Seals no longer drop and P2W Essence Removal System

[xxSniperxx]

As of U23 with the new level cap increase to 120, seals no longer drop from instances and since Essence Removal Scrolls cost 1 seal per scroll, this effectively removes the option to buy these scrolls from the Skirmish Camp Curiosities vendor.

Now on Bullroarer, we have this new window when you try to remove essences.



Since the means to obtain seals cuts off the means to obtain Essence Removal Scrolls, this system is basically forcing the player to get Mithril Coins from the store if they have no seals in their wallet. Either remove the seal requirement to barter for these scrolls from the Skirmish Camp, or make seals drop in instances again. The first option is better in my opinion.

I'm certain that majority of players are against this change because come on, 1 MC to remove 1 essence from 1 piece of essence gear? That is so ridiculous. The option to use Mithril Coins should not replace the free alternative that is already in-game, both options should be available to the player otherwise this just becomes P2W.

Like it is so convenient that this was left out of any patch notes, nice stealth change, well played. It is clear that every player is wearing the low tier yellow or purple essences and they have to upgrade sooner or later, so this was put in place to make money off of changing gear of all things.

P.S. I know there is going to be at least 1 person who will say that it is easy to grind out LP in the starter zones so anything P2W doesn't matter. If you are that person, do everyone else a favor and just don't reply here.

[zipfile]

I was gathering material to make a thread, but glad to see someone beat me to it.

/signed

[Mukor]

Do you can overwrite them? But a better another into the slot without removing?
If not it seems like they want to milk us dry. Especially with their system, better essences no New gear.

[Happybudgy]

You always think 'what will hit next', which is of course ridiculous for an online game, but here we are.

Against!

/signed

[sahanto]

I just want to inform people real quick that that is my screenshot and I am kmodo xxsniperxx is not KModo
I repeat xxsniperxx is not kmodo he is only using my screenshot.

other wise /signed

[xxSniperxx]

I just want to inform people real quick that that is my screenshot and I am kmodo xxsniperxx is not KModo
I repeat xxsniperxx is not kmodo he is only using my screenshot.

other wise /signed

Yeah I'm not Kmodo, but I used his picture. He is just scared that +Diplodocus is going to trace it back to his character ingame and then he will get banned so he has to clear his good name, so silly right? Funny dude.

[zipfile]

Can we get a blue name to comment on this?

[Mukor]

What about skirmish camps do they stay that we can use our old marks, meds and seals?

[Olebenny]

Absolutely a ridiculous change. Revert this or remove the seal requirement dor sure. We as a player base gotta stop standing for this bs

/signed

[Cordovan]

Essence Reclamation Scrolls and Seals will continue to appear in the same locations they have been appearing for some time now, so while Skirmishes haven't been offering Seals, other methods exist. The OP's concern is being raised from a change seen on Bullroarer to begin offering Mithril as an option, but another aspect of this change on Bullroarer is the ability to simply overwrite one essence with another for free. So, people will be able to earn scrolls in-game using existing methods, simply overwrite essences they no longer want for free, or swap out the essences to preserve the slotted essence either through a scroll or (soon) Mithril.

[zipfile]

Essence Reclamation Scrolls and Seals will continue to appear in the same locations they have been appearing for some time now, so while Skirmishes haven't been offering Seals, other methods exist.

What other methods? Raids like Thorog and OD dropped Seals and that hasn't been happening for a while now. I even made a thread about it a few weeks ago, so no, there is no way to obtain Seals anymore if this doesn't change.

Thread mentioned

[zipfile]

Actually, I'll double down on this one.

Earning Seals has been pulled entirely from the game. They can no longer be earned by any means, not even currency exchange barter in Skirmish Camps offer the upgrade.
Raids that dropped them, like previously mentioned Thorog and Ost Dunoth, haven't been dropping anything of the sort, as well as their rewards that haven't been scaled up from LVL 105 days.
Essence Reclamation Scrolls are being sold for 295 LP on the store as well, like, who on earth would buy those?
All of this, in line with how disappointing the raid appears on BR, doesn't look good.

I'm sorry, but this looks like another way to muscle in store into the gearing process.

[xxSniperxx]

Essence Reclamation Scrolls and Seals will continue to appear in the same locations they have been appearing for some time now, so while Skirmishes haven't been offering Seals, other methods exist. The OP's concern is being raised from a change seen on Bullroarer to begin offering Mithril as an option, but another aspect of this change on Bullroarer is the ability to simply overwrite one essence with another for free. So, people will be able to earn scrolls in-game using existing methods, simply overwrite essences they no longer want for free, or swap out the essences to preserve the slotted essence either through a scroll or (soon) Mithril.

Helegrod Dragon wing as well as Ost Dunhoth raids have stopped giving seals upon completion, and these are certainly not Skirmishes. I would like someone to point out what exactly these "locations they have been appearing for some time now" are.

At the moment, the removal of seals has caused Essence Removal Scrolls price in Auction House go from 60g before U23 to 150g+ after U23. This kind of drastic increase does not happen unless if supply goes down, or if demand goes up. And we can rule out that demand did not go up because most people simply deconstruct their old 115 gear into Motes and put on new 120 gear, no essence removal scroll required. So that is another reason that points to the change in obtaining Essence Removal Scrolls through the regular means ingame at the Skirmish Camp.

I also do not think it is acceptable to consider "other methods" of obtaining scrolls as barterable with 150 Stars of Merit, 150 Dol Amroth Silver Pieces, 150 Minas Tirith Silver Pieces, 200 East Gondor Silver Pieces, 60 Anniversary Tokens, 90 Spring Leaves, 40 Summer Festival Tokens, 180 Farmers Faire Tokens, 140 Fall Festival Tokens, or 180 Yule Festival Tokens. THESE ARE NOT SATISFACTORY ALTERNATIVES, THEY ARE JUST SUPER GRINDY OBSOLETE CURRENCIES AND BARELY ANYONE HAS THEM LYING AROUND UNUSED. I think it is clear what the player's options are. Either they grind out all of these obsolete tokens or they go to the store and either buy a scroll for 295 LP (a ridiculous price, I might add) or they buy Mithril Coins. This is just another scheme to push people to the store.

I would just like to reiterate that I am not opposed to the new option to overwrite essences for free without a scroll. But when you do need a scroll, the other options out there are very limited if the Skirmish Camp still requires seals which no longer drop ingame.

[wispsong]

Essence Reclamation Scrolls and Seals will continue to appear in the same locations they have been appearing for some time now, so while Skirmishes haven't been offering Seals, other methods exist. The OP's concern is being raised from a change seen on Bullroarer to begin offering Mithril as an option, but another aspect of this change on Bullroarer is the ability to simply overwrite one essence with another for free. So, people will be able to earn scrolls in-game using existing methods, simply overwrite essences they no longer want for free, or swap out the essences to preserve the slotted essence either through a scroll or (soon) Mithril.

Will this be going live? It would be a great improvement imo.

[Mukor]

Essence Reclamation Scrolls and Seals will continue to appear in the same locations they have been appearing for some time now, so while Skirmishes haven't been offering Seals, other methods exist. The OP's concern is being raised from a change seen on Bullroarer to begin offering Mithril as an option, but another aspect of this change on Bullroarer is the ability to simply overwrite one essence with another for free. So, people will be able to earn scrolls in-game using existing methods, simply overwrite essences they no longer want for free, or swap out the essences to preserve the slotted essence either through a scroll or (soon) Mithril.

Nice

[Pathagarus]

Being able to simply overwrite essences for free is a big plus to me. I like the change!

[QueenArleth]

It does defeat logic that they would effectively remove the option to barter for universal currencies such as Marks, Medallions, and Seals at the Skirm Camp but keep the alternatives that are more tediously obtained and less viable, then claim "there are still other options that have been here for quite some time". Marks/Meds/Seals dropped from raid content across almost ALL previous level caps and they were always relevant, so to favour currencies that are NOT universal is just a bad move in my opinion. And I'm sorry but 140 festival tokens for 1 scroll? How absurd. That's a terrible exchange rate and nobody in their right mind would want to get scrolls for that amount, not to mention that you'd have to wait for a festival to get the scroll. Whereas you could get Seals at any time by running raids. I'm not a fan of spamming Epic Battles for Stars of Merit either, those instances are from so long ago and nothing drops there that is relevant to the current level cap. Epic battles still drop T8 essences.

This is similar to the problem that we have concerning Anfalas Scrolls of Empowerment. Sure, you can get them from some old content, but nobody wants to run Minas Tirith dailies that are 20 level below the cap when everyone else is doing Grey Mountains stuff. Just because there are obscure alternatives does not mean that there is not a need for a modernized means of obtaining quintessential items. But I guess some people would argue that Mithril Coins and LOTRO points are also "universal currencies". >.>

That's not even considering what the casual player goes through, they would need to grind so many tokens in the limited playtime that they have. They would certainly be forced to use the store just to save time, and I wouldn't blame them. The alternative means of obtaining suck.

[Happybudgy]

Will this be going live? It would be a great improvement imo.

Who says that future essences will be better than what is available now? Imagine that, reasonably to be expected, future armor stats improve/go up, so you would not want to leave superior essences in outdated armor. Also, if future essences are inferior, why would you want to override older and better essences with those?

[wispsong]

Who says that future essences will be better than what is available now? Imagine that, reasonably to be expected, future armor stats do keep up, so you would not want to leave superior essences in outdated armor. Also, if future essences are inferior, why would you want to override older and better essences with those?

You still have the option to remove them, other options are just added.

[Happybudgy]

You still have the option to remove them, other options are just added.

Good luck with that.

[Oelle]

we will finally be able to overwrite essences? THATS AWESOME!

btw... 150 stars of merit isnt super grindy. Thats like one epic battle, two if things run bad or you only do solo-versions.

[scorrp10]

I forget when I last time wanted to preserve an essence I was replacing. Free overwrite would be awesome.

As of other methods..
Yeah a couple big battle solo plat runs nets enough stars for a scroll. If you got the BB points.
DA a quick circuit of warbands and Tarlang Crown at 120 is beyond trivial and typically yields 70ish tokens. So two days of them neyss a scroll.

However, there should be scroll options in ALL content that employs essences.
Mordor: scrolls for Allegiance relics/Thandrim tokens would be great.
Scrolls for Marks of Longbeards would also be awesome.

[xxSniperxx]

However, there should be scroll options in ALL content that employs essences.
Mordor: scrolls for Allegiance relics/Thandrim tokens would be great.
Scrolls for Marks of Longbeards would also be awesome.

Actually we did have scroll options in ALL content, in the form of marks, meds, and seals. Those currencies drop at the end of all instances.

Instead of trying to overcomplicate things by putting scrolls in every token barter in every map, why not just keep it simple and keep it in the Skirm Camp? That would save a lot of effort.

btw... 150 stars of merit isnt super grindy. Thats like one epic battle, two if things run bad or you only do solo-versions.

This is only true if you run the instance for the first time and you get bonus points which give you more platinum boxes. Otherwise it definitely takes more runs than that, but of course I knew from the start that someone would make an ill-informed comment like this.

[JERH]

IMHO I think adding the option to overwrite is great! And I really wonder if spending 6.4 LP (20% discounted cost of 1 mithril coin when buying 100 mithril coins on sale which happens pretty frequently) only in the possibility that you want the old essence (e.g. for converting to a malleable) is worth all this negative fuss over. I like both options. You want to spend hours grinding old instances for seals or spending 100+ gold buying one on the AH or 295LP (e.g. 46 mithril coin equivalent) to save 1 coin? Huh? get real.

[Daniyel]

Marks/Meds/Seals dropped from raid content across almost ALL previous level caps

I'm also concerned at how non-universal Seals have become since Riders of Rohan Expansion (level 85)
Actually, Deeping Wall Raid at level 95 and level 100 caps, Throne of The Dread Terror at level 105, Abyss at 115 and now Anvil at 120 do not drop seals, so it seems less universal than it used to be.

I'm not a fan of spamming Epic Battles for Stars of Merit either, those instances are from so long ago and nothing drops there that is relevant to the current level cap. Epic battles still drop T8 essences.

Epic Battles Drop t7 essences, Featured instances finally got upgraded from purple t8 to purple t9 and empowered purple t10's.
the Skirmish camp STILL has only T7 purples and STILL doesn't have Black Adamant Shards available.