Shield of the Hammerhand+Outrider's Token/Derudh's Stone issue.

[Polemarhos]

After a couple tickets to turbine support with no reply or any kind of feedback from Turbine I would like to ask again, what is going on with the xp bonus from Shield of Hammerhand+Outrider's Token.. The bonuses from these 2 items used to STACK .
But not anymore. The last couple of months there is some kind of conflict between the 2 items and the Outrider's Token is useless now(same problem with Derudh's Stone).
Most of the people including me pre ordered the premium edition of Helm's Deep expansion because of that special feature..The ability to use Shield of Hammerhand and Outrider's Token the same time that grants us +50xp bonus from monster kills.
Please solve this problem and give us some kind of a feedback for the issue.

Thanks!!

[Nosdracir]

After a couple tickets to turbine support with no reply or any kind of feedback from Turbine I would like to ask again, what is going on with the xp bonus from Shield of Hammerhand+Outrider's Token.. The bonuses from these 2 items used to STACK .
But not anymore. The last couple of months there is some kind of conflict between the 2 items and the Outrider's Token is useless now(same problem with Derudh's Stone).
Most of the people including me pre ordered the premium edition of Helm's Deep expansion because of that special feature..The ability to use Shield of Hammerhand and Outrider's Token the same time that grants us +50xp bonus from monster kills.
Please solve this problem and give us some kind of a feedback for the issue.

Thanks!!

Did you put in a support ticket for a GM or did you /bug this?

You should have used /bug to report it as a bug. GMs don't deal with bugs except in the case of a few known problems where they have authorization to resolve a bug (spawn a chest, spawn a boss, set the flag to finish an instance that won't end right, move you out of a landscape glitch, etc.) They can't give you missing XP due to a bug. You (and others) need to /bug this problem so that it gets raised with QA and devs.

I'll give this a shot on one of my low level characters next time I play and /bug it if I find this the case.

[Anyelir]

This issue has been around since U13 hit Bullroarer. I /bugged it back then, repeatedly, through every round of the beta (and in the U13.1 beat as well). There never was any reaction on Turbine's part. While this does not hurt me personally (I'm a slow-leveller and use the XP disabler on all my non-grinder characters), I strongly dislike how an aspect of a cash-only item got changed after the purchase, especially since that very aspect seems to have convinced a sizeable number of people to buy the Premium Edition rather than the Base Edition (or not pre-ordering at all), and Turbine never even lost a word about it. The way this played out, it smells of switch-and-bait.

Also, I don't see the reason for this particular change. With the sheer amount of XP our characters earn nowaddays, plus the rather frequent Welcome back Weekends, plus free XP boosts from Hobbit gifts and Store samples, I don't think an additional +25% XP from defeating mobs and crafting would have been game-breaking. It doesn't even seem significant enough for me that it could possibly have cut back on sales of the Gift of the Valar.

It also isn't that Turbine is unaware of the issue. At the start of the U13 beta, the Shield of the Hammerhand was set up in such a way that XP-disabled characters would not get the IXP and Steed XP bonus from it either (that's why I became of aware there was something odd going on). After a bit of noise on the beta forums and several bug reports, the Shield was changed so that the IXP and SXP boni could apply at the same time as the Halted Experience buff. Somebody did something to correct the state of the Shield of the Hammerhand, but they did not completely revert it to how it was before U13.

By all means, keep /bugging this. Keep making forum posts about this. While I'm currently not affected by this issue, I still think it is not fair towards fast-levellers who spent cash for the particular effects of the pre-U13 Shield. I'd also like to see at least some kind of statement from Turbine about this. Their not even acknowledging the change smells of somebody hoping nobody will notice and they can just get away with it.

[Polemarhos]

Did you put in a support ticket for a GM or did you /bug this?

You should have used /bug to report it as a bug. GMs don't deal with bugs except in the case of a few known problems where they have authorization to resolve a bug (spawn a chest, spawn a boss, set the flag to finish an instance that won't end right, move you out of a landscape glitch, etc.) They can't give you missing XP due to a bug. You (and others) need to /bug this problem so that it gets raised with QA and devs.

I'll give this a shot on one of my low level characters next time I play and /bug it if I find this the case.

Already did both my friend and the worst part is that we don't get any answer from Turbine..I would understand if this was a known bug/issue and Turbine had plans to fix it..But now we are blind with no info whatsoever.

[Anyelir]

Already did both my friend and the worst part is that we don't get any answer from Turbine..I would understand if this was a known bug/issue and Turbine had plans to fix it..But now we are blind with no info whatsoever.

In fact, I would appreciate a simple statement of "The Shield of the Hammerhand is currently WAI". That way, at least we knew if Turbine felt the post-sale change to the item was okay to do and we'd be warned about future pre-order items possibly being changed in a similar way. How they say nothing at all about the matter just makes this feel fishy to me.

[Fulgurix]

Bought the Token of the Hornburg yesterday and it doesn't stack the exp buff with the Sheld of the Hammerhand. They used to stack....wasted 400 tps .

[Rhino-Man]

I'm not in game to check, but weren't some of those items only effective up to level XX? Like level 75 or something?

[Yula_the_Mighty]

By all means, keep /bugging this. Keep making forum posts about this. While I'm currently not affected by this issue, I still think it is not fair towards fast-levellers who spent cash for the particular effects of the pre-U13 Shield. I'd also like to see at least some kind of statement from Turbine about this. Their not even acknowledging the change smells of somebody hoping nobody will notice and they can just get away with it.

It more a case of Turbine does not talk about bugs, defects or game changes. For each update Turbine has a few open slots that can be used to put defects in the known issue list. Turbine picks the 1% or less of all the problems that interest them. It seems like most of the ones picked are minor issues that will be fixed in short order.

Outside of the known issue list again Turbine keeps their cards close their chest. I suspect vast majority the interaction between customers and Turbine occurs outside of the public web. It is done by the Players Council and by the folks that are members of Palantir program.

Your best bet would be to find a sympathetic Player Council member to push this issue.

[Anyelir]

I'm not in game to check, but weren't some of those items only effective up to level XX? Like level 75 or something?

I tested the combination of Shield of the Hammerhand (good until level 85) and Token of the Hornburg (also good until level 85) on a level 75 character on Bullroarer. Going by pre-U13 logic, the XP boni from the items schould have stacked, but they didn't. I also reckon that anybody observant enough to notice the lack of buff stacking even though the number of buff icons remained the same (due to the effects of the Shield being handled a bit differently since U13) would notice if they exceeded the maximum level for one of the items to be active.

[Liarie]

I'm glad I found this thread. I came back to the game again and this hit me in the face.

Basically Turbine is selling items that are worthless.

Bad business practices, Turbine. Bad. Worthy of a report on the BBB website bad.

[Anyelir]

Basically Turbine is selling items that are worthless.

I wouldn't call the Shield of the Hammerhand worthless. It does give +25% XP, +25% IXP and +25% Steed XP. It also offers the +25% XP bonus on quest completions, which the XP boost pocket items don't. Plus it is a conveniently scaling back-slot item that can be used to avoid having to obtain suitable cloaks yourself. All in all, the Shield is very handy IMO.

The XP boost pocket items like Derudh's Stone or the Outrider's Token are also useful for fast-levellers. They don't offer as much versatility as the Shield, but they do give the bonus they advertise.

The problem only occurs when both kinds of items are used at the same time. If the Shield is equipped, it basically overrides the XP bonus you would get from the pocket items. Even this wouldn't be much of a issue if it had been like this since the Shield first became available. But the Shield was sold as a stacking version (for cash only, mind you) and then was changed into a non-stacking version. That is the problem I have. That the item was changed after it got sold.

It may be possible that Turbine never intended the boni to stack and only corrected a mistake on their part, but in that case they should have tested the Shield extensively enough to spot this kind of mistake before it got sold to anyone, or -at the very least- they should have announced that mistake on the forums as soon as they learned about it so people knew the boost-stacking would later be removed and didn't buy the Premium Edition specifically for the boost-stacking.

[ShireDweller]

Thank you for posting about this, I had no idea that the stacking isn't working as it was originally advertised. I've been using both on all my lower-level characters.

I'm very disappointed about this change and I'd like to see a statement from Turbine addressing it.

[Borafin]

I also just noticed this issue today. The SoH does not stack anymore with the OT like initially claimed. Not sure if this is a bug or WAI, but either way someone needs to address it.

[Borafin]

Sorry for the double post, but found a post from Sapience confirming the Shield of Hammerhand cloak will stack with existing XP tokens: https://www.lotro.com/forums/showthr...44#post6914844

[Nymphonic]

Sorry for the double post, but found a post from Sapience confirming the Shield of Hammerhand cloak will stack with existing XP tokens: https://www.lotro.com/forums/showthr...44#post6914844

Oh wow! Wouldn't this make it a bug then if it's not stacking?

[Polemarhos]

Oh wow! Wouldn't this make it a bug then if it's not stacking?

Yes it must be a bug..The items used to stack and shield of hammerhand advertized like that.I personally got the pre order premium version for the 25+25% ability of these two items.
We are try to inform turbine and players for that issue..Most of the players haven't noticed this issue yet.

[Liarie]

Sorry for the double post, but found a post from Sapience confirming the Shield of Hammerhand cloak will stack with existing XP tokens: https://www.lotro.com/forums/showthr...44#post6914844

Thank you! I submitted a bug report in game and pasted this url into the message.

I suggest everyone do this until they fix it!

[mr_music]

just thought i'd post in here as well, my partner and i both have outriders token and shield of hammerhand. we,as many others, preordered the HD edition with the shield to lvl low lvl alts quickly as it originally worked with the outriders token. long and short we both filed in game reports and both times the GM said 'this is not a bug and both are WAI' and they are not supposed to be stackable (we even mentioned that before they DID stack) but to no avail.

to me it seems Turbine would like none of us to notice they did a bait and switch sneaky on us by changing the icons under char portrait (you'll still have 2 bonus icons there but they're both from the Shield) whereas before we had 2 (+25%xp) bonus icons one for the Outrider and one for Shield.

A simple blue name response here that this is in fact NOT WAI as it stinks of false advertising and will be fixed would be nice.

[Polemarhos]

just thought i'd post in here as well, my partner and i both have outriders token and shield of hammerhand. we,as many others, preordered the HD edition with the shield to lvl low lvl alts quickly as it originally worked with the outriders token. long and short we both filed in game reports and both times the GM said 'this is not a bug and both are WAI' and they are not supposed to be stackable (we even mentioned that before they DID stack) but to no avail.

to me it seems Turbine would like none of us to notice they did a bait and switch sneaky on us by changing the icons under char portrait (you'll still have 2 bonus icons there but they're both from the Shield) whereas before we had 2 (+25%xp) bonus icons one for the Outrider and one for Shield.

A simple blue name response here that this is in fact NOT WAI as it stinks of false advertising and will be fixed would be nice.

If this current situation is WAI and they just TRICKED people to pre order premium edition I am not gonna let them get away with this. Btw if they won't fix this issue, personally HD will be my last expansion.

[Anyelir]

to me it seems Turbine would like none of us to notice they did a bait and switch sneaky on us by changing the icons under char portrait (you'll still have 2 bonus icons there but they're both from the Shield) whereas before we had 2 (+25%xp) bonus icons one for the Outrider and one for Shield.

While I am far from happy with the current situation, I can assure you that this particular detail is not part of any evil plan to annoy players. During the first couple of rounds in the U13 beta, the Shield of the Hammerhand was even more badly bugged than it is now. In addition to not stacking with any XP boost pocket item, it would also not give any bonus to IXP or Steed XP while an XP disabler was equipped (at that point, there was still a single buff icon for all of the Shield's effects).

Since I bought the Shield as a way to gain some additional IXP on my XP-disabled characters, I /bugged this (and I did mention the XP boost stacking issue as well). Eventually, there was a partial fix done which resulted in XP-disabled characters getting the non-XP boni from the Shield and the two buff icons showing up in the buff bar. Now, when I equip my XP disabler, the XP boost icon from the Shield vanishes (as it should) and the IXP/SXP boost icon remains, giving me the effects I was after.

I guess that they split the former one multi-effect buff of the Shield into two separate buffs so they could partially disable them when a Stone of the Tortoise got added into the mix. While the now-split buff icon makes it more difficult for fast-levellers to spot the non-stacking issue ("But all my buff icons are still there..."), I do appreciate it that Turbine at least took action to make the Shield useful for slow-leveller again. (Without this partial change, the Shield would only have been a scaling back slot piece of armour for me, which would have been pretty close to worthless.)

On the other hand, that they did NOT fully revert the Shield at that time and re-enable XP boost stacking might mean that they are aware of the issue but have no plans to change it back to how it was pre-U13, which would be quite a disappointment IMO.

By the way, Borafin, very nice catch, that quote. That only makes things look more like bait-and-switch to me.

[Neumi]

I noticed this change as well but I thought it was intended. I really couldn't care less, on my mains I refuse to use either of these things (I use a XP blocker in fact on a mid-level one), my low level bank characters have them just for fun so they level up a bit when I complete festival quests.

[Polemarhos]

I noticed this change as well but I thought it was intended. I really couldn't care less, on my mains I refuse to use either of these things (I use a XP blocker in fact on a mid-level one), my low level bank characters have them just for fun so they level up a bit when I complete festival quests.

You may don't care about this issue today but you are missing the point here. Turbine sold us a product with x,y,z uses and now they make this product less effective..This my friend is stealing and some other day Turbine might do something else that will affect you. Show some respect to your own money if not to other people's concerns.

[Sapience]

Did you put in a support ticket for a GM or did you /bug this?

You should have used /bug to report it as a bug. GMs don't deal with bugs except in the case of a few known problems where they have authorization to resolve a bug (spawn a chest, spawn a boss, set the flag to finish an instance that won't end right, move you out of a landscape glitch, etc.) They can't give you missing XP due to a bug. You (and others) need to /bug this problem so that it gets raised with QA and devs.

I'll give this a shot on one of my low level characters next time I play and /bug it if I find this the case.

Just a reminder, as mentioned above, a GM can't fix a bug. You must file a bug report.

In fact, I would appreciate a simple statement of "The Shield of the Hammerhand is currently WAI". That way, at least we knew if Turbine felt the post-sale change to the item was okay to do and we'd be warned about future pre-order items possibly being changed in a similar way. How they say nothing at all about the matter just makes this feel fishy to me.

It's not working as intended so I can't give you the statement you want. It's a bug. The effects should be stacking.

Thank you! I submitted a bug report in game and pasted this url into the message.

I suggest everyone do this until they fix it!

I suggest this would be an exceptionally bad idea (and counter to what we've told players many, many times). Spamming a bug does one thing and one thing only; slows down the process while we sort out multiple reports of the same bug. Often it's difficult as many will report the bug differently making it hard to ID as the same bug. As we've said before, 'everyone report it until they fix it' is one of the most counter productive things you can suggest. You will absolutely delay the resolution by doing this. Guaranteed.

That said, this should be addressed in Update 14.

[Polemarhos]

Thanks for the response Sapience..Looking forward for the Update14.

[Anyelir]

It's not working as intended so I can't give you the statement you want. It's a bug. The effects should be stacking.

[...]

That said, this should be addressed in Update 14.

Now that is nice to hear. Thank you for clearing this up. At least now we know that Turbine is aware of the issue and working on it.

If there really is a fix in the reasonably-forseeable future, I'll just chalk this down in the "things happen" category and be done with it. That said, I would have aprecciated it if the communication in this matter had been a little more prompt on Turbine's part. That would have saved quite a number of people quite a bit of grumbling, I think.