The value of being VIP

[Bryos]

With some of the recent changes to the game (more things free for all players https://www.lotro.com/news/lotro-pro...-march-2022-en), do you feel being VIP has enough value for your money? If not, what are some changes you would like to see which would increase its perceived value for you?

[Laars]

Being a returning VIP after a long absence here seems to be a LOT of changes and a LOT more 'things' to put into storage spaces, for starters I would like to see more slots like a 7th or 8th bag etc.

[SniperCT]

Honestly I'm generally fine with how it is now, but I'm a life-timer so I have absolutely no skin in the game as canceling isn't an option.

Additional bag slots would be nice. (whenever they add 2FA they could incentive it by giving people an extra bag if you have it on your account, too)

Item that boosts epic book quest XP would also be nice (SWTOR once did a thing where if you subscribed you could get to level cap just by playing the class stories + the individual planet stories, so something like that but for Lotro's epic books and certain important storylines like the part where we help reforge narsil would be nice. Making it an item so people who don't want it can ignore it, of course. I'd leave it up to SSG what side quests would be get bonus XP, but the narsil line would be my primary example)

[whisper.earendil]

It's been stated before and I think honestly probably argued to death but what I'd like to see is an update to the gold hobbit presents to make them less random and more rewarding in general. I think you could take about 50% of them out and leave only the good things, and I'd be happy with that.

But I do have 2 founders accounts so like Snipe, I don't really have a dog in this race. I can't vote with my wallet except to not buy expansions with physical money or spend IRL money on points. Still, some of those gold presents are downright insulting. XD;

[Schattenhand]

I would love to have extra VIP rewards on every 5th or 10th level of the reward track

and

a slight overhaul of the perks from the destiny points panel. There should be more ways to get DP overall. Generally it's a cool VIP-feature, but if one only plays cap characters or Creeps, there is no real income.

[Degelhil]

Item that boosts epic book quest XP would also be nice (SWTOR once did a thing where if you subscribed you could get to level cap just by playing the class stories + the individual planet stories, so something like that but for Lotro's epic books and certain important storylines like the part where we help reforge narsil would be nice. Making it an item so people who don't want it can ignore it, of course. I'd leave it up to SSG what side quests would be get bonus XP, but the narsil line would be my primary example)

That would be amazing! If you could enter an epic story mode where the epic quests alone would be enough to reach Level cap (or at least post-ring-era)
Dear devs pleaseeeee take notes! =)

[Cambruyn]

some of those gold presents are downright insulting. XD;

A gifted horse.. but yeah, I can't help but feel disappointed when I get yet another set of Dwarven candles or a silly power/morale pot

[Oelle]

having been VIP recently, I already miss the mobile trader and vault access... And the crafting speed... those were really nice, especially for lower levels and new accounts.

however, I like not getting xp-boosted everyday. without VIP, I' wouldnt have had to buy an exp blocker :P

[SniperCT]

I would love to have extra VIP rewards on every 5th or 10th level of the reward track

and

a slight overhaul of the perks from the destiny points panel. There should be more ways to get DP overall. Generally it's a cool VIP-feature, but if one only plays cap characters or Creeps, there is no real income.

Oh yeah I like both of these ideas.

That would be amazing! If you could enter an epic story mode where the epic quests alone would be enough to reach Level cap (or at least post-ring-era)
Dear devs pleaseeeee take notes! =)

Yeah that's the idea. Great incentive for new or returning players.

having been VIP recently, I already miss the mobile trader and vault access... And the crafting speed... those were really nice, especially for lower levels and new accounts.

however, I like not getting xp-boosted everyday. without VIP, I' wouldnt have had to buy an exp blocker :P

TBF VIP gave you the points to buy the blocker.

I want old style rested xp to return though, I have the vip xp boost because it's gone in a few quests and doesn't build up over time. In a variety of other games I can rotate through alts so there's always rested xp available lol

Maybe I should make a separate post about that.

[Kaeneth]

I've pretty much played as a VIP almost exclusively for the entire duration that I've played Lotro until somewhat recently. For now I don't really see the value in becoming a VIP anymore. I own all the content already and so the only thing I really get for being a VIP anymore is a gold hobbit present (almost always useless) and the mobile vault. And as nice as the mobile vault is I don't really consider it worth the price of a sub alone.

It's cool that they're trying to get more players by offering stuff for free, but in doing so they have lessened the value of VIP in my opinion. Additionally, I haven't really liked some of the more recent changes they've made such as removing rep accelerators from skirmish camps, and a couple of the new class/race restriction removals (don't want to discuss that in this thread though). And while there's been times in the past where I subbed mainly to support the game, these kinds of changes kind of kill my desire to sub just for that purpose.

That being said if they started giving real incentive to be a VIP again I'd probably go back to always playing as one as at least then I could support positive changes. But for now? I might sub for one month here or there if I feel like it, but much of the time I doubt there's going to be a need for me to.

There's many ways they could probably improve VIP, but a few off the top of my head that might entice me-

• Storage: VIP players should be able to get MUCH more storage than just 120 with in game gold, and/or should not have to pay the crazy prices in the Lotro store for meager amounts of it.
• War-steed customization: VIP players should get access to all war-steed color options on all characters. Paying what, 500 or 600 ish LP? for four colors on just one character is way too expensive.
• Travel skills: There's a number of ways in the Lotro store to add things like extra milestone skills, and reduce their CD's, per character. Give VIPs more milestone skills per character with a naturally reduced CD.
• Outfit Slots: Currently the max outfit slot is 8, for those of us who quite enjoy having a variety of them consider adding a couple more extra slots for VIP players.
• Figment discount: Let VIP players have a slight discount on the rotating vendors/curator who trade items for figments of splendor.

I'm sure I could think of more if I sat down and did it, but it's looking to me like they're more interested in bringing in F2P people and selling LP than keeping a bunch of subs. Could be wrong, but that's how it appears anyways.

The best sub perk I've seen in an MMO recently is probably what SWTOR did this year- letting characters have two classes to swap between (one at a time) per character, kind of how like we can swap between trait trees at a moments notice. But that's a whole other can of worms and something that I somewhat doubt would be technically possible for Lotro, though personally with all the grind it takes for just one character in this game I'd absolutely adore something like that to keep the playstyle on my main, where I do all content/collect stuff, fresh.

[maartena]

Re: the figment discount mentioned above:

I think it would be a nice idea to allow VIP's to receive 1000 embers, 1000 figments, and 1000 motes every month in addition to the 500 LP. That's not a whole lot, but it does give you a free piece of armor every 3-4 months and/or a free cosmetic/pet/whatever figment item every 3-4 months.

Other ideas:

A "VIP hall" only accessible for VIP's. This hall (somewhere in Bree behind a not yet used door somewhere off of the boar fountain square) will have:
- All festival vendors year round. Got some old tokens from Yule, and it is July? No problem, go buy that snow bunny!
- All quartermasters from all zones so you can spend your old coinage in one spot instead of travelling all over the place.
- A VIP only figment vendor with VIP only cosmetic items and pets.
- Shortcut doors to various parts around the world, such as: Inside the Last Homely House so you can go to Elrond or the Legendary Item Library with ease.
- A "back yard" with a stablemaster similar to the ones found in housing areas.

[Melank]

VIPs are fine the way they are.

I'd only add a VIP cosmetic vendor with VIP only stuff in exchange for figments of splendour that rotates every 6 months, like the one at Bree boar fountain but VIP exclusive.

[SniperCT]

Re: the figment discount mentioned above:

I think it would be a nice idea to allow VIP's to receive 1000 embers, 1000 figments, and 1000 motes every month in addition to the 500 LP. That's not a whole lot, but it does give you a free piece of armor every 3-4 months and/or a free cosmetic/pet/whatever figment item every 3-4 months.

Other ideas:

A "VIP hall" only accessible for VIP's. This hall (somewhere in Bree behind a not yet used door somewhere off of the boar fountain square) will have:
- All festival vendors year round. Got some old tokens from Yule, and it is July? No problem, go buy that snow bunny!
- All quartermasters from all zones so you can spend your old coinage in one spot instead of travelling all over the place.
- A VIP only figment vendor with VIP only cosmetic items and pets.
- Shortcut doors to various parts around the world, such as: Inside the Last Homely House so you can go to Elrond or the Legendary Item Library with ease.
- A "back yard" with a stablemaster similar to the ones found in housing areas.

That's actually brilliant.

[Rylnconn]

"Vip" .... I don't think it means what you think it means ...

[SniperCT]

"Vip" .... I don't think it means what you think it means ...

I mean we're just using the terminology Turbine chose for the subscription plan back in the day. They were going for that sort of VIP exclusive club member aesthetic I think.

If it happened these days it would probably just be named 'Lotro+' tbh

[ATomiX96]

I think it would be a nice idea to allow VIP's to receive 1000 embers, 1000 figments, and 1000 motes every month in addition to the 500 LP.

No embers, the only source of embers should be endgame activities and being able to pay for embers (e.g. adventurer lootboxes right now or with VIP in the future) should never be an option, while at it remove embers from lootboxes.
Motes and figments, sure why not they're not endgame relevant, besides trigger essences, which the motes for it are farmable in a day.

Also no extra gifts for VIPs in the reward track, maybe make a "premium reward track" for like 795 LP so VIPs and normal players can spend their LP on that, but nothing thats exclusive for VIPs unless its purely cosmetic.

VIPs already get enough, not all QoL features should be locked behind a paywall.
Making a game frustrating enough to push people to spend money to make it less frustrating is a common practice alot of "F2P" games do these days, its terrible, but the worst part about it is, that it works.

[Dinara]

More storage space gets my vote!

[Trixie_Me]

I definitely would like to see more benefits exclusive to VIPs (and not for sale in the store). Like some above, I have always been VIP since I began playing LotRO way back in 2007. At this point, there really is very little incentive to stay VIP. In particular, I love the extra storage ideas.

[SniperCT]

Oh oh I know, steal ESO's crafting bag.

ESO subscriptions include a bag that all crafting materials go into automatically. All your alts on the server can access it. It's bottomless, meaning it never fills up. You could have 10,000 items in there.

When not subscribing, you can access it and take things out, but not add to it.

You can even craft directly from it as if you had the items in your inventory.

That alone would make VIP worth it for many people I think. When I play ESO I sub mostly for that.

[whisper.earendil]

Oh oh I know, steal ESO's crafting bag.

ESO subscriptions include a bag that all crafting materials go into automatically. All your alts on the server can access it. It's bottomless, meaning it never fills up. You could have 10,000 items in there.

When not subscribing, you can access it and take things out, but not add to it.

You can even craft directly from it as if you had the items in your inventory.

That alone would make VIP worth it for many people I think. When I play ESO I sub mostly for that.

This is brilliant, and given how we know the Carry-alls work, I think it's actually doable.

So we know that Carry-alls operate with a completely different database, right? And this helps the servers not to just absolutely die trying to deal with storing all of that stuff. We also know that we can click a button on our carry alls (well, we can 'check a box' anyway) that 'auto-gathers' materials collected right into it.

All that needs to be done is 1) Code flag for VIP 2) Create an unlimited Carry-all that checks for VIP status 3) Make it a tab, not a bag that goes in your bags (this may be the difficult part?) 4) Turn off 'auto-gather' when the VIP == 0

[DavidmeetHal]

I just want the game to run like it's supposed to.

[theultimatekyle]

The only thing I'd want extra from VIP now would be a third free unlocked trait line configuration during the duration of VIP.

[SniperCT]

I just want the game to run like it's supposed to.

But that's not a VIP thing that's an everyone thing :P

[Melank]

Now that PvMP is getting more relevance, Devs could add Monster race change at the LP store & offer 1 monthly Monster race change for VIPs.

It may be a good idea to let VIPs change their Monster race once per month to let them try other races without losing PvMP progress.

[Lessa_Benden]

Re: the figment discount mentioned above:

I think it would be a nice idea to allow VIP's to receive 1000 embers, 1000 figments, and 1000 motes every month in addition to the 500 LP. That's not a whole lot, but it does give you a free piece of armor every 3-4 months and/or a free cosmetic/pet/whatever figment item every 3-4 months.

Other ideas:

A "VIP hall" only accessible for VIP's. This hall (somewhere in Bree behind a not yet used door somewhere off of the boar fountain square) will have:
- All festival vendors year round. Got some old tokens from Yule, and it is July? No problem, go buy that snow bunny!
- All quartermasters from all zones so you can spend your old coinage in one spot instead of travelling all over the place.
- A VIP only figment vendor with VIP only cosmetic items and pets.
- Shortcut doors to various parts around the world, such as: Inside the Last Homely House so you can go to Elrond or the Legendary Item Library with ease.
- A "back yard" with a stablemaster similar to the ones found in housing areas.

Love this idea for vip's, even if it would only be 500 embers/figments/motes/lp each month.