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

[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.