Bullroarer Update 23 Notes

Very interesting stuff!

Update 23 Bullroarer Release Notes

Here are the Release Notes for Update 23 on Bullroarer. These notes are a work of progress, and will change over time.

Of Special Note:

Where Dragons Dwell

Update 23 features a journey into the homelands and histories of the dwarves, including the Longbeard descendants of Durin the Deathless. Beginning with an expanded Erebor, you will adventure into the fabled Iron Hills, and finally arrive in the lost dwarf kingdoms of the Grey Mountains. Includes two new Instances for up to three players, and one new Instance for up to six players! Additionally, a new raid will be available in a future update to Update 23. These new Instances are playable up to Tier 3! Tier 3 is a new challenge level that replaces the former T2C difficulty, and offers a new challenge in addition to other awards.

Hobbit Avatar Update

We have a work-in-progress available for preview of our upcoming avatar update for Hobbits!

Increased Level Cap

Players can now level their characters to 120! The increase features new gear, appearances, and cosmetics, among other things.

News and Notes:

Classes

Changes have been made to the way ratings are calculated throughout the game to provide a more even gameplay experience throughout levelling, and to make gearing at end game more compelling. In particular:
Mastery has had its cap decreased from 400% to 200%, and it is now subject to some degree of reducing returns. This change is retroactive to all levels and equipment, which makes it easier to achieve moderate mastery levels, but harder to maximize them.
Monster health has been adjusted to be considerably lower at the higher levels of the game to adjust for the change to mastery.
Monster health has been adjusted upwards are very low levels to compensate for skill bonus changes over time.
Well-geared DPS builds will see a relatively minor change to their average time to defeat a monster, while non-DPS builds will see a faster average time to defeat enemies at higher levels. Higher-end DPS builds may find they now have room in their gear layout for mitigations and other stats and relatively little cost to their overall DPS output.
All gear now has its stats linked from the core ratings system, meaning that gear statting is now more consistent over the level range. This scaling has been extended to cover the Vital stats as well, such as Might and Vitality.
Item levels are now distributed more evenly from level to level, to progress more smoothly over each band of levels. Item levels of existing gear will not changed, but scaling gear dropped at various levels will obey the new item level patterns. Any item levels over 105 remain unchanged.

Ratings caps no longer change from level to level, and are now consistent throughout your character’s levelling experience.
Most ratings now follow a gentler curve of reducing returns, and most ratings use the same curve. This generally means end-game gearing will make a more noticeable difference.
It is now more difficult to max out most of your role-relevant ratings.
Gear now generally provides more of the base stats per point budgeted to them.

Might is now a more prominent main stat for Beornings, granting Evade and Crit in exchange for less Resistance. Fate now grants less crit, and no longer grants Tactical Mastery.
The Hunter Deed Swift and Sharp now increments when the skill Swift Bow is used.
Champion Skill animation delays have been fixed.
Lore-master pet morale has been adjusted as part of a broader balance pass. Their morale pools are lower, but they should have the same level of survivability as before.

Crafting

Weaponsmiths no longer create Doomfold Metal Shavings with Ingredient Packs.
A new Ironfold tier of crafting is now available! Tier 12 includes near gear, class items, and a new tier of musical instruments.
Doomfold crafting recipes that once produced Enchanted Gorgoroth Adamants now produce items which can be traded for Motes.

Items

We are making some adjustments to the way players acquire keys for lootboxes and earn currency in-game to get these rewards. We are separating keys from the in-game reward process, and creating two lootboxes for the game: One for level cap, and one for non-level cap.
Steelbound lootbox keys will be used to open all lootboxes in the game, and are available in the LOTRO Store.
Instances and other quests which previously awarded keys will now award either Motes of Enchantment or Embers of Enchantment. Embers of Enchantment are used to acquire endgame lootbox gear from a vendor in-game, and Motes of Enchantment are used to acquire non-endgame lootbox gear and cosmetics from a vendor in the game.
When new content is released, there will be an approximate two to three week delay before the content’s equivalent new items arrive in the vendor or lootbox.
Motes of Enchantment and Embers of Enchantment have a cap of 10,000. If you have more than this number, you will be unable to get more Motes or Embers until you spend down below this limit.
Players will need to complete certain content in order to access items related to the content from the vendors.
Ashes of Enchantment have been renamed to Motes of Enchantment, and will stack with new Motes of Enchantment you acquire.
Gear can be Disenchanted to Embers or Motes of Enchantment, depending on where the gear was acquired, and cosmetic items can be Disenchanted into Figments of Splendor.
Figments of Splendor can be used to acquire cosmetics from a vendor that are also available in lootboxes.
Embers of Enchantment can be converted in the vendor to Figments of Splendor, but Figments cannot be converted into Embers.

Most places where Sturdy Steel Keys were rewarded now reward Motes of Enchantment.
New Bassoons are now available! Basic Bassoons can be purchased from any Bard NPC. For minstrels, an Ironfold crafted Bassoon recipe can be acquired from the Dwarf-holds Crafting Rewards Quartermaster in Skarhald. Staccato and Vibrato Bassoons will be available in future content and can be previewed by visiting Composer in the Eyes & Guard Tavern.
Kinship and Legendary Item naming is now more flexible.
The Imbued Legendary Item level cap has been increased. There are now five additional levels for Legacies, two of which can be unlocked, and three of which are granted for free. There will be another small increase alongside the release of the raid.
Fixed Legendary Item name display from being cut off in the examination panel.
Corrected an issue that could break item links in chat messages when too many items were linked.
The Fish Pond housing decoration now fits in a large yard hook instead of a huge yard hook. The Fish Pond can now also be placed in a special furniture hook indoors.
Several incorrect icons for Allegiance quest items have been fixed.
More chairs are now usable with the /sit emote, including chairs in Dol Guldur, Dunland, Gondor, Isengard, and Rohan.
The Flame of Ancalamír can now disenchant Mithril Essences into Malleable Mithril Essences.
Festivity Tokens are now categorized under “Instances and Skirmishes” in the Wallet.
Cosmetic instruments can now be hidden.

LOTRO Store

Categories have been re-arranged and adjusted to find things more quickly and easily.

PvMP

Steadfast Barrage can no longer crit, as the description indicates.

Quests and Adventure Areas

A new Featured Instance rotation has been set up, including Dome of Stars, Silent Street, Quays of Harlond, Blood of the Black Serpent, School at Tham Mírdain, Helegrod - Spider Wing. These include the new Featured Challenge objectives for players at cap level.
The Misty Mountain stable-masters have decided to rent sturdy goat mounts instead of horses for travel in those mountains.
The Epic Quest Blackwolds Broken now rewards more level-appropriate gear for Beornings.
The Bree-land Starter Steed at Hengstacer Farms is no longer barred if you already have the Bree-Steed or Bree-Pony mount skills. Please note, however, that these steed share appearances and mount speed.
Quests in Skarhald, Moria’s 21st Hall, Galtrev, and Bree will now allow you to make a weekly exchange of specific crafted items for Embers and Motes of Enchantment.
Shadow will now only apply at level 115 in the Court of Seregost.
East Rohan endgame quests no longer rotate, and will be available every day.
Legolas has remembered how to properly hold his bow during Instance: The Unmarked Trail.

Skills

All characters now have a passive skill called Bassoon Use Instrument Proficiency granted at level five. You can find the new Basic Bassoon for use in the /music system on any Bard NPC.

Traits

Races who choose to venture back into the lands of Mordor at level 116 and beyond will acquire a passive trait that grants 20 Light of Eärendil at level 116 that increases up to 80 Light by the time you reach level 119.

UI

Players can now sort their characters from the Character Selection screen by using a small drop-down arrow situated above the list of characters. Sorting options are: Name (A-Z), Name (Z-A), Class (A-Z), Class (Z-A), Level (Max-Min), Level (Min-Max), and Last Login.
The Character Select screen now shows six characters instead of five.
A tooltip has been added to the rename button on the Legendary Items panel.
A tooltip has been added to the Legacy Replacement button of the Replace Legacy panel.
The loading screen will now display hints based on the player’s level.
When a dye is used, items in your bag that cannot be dyed are darkened.
When the Flame of Ancalamír is used, items in your bag that cannot be disenchanted are darkened.
Fixed an issue where a resized cursor would not appear in French and German game clients.
The /raid locks command now gives remaining completion information for timed raid locked chests.
A “Destroy All” button has been added to the Pending Loot panel, with a confirmation dialog.

Miscellaneous

Human female heads now match correctly between old and new. An extra new head that was missing has now been added. Old heads 10 and above have been shifted up by one to compensate.
Improvements have been made to the game launcher, including:
Fixed an issue that caused a memory leak.
Added an option in the Repair tab to repair game data. This will delete your client_*.dat/x files, and download new files from a fresh installation. This option should resolve most issues where we typically recommend reinstalling the game.
Fixed the icon for the game shortcut on older installations.
The newsfeed now automatically updates every five minutes while the launcher is open.
Launcher - Akamai Netsession Download Manager technology has been removed. The http download functionality has been upgraded to be multi-threaded and more robust.

Eyes & Guard Tavern

Ransroth now has Dwarf-holds - Grey Mountains Expedition rep, and an additional tier of Strongholds of the North - Dwarves of Erebor rep.
You can now use Sarumango to level Tavern created characters to level 120
Arbor now has U22 Northern Stronghold (ilevel 345) essences
Eldorudo has new U23 gear designed for level 115 - 120 tier 1 and tier 2 difficulty Grey Mountains instances.
Octoport now ports you to Erebor where you can begin the new U23 quests.
JWBarry now offers a quest to complete the discovery deeds required for the Grey Mountains Instances.

Known Issues:

The voice over is currently placeholder for Caverns of Thrumfall.
Hiding instruments will not take effect until the outfit is re-applied.
Essences of Restoration are improperly available on the Keeper of Mysteries. These items should not be available on the Keeper of Mysteries vendor.
The Adventurer’s Steel-bound Lootbox essence rewards are not yet hooked up for medium and light classes (only might essences are currently available.)

I’ve been pretty confused about the upcoming loot box changes. There’s a nice (unofficial) summary post here that is much more clear than anything I’ve seen so far from SSG.

https://www.lotro.com/forums/showthread.php?667174-Comprehensive-information-on-lootboxes-keys-post-Update-23

I have a stack of Sturdy Steel Keys in my shared storage.

Q: What happens to Sturdy Steel Keys after the update?

A: They will still exist (but will be phased out), and open old lootboxes (Bronze through Gorgoroth).
and
Q: Will the ‘new’ Black Steel Keys (e.g. the ones gotten from Anniversary boxes) open old lootboxes? Or is the old kind of Sturdy Steel Key required for those?

A: New Black Steel Keys will only open new Traveller’s or Heroic lootboxes. Old loot boxes can only be opened by old keys. As far as I’ve heard.