VIP: Additional Benefits

[Knight.]

The current benefits for VIP are reasonable, but could do with improving by introducing a few additional benefits:

- Update Hobbit Presents Especially Gold Hobbit Present Offering
Mithril coins, tomes of attack / max morale / defence, run speed, rally horns, stat tomes, rep accelerators, star-liits etc. are useful so should stay as is
Increase gold offerings so they are more relevant to current game e.g. 1g becomes 100g, 2g becomes 200g etc. for Gold (Weekly VIP) Boxes*
Replace dale man crams with “Superior Dale Man Crams” with increased stats to better suit end game & 30 minute duration
Limit Mathom hunter armour to silver boxes only (hurts getting this in your weekly gold box)
Add nicer stuff to the weekly Gold hobbit presents, Regular Key, Black Steel Key, Steed Selection Box, New Cosmetics, Housing Items, increased chance at getting Mithril Coins etc.

- Mithril Coin Allowance: (20 Mithril coins per month)

- Monthly Gift: A new housing item, cosmetic or steed exclusive to VIPs and lotro store. Additionally could even have pre-order items from past expansions such as the song bird, pesky door mouse, steed of the Hammerhand etc. These could be announced in advance every month to generate some hype and encourage people to subscribe even if it’s only for 1 month to get that particular item.

* by limiting the increased amount of gold to weekly hobbit presents (Gold/VIP) we limit impact on economy, provide VIPS with a small benefit and prevent abuse by someone creating lots of f2p accounts

[Elrof2]

[QUOTE=Knight.Arkenstone;783142 5]The current benefits for VIP are reasonable, but could do with improving by introducing a few additional benefits:

- Update Hobbit Presents Especially Gold Hobbit Present Offering
- Mithril Coin Allowance: (20 Mithril coins per month)
- Monthly Gift: generate some hype and encourage people to subscribe even if it’s only for 1 month to get that particular item.

I think this would a great idea. Your team was talking about already reviewing the items in the Presents, this would go a long way to improving them.

[Wookanda]

The current benefits for VIP are reasonable, but could do with improving by introducing a few additional benefits:

- Update Hobbit Presents Especially Gold Hobbit Present Offering
Mithril coins, tomes of attack / max morale / defence, run speed, rally horns, stat tomes, rep accelerators, star-liits etc. are useful so should stay as is
Increase gold offerings so they are more relevant to current game e.g. 1g becomes 100g, 2g becomes 200g etc.
Replace dale man crams with “Superior Dale Man Crams” with increased stats to better suit end game & 30 minute duration
Limit Mathom hunter armour to silver boxes only (hurts getting this in your weekly gold box)
Add nicer stuff to the weekly Gold hobbit presents, Regular Key, Black Steel Key, Steed Selection Box, New Cosmetics, Housing Items, increased chance at getting Mithril Coins etc.

- Mithril Coin Allowance: (20 Mithril coins per month)

- Monthly Gift: A new housing item, cosmetic or steed exclusive to VIPs and lotro store. Additionally could even have pre-order items from past expansions such as the song bird, pesky door mouse, steed of the Hammerhand etc. These could be announced in advance every month to generate some hype and encourage people to subscribe even if it’s only for 1 month to get that particular item.

+1 /signed

Great reasonable ideas

[Sebastian_Hedgehog]

Excellent suggestion, but also, I think the reward items for silver and gold Hobbit presents should be completely different, or at least gold should be quantitatively better. Nothing worse than opening your gold present and finding items of less value than in your silver.

[Knight.]

Edited one point after giving it further thought - the increased gold values should only apply to weekly VIP / Gold hobbit presents.
This would then have minimal impact on the economy, grant a small benefit to VIPs and prevent abuse of the system where someone could otherwise just create a lot of f2p accounts and farm hobbit presents.

[Derquin]

... Limit Mathom hunter armour to silver boxes only (hurts getting this in your weekly gold box)...

At least that Mathom hunter armour is a lot more useful than that ONE regenerating potion I regularly find in my golden present. So far the golden present is certainly no reason to sub...

... Add nicer stuff to the weekly Gold hobbit presents, Regular Key, Black Steel Key, Steed Selection Box, New Cosmetics, Housing Items, increased chance at getting Mithril Coins etc.

I'd like that.

[Sarawenn]

These are excellent suggestions, and I think more players would try VIP if implemented!

/signed

I hope SSG is reading this thread!

[Beia]

I agree

[LightGatherer]

I hope that instead of raising the value of the gold gift from 2g to 200g, they can remove it and replace it with other useful items. Because more items in the game are better.

[Knight.]

that ONE regenerating potion I regularly find in my golden present

yeah that's a slap in the face when that happens. They should make it 10x Rejuvenation potions.

I think the reward items for silver and gold Hobbit presents should be completely different, or at least gold should be quantitatively better. Nothing worse than opening your gold present and finding items of less value than in your silver.

I wouldn't say the need to be completely different (can simply alter the % chance of obtaining more desired items)
Definitely agree though , the Gold should feel special (something to look forward to opening), which atm it just doesn't.

[Nymphonic]

At least that Mathom hunter armour is a lot more useful than that ONE regenerating potion I regularly find in my golden present. So far the golden present is certainly no reason to sub...

Omg. I hate opening up a gold present and finding a regeneration potion. Grrrrrr......

[Dranak123]

Omg. I hate opening up a gold present and finding a regeneration potion. Grrrrrr......

i'd like to see nudges on the silver box for VIP's......one for free more with mithril spent. I'd also like to see some VIP specific items or consumables in the gold box...nudges bought with mithril. Crazy suggestions include (account bound) 5x -10%attack duration 30min , and 5x -10%induction duration 30min, 5x +5% crit chance 30min....you get the idea......they could even be VIP store purchase only.....and if the t+c's say it has to be available in game , then make them drop at about the same rate as a black key on landscape (approx 0.01%)

[Sebastian_Hedgehog]

Gold should feel special (something to look forward to opening), which atm it just doesn't.

Yes, at the moment it feels like 'just another roll of the dice' after silver.

[Arnenna]

The current benefits for VIP are reasonable, but could do with improving by introducing a few additional benefits:

- Update Hobbit Presents Especially Gold Hobbit Present Offering
Mithril coins, tomes of attack / max morale / defence, run speed, rally horns, stat tomes, rep accelerators, star-liits etc. are useful so should stay as is
Increase gold offerings so they are more relevant to current game e.g. 1g becomes 100g, 2g becomes 200g etc. for Gold (Weekly VIP) Boxes*
Replace dale man crams with “Superior Dale Man Crams” with increased stats to better suit end game & 30 minute duration
Limit Mathom hunter armour to silver boxes only (hurts getting this in your weekly gold box)
Add nicer stuff to the weekly Gold hobbit presents, Regular Key, Black Steel Key, Steed Selection Box, New Cosmetics, Housing Items, increased chance at getting Mithril Coins etc.

- Mithril Coin Allowance: (20 Mithril coins per month)

- Monthly Gift: A new housing item, cosmetic or steed exclusive to VIPs and lotro store. Additionally could even have pre-order items from past expansions such as the song bird, pesky door mouse, steed of the Hammerhand etc. These could be announced in advance every month to generate some hype and encourage people to subscribe even if it’s only for 1 month to get that particular item.

* by limiting the increased amount of gold to weekly hobbit presents (Gold/VIP) we limit impact on economy, provide VIPS with a small benefit and prevent abuse by someone creating lots of f2p accounts

Nice suggestions I'd like to see many of the gifts that are currently in the gold boxes, moved over to silver and never appear in gold boxes again. I'd also like to see useful tokens in the gold boxes, such as a gift token (where x amount of such tokens are required to purchase one of a selection of gifts (steeds, handy consumables, cosmetics etc) available at a hobbit NPC dedicated to hobbit gifting.

[Milii]

Make a new Mount-Box from past Fairs and put it as a low-chance Gold Present.

[SSG_RedPanda]

Hi everyone!

RedPanda here. You may have seen me on the anniversary stream. I just wanted to pop in and say hi and let you know that we are definitely interested in hearing more ideas on these things. We're not promising anything but we are here to listen.

I do have some follow up questions:

Hobbit Presents:
What are exciting items to get from Gold/Silver?
What are not so exciting items to get from Gold/Silver?

VIP Monthly Gift
I like this idea. It seems like cosmetics are of interest. Anything else?

[siipperi]

Vip benefits:

game is extremely grindy for alts so it would be nice if VIP allows game to be less grindy for alts so here's few suggestions:

These only active for duration of VIP, after VIP expires benefits removed and player can use store/in game grind to upgrade them (same hard caps as everyone so no further P2W VIP benefits)
- Free virtue ranks (for example +5-10 ranks on max level, cap at Tier 20)
- Free stat tome ranks (for example all early game stat tomes till R10)
- Free Trait tree points (like Gondor trait points for free, like minas tirith DEED points, since those quest packs are already part of the VIP program)
- Some earlier questpacks unlocked - this is really convenient as a new player players have no clue what to purchase so just sub and get content free is clear and easy way to enjoy content easily.
- Few times per year VIP exclusive mount

- When legendary item system is going to be revamped (teased for past few months), make sure there is some kind of catch up mechanic for VIP players. So for example VIP players automatically gets 10 (or what ever is legacy system after changes) tiers of legacies for free as long as they stay VIP.




Hobbit presents:

Gold:

ADD:
- Essence reclamation scrolls
- black steel key
- imbued legacy replacement scroll
- Increase mark reward. 600, what ever is really outdated. Instance bosses drop easily 4k.



I don't know which these are part of, gold or silver but consider removing these:
-1x universal potion, should really be few of these if you want to give players these potions. 1 is just taking space in inventory.
- Regen food for high level players. Just useless, benefit it gives is working for characters with 4x less morale than on the level cap.



Imo SSG needs to look it this way. VIP should be convenience for players who don't want to stress with hassle of "what I need to purchase to enjoy the game". 15$ per month for easy access is fair and lets be honest most of old expansion packs aren't that pricy and most players purchase them from the sales anyway. And on top of that VIP should be way to reduce grind, especially for alt characters. Game shouldn't push you into store even if you are VIP, sure some pushing is fine ("like look what we got"), like additional virtues etc, but VIP really should mitigate some of that grind/need of store.

[Xhiu]

Hi everyone!

RedPanda here. You may have seen me on the anniversary stream. I just wanted to pop in and say hi and let you know that we are definitely interested in hearing more ideas on these things. We're not promising anything but we are here to listen.

I do have some follow up questions:

Hobbit Presents:
What are exciting items to get from Gold/Silver?

Gold: mithril coins
Silver: marks

What are not so exciting items to get from Gold/Silver?

Gold: regular mathom hunters armor
Silver: Dale Man's Cram...
I should go get my hobbit present and come back with more <exciting items.

VIP Monthly Gift

I like this idea. It seems like cosmetics are of interest. Anything else?

I'm not sure cosmetics are the way to go for monthly rewards. I have a hard time thinking of 12 cosmetics I reaaaaaaaaallllly want... that I don't have already.
How about a recipe that you can't get outside of monthly gifts? Maybe I'm just reminiscing about the excitement of the blackberry(?) tart recipe wwwaaay back in the day. Might have to have a box to select the recipe as some might not have the correct profession.

[Mar-Evayave]

What i really want is a vip skill that is automatic earned. Mak it a toggle that increases all XP by 100% (or multiple skills, one for each xp type that can all b active simultaneously but would allow us to pick and choose if we dont want all at once). The toggle will make it so vips arent forced to use it. The skill either disappears or becomes unuseable when vip is cancelled. This would replace the current vip bonus event on the calendar that has no opt out. As a vip with lots of alts i have played this game a lot and the added boost would help speed up leveling through content ive seen a lot and a bonus weekend once every quarter is really not enough.

Id also like to see some love given to the destiny perks. More ways to earn and more perks to buy.

[jewahe]

Hi everyone!

RedPanda here. You may have seen me on the anniversary stream. I just wanted to pop in and say hi and let you know that we are definitely interested in hearing more ideas on these things. We're not promising anything but we are here to listen.

I do have some follow up questions:

Hobbit Presents:
What are exciting items to get from Gold/Silver?

I second Mithril Coins & Marks.

What are not so exciting items to get from Gold/Silver?

-Any sort of Mathom Hunter's gear. It's pretty worthless at end-game, and, because the boxes don't stack, they take up a *lot* of inventory space if you try to squirrel them away for use on another toon.
-Any kind of run/mount speed boost.

VIP Monthly Gift
I like this idea. It seems like cosmetics are of interest. Anything else?

I might be in the minority, but I've reached my saturation point with cosmetics and cosmetic pets. If we get more cosmetics, we need a massive increase in the number of wardrobe slots (or split cosmetic weapons out of the closing wardrobe and store them in a cosmetic weapons rack). And I've found most of the cosmetics offerred lately feel like novelty or cosplay pieces, not actual cosmetics I'd wear around the world. While I loved the hedgehog, I have found other cosmetic pets to be less interesting - it almost feels like you all are stretching to come up with creatures.

Some alternatives:
-VIP-only furniture or bundles ](indoor and outdoor). I really like the Little Old Man Willow given out during the Scavenger Hunt - some of these types of things might be nice.
-New firework designs. Though maybe not as items, but as skills, so they aren't using up inventory slots.

[Valamar]

The current benefits for VIP are reasonable, but could do with improving by introducing a few additional benefits:

- Update Hobbit Presents Especially Gold Hobbit Present Offering
Mithril coins, tomes of attack / max morale / defence, run speed, rally horns, stat tomes, rep accelerators, star-liits etc. are useful so should stay as is
Increase gold offerings so they are more relevant to current game e.g. 1g becomes 100g, 2g becomes 200g etc. for Gold (Weekly VIP) Boxes*
Replace dale man crams with “Superior Dale Man Crams” with increased stats to better suit end game & 30 minute duration
Limit Mathom hunter armour to silver boxes only (hurts getting this in your weekly gold box)
Add nicer stuff to the weekly Gold hobbit presents, Regular Key, Black Steel Key, Steed Selection Box, New Cosmetics, Housing Items, increased chance at getting Mithril Coins etc.

- Mithril Coin Allowance: (20 Mithril coins per month)

- Monthly Gift: A new housing item, cosmetic or steed exclusive to VIPs and lotro store. Additionally could even have pre-order items from past expansions such as the song bird, pesky door mouse, steed of the Hammerhand etc. These could be announced in advance every month to generate some hype and encourage people to subscribe even if it’s only for 1 month to get that particular item.

* by limiting the increased amount of gold to weekly hobbit presents (Gold/VIP) we limit impact on economy, provide VIPS with a small benefit and prevent abuse by someone creating lots of f2p accounts

Vip benefits:

game is extremely grindy for alts so it would be nice if VIP allows game to be less grindy for alts so here's few suggestions:

These only active for duration of VIP, after VIP expires benefits removed and player can use store/in game grind to upgrade them (same hard caps as everyone so no further P2W VIP benefits)
- Free virtue ranks (for example +5-10 ranks on max level, cap at Tier 20)
- Free stat tome ranks (for example all early game stat tomes till R10)
- Free Trait tree points (like Gondor trait points for free, like minas tirith DEED points, since those quest packs are already part of the VIP program)
- Some earlier questpacks unlocked - this is really convenient as a new player players have no clue what to purchase so just sub and get content free is clear and easy way to enjoy content easily.
- Few times per year VIP exclusive mount

- When legendary item system is going to be revamped (teased for past few months), make sure there is some kind of catch up mechanic for VIP players. So for example VIP players automatically gets 10 (or what ever is legacy system after changes) tiers of legacies for free as long as they stay VIP.


Hobbit presents:

Gold:

ADD:
- Essence reclamation scrolls
- black steel key
- imbued legacy replacement scroll
- Increase mark reward. 600, what ever is really outdated. Instance bosses drop easily 4k.

I don't know which these are part of, gold or silver but consider removing these:
-1x universal potion, should really be few of these if you want to give players these potions. 1 is just taking space in inventory.
- Regen food for high level players. Just useless, benefit it gives is working for characters with 4x less morale than on the level cap.

Imo SSG needs to look it this way. VIP should be convenience for players who don't want to stress with hassle of "what I need to purchase to enjoy the game". 15$ per month for easy access is fair and lets be honest most of old expansion packs aren't that pricy and most players purchase them from the sales anyway. And on top of that VIP should be way to reduce grind, especially for alt characters. Game shouldn't push you into store even if you are VIP, sure some pushing is fine ("like look what we got"), like additional virtues etc, but VIP really should mitigate some of that grind/need of store.

What are exciting items to get from Gold/Silver?
- Gold: mithril coins
- Silver: marks

What are not so exciting items to get from Gold/Silver?
- Gold: regular mathom hunters armor
- Silver: Dale Man's Cram...
I should go get my hobbit present and come back with more <exciting items.

I'm not sure cosmetics are the way to go for monthly rewards. I have a hard time thinking of 12 cosmetics I reaaaaaaaaallllly want... that I don't have already.
How about a recipe that you can't get outside of monthly gifts? Maybe I'm just reminiscing about the excitement of the blackberry(?) tart recipe wwwaaay back in the day. Might have to have a box to select the recipe as some might not have the correct profession.

All are brilliant suggestions. So here is my take on "Hobbit Presents."
They are actually poor replacement for the original Lottery System - which I realize was primitive itself.

The biggest question / issue is ... Hobbit Presents today are clearly aimed at the lower level player. When they were introduced with Update 11, in 2013, the level Cap was 85. Today it is 115, and except for the scaling Mathom Hunter's Armour, there is nothing apropros a level 115 player, or if there is, the percentage chance to drop is rediculously low to the point where I've never seen one.

That is basically saying -- forget about cosmetics -- high end players don't really care about them.

One presumes that the basic problem is -- the original Lottery System, was just that -- a random lottery. Hobbit presents by comparison are "gifts."
I don't know the original justification for them, and the WIKI did not record it, but my recollection is -- Hobbits love to give gifts to each others.
The FAQ doesn't say much of anything: https://www.lotro.com/en/game/articles/faq-hobbit-presents-2

I suspect the mechanic is a pretty simple randomly-generated, table-driven system.
Which is to say, there is no consideration for the Level of the character involved, or how LONG a player has been VIP (think in terms of the Anniversary Frames/gifts mechanics).

Therefore minimally, update the tables with useful contemporary items. And yes, there is a HUGE gulf between what items the Devs consider important compared to what the Players consider.
Obviously, the problem is compounded by the gulf between items below item level 300 and those at higher item levels - wherever the breakpoint is between player lvel 105 and 106.

My personal lists:
(See: https://www.lotro.com/forums/showthread.php?511346-Hobbit-Presents-Know-the-odds&highlight=hobbit+gifts
for a list of all presents and their drop rates as of their relase in 2013, compiled by Fredelas.)

- What are not so exciting items to get from Gold/Silver?
* regular mathom hunters armor
* Rejuvenation Potion
* Tome of Finesse
* 3 Universal Power Potions
* Universal Toolkit
* Tome of Extraordinary Experience
* 5 Dale Man's Cram
* 3 +10% Run Speed Boost (90 min)
* 3 20% Mount Speed (90 minutes)
* 3 Combat Run Speed Boosts
* Fused Copper Relics
* Simple Rally Horn

- What are exciting items to get from Gold/Silver?
* Relic Removal Scroll
* Reputation Acceleration Tome
* Crystal of Remembrance
* 200 Mithril Coins
* Star-lit Crystal
* 1280 Marks

- Missing items
* Essence reclamation scrolls
* black steel key
* imbued legacy replacement scroll

[Zithlinraiss]

My well thought out post timed out so the short and dirty:
Silver Hobbit Wold like:
gold
mathom blue
XP tomes
High marks

Don't like:
rally horns
low marks
low gold
A note on mathom armour- I know some posters say it's worthless at cap level but a lot of us aren't at cap and this armour helps.

Gold hobbit present would really like:
1+ gold min with chance at higher
chance at 1 extra virtue or trait slot
destiny points
stat tomes on occasion
good chance at mithril
Fine mathom armour

Am excited by a separate VIP monthly gift. We need a way to not only get people subbing but to keep them. Alternating nice cosmetics, a horse once in a while, housing items. Perhaps there is a way to link a chance at a super prize to the length of sub (at least 6 months). I'm a lifetimer and buy LP regularly but would sub my 2nd 'main' account regularly and sub other f2p accounts I have off and on, and buy LP, if these changes were made and the rewards were tempting enough. Especially if I could get regular xp tomes in the silver box. Only so much time to go around.

[Jaedor]

Not Exciting Silver:
Low gold/marks
Rejuvenation potion
Crams
Run/Mount speed boost

Exciting Silver:
Mathom armour (great for non-cap alts!)
High gold/marks
Mithril coins

Acceptable Silver:
Universal toolkit
Stat tomes
Buffs
~~~~~~~~~

Gold should have the real shinies, imo. This can include the Exciting and Acceptable Silver items but I'd love to see additional items, such as universal solvents, virtue tomes, housing items, cosmetic items, black steel keys. reclamation scrolls, and mounts added to the loot table on the /roll.

I get that one rejuv potion often enough on a Gold present that I'd never use MC to buy more.

[B749]

Hi everyone!

RedPanda here. You may have seen me on the anniversary stream. I just wanted to pop in and say hi and let you know that we are definitely interested in hearing more ideas on these things. We're not promising anything but we are here to listen.

Welcome to the forums! More blue names are always welcome, regardless of their ability to make promises!

I do have some follow up questions:

Hobbit Presents:
What are exciting items to get from Gold/Silver?
What are not so exciting items to get from Gold/Silver?

Hobbit Presents:

Exciting drops:

• Mithril Coins
• Stat Tomes (though, it'd be MORE exciting if you'd replace it with a pick-box like the Store gives, rather than a bound specific tome drop that might not be of use to the character you get it on)
• LI goodies (crystals, legacy tier upgrades BUT not relics and IXP)
• +100% Mark Acquisition boost
• +100% Craft XP boost
• Tome of Extraordinary Experience
• Scroll of Perfect Crafting Lore
• Reputation Acceleration Tome
• Possible addition idea: Pick a mount (as currently found in level 20-100 Lootboxes) but with updated selection of mounts (hasn't been updated in 5+ years I believe).
• Possible addition idea: Pick a pet (offering selection of LOTRO store pets, would need to be implemented because it doesn't currently exist).
• Possible addition idea: Tome of Exceptional Experience (+200% XP, already exists but currently only available as store purchase).
• Possible addition idea: Premium Housing Writs.

Underwhelming drops (from level cap perspective):

• IXP runes (too small amounts to be worthwhile)
• Pile of Copper/Silver/Gold scraps: amount of gold they yield hasn't been updated in forever, and is meaningless for level cap players
• Mathom Hunter gear: while decent for levelling characters, these are worthless to level cap characters and just take up inventory space
• 1x Rejuvenation Potion: while Rejuvenation pots are useful in some cases (they don't share a cooldown with normal in-game Power potions), 1 is just too small an amount. Increase to x10 at least to make it a nice drop.
• Random Relic Packs: worthless to endgame players, could be replaced with a Mordor relic pick box?
• Marks: the amount is too small at level cap.
• Dale-men's Crams...
• 3x Universal Morale/Power potion: Morale potion is utterly useless, Power potion is useful but 3x is too small an amount.
• Scroll of Finesse: the amount of Finesse it gives at level 115 is laughably low. Update the item or just delete it already.
• Shards: irrelevant at level cap

A fix for most of those underwhelming drops could be to have a different pool of items for level cap characters only, containing none of the 'underwhelming' listed above and instead extra endgame relevant items like:

• Imbued Legacy Replacement Scroll
• Black Steel Key
• Essence Reclamation Scroll
• Northern Strongholds Essence box
• Class Trait Point tome (as a VERY rare drop)
• +1 Virtue Rank-up
• Universal Solvent [5-pack]
• Stat Tome selection box

VIP Monthly Gift
I like this idea. It seems like cosmetics are of interest. Anything else?

Besides cosmetics (as in, cosmetic armour and maybe weapons) you could consider:

• New character portrait frames (currently only a few different ones exist: basic, VIP (perma-unlocked if you sub once), Yule festival, North Ithilien Herbalism, and the year 1 through 11 ones).
• Premium Mounts (store exclusives), existing or new ones. You have the tech for this since you once did it for the Steed of the Eldar. Could also contain old Festival mounts currently only available through Mithril purchase while the correct festival is active, etc.
• Cosmetic pets!
• Special Housing decorations: notably ones that port characters or apply debuffs or produce (worthless but still funny) ingame items. Could be new ones, could be old ones that are no longer earnable through gameplay or store exclusive ones.
• Special titles (could be related to ongoing ingame events or releases).
• Emotes.

Misc.

You could also look at making the VIP program more attractive to players by offering much greater travel utility. For example, give active VIP's:

• Free Mithril Quest travels (currently cost 1 Mithril Coin/use, or 5 Mithril for the latest release area). These allow a character to instantly travel to a quest objective and are very useful for speedy quest completions that otherwise involve a painful amount of running around.
• Free Stable Master Collection travels: the game has this quite underused feature that allows characters to travel to any discovered stable master in the game from anywhere, for a fee of Mithril coins (I believe the current cost is 2 Mithril Coins/travel). Making this feature free for active VIPs would give them limitless travel utility throughout Middle-earth!
• Reduce the cooldown of all 'Return To', 'Travel To' and 'Milestone' skills to 1 minute (the default cooldown on all of these is 1 hour, which can be reduced on a per-character basis through LOTRO store purchases) for active subscribers.

Another idea worth considering is alleviating some of the endgame grind (which is insanely tedious for alts) by offering perks such as:

• Toggle skill (not an equippable item since that takes up an equipment slot) that increases earned XP from all sources by 50% and all reputation gains by 25%.
• Toggle skill that increases non-combat run speed by 15% (stacking with other boosts, but NOT usable in Ettenmoors).
• Increase all Virtue ranks on active VIP characters by 4 or 8 ranks (temporary Virtue rank increase exists ingame as it appears on some Lootbox jewellery drops so this should technically be possible)
• Grant active subscribers an additional Trait Tree Specialization slot. (The default is two per character, additional ones can be unlocked at the price of 100 Mithril each, per-character purchase.)

Those perks would be removed if the player stops their sub!

The problem with LOTRO's VIP program is that it offers great value to levelling players, but doesn't have enough to draw all the level cap players in if they don't do freepside PVMP. I think you would see improved sub revenue if you sat together with the Systems team and had a chat about what kind of time sinks and store bypass options they offer, and granting at least some of that to subs by default. For example in the current endgame, a monthly Ash of Gorgoroth allowance and 3x Black Steel Key/month would seem like worthwile VIP perks. These would require updating when the endgame undergoes significant changes though. It's not a nice feeling as a subscriber to be met with endgame grinds that have store bypass options, but get none of those as part of your sub. Other games offer bonus gear or rewards to active subs who participate in endgame content to keep them motivated to pay their subs; for example SWTOR has a system that lets active subs continue to earn XP from all activities, and instead of levelling up they earn reward crates containing items ranging from cosmetics to endgame gear and even basic tier raid drops. Sub exclusive, of course
I recently cancelled my LOTRO subscription because it was offering nothing of notable value to me as an endgame player who doesn't do a lot of PVMP. I don't need the low level quest packs and the high level Expansions such as HD and Mordor aren't included in the VIP program anyway. I was basically paying monthly for the mobile mailbox and the 500LP, so might as well cancel the sub and only buy LP when the store has something I really want then (in those rare cases where I don't earn enough LP from actual gameplay first).

[-Kassidy-]

Cosmetics are always welcome, BUT with the limited inventory/wardrobe space it's really becoming a problem to store all this stuff.
I wish we could save all these skins like in WoW, Rift, GW2 etc, but I'm not sure if this is within technical capabilities here.


For new VIP perks, personally I would like to see something like a "reputation accelerator".