Embers / Instances & Locks

[wispsong]

This whole system is really confusing. I've been running the instances solo daily and not getting any embers at all--is this right? Do you only get embers on duo and above?

Also, I have a quest called Fighting for the Grey that tells me to complete each instance, but when I complete the instance, it doesn't advance. It seems to be a weekly quest, but when do the instances reset? Thursdays? Seems that some quests reset Sundays, too?

Most of this is moot, because I have a bunch of embers from crafting and quest gear and longbeard marks, and yet I haven't really bartered for anything because I have no idea what's in the gear boxes, because instead of bartering for gear where I can see stats and stuff, I'm supposed to barter for a mystery crate?

I really liked this update up until the endgame part, which seems poorly implemented and even more poorly communicated.

If this is like the Wastes instances I don't think solo/duo give anything.

[Oelle]

I'd like to add, that the ash-barter-guy is totally misleading and should be changed.

He sells a box, which is teal, which contains green essences.
###?
If a box of essences is teal, I guess, there will be teal essences inside, right?
Make that box green, if there is only green essences inside.
I just guess (didnt buy anything else), that the same is true for the other boxes with gear.

[Goonbag]

I'd like to add, that the ash-barter-guy is totally misleading and should be changed.

He sells a box, which is teal, which contains green essences.
###?
If a box of essences is teal, I guess, there will be teal essences inside, right?
Make that box green, if there is only green essences inside.
I just guess (didnt buy anything else), that the same is true for the other boxes with gear.

If youre talking about the barterer in skarhald then the box of essences that contain T11 essences is actually White. And it appears to be the only one that is so.

[Oelle]

If youre talking about the barterer in skarhald then the box of essences that contain T11 essences is actually White. And it appears to be the only one that is so.

Whatever the colour is, it doesnt fit with the content. Thats misleading.

[007Squanto]

You have to just laugh at a group of developers who make a system so complicated that people have to go to the forums just to find out how to gear their toons.

How many new currencies did you invent in this update in order to manipulate players and force them through your grind like rats in a maze?

Just look at this embarrassing monstrosity. And this toon was power-leveled, so I have nowhere near all the weird currencies :



Hang on, my screen couldn't fit it all:




Yeah actually still couldn't fit it all, here's the rest:



I have to basically become an investigator when a new update launches to find out what weird system you guys have invented, how many new currencies have been devised, in order for me to figure out how to gear. Whatever the system is you can ensure that there is no logic or realism to it-- instead it is full of weird gameplay abstractions that if translated into a book or a movie would be frighteningly bizarre.

Take the Wastes grind for example: In order to get a single piece of gear, you had to, as a cook :
1. Get kindred with some rep faction
2. Craft a bowl of soup
3. Exchange that bowl of soup for a Metal Scrap
4. Exchange that Metal Scrap for...wait hang on!!
5. That bowl of soup that you just crafted in order to get that metal scrap had an 18 hour cooldown. You
need to now craft a different bowl of soup that has a 2 day cooldown, and that will get you a currency called
Armour.
6. Get enough metal scraps and armor, and you can then barter those for a piece of jewelry.


IN NO WAY is this intuitive to a player who has happened upon this area and needs gear. There is no logic to it. Logic would be : If you want weapons and armor, you hand over some gold to get some. Gold which, by the way, is not, or should not, be easy to make. There is nothing low or connotative of a "shortcut" about handing over gold for loot-- it is a sacrifice, you are giving something up.

And because there is no logic to it, I have to basically do investigative work and compile a spreadsheet of all the various ways, instances, quests, daily rewards, and deeds that grant me whatever currency I need.

I laughed, painfully, when the wastes came out, after I learned what it took to get a piece of gear. But here is what players have been treated to in this current Update 23:

Doing instances once a day for guaranteed good rewards like we had in Mordor now seems like a pleasant thing of the past, with this horrible new system they've cooked up. Here's what currently happens on Live:

For clearing a T1 instance, on opening the chests:

• Final boss:
  
  • If player has a Favoured pull left, they get [100 Embers of Enchantment], some ILI consumables and a chance for a purple gear piece.
  • If the player has no Favoured pulls left, they get 0 Embers of Enchantment and a (low) chance for other items.
  • Regardless of Favoured or non-Favoured, every chest will award some [Coin of Grárik] to every player.
• Other bosses:
  
  • Every player, regardless of Favoured pull or not, will receive Coins of Grárik.
  • Supposedly, Favoured pulls have better odds of dropping actual gear, but that's not really happening. Even on favoured drop rates, gear drop rates are absolutely horrendous.
  • There are no ILI consumables or Embers in any of these chests. Only the final boss chest awards Embers and ILI consumables.

For clearing a T2 instance, things look pretty much the same except you get 150 Embers from final boss chests instead of 100.

T2 Favoured openings are limited to two per week per chest. T1 Favoured openings are limited to five per week per chest. After that you get another 20 chest openings with lower drop rates for the rest of the week. This information can be viewed per character by using the /raid locks command.

None of the drops are disenchantable. Not from t1, not from t2, not from favoured and not from non-favoured pulls. Nothing.

So... Do all your weekly favoured pulls, you end up with 500 (5x t1 thrumfall) + 500 (5x t1 glimmerdeep) + 500 (5x t1 thikil-gundu) + 300 (2x t2 thrumfall) + 300 (2x t2 glimmerdeep) + 300 (2x t2 thikil-gundu) = 2,400 Embers. For 21 full instance runs.

A single piece of teal gear on the vendor costs 3,500 Embers. A purple piece costs 2,000 Embers. A single lootbox drops between 250 and 1,000 Embers + a piece of disenchantable gear (usually a purple worth 200 Embers) -- so at least 3 t2 instance runs' worth, even if you get unlucky. Crafted gear requires ridiculous amounts of materials, as well as multiple very rare Dwarrowgleam Shards. It's kind of obvious what the devs' preferred path towards gearing your characters is. Then again, that's hardly a surprise.

Just lol.... this is really just a farce.


You don't stop at making gold superfluous, you've made a wampum-economy so intractably convoluted that for the first time in this game I thought about crafting myself an entire set of jewelry and armor and then just calling it good. Turns out for the first time in my gameplay experience, crafting a full set of gear forces you to undergo a grind that is worse than any instance or raid grind in the past. Think about that. Crafting is supposed to be the most cursory stage in the gearing process and you've made it worse than the previous top-tier grinds of past updates.


Restricting player freedom so that you can reliably pigeonhole us players into a very very subversive vertical gearing system is becoming an increasingly obvious ploy of yours and I have to say, although I've noticed you guys doing this at every update in this game, I've never felt more taken advantage of as I have in this update.

I really just want to plop some armor on my toon. If I put in the work, I should be able to reasonably gear my toon. I did the 6 man on t2 tonight and didn't get a single piece of gear. Nobody in my group did. Actually I lied, a hunter got a purple tanking ring. And If I don't want to do the instances, I should be able to spend some gold and buy the gear that someone else wants to sell. All of this ridiculous bind-on-acquire stuff is a bizarre game play abstraction that needs to end.

I remember opening a box in the early 2000's, pulling out a game, and having a blast. At NO POINT did I see chicanerous attempts at manipulative monetization. You paid once and were able to enjoy a game designed for fun. Playing lotro, it really feels like I have a leash on my neck instead. "Before you can have fun, do our grind. Buy Keys. Open lootboxes."

Sad!

[007Squanto]

The most offensive misdirection is this, from Severlin's post on September 10, 2018:

We should reward you for playing the game. Progression should come from playing the game, first and foremost. Before I talk specifics, let's talk about our goals with the system, the rules under which we want to operate, and how lootboxes fit into that system:

2. On the day that new content is released, players should not be able to get the brand-new gear with end game currency or Store purchases. The initial rush of gear needs to come from playing the new content and getting rewards for completing it. As such, the vendors for gear and lootboxes will not appear until a few weeks after that content is released. The exact timing might also depend on how involved the content is.

According to Severlin, "Players should not be able to get brand-new gear with end game currency or store purchases.

FACT CHECK: FALSE!

The FASTEST way to get the new, high-end gear, is 100% by buying keys from the store and opening lootboxes. There are several players on Landroval who have full teal gear and have not touched the instances.


According to Severlin, "The initial rush of gear needs to come from playing the new content and getting rewards for completing it.".

FACT CHECK: FALSE

The initial "rush" of gear is undoubtedly fastest achieved by heading straight to your local LOTRO store with your credit card.


When this announcement was first made, I initially thought the clarification of what proper, fair progression should be like in the eyes of developers was a clear indication of their resolution to reward, more than ever, players who played the content over players who just get their credit card out.

Now its clear that that post was preemptive damage control for an update release that they knew would actually do the exact opposite in such dramatic fashion that the harsh blowback from the playerbase would have to be dealt with.

Sad!

[Hephburz-2]

2. On the day that new content is released, players should not be able to get the brand-new gear with end game currency or Store purchases. The initial rush of gear needs to come from playing the new content and getting rewards for completing it. As such, the vendors for gear and lootboxes will not appear until a few weeks after that content is released. The exact timing might also depend on how involved the content is.

THIS.

+ What Cordovan said on Stream about Ash:

That you want to control the rate of acquisition + the amount we can have. Something NOT possible with the lootbox/key system. You allowed people for seven months to farm keys in preparation for this update. You placed gear from instances that is BiS into lootboxes. People are max geared without having been into instance at all. You misled us about removing instance locks in place of this favoured looting system.

Listen to your community.

[TheHylianLink98]

THIS.

+ What Cordovan said on Stream about Ash:

That you want to control the rate of acquisition + the amount we can have. Something NOT possible with the lootbox/key system. You allowed people for seven months to farm keys in preparation for this update. You placed gear from instances that is BiS into lootboxes. People are max geared without having been into instance at all. You misled us about removing instance locks in place of this favoured looting system.

Listen to your community.

JuSt sO iM ClEaR, yOu WuOlD wAnT tO mAkE bLaCk KeYs wOrThLeSs AnD tAkE aWaY aLl ThE hArD wOrK oF sOmE pLaYeRs???

Or whatever stupid thing Cordovan said.

[Hephburz-2]

Don't make them worthless, but limit the amount of lootboxes you can open for sure.

[gells]

... But I have subbed almost since the beginning of my game playing time, and it's really beginning to look like I should drop that, just buy all the regions and go F2P. I don't appreciate being expected to pay more on top of a sub to be able to gear quickly enough that I can actually use the armor before the next update.

This. This is the same reasoning that led my to canceling my VIP that I've had since 2011.

Given that we can't see the current store financials and impacts to their revenue from this whole black key/lootbox system introduced since Mordor:

• I can't help but wonder if they are intentionally trying to marginalize VIP to the point of questionable worth to get rid of it
• If on the assumption that black keys are proving to be a financial bonanza, I can't help but wonder if the future of this game is going to be store-driven.
• This seems true already for the "top end questers" since raid-required consumables will only be obtainable through the store (once existing player stocks are depleted).

Given all the above, for me personally at least, it makes more sense to cancel VIP (which I have) and spend that money toward the store. That is, if I have any desire to continue on in my end-game "top end questing". Which at this point in time, I have deep reservations on doing.

Thanks, SSG.

For nothing.

[TheHylianLink98]

This. This is the same reasoning that led my to canceling my VIP that I've had since 2011.

Given that we can't see the current store financials and impacts to their revenue from this whole black key/lootbox system introduced since Mordor:

• I can't help but wonder if they are intentionally trying to marginalize VIP to the point of questionable worth to get rid of it
• If on the assumption that black keys are proving to be a financial bonanza, I can't help but wonder if the future of this game is going to be store-driven.
• This seems true already for the "top end questers" since raid-required consumables will only be obtainable through the store (once existing player stocks are depleted).

Given all the above, for me personally at least, it makes more sense to cancel VIP (which I have) and spend that money toward the store. That is, if I have any desire to continue on in my end-game "top end questing". Which at this point in time, I have deep reservations on doing.

Thanks, SSG.

For nothing.

Honestly, if you want things to change for the better, you need to stop giving SSG any money. It's becoming more and more obvious they don't care about the decline of the player base, which we have enough evidence to see a continual trend down and a loss of 13-18% of players since Mordor. It's always been pretty obvious that feedback provided by players is pretty much worthless even if many of those players are VIP or paying in some form. And it's obvious that no one at SSG does any research beyond Lotro and DDO to see what drives the MMO community and also to learn that endgame players or raiders are not referred to as "top end questers".

There is only 1 data point driving Lotro, and that's the store. If you want to improve the game or force it into maintenance mode, screw up that data point. SSG is a poison and they've created an incredibly toxic environment when it comes to providing feedback. We are the ones who paid to drink the poison.

[DieLaFuzz]

Given all the above, for me personally at least, it makes more sense to cancel VIP (which I have) and spend that money toward the store.

If you only need to gear one char, that could sadly be the most cost-effective path. For the price of the monthly subscription you get around 1,600 LP - discount the 500 included with the subscription and there's a difference of 1,100 LP to your favour, enough to buy 5 keys.

You can even skip buying the whole expansion and get 10 keys instead. They probably provide better gear than the whole of the expansion. What you would need that gear for, I don't know. PvP maybe? Race through older content?

You can tell that something is very wrong with a game when lootboxes start to look more desirable than actual content.

[MusterTheRohirrim]

This loot system is not what SSG said they were delivering us, and not very well thought out from the perspective of this high end quester.

I used all my gold locks this week and got 3x the usable gear from a few loot boxes. The extremely slow and not even grindable gearing from instances is already causing players to consider going inactive because this looks like an extremely cynical money grab or superlative incompetence. It is pretty much the opposite of what we were told re: encouraging instances.

We were led to believe by dev interaction that SSG's plan was to heavily encourage running instances. The severely restrictive nature of loot locks in conjunction with a low drop rate (which otherwise would not be the issue if they allowed us to farm) makes the expected value of running content extremely low relative to just buying keys. Why bother playing at all you might ask, when anything you can do in game is dwarfed by $2 of LP? Why not spend the hours in a week I would otherwise spend actually playing content earning an extra few bucks that would give me several times the loot when converted to keys?

This is the opposite of what we were promised. I want to do these instances many times a week and grind my build like MMOs are supposed to work.

By all means make the teal drop rates LOW. Give us some purple #### from all ered mithrin bosses to throw on so we can at least have 120 gear, even if it will be trash in a month or two. Increase the gold chest locks at least 5x.

There will still be an incentive to buy keys and you will not have killed the entire premise of running instances.

Listen to us and fix this quickly before you hemmorhage more high end questers.

[Taldeen]

JuSt sO iM ClEaR, yOu WuOlD wAnT tO mAkE bLaCk KeYs wOrThLeSs AnD tAkE aWaY aLl ThE hArD wOrK oF sOmE pLaYeRs???

Or whatever stupid thing Cordovan said.

When they announced that there would not be BiS endgame gear from lootboxes, then i expect it to be so. Not this p2w ****. If people prefarmed for endlevel gear, yes i want to take that away. And instead provide 119 gear at best. Not 120.

I want the lootboxes not to contain endlevel ash, but level 115 ash, for at least 2 months.
I dont want to see any tier 12 essences in the boxes for at least 2 months.

Lootboxes should be for buffitems, underlevelgear and cosmetics only. Nothing that even touches endgame should be in the boxes if the keys cannot be acquired directly by playing the game.

Sadly they missed the chance, and "correcting" it now, would cause another outcry. Unless they remove the gear from chars and return all the keys and shop-points spent to the players.

It feels like a really shameless money scam right now, extremely close to gambling. Im sure it will be reported to authorities. What they would decide i dont know.

[MusterTheRohirrim]

When they announced that there would not be BiS endgame gear from lootboxes, then i expect it to be so. Not this p2w ****. If people prefarmed for endlevel gear, yes i want to take that away. And instead provide 119 gear at best. Not 120.

I want the lootboxes not to contain endlevel ash, but level 115 ash, for at least 2 months.
I dont want to see any tier 12 essences in the boxes for at least 2 months.

Lootboxes should be for buffitems, underlevelgear and cosmetics only. Nothing that even touches endgame should be in the boxes if the keys cannot be acquired directly by playing the game.

Sadly they missed the chance, and "correcting" it now, would cause another outcry. Unless they remove the gear from chars and return all the keys and shop-points spent to the players.

It feels like a really shameless money scam right now, extremely close to gambling. Im sure it will be reported to authorities. What they would decide i dont know.

It technically isnt BiS but it is equivalent to the teal barter stuff that is not that much worse and the teal instance drops will take months and probably until well after raid drops to realistically have a build because of the favored loot nonsense.

SSG you can have your cake and eat it too please see this and make favored loot less restricted by raid locks and give mediocre drops instead of coins of gimli for fige (5) cosmetic items that we can all buy several times over by now.

Give us the ability to grind your content again and give us more intermediate loot besides box stuff or a week of dailies.

I want you to succeed. I love this game.

[Brain9H]

Ok, let's sum:

Expectations:

1. Favoured runs have HIGH chance to drop teal gear
2. Not-Favoured runs have ~favoured\2 chance to drop teal gear
3. Favoured system will replace daily locks system
4. Best way to obtain gear - instances (no P2W)

Reality:

1. Favoured runs have very low chance to drop teal gear
2. Not-Favoured runs have close to 0% chance to drop teal\purple gear
3. Instead of 7-per-week T2 Seregost runs we have only 2-per-week T2 Runs
4. Best way to obtain gear - upcoming vendor (means you need to buy keys, P2W)

What you did - is created FAKE system where you can loot chests whenever you want but without getting any loot.
Favoured runs now have LOWER drop rates than not favoured should be.



PS: read instance feedback on BR forums, because it seems like it was ignored, especially for T2 Caverns

Perfect.

[Oddessia]

I was going to start my own post on this but everything I thought of to say has been stated by others more clearly.

Reading all this actually gives me anxiety. TWENTY ONE instance runs (PER WEEK) to get 2500 embers...that doesn't even get you ONE teal piece!? Seriously!? Im so flabbergasted that I actually had to read that post 3 times. Im...at a loss for words. Not to mention, thats ONE toon. I have 6 now at level 115 ready to head into the Iron Hills. So I'm supposed to do 126 instance runs per week and not get 1 piece? I dont know how long the group runs take, 30 min? If they take 30 min that works out to 63 HOURS a week. Last I checked a full-time job is 40 hours a week. Where did this new system come from? As well...Im on a very quiet server. And I mean REALLY quiet...group runs dont really happen there. Pugs are nearly non-existent.

The weekly crafting for embers quest requiring SEVEN dwarrowgleam shards, that makes my heart hurt. Guess I'm writing that quest off as a no-go. I just finished all the content last night. Loved it. Farmed every freaking node in every place, did every single quest and instance. I have a grand total of TWO shards. So I can do 1/4 of the weekly quest. Fantastic.

We dont have essences craftable yet, though they are coming. Will they also require a dwarrowgleam shard? Will they be single use and bartered with longbeards tokens that we get TWO AT A TIME? Speaking of tokens...

...To beat another dead horse, I DID indeed hit longbeards token cap before I hit kindred. And I can quote Tyber saying "We have heard your feedback on this, and it is not our intention for you to earn tokens and not be able (have the required reputation) to spend them before reaching a cap. For now, the team is going to increase the cap for Marks of the Longbeards to 400." Huh...so um...come again?

Gear not being disenchantable...this was the final piece for me. I get a lovely pair of might leggings...on my RK. Purple vendor trash, since I cant disenchant, cant send them to guard - nothing. There goes any and all incentive for me to do the instances or gear a toon at all. When Osgiliath released I farmed those 3 instances for the teal gear daily, it was fun. I was raid geared on all alts. Mordor same thing. In fact it wasnt until just 1 month ago that I completed raid gearing all my alts. Thats over a year...point being there was plenty of options to get gear for all sorts of players and good incentive and I did it all. I loved it. I was not bored.

And then we have this new system and sadly, I'm pulling out of gearing and raiding entirely. I'm not pulling my sub because I adore this game and want it to get BETTER, and funds are needed for that and I'll continue to support it. But this...actually makes me so disappointed, that I'll not be running any instances or gearing any alts at all. They'll sit at 120 with their teal raid gear from Abyss and....wait for the next level increase.

In nearly 8 years of playing this awesome game, I've never once NOT run the instance content. This is going to sound a bit dramatic but I actually feel almost "punished" for running instances. I understand you guys want players to run the content, and you can see that determination in every decision made for this update, but the pendulum has swung so far in the opposite direction that it went from being fun to absolutely depressing. This gearing system is so incredibly restrictive and limiting, the grind pendulum has gone waaaay too far and actually caused me to quit before I even begin. This is absolutely a first.

Ody

P.S. Just so I dont sound like a complete crone, I have to say I really like the *idea* of the favoured loot chest openings etc. I think its a great middle ground. Alas its really not working as it should/sounded like it would. Im hoping this is a bug, because I see real potential for that system. However currently its...really not good. Okay so I still sound like a crone...lol.

[Lord.Funk]

...

P.S. Just so I dont sound like a complete crone, I have to say I really like the *idea* of the favoured loot chest openings etc. I think its a great middle ground. Alas its really not working as it should/sounded like it would. Im hoping this is a bug, because I see real potential for that system. However currently its...really not good. Okay so I still sound like a crone...lol...

So true. It sounded so good. A way that if You have alot of time one day, You could run the content multiple times rather than clocking in once a day, but at the same time those that prefer to play only once a day could do so too and all would be equally rewarded. That is what it sounded like. Nothing about removing being able to ash (ember) purple gear or that the resets would be fewer than before during 1 week. I expected it do be at least 7 runs within a week, then if do 7 in one day, or 3 one day, 4 another etc would be up to each individulal. Instead what we got was nothing like that. Rewards have been totally NERFED even when having favoured loot, no way to turn purple gear into embers. It has become so it feel like we have even stricter "locks" than once a day even if they are not acctual "locks". No point running it at all when loot is so bad and what You get have wrong stats and canned even be turned into embers. Defensive stats on agility gear even if Youre a hunter or burglar etc. The system does not work the way it was announced to work.

[ColMcStacky]

I just don't understand the thought process involved here. Haven't they learned anything from when they refused to listen to player feedback during the Helm's Deep expansion and lost 1/3 to 1/2 the playerbase within a month or two of launch? What about Mordor, where instead of a mass exodus, it was a slow but steady trickle?

Listen to the people who pay your salaries, and things will go well.

I refuse to believe they are dumb enough to not understand what we meant when we argued against the daily loot locks from Mordor. They have to know what we meant because we spelled it out in a way that a five-year-old would be able to understand, and yet they didn't listen. I don't understand how they can't see that purposefully and maliciously lying to their customers about the products we are buying will inevitably end up shooting them in the foot.

If they don't fix the ridiculous grind they introduced with u23, I really need to find something else to do because this game is only getting worse every year. And I can't be the only person who feels this way either. I cancelled my VIP with Mordor because although I thought the initial launch was great, I was so disappointed by every subsequent patch a little bit more and finally had enough of showing support for that ####. I haven't bought a single key, and never will. I've played this game since the end of RoI, and never really stopped no matter how bad things got until recently with Northern Mirkwood. Is this really what they want? Players to feel like they are getting screwed?



And I'm not ragging on everything about u23, only the end-game grind that they introduced in a not-so-subtle attempt to force people to buy keys from the store. The landscape/worldbuilding/story arcs are very well done in this update in particular. It's clear that there are some devs who work at SSG who still love lotro, MadeOfLions being one of the first who springs to mind, but why do you guys continually shoot yourselves in the foot when it comes to feedback? We aren't trying to screw you, we are trying to help you. We want this game to be as good as we know it can be, but you just won't help us make this happen. It's not a bad thing to admit you made a mistake, and it's not a bad thing to roll back on something you've implemented. Running a business is a two-way street; if you show loyalty to your customers/playerbase, we will do the same for you.

[Oddessia]

And I'm not ragging on everything about u23, only the end-game grind that they introduced in a not-so-subtle attempt to force people to buy keys from the store. The landscape/worldbuilding/story arcs are very well done in this update in particular.

Well said. There are TONS of things I love about this update. The world building continues to wow me, Im never disappointed in the landscape. Story is always incredible. Music is always breathtaking. Cosmetics are always wonderful. Great new housing textures! I could go on, and have on another thread.

I just wanted to be clear - the only thing I despise about this update is the sudden massive surge in grind/restrictions/limitations. I quest through this beautiful place and hit grind-wall at 120...and stop.

[Brain9H]

Instance drops that are not disenchantable is pure sadism. We are already limited by favoured chests / chest locks and abysmal drop rates, at least allow us to get something out of our time spent if the gear is not what we need.

ps: out of 10 drops as a champion, I got 9 for tank spec (which I'm not) and just 1 for dps. Either drop boxes of gear (there is a box of shields, why not have for other slots?) or allow us to disenchant.

ps2: duo version rewarding the same loot as 3-man is just wrong, imo. The larger the group, the better the rewards should be.

[Laurelinarien]

So, after running 4 of my 9 lvls 115 thru the new update, here's what I was left with:

• No teal gear with slots except the Cloak from Black Book, which as we all know, is wrongly labelled and doesn't take new essences.
• Purple essences absent from barterers & crafts, so relying on random lucky drops.
• Crafting resource instances that reward 15 to 20 mats each - 3x5 or 4x5 (if you count the scourge)- so that's 45 to 60 raw mats (you need 50 processed components for your recipes).
• Speaking of recipes: 1 Dwarrowmark or dwarf-fragment (name's not decided upon) that comes from completing 20 tasks so, let's say, you get 1 every 2 days.
• 3 Dwarrowshards PER armor piece + 2 PER jewellry piece = 18 for a full armor set + 14 per jewellry set (not counting pocket/off-hand/shield/instrument coz I don't remember off the top of my head. So, each toon for 1 set needs 32 shards (give or take 3-4 more). Again, you rely on luck, time spent farming nodes outside the instances and the rare cache that you get maybe every 2 days.

What I do feel is punished for having alts, whether I run instances with them or not, I do like keeping them decent enough in case I need to fill in a role.

[Gildintar]

LOL

[Hephburz-2]

Still no @Developer update on this sham of a system?

Nice communication.

[Laurelinarien]

LOL

Top-endgame grinders FTW