple Seed, Mint Plant Seed, Old Toby Seed) and all poor crops (ex: Poor Dragonsbreath Crop, Poor Winter Barley Crop, Poor Blackberry Crop). Please make sure to vendor these items before they disappear from your inventory/vault.
Apprentice Jeweller Scroll Cases will no longer drop recipes for Amethyst Ring of Tactics

Items
All skirmish gear should now be dyeable.
Renamed Helmet of Dundolen to Hood of Dundolen, Robe and Shoes of Dunlammad to Jacket and Boots of Dunlammad, Shoes and Hat of Dunnath to Boots and Circlet of Dunnath, and Shoulder Guards of Dungarthadir to Shoulder Guard of Dungarthadir.
Tactical Mastery was added to the Westfold Rune of Power and the Great River Rune of Power.
Set pieces will no longer show any “sell value,” since they can't be sold in the first place.
The stats of all Moria quest rewards have been adjusted.
Housing Items - The Statue of Draigoch and Draigoch's Fireplace are now Bind on Acquire.
Fornost - Rewards previously found in Fornost are now available at the Classic skirmish vendors found across Middle-earth.
Edited a grammatical error in the Carp fishing reward.
Fixed all typos where “Medallions” were being spelled “Medaillions.”
Changed the name of “Kappwin Gloves” to “Kappwin Gauntlets” and updated the icon to match the appearance in game.
Updated the icon for “Gauntlets of the Last Stand,” “Gauntlets of the Hawk-eye,” “Gauntlets of the Chieftain” and “Gauntlets of the Swift Slayer” to match the appearance in game.
Pieces from medium armour set, “Vestments of Fm”, can now be swapped for corresponding light armour pieces in the set, “Robes of Fm”. See Kyven, light armoursmith, in Aughaire.
The Armour Set “Armour of the Shining Blades” grants a bonus that will apply a slow effect if Bladestorm lands a critical hit. The slow effect was applying on crits and non-crits. Fixed to only apply on critical hits.
Added tool tips to several Great River Region items to note that they can be turned in for tasks.
Renamed the “Robe of the Erudite Teacher” to be the “Jacket of the Erudite Teacher” so that the item name matches the appearance.
Fixed a bug where the Webbed Sapphire Ring was displaying an opal ring in the icon.

Quests
Moria - Water-works - Quest: Fighting Slime with Slime - Stonecrest now despawns and must be resummoned if player goes out of combat.
Dunland - Isendale - Instance: Odd Benefactors - Player can not complete quests if they leave the instance
There was a bug that allowed players to block progression in the Brown Lands if they completed Sellswords and Turncoats before completing Trouble Enough (since Dagbert phased out.) A Black Wind from the East has been removed from Trouble Enough and can be completed even if Dagbert phases. Ceola will then bestow Dagbert's remaining quests. If Sellswords and Turncoats is turned in after Dagbert's remaining quests are underway, they will fail, and Ceola's versions will become available. If Sellswords and Turncoats is turned in before A Black Wind from the East is obtained from Dagbert, Ceola will bestow A Black Wind from the East. This should unblock everyone currently blocked.

Mounts & Travel
The "Tame Redhorn-Goat" item no longer has a Reputation requirement. In addition, it is now a reward from the quest "To the Dolven-view"
Added swift travel route between Pren Gwydh and Nan Laeglin
Adjusted placement of travel routes in Rivendell to reduce the risk of travellers missing bridges.
The Jester horse jingle, jangle sound is now playing on the sound effects channel and not all channels.
Any horse previously using war-horse/pony for its name have been renamed to Great-horse/pony.
Changed the Snowy Steeds appearance back to what it was before update 6

User Interface
Certain lingering UIs can now be “minimized” via a button on the UI. To restore them, right click on your character's vitals and toggle them via the new UI toggle sub-menu on the pop-up menu.
When leaving an instance in the middle of a boss fight, you will no longer have the event tracking panel lingering on your screen.
Monster players will no longer see an option for toggling the soldier vitals UI when right-clicking their vitals.
The tooltip for currencies awarded by quests is now accurate.
Skill tooltips for all skills with a critical effect added to it by traits, itemset bonuses, etc will now display those critical hit effects.
Tasks will now have a unique map icon of a golden feather instead of a quest ring on the radar. Tasks can also now be filtered in the “Filter Map Notes” menu in map view.
Arinora's Cloak and Elder's Band will now read correctly in the chat log when received from their respective quests

NPCs & Town Services
The cosmetic raid gear on the Cosmetic Skirmish Barter vendors are now Bound to Account.
Adjusted NPC Placement in Trollshaws

Monsters and Combat
Goats being fought on the landscape can now have their movement speeds reduced by effects.

Graphics, Sounds, Physics & FX
Various Floating Objects have been grounded
Adjusted water near Shire Festival Horse Race to improve visuals at low quality settings
Various terrain texture issues have been resolved
Reprocessed cliff textures in Gloomglens to resolve mip-level issues
Updated radar images between Lothlorien and Mirkwood
Added Physics to structures in the Ettenmoors.
Various Physics issues in the Battle of the Way of Smiths skirmish have been resolved.
Stuck spot in the Pits of Isengard space have been fixed.

Misc
Added several Breeland interiors. These are non-combat spaces that contain no content.

Lua
Added GetInCombatMoraleRegeneration method, InCombatMoraleRegenerationChan ged event to FreePeopleAttributes.
Added GetInCombatPowerRegeneration method, InCombatPowerRegenerationChang ed event to FreePeopleAttributes.
Added GetOutOfCombatMoraleRegenerati on method, OutOfCombatMoraleRegenerationC hanged event to FreePeopleAttributes.
Added GetOutOfCombatPowerRegeneratio n method, OutOfCombatPowerRegenerationCh anged event to FreePeopleAttributes.
Added Bank, Vault, and SharedStorage classes. These class provide access to a player's Vault and SharedStoraged with the following methods and events: IsAvailable, Getcount, GetCapacity, GetChestCount, GetChestName, GetItem, PerformShortcutDrop, IsAvailableChanged, CountChanged, CapacityChanged, ItemsRefreshed, ItemAdded, ItemRemoved, ItemMoved, ChestNameChanged. The Vault and SharedStorage classes behave similarly to the in game UIs with regards to access. The data can only be accessed after talking to a banker and remaining within range. While away from a banker the classes will return default values for their methods.
Added ItemInfo. This class is the new container for common item information. With this shift, the following methods are being deprecated in Item: GetCategory, GetQuality, GetDurability, GetUnderlayImageID, GetBackgroundImageID, GetShadowImageID, GetIconImageID, GetMaxStackSize, IsMagic. Deprecated methods will be removed in a future version so update your plugins!

Quote:Fornost Revamp
With Update 7, Fornost will be split into four separate instances with two levels of difficulty for groups of six players from level 30 to 75. A full developer diary will be available soon.

New Skirmish: Storm on Methedras
Storm on Methedras supports groups from one to twelve players, level 70-75, and offers two tiers of difficulty for those who like a bigger challenge. Storm on Methedras is free to VIPs!

Star-lit Crystals for Legendary Items
Star-lit Crystals are now available as loot from monsters. These ancient crystals hold the harnessed power of starlight and are used on your Legendary Items to upgrade their power. Up to three Star-lit crystals can be used on every upgradeable Legendary Item. The current upgrade status of your Legendary Item is displayed as three empty star icons one of which is filled in after an upgrade.
Star-lit crystals will upgrade the DPS, tactical healing rating, tactical damage rating or shield use rank of your Legendary items. Additionally Star-lit crystals will upgrade any ratings based legacies as well as secondary ratings and stats. Star-lit crystals drop extremely rarely from Skirmish Lieutenants with an increase in drop frequency at each step of 3-man, 6-man and raids in both skirmishes and instances. Using a Star-lit crystal on your Legendary item will also reset the legend points spent on that Legendary Item.
NOTE: Champion Runes, Burglar tools and all quest rewarded Legendary Items are not targetable by Star-lit crystals at this time. We hope to allow Star-lit crystals to be used on Champion Runes and Burglar Tools in a future release.

Increased bag space!
A sixth inventory bag will be made available as part of the Riders of Rohan pre-purchase.

Roots of Fangorn
Several mobs (inc bosses) now have more health.
Cumulative Poison and Horrific Poison are no longer B/P/E-able in most cases.
T2 Mobs recieve a substantial bump in HP & Damage.
T2 Pods and add waves are larger and/or more frequent.
Instance now includes currency - and a way out.
Most adds no longer drop loot. Trash loot frequency reduced overall.
Roots of Fangorn instance quests now give limlight gorge reputation, xp, etc.
Added additional titles for the Roots of Fangorn instance and Limlight Lore deeds.
Roots of Fangorn challenge quest and chest will now reset on boss fight reset.

The "Tame Redhorn-Goat" item no longer has a Reputation requirement. In addition, it is now a reward from the quest "To the Dolven-view"