Patch tomorrow

[DoRonRon]

Is it around time for the Skirm Event to kick off again, to really twist the knife? I lot of F2P just got access to them after all.

[middlediscworld]

I got a small stockpile of 250 (and 10 I used instantly) for my main. Main faction rep tends to get near-maxxed in a region anyway, more helpful for those you have to do missions for. Not really bothered about rep on my alts - only one of them has even got through Moria, and even then only just.

[the7hing]

If the plan is to make us do more missions, sure.
Put a 1% (ONE PERCENT) cnahse to get golden tracery from weekly quest box, and ppl will do it, with many alts.
Removing tomes and forcing us to farm missions, wont do. And like 1 tome from box ? Like rly ? ....

[DoRonRon]

It's the numbers who didn't get the chance be in the screen shot and are at work now, perhaps even having a good day...

I avoided South Bree camp, figured it would be crowded and laggy. Jumped on a hunter for a quite spot.

If they roll it back, should we then file a ticket to get our Marks/Meds back?

Reduced Awareness seems to be more a metaphor for our devs than the game's performance.

[Gunhard]

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

Devs want to shift accessibility of those items, pretty understandable. But when you know it was easy barteable for years it feels like a loss with miserable offer back. Same with embers from deconstruction. Those things always feel like a loss but when you have something decent in exchange then its fine.

[Curuer_Bauglir]

It's the numbers who didn't get the chance be in the screen shot and are at work now, perhaps even having a good day...

I avoided South Bree camp, figured it would be crowded and laggy. Jumped on a hunter for a quite spot.

If they roll it back, should we then file a ticket to get our Marks/Meds back?

Reduced Awareness seems to be more a metaphor for our devs than the game's performance.

Why would we file a ticket to get marks/meds back? This whole thread has been about them removing the one useful thing from skirm camps. You want to trade back the useful thing if they roll back the changes? You’d rather have a large quantity of marks/meds instead of something useful? That makes it sound like rep accels aren’t even worth having, which is the opposite of the point we’re trying to make.

[DoRonRon]

Because we are only worth mindless clicking for hours on end to them. I was being sarcastic.

But one day I might run low on the stacks of essence/tracery removals I have. I held back on trading seals for that time, will have plenty or Marks/Meds again by then though. And I hope I'm still up to notice the following days' patch note that trashes that purchase, when it comes. When some guy at SSG comes across it and has to break another thing.

[Calding]

It seems that it is becoming evident that they keep making many decisions without considering what it will be like for the player who is experiencing the game for the first time, with no max level cap toons sitting in the wings. You know, the new blood/revenue to the game. (eg: remember when they boldly exclaimed that no one used bridles anymore even though it is part of the storyline).

I challenge anyone in SSG to run through central Gondor (I am sure there are other reputation challenged zones earlier on, but this is the first one I typically soak a bunch of rep tokens on) on a new toon and tell me what the experience was like getting to kindred rep without access to a stack of reputation tomes. Are you still enjoying the game after doing so? Doing repeatable dailies and weeklies in old zones for increasing faction reputation takes some or all of the enjoyment out of the adventure. It is a good design when that zone is new content, and was for the most part bearable when, combined with rep tokens you could get close to max rep just completing the quests in the region while doing dailies while you were questing there as well. But going back for weeks after you have finished the region to do dailies in order to grind rep really puts a damper on the experience.

[Elesthor]

It seems that it is becoming evident that they keep making many decisions without considering what it will be like for the player who is experiencing the game for the first time, with no max level cap toons sitting in the wings. You know, the new blood/revenue to the game. (eg: remember when they boldly exclaimed that no one used bridles anymore even though it is part of the storyline).

Actually it's the old players leveling their 15th alt that are complaining.
I wouldn't dare suggest to a new player to stand on a skirmish camp clicking "very slowly" to get 1000p rep boosters one by one for hours to raise their reputation a bit faster. They'd understandably uninstall the next minute.
As it was, it was one of the problematic aspects of the game.

I only agree that they should have communicated the change a bit better, maybe by explaining their reasoning.

[Fiberadam]

It is just by sheer luck I had a quiet moment at work and thought I would peruse the forums and discovered this was occurring. Thankfully I am still WFH and was able to log in and go through the tedious task of bartering for the rep tomes. Had I been in the office I would have completely missed out as my finishing time is after the time of shutdown.

Only reasons I can see for this happening is more of a money grab. I also noticed in the Gundabad expansion that using mithril to complete a quest is now using 5 tokens instead of previously 1 for other landscapes. So the more you use the quicker you burn through and have to purchase. Unfortunately for me I get lost rolling over in bed and using the mithril to get through some of the earlier landscapes, for me, was a bit of a necessity.

I am not going to grind the boring missions any more to get 1 rep tome. I grinded endlessly in Elderslade to get all my virtues up and quite frankly it burnt me out.

Making me work harder to achieve goals is not going to make me come on more, quite the opposite. I feel there is enough grind in the game at top level that it leaves very little (if any) time to level up the new class Brawler.

[DoRonRon]

maybe by explaining their reasoning.

We're all wondering what that's going to look like. Going to be a load of popcorn covering our keyboards for that.

Could still be a blindside for the bridles replacements coming in. A quick roll back and job done.

[EU_Macfeast]

Actually it's the old players leveling their 15th alt that are complaining.
I wouldn't dare suggest to a new player to stand on a skirmish camp clicking "very slowly" to get 1000p rep boosters one by one for hours to raise their reputation a bit faster. They'd understandably uninstall the next minute.
As it was, it was one of the problematic aspects of the game.

I only agree that they should have communicated the change a bit better, maybe by explaining their reasoning.

If the slow bartering for rep boosters was considered an issue, then the solution should have been to either give us larger rep boosters to barter for, or to lower the reputation requirements altogether. The solution they have chosen instead is going to leave the new players short from completing a number of factions once they start progressing past Volume 1 and 2 - factions which old players know from experience to use rep boosters for - which will give them the impression that they will need to grind to finish a lot of content, even old content; this strikes me as more likely to scare new players away, than telling them that "you can barter for rep boosters with non-store currency earned by playing". The solution they have chosen does nothing to streamline the experience for new players, it is a net negative for new and old players alike.

[banjak]

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

It's got Raninia written all over it.

[loganwolfpack]

I play 5 accounts, 2 LT and 3 VIP...I will not pay for VIP any longer. So nearly 36 $ less income, which is not much but with others you loose with your stupid ideas i doubt that you compansate that by selling more reputation accelerations at the shop. You tried this move once and got a lot of negative feedback now you do it again without even informing most of the european playerbase in advance. Excuse me me but what reactions do you expect?

[Elesthor]

If the slow bartering for rep boosters was considered an issue, then the solution should have been to either give us larger rep boosters to barter for, or to lower the reputation requirements altogether. The solution they have chosen instead is going to leave the new players short from completing a number of factions once they start progressing past Volume 1 and 2 - factions which old players know from experience to use rep boosters for - which will give them the impression that they will need to grind to finish a lot of content, even old content; this strikes me as more likely to scare new players away, than telling them that "you can barter for rep boosters with non-store currency earned by playing". The solution they have chosen does nothing to streamline the experience for new players, it is a net negative for new and old players alike.

REP grinding is trivial with boosters, that's a fact.
Given the fact that the game showers you with Marks, even the most casual of the players always had rep boosters on.
Removing the tedium of having to buy hundreds of 1000p boosters "veeeeery slowly" and making the REP grind non trivial is hitting two birds with one stone really.

The only REP that matters anyway is the end-game Gundabad one allowing you to trade for embers, and with boosters you could get to max before even hitting 140, lol.

[middlediscworld]

Only reasons I can see for this happening is more of a money grab. I also noticed in the Gundabad expansion that using mithril to complete a quest is now using 5 tokens instead of previously 1 for other landscapes. So the more you use the quicker you burn through and have to purchase. Unfortunately for me I get lost rolling over in bed and using the mithril to get through some of the earlier landscapes, for me, was a bit of a necessity.

Think it was always more in the newest zone. 2 initially, then changed to 5 from Helms Deep onwards.

[Elesthor]

Only reasons I can see for this happening is more of a money grab. I also noticed in the Gundabad expansion that using mithril to complete a quest is now using 5 tokens instead of previously 1 for other landscapes. So the more you use the quicker you burn through and have to purchase. Unfortunately for me I get lost rolling over in bed and using the mithril to get through some of the earlier landscapes, for me, was a bit of a necessity.

Imagine paying money to NOT play the game...

[Brinswith]

Imagine paying money to NOT play the game...

With 8 posts since 2012 and 5 of them in this thread calling out people for rightly asking SSG to explain this change and why they have made it when the rep grind is a real concern for a lot of people, - If it wasn't you wouldn't see the amount of panic that was shown both in the WC and at the Skirmish camps since the announcement was made - You'll forgive me for considering anything you say as being nothing but a very poor attempt to bait people.

The rep grind is horrible for a lot of the factions post level 100. Rep boosters eased that. Making them bound to account is one thing. They initially wanted to cap them at level 100 but thankfully they walked back on that. To fully remove them without any justification or communication is really poor from SSG but as we have seen recently all too common these days. I recall a time when Turbine and their Dev team actively engaged with their players. Developers where encouraged to talk to us about what we wanted to see and why they were making changes and they came to the forums with enthusiasm. Now all we get is silence.

[Elenluin-Menelloth]

With 8 posts since 2012 and 5 of them in this thread calling out people for rightly asking SSG to explain this change and why they have made it when the rep grind is a real concern for a lot of people, - If it wasn't you wouldn't see the amount of panic that was shown both in the WC and at the Skirmish camps since the announcement was made - You'll forgive me for considering anything you say as being nothing but a very poor attempt to bait people.

The rep grind is horrible for a lot of the factions post level 100. Rep boosters eased that. Making them bound to account is one thing. They initially wanted to cap them at level 100 but thankfully they walked back on that. To fully remove them without any justification or communication is really poor from SSG but as we have seen recently all too common these days. I recall a time when Turbine and their Dev team actively engaged with their players. Developers where encouraged to talk to us about what we wanted to see and why they were making changes and they came to the forums with enthusiasm. Now all we get is silence.

Yeah I'm also smelling a baiting attempt.

[Elesthor]

With 8 posts since 2012

Thank you for pointing out that I'm an old member here. I've been playing this game on-off since back then. Older actually, I've lost my Codemasters account, but I don't expect you to believe it since you are outright hostile.
I've never really posted on the forums since they are often very toxic for my tastes (as evident here once more).

But God forbid if someone has a different opinion from the masses, they are deemed a troll, their opinion discarded and get bullied back to inactivity. That's one way to be always right...

LOTRO community once again shows their true colors. A sad state since the game is a masterpiece.
Thankfully the new people that are joining everyday, because of the massive improvements to F2P, are diluting the toxicity little by little, so I see hope for the future of the game.

[Brinswith]

Thankfully the new people that are joining everyday, because of the massive improvements to F2P, are diluting the toxicity little by little, so I see hope for the future of the game.

Which when they hit the Minas Tirith and the associated rep grinds will find themselves facing a brick wall made up of months of dailies or the store. When prior to todays patch they would have been able to make both the MT and the following rep grinds a lot smoother by using their marks and medallions to purchase the rep boosters from the Skirmish Camp. I'll not engage with you more as it is clear you are just looking for a fight. Good day to you.

[the7hing]

I wouldn't dare suggest to a new player to stand on a skirmish camp clicking "very slowly" to get 1000p rep boosters one by one for hours to raise their reputation a bit faster.

Watch a movie. Or play other game. Each 10-15 seconds (or slower) fast alt tab to lotro, click FAST 12 times, alt tab back to whatever you are doing.
3000 tomes already. There are ppl with much more but i think 3k are enough.
And about the ppl with 15th alts complaing, you think they have no right ?

[Elesthor]

Which when they hit the Minas Tirith and the associated rep grinds will find themselves facing a brick wall made up of months of dailies or the store. When prior to todays patch they would have been able to make both the MT and the following rep grinds a lot smoother by using their marks and medallions to purchase the rep boosters from the Skirmish Camp. I'll not engage with you more as it is clear you are just looking for a fight. Good day to you.

The rep grinds you are talking about are completely optional and can be tackled at your own pace if you choose to do them.
You can complete the Epic Books, heck you can even get the Skill points locked behind the deeds with no need to max the reps.

It's not a bad thing to have actually put some work to achieve your goals. If it was mandatory, it would have been a different discussion, but it's not.

If you consider me having a different (unpopular) opinion as "looking for a fight" you are only proving my point.

[Arantha]

Hope is for the good of the game. Time will tell

I hope too, but I fear a simple monetization issue

[Elesthor]

And about the ppl with 15th alts complaing, you think they have no right ?

Of course they have every right to voice their opinion.
I was pointing out to another poster, who said that this is bad for newbies, that it's probably the old players, who are doing this for years, that are inconvenienced by this change.
A new player will just do the content they enjoy the most without worrying about "how it once was".