Update 9 Loot

[RicardoFurriel]

No, this is not a list of loot available with Update 9. It's not a break down of what drops in each instance etc. It's rather a reflexion on my part of what seems to be going on with U9.

When Turbine started to revamp and scale up instances (read: Helegrod, Fornost, etc) one of the things I kept asking myself was "Why am I going back there?"

And like with every instance/raid/group encounter, the trio needs to be there for repeatibilty and attraction-factor. That trio is: fun, challenge and reward.

It may be a total personal thing or opinion, but if one of these 3 components is missing, I just don't see a reason to "go back there".

It's not me who came up to this conclusion. Turbine tried in this same game to put up fun and challenging content with no rewards. Examples are Blind One HM and most recently Fornost. BO HM was the most challenging encounter created to date. Fornost was always fun and the revamp added a little challenge to it. So people got excited. They go in there. Once, twice. Complete the deeds. And then what? People don't go back! And what's the reason behind it?

Lack of rewards. Again, this is not me reaching a conclusion based on some study I read from some college grad or some market study geek. This is what happened in Lotro.

Some may jump right away and say "Well, raiders shouldn't do raids for the loot. The challenge should be the motivator." Yeah, sure. Read BO HM right above. No rewards and people won't bother.

And all that dev time that went to revamp Fornost. Who's running Fornost right now? Who went there more than a handful of times? I don't know ONE single person.

If we compare it to Halls of Crafting or SG, look how many people ran those. Reason? Very appealing rewards, fun and decent challenge.

With U9 we are getting a few new things to run. A couple of 3 mans, a revamped 6 and 12 man. That's all good and all but... After running a few things last night and reading over a dozen threads in these forums regarding loot (or lack of), I'm genuinely concerned with what's going to happen. Is the loot so bad that people won't bother running these instances more than a couple of times for old time sake? Or did Turbine just didn't learn their own lesson?

Sorry for the long read.

Cheers.

[Ultron-Snowbourn]

You are spot on: +rep.

I did the three new 3 man instances yesterday.

Goblin town: nice to run, but the loot was horrible (even at T2C).

The Misty Mountain instance also: nice to run, poor loot.

The Scuttledells instance had a 1st boss that does insane ranged damage, without a 20k+ morale tank you are doomed. And a 3 man instance should be able to do without a tank. So we gave up on that instance.

Conclusion: I don't think I'll be going back there any time soon.

PS don't tell me that T1 is doable. I don't care about T1 because the loot is even worse.

No Loot?: NO REPEAT! It's that simple.

[DutchEZmoder]

It's true, personally i just did the new 3 man instance called Iorvar's Peak or something in T2 CM. I heard there is a small chance on good loot, so ok i might run it again a few times.

But it's lacking a challenge, thought it was pretty fun the first time, just a little boring sometimes. We were a pug champ, hnt and cpt.

[Jerzol]

I haven't run the new/scaled instances yet, but as I undrestand, while mentioned Fornost or BO didn't give a decent rewards as a rule, the new ones simply are more randomized and can give a really nice loot, just not after the first run.
There is no evidence for it but I guess that people will need less runs of new three mans or SG/BG to get the best reward than they have for instance in HoC to get the anvil.

[Ceremony]

This is what I was worry about, they becoming the next fornost

[Malachi108]

Have you missed the part where both new 3-mans and Mirkwood cluster each have a gold piece unique for each class for a total of 18? The drop rate is very low, so wait until some people start getting them - THEN you will realize the Brass Anvil wasn't hard to get at all.

[spelunker]

Have you missed the part where both new 3-mans and Mirkwood cluster each have a gold piece unique for each class for a total of 18? The drop rate is very low, so wait until some people start getting them - THEN you will realize the Brass Anvil wasn't hard to get at all.

I think part of the loot problem is the new remote looting system that is randomized for each person. Yes there is some fantastic loot that may drop in these instances, but these are few and far between compared to the large quantity of junk that also drops. While this is somewhat expected, especially in 3-mans, previously there was a guarantee that if you finished something t2c, there would be at least one 'teal' piece of gear or loot. Personally, whether I walked out of the instance with a new shiny or not, I knew going in that in a balanced group someone in my group would get something potentially worthwhile. Now with the auto-looting, there is a chance when opening a t2c chest that all anyone will get is a 'veteran master-guardsman trophy.' Maybe the total amount of loot dropped is the same in this system, but I was in a t2c SG group with Ric yesterday, and completing the whole thing, 4 boss-fights, 4 chests, the most valuable thing to drop was a sturdy steel key off a trash mob. What happened after this run? almost everyone logged as from a loot standpoint the instance was a complete letdown. Only 2 or 3 pieces of gear/jewelry dropped combined for all 6 of us over 4 chests, and each was a 'purple' quality item with stats that one would have a difficult time completing the instance with if all their other gear was of the same quality. I for one would much rather the remote looting had some limitations put on it so that while each person gets their class appropriate loot, there is a mechanism that ensures at least 1 drop from the whole instance is of 'teal' quality.

I don't mind coming back to content many times for the enjoyment, and while I strive to build my character as well as I can, I would not consider myself someone who runs instances simply to acquire gear for my characters. The possibility of completing a run and no one taking anything from it does reduce the motivation to do things multiple times though, especially in a scaled instance.

[giniluv]

This is the real issue... http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.p...nst-the-Shadow

They pushed it out bugged. Period. EVERY instance.

Nothing new.

The most "polished" utter crud they have ever put out.

Reputation means something...

You and I are not so solid now...

[vtravi]

Just did 85 SG HM. It was easier than it used to be. But for loot 1 person got 1 purple ring. That is all for all the bosses. I just got bounties not even 1 relic. Total waste of time will not be doing that again. When you clear HM at least one person should get a blue item. But nothing. Did get lots of Medallions and marks Lame

[Oldin]

Not really sure if this belongs here or not- but has anyone seen Ancient scrolls drop in the instances/bg? Just curious. On a related-unrelated note, has anyone seen the new ancient bracelet recipes drop from the scroll cases yet?

Just trying to get my ducks in a row before I bother farming for them.

[RockX]

Well, Remote Looting is certainly new territory for us.

When making your "loot is horrible" statements, what are you looking at? Rare quality gear? Incomparable? Legendary? Did the RNG not give your group anything tangible? Did it give everyone something?

That a Rare quality piece would be worse off than something from Hytbold is expected. Nor can every piece be perfectly statted for the way a specific player wants it. The Incomparable drops should be on par with your current equipment, if not slightly better. The Legendaries should be better -- especially if they match up to your playstyle / skills you make use of.

Running on T2 and doing Challenge will also impact your drop rates, especially for the Legendary quality equipment (which is very rare to begin with).

[RockX]

Just did 85 SG HM. It was easier than it used to be. But for loot 1 person got 1 purple ring. That is all for all the bosses. I just got bounties not even 1 relic. Total waste of time will not be doing that again. When you clear HM at least one person should get a blue item. But nothing. Did get lots of Medallions and marks Lame

Thank you for being specific.

[andys90]

Not really sure if this belongs here or not- but has anyone seen Ancient scrolls drop in the instances/bg? Just curious. On a related-unrelated note, has anyone seen the new ancient bracelet recipes drop from the scroll cases yet?

Just trying to get my ducks in a row before I bother farming for them.

The bracelets and recipes didn't make it to live. At least not currently.

[Lestache]

Well, Remote Looting is certainly new territory for us.

When making your "loot is horrible" statements, what are you looking at? Rare quality gear? Incomparable? Legendary? Did the RNG not give your group anything tangible? Did it give everyone something?

That a Rare quality piece would be worse off than something from Hytbold is expected. Nor can every piece be perfectly statted for the way a specific player wants it. The Incomparable drops should be on par with your current equipment, if not slightly better. The Legendaries should be better -- especially if they match up to your playstyle / skills you make use of.

Running on T2 and doing Challenge will also impact your drop rates, especially for the Legendary quality equipment (which is very rare to begin with).

Very small data set so far, but here's what I've seen:

Dungeons T2C run (challenge failed): Champ received purple pocket item (Seized SomethingOrAnother), other five received nothing but bounties and a couple relics. The purple pocket item is worse than the level 75 Limlight Gorge pocket that I'm already wearing. Considerably worse.

SG T2C run (challenge beaten): LM received a pair of purple boots from the first boss. Stats worse than what he's wearing, of course. Nothing but bounties and relics for everyone else from that boss and the remaining three bosses.

(Group also did another T2C run before I got there that produced nothing but bounties and relics).

Again, the sample size is small, but I at least expected a level 85 item from group content to be better than a level 75 item that can be obtained half-afk.

Oh, and I did see a teal earring linked in GLFF from a group that beat the LT T2C in BG. Level 85 teal earring for a Might class, yet worse than the two level 75 teal earrings I've been wearing for months now, and it wasn't even close.

[giniluv]

Ran Iovar 5x last nite. Chests gave medallions and marks. ONCE a member gota purple POS that no one would give a lowbie alt.

Loot sux, won't be going back. While fun and nicce looking, the rewards just blow....

[Northstar6]

No, this is not a list of loot available with Update 9. It's not a break down of what drops in each instance etc. It's rather a reflexion on my part of what seems to be going on with U9.

When Turbine started to revamp and scale up instances (read: Helegrod, Fornost, etc) one of the things I kept asking myself was "Why am I going back there?"

And like with every instance/raid/group encounter, the trio needs to be there for repeatibilty and attraction-factor. That trio is: fun, challenge and reward.

It may be a total personal thing or opinion, but if one of these 3 components is missing, I just don't see a reason to "go back there".

It's not me who came up to this conclusion. Turbine tried in this same game to put up fun and challenging content with no rewards. Examples are Blind One HM and most recently Fornost. BO HM was the most challenging encounter created to date. Fornost was always fun and the revamp added a little challenge to it. So people got excited. They go in there. Once, twice. Complete the deeds. And then what? People don't go back! And what's the reason behind it?

Lack of rewards. Again, this is not me reaching a conclusion based on some study I read from some college grad or some market study geek. This is what happened in Lotro.

Some may jump right away and say "Well, raiders shouldn't do raids for the loot. The challenge should be the motivator." Yeah, sure. Read BO HM right above. No rewards and people won't bother.

And all that dev time that went to revamp Fornost. Who's running Fornost right now? Who went there more than a handful of times? I don't know ONE single person.

If we compare it to Halls of Crafting or SG, look how many people ran those. Reason? Very appealing rewards, fun and decent challenge.

With U9 we are getting a few new things to run. A couple of 3 mans, a revamped 6 and 12 man. That's all good and all but... After running a few things last night and reading over a dozen threads in these forums regarding loot (or lack of), I'm genuinely concerned with what's going to happen. Is the loot so bad that people won't bother running these instances more than a couple of times for old time sake? Or did Turbine just didn't learn their own lesson?

Sorry for the long read.

Cheers.

Amusing how people complain about rewards. Like its only thing why they play game. So what? &&&& rewards? At least enoy chalenge and play like it is. But no people never happy.

[Rancherqip]

What I noticed with U9 was that loot across the board was effected. I used to get things like skins, dirty ears, matted fur, etc on nearly every mob I killed. After U9 unless I have a quest running for a particular type of mob then I get no loot what so ever, and even if I have a quest running so many of them seem to be locked out to me now that it is becoming not worth my time to play in the F2P model any longer.

I came back to LORTO to see what had changed and to see if I wanted to subscribe again as I wait on Zenimax Online Studio to release The Elder Scrolls online, which is several months to a year away from release so that could potentially get Turbine a sub from me for that time.

With the changes to locked out quests and tasks it makes me not even want to play any longer and I may as well just uninstall the game unless I want to pull out my credit card and not only subscribe to the game but also go buy a bunch of stuff on their store that I feel should come with the subcription anyway.

Worst update I have seen because it seems to be following EA/Bioware F2P model where the attitude to the F2P player is,

"We allow you to play but its going to be such a horrible experience we don't expect you to stick around, have a nice day!"

[WiltenRose]

One thing to note: I was on last night when Ramble On finished their run of BG on Elendilmir, and they announced that by the time the raid had ended they had received 12 total symbols. They linked a teal and a purple jewelry, but I don't know how much else they got by way of drops. Still, everyone walking out with a symbol is pretty positive.

[theboon]

Done T2 CM Iobar's Peak and last boss gave me a Riddermark Crystal of Remembrance so was very happy with that

Boonie

The Avengers

Black Guard

[Lestache]

One thing to note: I was on last night when Ramble On finished their run of BG on Elendilmir, and they announced that by the time the raid had ended they had received 12 total symbols. They linked a teal and a purple jewelry, but I don't know how much else they got by way of drops. Still, everyone walking out with a symbol is pretty positive.

Yes, that much at least is promising.

Hopefully there's not a hotfix to severely nerf the Symbol drop rate...

[Bels_illuminati]

Just did my first SG t2C and not overly impressed with the loot I must say. The group picked up 3 purple 'trash' items between us across all bosses.

Personally my tangible loot haul (ignoring marks/meds/seals) was 4 vet bounties and one tier 4 fused setting. This included 2 of us on the final boss getting a single bounty from that chest.

As a suggestion it seems that bounties are guaranteed for everyone from each boss. So why not seperate the rest of the loot off onto it's own loot table. So that everyone always gets at least something interesting from each boss encounter. Even a low to middling xp rune or t4+ setting would be preferable to what feels like 'nothing'.

It would just avoid the feeling of the brick wall and keep players motivated (so going for the best loot and thinking: 'Oh well I got something else this time', rather than: 'Meh didn't even get on the loot table again').

[EmmeraldFireFox]

The bracelets and recipes didn't make it to live. At least not currently.

Hmm, is this confirmed??? And if it is, what happened. Finished all of BG and yea I do admit it was somewhat disappointing. We recieved symbols but 99% of the kin already has them and really didn't need them. Most of them gave them to their friends or sold them.

[EmmeraldFireFox]

Done T2 CM Iobar's Peak and last boss gave me a Riddermark Crystal of Remembrance so was very happy with that

Boonie

The Avengers

Black Guard

I thought all challenge modes are off line till something is fixed??? Or can one still do them and u get the chest without the quest?

[RicardoFurriel]

Amusing how people complain about rewards. Like its only thing why they play game. So what? &&&& rewards? At least enoy chalenge and play like it is. But no people never happy.

You missed the point entirely. What I want to point out is for incentives to run content that took many hours to develop. And like you, no one likes to see dev time wasted.

Like Lestache mentioned, the sample is pretty small at this point. Yes, there's epic loot out there. My reflexion came up after finishing a SG t2cm and like Desolates pointed out, 4 chests and I looked in my bags and I had 2 bounties.

After a quick search in the Instances & Raids section, look at the reports about WP and Dungeons. Again, it's just the first day. And BG seems to be Symbol heaven... With no locks.

Cheers

[Neen_Eldar]

For me the issue is not with update 9 but the RoR update in general, whilst i am not a huge fan of the new loot mechanic i can live with it, the stats on the items however are just plain bad.

A large number of the level 75 items are still better than the level 85 gear.
It seems like we're being asked to drop certain stats for the sake of +morale or +power.
Crit ratings & physical mastery ratings have been scaled, i'll give you that but other stats are trailing right behind.
It's 10 levels difference, surely the numbers need to reflect that