Patch tomorrow

[Vilan]

Guess we can't have any useful things to buy at the skirm camp anymore... I know what I'll be tossing my marks and medallions into tonight.

- Small Reputation Accelerator Tomes have been removed from the Skirmish camp curiosities vendors. They can still be obtained from weekly Missions in the "Missions: Bonus Character Boosts" package.

https://www.lotro.com/update-notes/l...lease-notes-en

[Brinswith]

Guess we can't have any useful things to buy at the skirm camp anymore... I know what I'll be tossing my marks and medallions into tonight.

- Small Reputation Accelerator Tomes have been removed from the Skirmish camp curiosities vendors. They can still be obtained from weekly Missions in the "Missions: Bonus Character Boosts" package.

https://www.lotro.com/update-notes/l...lease-notes-en

Can't understand this move at all. It was bad enough when they made them bind to account.

[-RF-]

- Small Reputation Accelerator Tomes have been removed from the Skirmish camp curiosities vendors. They can still be obtained from weekly Missions in the "Missions: Bonus Character Boosts" package.

Tell me you hate your players without telling me you hate your players.

[sazupt]

They can still be obtained from weekly Missions in the "Missions: Bonus Character Boosts" package.

1 per week?

might as well buy them from the store inst... ah, there you have it.


On a totally unrelated news, expect 10 factions for next expansion

[littlesquinky]

Can't understand this move at all. It was bad enough when they made them bind to account.

They want more money, and are desperate enough to post an announcement like this the day before the update. Bad sign about business continuity.

[Neinda]

This is because they don't have a cap on skirmish marks. They make sure there is absolutely nothing you can buy with them. Earn as much of the currency as you want. SSG will make sure it is useless currency while they cap everything else. HA HA HA! Nice to see they want us to run missions which are in no way, shape or form fun. You don't get enough of any reward running missions to make them worth the time required to complete them and hey, this is an MMO, let's make solo missions more important than group content lol.

[DarthVitrial]

I was really happy to see the patch notes for the bridle changes...then I saw the note on rep tomes.
Whyyyyyyy.
Those were the only things I ever bought from skirmish camps and they made the rep grind so much more tolerable, why would they remove those?
I really hope they reconsider that change.

[Crazen]

Props to SSG, you guys know how to piss off the hard-core players to the casuals with one move. It's amazing how out of touch you guys are with the community sometimes.

[Mestari]

- Small Reputation Accelerator Tomes have been removed from the Skirmish camp curiosities vendors. They can still be obtained from weekly Missions in the "Missions: Bonus Character Boosts" package.

Absolutely bad change, either increase the cost (add seals to cost and make them sell-able) or imo keep them as they are. Catching up on reps is bad enough, especially when there is weekly ember quest behind major rep grind, crafting recipes (please add essence slot to crafted bracers so we have some other than yellow rep bracers at 140 also add bracers to dungeon t3+ pool, with essence slots). The old world will also see more players and feel more alive if players have more incentive to grind old reputations, which rep boosters give motivation to do so. Also the sudden removal without any signs about removal, is a big L to those whom cannot be online right now stocking on the rep tomes (like me, who just bough 700 of em).

Also, going forward, now that you have gained players please if you make these controversial decisions tell us why you do these and what do you hope to accomplish with these decisions.

EDIT: One possible route is also adding rep tokens for each rep to skirm vendors.

[Aleziana]

Good luck cap-ing celebrated.

Can you just remove every premium perk plz? if you start doing something do it RIGHT

Having items like tome of attack damage and tome of defenses that gives extra stats its totally unfair. Hight tier raiders requires you to have such tomes. Not only you have to farm endless end game content but you also have to farm lotro points. Pay to win is bad for the game and i believe you ain't make enough from his.

So just keep the game clean from p2w systems like stat tomes, rep tomes etc completely and try to get some money from giving quality.

If nothing of the above works for you the least you can do is to get a solution. You cann't expect to farm up to kindred the "Men of the Norcrofts?" with every alt we/will have. :S

[littlesquinky]

Btw SSG thanks for posting this at EU night time, great job, acting in shadows.

[Findulas]

As stated, it was bad enough when they made them bind to account. It wasn't hurting anything the way they were and helping us alt-aholics make reputation grind so much easier. Yep, my get up and go...just got up and left.

[Neinda]

Instead of coming up with something people buy from the stores like carry alls or developing new items to buy, SSG chose the easy route. Let's take away things people use and if they still want them hope people will buy them from the store. This is not the way to get me to spend money. This is the way to get me to try other games. Basic game play is getting to be so much like mobile games. Need rep, buy a tome from the store. Need armor, buy keys from the store to get embers from loot boxes. Weapons, the store will have something for you. Need whatever to continue playing, the store has it. And while you are at it, run solo missions for the next several months and you might get enough to progress your character.

I understand the need to make money. I suspect SSG would make more money if they focused on things people might want to buy. Focusing on needing the store for game play, armor, weapons and so on makes people look elsewhere. Plenty of games out there to choose from and I used to play here to avoid the mobile game atmosphere.

SSG, you really need to consider why people have been playing this game for years. You have made end game content doable by a select few and you have currency caps that no one has ever actually explained to us. Now you take away something that people actually buy with the one currency that is not capped.

Decisions like this are why I only play one out of my three accounts and I will not be renewing VIP on the paid accounts. It is not worth it when you want me to run silly solo missions and buy my armor via loot boxes and the keys from the store.

I look forward to see what you will move to pay to win next. Maybe you could make all stable points pay to use? I could picture a bus pass type system we could buy monthly to use stables vs single charge per use. Charge us to continue playing after so many deaths in game? Bring back stat penalties aka dread when we die and make it only removable by spending money in the store? Those would be more great ideas.

[Elenluin-Menelloth]

Really weird and upsetting change from you guys. I just got VIP and was starting to level my crafting guilds with these tomes.

If you wanted to give incentive to get VIP you could have given some reputation bonuses per month to them. This seems to be an underhanded move.

[TobiasEstForte]

I challenge any developer to obtain kindred on Wildermore Survivors without questioning "Why?" Trust me, get back to us in a month or so because it'll literally take you weeks. Even without that specific grind, there has to be upwards of 25 factions in this game now and the sheer amount of time to kindred (or celebrated) each one is at least somewhat alleviated by that.

Last time changes were proposed we had several days to convince you to compromise, I guess now the tactic is just plop it the night before so we can't do diddly squat.

[WeirdJedi]

This is much, much worse than what we saw in Bullroarer Update 28.3: https://forums.lotro.com/forums/show...eview-1-CLOSED.

"Small Reputation Accelerator Tomes offered on Skirmish Vendors now Bind to character on acquire and have a Max Usage Level of 100."

At least they compromised by only making them account-bound.

I want skirmishes to succeed again. I love them more than Instances and Epic Battles. But every year I feel like the entire system is being torn apart little-by-little. I saw a problem the moment the skirmish upgrade had to be purchased outside the Mordor expansion. Optional gear has pretty much disappeared from the Skirmish Camp. The legendary items were removed (mostly because it wasn't necessary for some of those items anymore). Skirmish Soldiers weren't even updated after the expansion. Ill Omens Event was postponed.

I think this has to do with the fact that we can earn lots of marks and medallions, most of them outside skirmishes. Believe me, I doubt most people even pay attention to how many they are earning every time they run the raid each week. There is no limit on the number you can collect. I admire them increasing the resolution to the decorations. I like that you can buy bulk recipes, crafting crit items, and early level reputation tokens. I had hoped you would do more for skirmishes, instead of shifting to this new mission system. But I guess it is easier to remove things first and worry about adding things later.

[Burzdolion]

What is the point of endgame content providing skirmish marks when you remove one of the primary items to buy?

Another terrible idea by SSG. On a roll this year.

[Thugalvald]

I'm not sure who in the studio decided this but he must be a genius

[Luthrienn]

Yeh, I don't like it when games try to funnel you into activities .. feels like a move to make people more active with Missions, which are a small circle to keep people moving in.

A poor decision by whoever made it.

[jevvy]

Who thought up this stupid idea? Removing rep accelerators from skirm camps?

I have over 3 million marks and 570k meds... what else am I supposed to spend them on (not saying the one other thing incase you add that to your stupid idea list)?
Nothing in the camp is end game stuff, not even the latest shards are in there

AND on top of that you give us marks and meds as rewards for instance completion - and now nothing to spend them on

PATHETIC idea.. can tell you lot don't actually play the game.


What is wrong with having multiple ways of getting stuff? Marks and Stupid mission rewards?

HONESTLY< this goes down in your "very stupid - not-very-well-thought-out-idea" book..

[jevvy]

Btw SSG thanks for posting this at EU night time, great job, acting in shadows.

Totally agree... very sneaky and not very nice

[Detective0]

LMAO

[LostAleph]

AND on top of that you give us marks and meds as rewards for instance completion - and now nothing to spend them on

Can we PLEASE, FINALLY, address this? Other than 2 or 3 items, skirmish camps have had absolutely nothing useful to buy in years....why?

[Karou32]

Really bad idea. Not only does it invalidate the Skirmish Camp completely, since there isn't much to buy from the beginning, but it indirectly pushes you to the shop, since not many do missions.

[Nostro44]

And almost no warning this was going to happen - a lot of people are not going to find out about it until they come to want some more tomes, then they're going to be very angry. One more useful item removed from the game.