Patch tomorrow

[Elenluin-Menelloth]

The rep grinds you are talking about are completely optional and can be tackled on 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.

OK I'm sorry for calling you a troll. I'm pretty upset because of this because until I heard about it I was happily enjoying my return to playing.

The problem is not you having an unpopular opinion but that you seem to be trying do downplay how much some people would be affected by the removal of these tomes. I was despairing at leveling the crafting guilds in the amount of time I get to play before I remembered the tomes were there. I didn't have enough marks to hoard them either.

[Arnenna]

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.

F2P doesn't paint a good future. It's free.

[Rogdush]

P2W Virtues acceleration...
P2W essences...
and now
P2W reputation accels...

what next?
U made Hor incredibly hard and stupid in comparision to drop quality and progression place. Will we see gold tracery token in store soon? maybe gold tracery random craap box which drop evasion and parry 90% of time for 1k LP?

I almost could understand removing those rep tomes from skirmcamps as i dont remember when i was earning any rep without them.. its just got so cheap. The problem is that we cant buy anything else from skirmcamp that is reasonable except reclamation scrolls (those gonna get removed also? already in store...)

I am playing VIP from begining, bought loads of stuff from store like spaces, maybe a mount but willl never be incentivized to by any accel tomes.
I guess it was not encouragement to do missions for those tomes lol, they just said it stays there.
No one reasoinable will think to do missions. There is nothing more stupid in this game than gundabad missions. Its like digging a hole in water. Annak missions were even doable, when you could do 3 missions each day in less than a minute each. This is acceptable grind, but when u add 15 minutes missions EACH for COMPLETELY NOTHING, we will show u middle finger. I just did it with pain for deed. Never launching this craap again. At least those marks or something that drops from missions could be useful.. but it seems only one thing is useful at the end, LP LP LP LP. All those marks and coins we gather in-game is useless craap. Nothing to buy for it, not even 1 enchantment rune.

Why you ruining the game? Cant you give us carrot instead of stick every time lately ? The heck is happening? Why you destroying such great game? So many years... Im not talking about just rep tomes, its not the first change you made stinking. You tried to remove embers from gear.. you removed everything useful from crafting, you removed empos from trade, you removed essences from crafting.. there is literally nothing to put on auction now. Earlier we could put crafting LI, crafting gear, ingredients, empos.. shards were even usable lol. Nothing now, just you redirect everything to store. This is so disturbing and sad.

[Trixie_Me]

No one reasoinable will think to do missions. There is nothing more stupid in this game than gundabad missions. Its like digging a hole in water. Annak missions were even doable, when you could do 3 missions each day in less than a minute each. This is acceptable grind, but when u add 15 minutes missions EACH for COMPLETELY NOTHING, we will show u middle finger.

FWIW, you can still run Annak-Khurfu missions for the weekly 15 and 45 quests. You don't need to run Gundabad missions at all. They only thing you get from specifically running Gundabad missions is the teal rep item. That's it. So AK, Bilbo, Tresslebridge, etc all still work toward the weekly. Nothing has changed in that regard.

[tanlis]

FWIW, you can still run Annak-Khurfu missions for the weekly 15 and 45 quests. You don't need to run Gundabad missions at all. They only thing you get from specifically running Gundabad missions is the teal rep item. That's it. So AK, Bilbo, Tresslebridge, etc all still work toward the weekly. Nothing has changed in that regard.

Next update:

* Only Gundabad mission quest counts towards the weekly 15 and 45 quests if you're max level.

[Brinswith]

OK I'm sorry for calling you a troll. I'm pretty upset because of this because until I heard about it I was happily enjoying my return to playing.

The problem is not you having an unpopular opinion but that you seem to be trying do downplay how much some people would be affected by the removal of these tomes. I was despairing at leveling the crafting guilds in the amount of time I get to play before I remembered the tomes were there. I didn't have enough marks to hoard them either.

Hopefully they will see the player response here is largely negative towards the changes and row back on them as they did when they wanted to change them initially. The response to it is also borne out of the fear that if they remove these on a whim without much thought then they might also remove the only other item people use skirmish currency for. Which would impact everyone in the game new or old, hoarder or not. We continue to see the value of our earned currency eroded to the point that it is worthless despite it still being given out at all levels. All of it largely gets redirected towards the store either by direct removal of useful items such as the rep tomes or indirectly by locking the best gear behind a large ember grind with a 10k cap and pushing out mounts and pets locked behind black steel keys and lootboxes.

There are those that probably don't care either as seen in this thread but to them I would ask why would you want something that removes a huge amount of grind (optional or not) taken away from the players when we should be encouraging SSG to make all grind in the game easier for all.

[Arnenna]

FWIW, you can still run Annak-Khurfu missions for the weekly 15 and 45 quests. You don't need to run Gundabad missions at all. They only thing you get from specifically running Gundabad missions is the teal rep item. That's it. So AK, Bilbo, Tresslebridge, etc all still work toward the weekly. Nothing has changed in that regard.

They still work for weekly wrappers, but none of those mission barters have had their rewards upgraded to include level 140 items. Its a very obvious and clear picture that they are painting for themselves.

[Bothketbog]

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

Gee, how awful, for a company to want to earn more money. Do you even understand how business works?

[Arnenna]

Hopefully they will see the player response here is largely negative towards the changes and row back on them as they did when they wanted to change them initially. The response to it is also borne out of the fear that if they remove these on a whim without much thought then they might also remove the only other item people use skirmish currency for. Which would impact everyone in the game new or old, hoarder or not. We continue to see the value of our earned currency eroded to the point that it is worthless despite it still being given out at all levels. All of it largely gets redirected towards the store either by direct removal of useful items such as the rep tomes or indirectly by locking the best gear behind a large ember grind with a 10k cap and pushing out mounts and pets locked behind black steel keys and lootboxes.

There are those that probably don't care either as seen in this thread but to them I would ask why would you want something that removes a huge amount of grind (optional or not) taken away from the players when we should be encouraging SSG to make all grind in the game easier for all.

I doubt they will revert this. The way they left the announcement until the last minute, means that they had no way to read the feedback before the downtime (that will be the claim made anyway). The change will already be in place by the time they respond here, if they respond at all.

Grind is going to get worse, and it will all come with paid bypass. its the direction the game has been going in for the last three years, but particularly in the last 18 months.

This is clawback for all the giveaways, but without any thought for all the players that didn't benefit at all from those giveaways and had bought everything.

I'll be holding fire on the next expansion for sure. Wait long enough and they will give it away, as already predicted by some on these boards. Then, when they claw back to make up the shortfall, I won't feel so shafted.

[Brinswith]

Gee, how awful, for a company to want to earn more money. Do you even understand how business works?

I don't think anyone begrudges SSG making money. If we did we wouldn't have a game. But practices such as this when people are calling out for more storage, more carry all's, more cosmetics to be added or put back into the store make no sense at all.

[Hephburz-2]

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.

Yes. Reputations are easy, when you only have to do them on one character.
Yes. It's entirely optional, when the reputations themselves aren't endgame gated or offer anything rewarding.
Then, your argument has merit.

But when you have people who play countless alts, who want to be competitive at endgame, which, generally at the start of new expansions more or less requires you to max your standing with the newest faction, it's an absolute slog. It forces people into questing who might otherwise choose to level via other means, because now they have to quest to get the rep, because they can't just cheese it via tasks, or dailies with accelerators (I mean they still can, it will now just take twice as long, and it already took long enough doing it that way).
There is no realistic argument for their reason to remove these items. They have existed for as long as I can remember, and if they were not a problem then, they are not a problem now. They tried to get rid of them once before and there was significant uproar on the forums - like now - which resulted in them being made to Bound to Account - now, yet again they are trying to sneak through their removal on a days notice.

Talk about screw over your playerbase. They knew this would be an unpopular change hence why Cordovan hasn't been back online on the forums since posting the patch notes. They are fully aware their playerbase is going to drag them over the coals for this change.
Defend them if you want, but there is no reasonable argument for their removal.

In effect, all this does, is screw over their new playerbase anyway, because veterans most likely have upwards of hundreds of thousands to millions of marks, as their hasn't been a use for them (aside from reclamation scrolls) since the new LI system. So, I'm set, I went and bartered 5000 last night, I won't need any for a good while. I feel sorry for the newcomers though

[Echoweaver]

To redirect a bit from the armchair financial planning, I think the biggest problem here is that skirmish marks are a game-wide currency (including endgame), and we need fun things to buy with them. I'm perfectly happy if we have different things to buy with them that are fun. In addition to marks being a frequent reward from hobbit gifts, I run a lot of skirmishes with my kid. They're a lot of fun.

Come to think of it, I would probably become their fangirl if they just provided a conversion between skirmish marks and figments.

We could also consolidate currencies and just have skirmishes reward motes or something? I do believe in currency consolidation. Heck, I'd be thrilled to see most bartering just done with motes. Faction bartering already has most stuff gated behind reputation tiers, and removing the bajilion different currencies all basically doing the same thing in difference places would streamline the game a lot.

My read of this change is that it's another attempt to direct players to recent content for rewards. I'll also point out that I do not love dailies/weeklies. This game has a ton of variety, and the last thing I want to be doing is the same thing I was doing yesterday. Missions are more fun than some incarnations of dailies. I tend to do a bunch an enjoy them, then burn out for a good while. I want to be able to get most of what I want out of the game by running unique content and group stuff (repeated or not, because no group is ever truly a repeat).

[StinkyGreene]

Why you ruining the game? Cant you give us carrot instead of stick every time lately ? The heck is happening? Why you destroying such great game? So many years...

Well, seems pretty clear, that the while the company truly is passionate about the Middle Earth universe, they really don’t know how to actually run a successful business. Understandable, and to be honest, a pretty common small business issue.

Since taking over they have systematically dismantled game mechanics that could be construed as workarounds to the in game store, and pushed people in the front door of the store. Someday, some creative game developer will figure out an original idea (i.e. not already done in World of Warcraft) that makes them money in an MMO, but this is not that day.

[Trixie_Me]

Yes. Reputations are easy, when you only have to do them on one character.
Yes. It's entirely optional, when the reputations themselves aren't endgame gated or offer anything rewarding.
Then, your argument has merit.

But when you have people who play countless alts, who want to be competitive at endgame, which, generally at the start of new expansions more or less requires you to max your standing with the newest faction, it's an absolute slog.

They can't design the game around people with "countless alts." I play a lot of alts, but I do realize that most people don't and making an entire game designed around a bunch of alts just means you don't have enough content for those who play just a character or couple of alts.

I don't like this change. But that doesn't excuse the hyperbole and unrealistic expectations in this thread.

[Calding]

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".

As it is likely my post you are referring to, I believe I am not unjustified in stating that it will hurt the newer players more, since they don't have higher level alts to power them through the zones the were specifically designed to take a long time to get to max rep. Not to sound like a broken record but consider carefully the example I provided of Central Gondor: unless they have changed it, or I was incredibly blind the times I went through it (which I concede is possible as a disjointed casual player) there are a few repeatable daily quests in the area, but they can only be done three times. Then it is just warbands and RTs (unless more repeatable quests show up as you gain rep levels). For the first toon I ran through there I did not know about this so I did not use any rep accelerators and when I finished with all the quests I was not even finished friend rep, so I think I had one RT I could do and otherwise it was running around killing things with no quests to finish just hoping they dropped rep items. That is fine as a level cap zone because you are waiting for the next content, but when the zone no longer is current content as we just supposed to not care if we unlock all the RTs (due to missing rep) so that we can't run RTs with friends at a later date?

I contend that it will in fact hurt the new players to the game, but I suppose your argument that they will not know it was every any different is also true. It will still accentuate the grind IMHO and then they will hit MT as see that there are not only 4 rep level but 6 and not other reason to run dailies more than a couple times.

I will concede though that it is their choice if they want to limit the rep tokens to the store, they do need to make money, but as has been pointed out in many other posts there are other ways and items that people have already been for that could be placed in the store to increase sales.

Just trying to explain my opinion, not trying to be argumentative.

[Curuer_Bauglir]

Gee, how awful, for a company to want to earn more money. Do you even understand how business works?

Successful businesses generate revenue by offering new products rather than taking existing products away from the consumer. Do you understand how businesses work?

[Arnenna]

Defend them if you want, but there is no reasonable argument for their removal.

In effect, all this does, is screw over their new playerbase anyway, because veterans most likely have upwards of hundreds of thousands to millions of marks, as their hasn't been a use for them (aside from reclamation scrolls) since the new LI system. So, I'm set, I went and bartered 5000 last night, I won't need any for a good while. I feel sorry for the newcomers though

There is no valid argument for their removal other than the blatantly obvious one, which I doubt they will ever utter.

And as for bartering before the rug pull, same here. Shame our new player friends didn't have the chance to do the same.

[Neinda]

I will say thank you SSG. I have gone from having three accounts. 2 were VIP and the 3rd was going to be VIP until the legendary item changes. Only 1 is VIP now and the auto renew has been turned off. I am happy to say, all these nickel and dime "mobile game" changes have saved me money. I have not spent any money on this game since November. I have not purchased any lotro points. To be honest, I cannot think of anything I purchased in the lotro store except for maybe a rally horn. Nothing to buy these days. No reason to spend money when you make basic things in game pay to win and cosmetics and horses being gamble to win via loot boxes are a non-starter for me. End game content is dead unless you are a devoted raider. Lower level content just got to be more of a grind by taking away the rep tomes. I cannot imagine a world where I would pay real money for those in your store. I cannot imagine a world where I will spend money to buy a loot box key for a very small chance of getting a cosmetic or special pet. I would have spent money in the lotro store to buy the pets and horses. Give us a break SSG. I know you think we can be "tricked" into buying stuff in the store but look at your numbers lately. How many long time players are still paying for the game? How long do the new players stay before they move on? The mobile game set from what I have seen plays the game until it costs actual money and then they move elsewhere. This is a game where you want to encourage people to stay and be invested in their characters and the game. Unless you are aiming for a small player base of individuals who spend real money vs a full game world you have missed the mark here. Maybe that is your goal. Fewer players but the few that remain spend money on things like gambling and pay to win.

And the reward track, nice system where people have to throw away what they earn because you give us things and then tell us we can't have them because you put a cap in place to prevent us from using what we earned. Afterall, can't have those level 60 characters running around with good weapons and heaven forbid if someone hits level cap and has an LI full of yellow and purple traceries. The game balance would be out of control.

Thank you again for saving me a significant amount of money.

[marmi]

Yes. Reputations are easy, when you only have to do them on one character.
Yes. It's entirely optional, when the reputations themselves aren't endgame gated or offer anything rewarding.
Then, your argument has merit.

But when you have people who play countless alts, who want to be competitive at endgame, which, generally at the start of new expansions more or less requires you to max your standing with the newest faction, it's an absolute slog. It forces people into questing who might otherwise choose to level via other means, because now they have to quest to get the rep, because they can't just cheese it via tasks, or dailies with accelerators (I mean they still can, it will now just take twice as long, and it already took long enough doing it that way).
There is no realistic argument for their reason to remove these items. They have existed for as long as I can remember, and if they were not a problem then, they are not a problem now. They tried to get rid of them once before and there was significant uproar on the forums - like now - which resulted in them being made to Bound to Account - now, yet again they are trying to sneak through their removal on a days notice.

Talk about screw over your playerbase. They knew this would be an unpopular change hence why Cordovan hasn't been back online on the forums since posting the patch notes. They are fully aware their playerbase is going to drag them over the coals for this change.
Defend them if you want, but there is no reasonable argument for their removal.

In effect, all this does, is screw over their new playerbase anyway, because veterans most likely have upwards of hundreds of thousands to millions of marks, as their hasn't been a use for them (aside from reclamation scrolls) since the new LI system. So, I'm set, I went and bartered 5000 last night, I won't need any for a good while. I feel sorry for the newcomers though

Well said as many other posters too, but I've chosen yours to congratulate for 2k posts as well
I think everything was said already but I just wanted to say I'm joining the club that is cancelling subscription because of that move. Voting with our wallet seems to be necessary to revert that really bad decision.
I will resub once rep tomes come back to skirmish camps (as a start, later you should introduce more useful items there to relive various systems in game instead of killing them).

[TesalionLortus]

REP grinding is trivial with boosters, that's a fact.
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.

I would agree with you 100% and personally - even though my completionism's soul happens to rebel from time to time - I just skip the optional grind when it happens to be too much and not something I'm willing to spend my time/money for. That being said, as a regular player and one who does it all on cap - there are always alternatives in terms of 'story progression' like checking out the part of the storyline on YouTube or something (even though, even on cap!!!, every footage you can find is usually ***t quality and a guy talking all over it not even interested in the quest text, which is why I would prefer all stories behind grinds/rides being true *optional* ones (the Rift is a great example of this) not this *grand finale/post-game/villain resolution* to the entire main storyline/one of the main plot threads. Because this philosophy is creepily bad... in a game that prides itself on its great storytelling and over the years became significantly easier on landscape to accommodate solo players/slow adventurers enjoying Middle-earth.

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".

Now, this statement is NOT true - > that it "won't affect them" Note what I said above and the difficulty I'm experiencing sometimes with content on cap... But new players? Playing though all that old content? Storylines locked behind grind or innis nobody runs will become even more difficult to be followed. I mean, like sure... you can always read LOTRO wiki or something but the wiki doesn't really have all of the story because it doesn't report the in-game dialogs that pop up above heads and doesn't describe scenes that take place. So what others said, good luck for all new players with such 'roadblocks', these would be the biggest issue: Hytbold, Central Gondor, Minas Ithil Reclamation, additional Mission grind in Three Peaks. Probably more that I forgot. Although, if they continue such philosophy, new on-cap areas will then join this list after they're no longer on-cap.

Like, sure, I can even understand end-game grind with story attached so it's more rewarding but with players who aren't on-cap and still have SO MUCH to do in such a vast world and probably willing to continue the story, not pause and grind for weeks on end ... well, creates issues (I understand people being angry due to alt grind, but I focus here only on the biggest narrative issues that would affect new players in ways that they *WOULD* NOTICE)

Other than that... perhaps I would agree, as disappointing as the decision is - however, they should have at least released something like "we also decreased reputation points needed for controversial factions X,Y,Z" alongside the update. And create other alternative ways to obtain tomes, perhaps include them more as rewards in different places, in ways that can't really be farmed. So in regular quests further up the chain, maybe, epics even, etc. So it's not a blatant 'here they are in the store!". Also, promise to decrease the amount of reputation points needed for end-game factions that hold relevant story tie-ins/content after X amount of time so it's immedtiely being fixed as soon as it becomes a problem when content becomes less relevant (once it's not a cap and a chore to grind).

[TesalionLortus]

But when you have people who play countless alts, who want to be competitive at endgame, which, generally at the start of new expansions more or less requires you to max your standing with the newest faction, it's an absolute slog. It forces people into questing who might otherwise choose to level via other means, because now they have to quest to get the rep, because they can't just cheese it via tasks, or dailies with accelerators (I mean they still can, it will now just take twice as long, and it already took long enough doing it that way).

Also, THIS. What I said above and this one, those two are the main things that I'm wondering about in particular. Because I get being 'corpo' and having to find ways to generate money, even if that's cheap online game tactics and paywalls - which are being utilized worldwide because they work, contrary to some people on the forum may think and without delving into the entire 'moral' dillema of this. But that they wouldn't think about those two issues which affect BOTH new players and passionate veterans investing their time (and money) into many alts - and that they haven't come up with any solution to alleviate them before introducing the change - that's a bit... bizarre and like they have no clue, but in all seriousness, they really should have.

[Trixie_Me]

They still work for weekly wrappers, but none of those mission barters have had their rewards upgraded to include level 140 items. Its a very obvious and clear picture that they are painting for themselves.

Well the Gundabad missions reward vendor doesn't have anything you'd really want at 140 anyway, so it doesn't really matter. I've been capped since shortly after launch. Like the the Annak-Khurfu missions, the currency itself is pointless.

[Arnenna]

Well the Gundabad missions reward vendor doesn't have anything you'd really want at 140 anyway, so it doesn't really matter. I've been capped since shortly after launch. Like the the Annak-Khurfu missions, the currency itself is pointless.

And you think this a good thing?

Maybe its the long haitus that you took away from the game, but back when LOTRO wasn't what it is today, at level cap, the objective was to do something, and earn a reward from doing it. It was real simple. Level to the new cap, run the content to earn rep, then start the repeatable dailies/instances to earn the coin to barter for level cap, appropriate rewards.

In contrast to that, we now level to the new cap, earning around half the rep via the content, then start the repeatable dailies/instances that carry no reward, but funnel us through a restricted and gated method of earning the second half of that rep which was doubled in size, and even then, there is nothing to barter outside the ember NPC at the end of it.

It just points to two possible things. Either the game is struggling so badly financially they are making these decisions (blatantly) to try saving it - which will fail, because nobody is going to invest heavily into a game that is perceived to be dying. Or, they got greedy, which will also fail, because nobody is going to take that on the chin, especially those that have paid money for years and helped keep this boat afloat.

All the talk we see on these boards - from players that don't know any actual facts - about the game being short of funds, just instils a sense of "Oh dear, not worth investing too heavily in that then" stance. If people actually believe it of course. I'm not convinced. Personally, I think players suggested that concept here on the boards, and SSG are just going with it because it gives them the excuse to execute moves - just like this one.

"Don't worry, just do it. We can get away with it because they all think we need the money to keep the game alive."

[Hephburz-2]

Still loving the radio silence from SSG.

As expected.

[DoRonRon]

It's like they want to control what we do and how we play but no idea how to do either themselves.

Did someone sneak in a line order change in the patch notes? My head is telling me Bridles were below the tome change, eyes something different now. But head is reeling somewhat atm.

I don't want to patch the game. Have nothing to cancel on the my account site, how lagged is that today?

Have my INIs copied and saved but wonder at the though process to cancel the players work arounds to enable them to play in 32-bit when 64 didn't work. No one ever mentions 32-bit files systems, can't imagine they'd work. And if your still using 32bit you're not likely to know it.

I guess I'm asking, is it safe to patch and log in?

P.S. I need a good laugh and figured I get one having a look at the Bridle offerings.