Naerband and Seregost instance chests locks

[Mercho]

This is from the newest beta patch notes.

[*]Naerband and Seregost instance chests now have a 1-day lock on them. Equipment drop rates for these chests have also been increased substantially.

https://www.lotro.com/forums/showthr...-Release-Notes

As someone who enjoys PvE group content I find this change quite upsetting. I know many others agree. Other than doing dailies, if I find the rewards worthwhile, the only thing I usually do when I play the game is run instances. Being able to only run Seregost and Naerband, if they manage to make it worth running, once a day will leave me very little to do in game on a daily basis. I'm not sure what the motivation behind this change is, but I hope SSG reconsiders doing this.


Not knowing the exact reasoning behind this change it's hard to suggest a good alternative. Instead, I'll list a few things SSG could do to get the results they want instead of doing daily chest locks.


1. Add daily instance quest(s)
2. Add barter tokens
3. Change drop rates
4. Change the amount of ash rewarded when breaking down gear


Using 1, or more, of the above options should allow SSG to adjust the rewards from these instances to meet their goals.

[Rialtan]

No to all the options you proposed.

There is not a single valid reason to put locks on 3-6 mans, except killing the fun and the game.


What do they think ppl are logging for atm? To run Seregost or do some broken pvp in Moors.

Most of raiding kins barely got enough active peeps to fill a 6 man cause of their stupid decisions. That would be the last nail on the coffin.

[Gildintar]

with an instance cluster like this ( one boring 3man and one buggy as hell 6man )
you can´t bring loot looks .....

[canyouaddcolour]

No to all the options you proposed.

What? Why would adding a daily quest for the instance but leaving chests mostly the same as live be a problem? That's a benefit, extra incentive to run alts through, can have a higher drop rate of gear whilst current personal loot is kept as low as it is, etc.

[Pavlosh]

I understand why they loot lock Naerband.... loads of kins and pugs have been farming that instance like hell, getting masses of Ash in the process.

[Lord.Funk]

No to all the options you proposed.

There is not a single valid reason to put locks on 3-6 mans, except killing the fun and the game.


What do they think ppl are logging for atm? To run Seregost or do some broken pvp in Moors.

Most of raiding kins barely got enough active peeps to fill a 6 man cause of their stupid decisions. That would be the last nail on the coffin.

I'm with Rialtan on this one.

We should not have to try and help them put band-aid on the changes to try and at least give us something. It's like we are trying to fight over bread crums now as they remove more and more. These changes should simply not be there at all. No Locks. We are the customers and should be allowed to have fun. If not then most will just move on. Who pays to be abused and treated like this ???

[Brethwyn_EU]

I'm with Rialtan on this one.

We should not have to try and help them put band-aid on the changes to try and at least give us something. It's like we are trying to fight over bread crums now as they remove more and more. These changes should simply not be there at all. No Locks. We are the customers and should be allowed to have fun. If not then most will just move on. Who pays to be abused and treated like this ???

That's how I feel too. Fighting over crumbs as they slowly remove them. We payed for the instance cluster, and this could be seen as false advertising. We were promised the instance cluster with the expectation that they will be working just like every other instance cluster in the past, and now they're putting locks on them. And I'm not even a raider, so there will be little for me to do in the game now. It's like they're trying to stop us from playing.

[Turuin]

Please don't reduce CoS to a once per day instance, especially alongside the removal of Incomparable drops from landscape.

I log into LOTRO to run the Mordor Dailies for Black Steel Keys and to run Court of Seregost T2C. The first is for gear grinding/ash grinding, which is tolerable. The second is for gear grinding/ash farming and because I still find it entertaining.

If you make CoS a once per day instance, the one thing I find entertaining about this game will be reduced to a once per day farm. Most of my enjoyment for the game will just be sapped. I know many others feel the same. Apart from this, there won't be a reliable way to acquire Ash in-game based on RnG. Forcing people to buy more Keys from the store is a blatant and annoying cash grab that no one really appreciates.

Assuming Naerband is properly fixed this time, yes - it's true that we could add that into the mix. But given the track record, it seems like a fairly big assumption.

[Lord.Funk]

...I log into LOTRO to run the Mordor Dailies for Black Steel Keys..

You do realize that with this patch that is changed too right ??? You wil only get keys from sliver from now on so they will be character bound, so that will also just be once/day with the main character as not much point getting keys with alts anymore. Definetly not if alts are on seperate accounts. You can't even help family member sto get keys for them anymore. Unless You buy the in the store of course. *rolleyes*

At least there won't be any more point in buying expansions and pay sub for more than one account from now on. So less money for SSG and more money to save for us.

[Eruceninde]

/signed

terrible idea, removing one of the things you do at end game. brilliant

[DiogoVP]

This is from the newest beta patch notes.



https://www.lotro.com/forums/showthr...-Release-Notes

As someone who enjoys PvE group content I find this change quite upsetting. I know many others agree. Other than doing dailies, if I find the rewards worthwhile, the only thing I usually do when I play the game is run instances. Being able to only run Seregost and Naerband, if they manage to make it worth running, once a day will leave me very little to do in game on a daily basis. I'm not sure what the motivation behind this change is, but I hope SSG reconsiders doing this.


Not knowing the exact reasoning behind this change it's hard to suggest a good alternative. Instead, I'll list a few things SSG could do to get the results they want instead of doing daily chest locks.


1. Add daily instance quest(s)
2. Add barter tokens
3. Change drop rates
4. Change the amount of ash rewarded when breaking down gear


Using 1, or more, of the above options should allow SSG to adjust the rewards from these instances to meet their goals.

It's similar to my suggestion that I made some months ago: https://www.lotro.com/forums/showthr...lk-about-Grind

[DiogoVP]

No to all the options you proposed.

There is not a single valid reason to put locks on 3-6 mans, except killing the fun and the game.


What do they think ppl are logging for atm? To run Seregost or do some broken pvp in Moors.

Most of raiding kins barely got enough active peeps to fill a 6 man cause of their stupid decisions. That would be the last nail on the coffin.

I think you misunderstood his proposals... from what I understood he is proposing a barter token awarded daily through completing the challenge while also keeping the challenge chest without a lock. However, I think the suggestion I made in September is very similar, but it's clearer and more detailed. I think we should focus our feedback on that thread:

https://www.lotro.com/forums/showthr...lk-about-Grind

[Funari]

Most people have the same concerns and they should create thread after thread to get the message through.
Raid locks were intended to take raids in steps rather than spend 5 hours (The Rift/Carn Dum). Naerband/Seregost take nowhere near that amount of time.
This is just a cheap way to decrease the ash income from any method other than lootboxes.

[mmdur1]

This is a really terrible idea. Here are the negatives in my opinion:

1) It will make people less likely to log on at all as there will be little to do.
2) It will completely eliminate experienced players helping non-experienced players to do the instance.
3) It will further fracture the community into haves and have-nots.
4) It will basically make it impossible to gear a new alt getting to 115 to a level that would be ok to run T2 content.

This is one of the all-time worst proposals that I have seen from Turbine / SSG in nine years of playing this game. Please don't make your only viable end-game content obsolete.

[Ethrildar]

It's fairly apparent that the reasoning behind this is so that you can't so easily farm CoS for Ashes, leaving your options as follows:

Grind for literally hundreds of hours in an Ash farm (if they don't fix it like they have most of the spots).
Open lootboxes.

That's it. That's your only way to acquire ashes aside from the 80 per day you might get from CoS if lucky with a teal.

This will kill the game, the only reason I play right now is to do the 3man in the hopes that when the 12man releases it'll be playable enough to be enjoyable with my kin. PVP is totally destroyed now to the point of being unplayable even for some of the most die-hard PVP'ers (myself included).

This game is turning into a joke with it's blatant money-grabbing antics.

[Lord.Funk]

It's fairly apparent that the reasoning behind this is so that you can't so easily farm CoS for Ashes, leaving your options as follows:

Grind for literally hundreds of hours in an Ash farm (if they don't fix it like they have most of the spots).

I think You might have missed this info that has been in two weeks updates notes now.

Last week in Beta #3:

Welcome to our third open preview of Update 21.3. These notes are for Bullroarer, released on Friday November 10th.
New in this build:

• Level 106 - 115 landscape mobs will no longer have a chance to drop incomparable equipment that can be disenchanted into Ash of Gorgoroth.

This week in Beta #4:

Welcome to our fourth open preview of Update 21.3. These notes are for Bullroarer, released on Friday November 17th.

• Level 106 - 115 landscape mobs will no longer have a chance to drop incomparable equipment. Mobs in the resource instances will continue to drop incomparable equipment.

So no more ash farms. That option will be gone and only place mobs will sometimes rarely drop incomparable gear if RNG smiles at You is in the resource instances. We really don't know if even that gear will be able to be turned into ash. Notes don't specify that. So that's it.

So yes as You said this is what's left:

Open lootboxes.

That's it. That's your only way to acquire ashes aside from the 80 per day you might get from CoS if lucky with a teal.

This will kill the game, the only reason I play right now is to do the 3man in the hopes that when the 12man releases it'll be playable enough to be enjoyable with my kin. PVP is totally destroyed now to the point of being unplayable even for some of the most die-hard PVP'ers (myself included).

This game is turning into a joke with it's blatant money-grabbing antics.

Along with also daily allegiance quests that will only be rewarding sliver that can be bartered for CHARACTER BOUND keys. No more unbound keys can be earned in game either after this as we know of.

Welcome to our fourth open preview of Update 21.3. These notes are for Bullroarer, released on Friday November 17th.

New in this build:

• The Gorgorth Daily Expedition quests now award 2 Slivers of Black Steel each so that you can earn Black Steel Keys equally from any daily expedition.

[Cordovan]

The reason we are adding locks to the Dungeons of Naerband and Court of Seregost instance chests is so that we can have guaranteed loot drops as part of a wider plan to decrease the overall difficulty of the instances and significantly increase their loot output. After 21.3 is released, players will be guaranteed a piece of dis-enchantable gear per character per run, on both Tier 1 and Tier 2 difficulties, running at level 115, and are actually more likely to get at least 2 pieces of gear. Loot drop rates have also been increased for runs below level 115.

[Ronimli]

The reason we are adding locks to the Dungeons of Naerband and Court of Seregost instance chests is so that we can have guaranteed loot drops as part of a wider plan to decrease the overall difficulty of the instances and significantly increase their loot output. After 21.3 is released, players will be guaranteed a piece of dis-enchantable gear per character per run, on both Tier 1 and Tier 2 difficulties, running at level 115, and are actually more likely to get at least 2 pieces of gear. Loot drop rates have also been increased for runs below level 115.

If you want to give out more guarenteed drops introduce a daily quest like with the FI. All this system seems to be doing is shooting yourself in the foot. People like running/farming CoS, it's a very well designed 3 man with fun mechanics and just the right balance of trash. It's also the only reliable way to get empowerment scrolls ATM. If you'll introduce a lock on chests people no longer have a reliable and fun way of getting the insane amount of empowerment scrolls needed per imbued LI. You'll literally be taking away fun in an attempt to drive people to th store to buy mithril coins. Just don't do it. I commend you for trying to explain your reasoning to an audience that is more than a little mad at the moment, but it still falls flat on its face.

[B749]

The reason we are adding locks to the Dungeons of Naerband and Court of Seregost instance chests is so that we can have guaranteed loot drops as part of a wider plan to decrease the overall difficulty of the instances and significantly increase their loot output. After 21.3 is released, players will be guaranteed a piece of dis-enchantable gear per character per run, on both Tier 1 and Tier 2 difficulties, running at level 115, and are actually more likely to get at least 2 pieces of gear. Loot drop rates have also been increased for runs below level 115.

I appreciate the thought, but IMO the bad outweighs the good in this implementation. Efforts to provide better rewards should not go at the cost of players' ability to repeatedly run content they enjoy.

I would suggest (as others have already) to introduce a daily quest or a special chest that only spawns once per day to implement this guaranteed loot drop change, while leaving the other chests as they are (or nerfing their droprate if you feel that's necessary with a chest providing guaranteed gear, but I think it's fine). The tech for this already exists -- just look at the Featured Instance system, or daily reset Challenge quests in the Moria instances.

Oh -- and I'm not sure why you would want to increase loot droprates below level 115 ... if there is a daily loot lock, who in their right mind would choose to do a sub level cap run rendering them unable to earn loot from a level 115 run? Unless of course you decided to make lower level runs drop the same quality gear as level 115 runs, which would be a bad change too. It just doesn't make sense.

[Phindecano]

The reason we are adding locks to the Dungeons of Naerband and Court of Seregost instance chests is so that we can have guaranteed loot drops as part of a wider plan to decrease the overall difficulty of the instances and significantly increase their loot output. After 21.3 is released, players will be guaranteed a piece of dis-enchantable gear per character per run, on both Tier 1 and Tier 2 difficulties, running at level 115, and are actually more likely to get at least 2 pieces of gear. Loot drop rates have also been increased for runs below level 115.

So only a "a piece of dis-enchantable gear per character per run", not a guaranteed incomparable drop? It's laughable.

Let's see. You do a daily run and get a rare item that is useless and gives you 20 ashes. You don't get any item you really want to wear. Sorry, but not. It's just your will to sell more keys, nothing more here.

[siipperi]

The reason we are adding locks to the Dungeons of Naerband and Court of Seregost instance chests is so that we can have guaranteed loot drops as part of a wider plan to decrease the overall difficulty of the instances and significantly increase their loot output. After 21.3 is released, players will be guaranteed a piece of dis-enchantable gear per character per run, on both Tier 1 and Tier 2 difficulties, running at level 115, and are actually more likely to get at least 2 pieces of gear. Loot drop rates have also been increased for runs below level 115.

Decrease difficulty of instances? How much easier you can go than T1 or 105 runs on 115 character currently? Mobs kill themselves when you enter? Sure sounds nice gameplay
Players can already solo 105 versio of 3 man and most classes can solo 105 6 man till the last boss that has mechanic preventing solo.

If you want to make lootlocks make armors behind the daily locks but allow us to get jewellery, relics, XP runes, emp scrolls and so on on further runs... We literally have 2 instances to enjoy and if you are T1 runner you can't do T2 and if you are t2 runner you won't do T1 since it won't drop anything useful for you. So we stuck on 2 instances per day and can't really do 2nd run of 3/6 mans that is extremely common in this game. back to back runs since its fun...

SSGs new motto seems to be to remove all and any fun from the game.


Edit. You know, this would work if we had good 6-7 instances to run. But we have 2. Only 2 relevant instances. No other instance drops anything useful for your gear progression. Old instances have 0 light pieces that are MUST have because you are forcing us into that mold.

[Urwendil]

The reason we are adding locks to the Dungeons of Naerband and Court of Seregost instance chests is so that we can have guaranteed loot drops as part of a wider plan increase the overall difficulty of the instances and significantly increase their loot output. After1.3 is released, players will be guaranteed a piece of dis-enchantable gear per character per run, on both Tier 1 and Tier 2 difficulties, running at level 115, and are actually more likely to get at least 2 pieces of gear. Loot drop rates have also been increased for runs below level 115.

Thanks for chiming in. But as others have already suggested, if you want to give guaranteed daily drops, use the existing FI mechanism (if necessary with modifications) and let the people run the instance(s) at their pace and leisure. The implementation in the current beta doesn't come across credible in order to achieve the expressed intent

[Seodric]

The reason we are adding locks to the Dungeons of Naerband and Court of Seregost instance chests is so that we can have guaranteed loot drops as part of a wider plan to decrease the overall difficulty of the instances and significantly increase their loot output. After 21.3 is released, players will be guaranteed a piece of dis-enchantable gear per character per run, on both Tier 1 and Tier 2 difficulties, running at level 115, and are actually more likely to get at least 2 pieces of gear. Loot drop rates have also been increased for runs below level 115.

Please, please do NOT do this. Seregost is an enjoyable instance atm, and players should NOT get punished for wanting to run 2x runs or more, on one character per day. Some players got alts too, but might not be able to run them, since their friends don't have compitable classes to run with that combo. So might end up on one char anyways. Locks for a 3man TOTALLY do not work imo. It will just be a mess with locks and people left out or not wanting to run again, cus no loot for them.

I remember at level 75 cap, people ran Foundry, the 6-man at that cap. Iirc it had a daily cd for an additional amount of instance loot (tokens or what it was), which was really nice if you only had time for one run. But EVERY chest in there still dropped the same loot if you ran it multiple times. It was just the daily that went on cd, just like the FI system. Also that cluster had 3 3-man instances, not only one 3-man! 3-men at 75 had no daily quest, no restrictions either with no locks. ONly place that should have locks is t2 raid, nothing else!

Furthermore, it's ONLY the 6-man that needs adjusting atm, with too much trash, and a total mess of a last boss.
3-man is totally fine in terms of difficulty.

[Jillymala]

The reason we are adding locks to the Dungeons of Naerband and Court of Seregost instance chests is so that we can have guaranteed loot drops as part of a wider plan to decrease the overall difficulty of the instances and significantly increase their loot output. After 21.3 is released, players will be guaranteed a piece of dis-enchantable gear per character per run, on both Tier 1 and Tier 2 difficulties, running at level 115, and are actually more likely to get at least 2 pieces of gear. Loot drop rates have also been increased for runs below level 115.

Honestly.. listen to the people speaking, these are the ones who make the time and effort to help you decide the future.
These are the people who care a lot about this game and are the ones keeping the worlds alive.
Others won't and will just leave without saying a word, like we are seeing already.
No one wants this, not that I've seen at any rate. So many people have stepped up and told you not to do it.. how can you even say you listen to us at this point if you go forward with it?

This is just terrible implementation. So in the Dev's opinion, once a player with 3 alts runs the cos for the day for 1 piece of Ash gear each.. what are they going to do? Whats to keep them from taking their money to another game sub? What keeps them logging in?

Taking away repeatable content is.. well.. stupid. You give people reasons to stop logging in.

What happens to solo/casual people? How are they getting ash to barter gear to do the content without rage quitting?

[Bitza]

The reason we are adding locks to the Dungeons of Naerband and Court of Seregost instance chests is so that we can have guaranteed loot drops as part of a wider plan to decrease the overall difficulty of the instances and significantly increase their loot output. After 21.3 is released, players will be guaranteed a piece of dis-enchantable gear per character per run, on both Tier 1 and Tier 2 difficulties, running at level 115, and are actually more likely to get at least 2 pieces of gear. Loot drop rates have also been increased for runs below level 115.

Cordovan, I know y'all are getting a lot of flak for this, so I just wanted to chime in that I am pleased with this change. For those of us with limited time, that can ONLY run once a day if that, it will be nice to know we'll be making progress every time, and no chance of getting nothing but silver. Thank you for helping us casual players gear up.

I also want to point out to others that, unless I'm seriously misunderstanding things, they are locking the CHESTS, not the INSTANCES. That means, for those of you saying they're taking the fun out of it because you like running it -- you can still run it, no fun lost!

One thought, though, that might offer a bit of a compromise -- perhaps a small chest with a chance of dropping some scrolls or crystals that is always available would make people feel like they're getting a little bit for their time still. Or let the mobs drop loot or something. Some kind of small reward might help alleviate some of the complaints for those that are frustrated with this idea.