Thread: flax has all but disappeared

Two downloads ago flax started to become extremely scarse. I can barely and usually not find enough flax to make my own outfits let alone anyone elses. I hauled in 178 wood and killed over 150 humanoids in one run I was on and didn't get a single flax/ Increase the flax drop rate, it is the rarest form of crit item I have seen, also a lot of the recipe drops for tailoring have gotten increasingly harder to get. I am VIP and, no, I do not wish to spend a bunch more of my real money to get recipes-to me it would just be easier to forgo the recipe/flax frustration and quit playing. Also. what happened to the nice level 25 hunter cape-why was it removed-it was one of the few good capes for burglers and hunters and would appreciate it coming back/Return the drop aspect of the game back instead of frustrating a good amount of your player base.

I agree flax is to darn rare.

Indeed

And since you need more of it to make a complete medium AND light armor sets (7 items) compared to just 1 or 2 weapons or 2-3 tools per alt. Only thing that's is almost as needed as flax is brimstone for heavy armor (6 pieces per alt) but it is a lot easier to find.

Flax should even be farmed somehow.
Speaking of which brings the problems in farming: Straw for some Weaponsmith traps is very, VERY rare.
How come farming for berries can bring you lots more Cooking criticals items (parsley, thyme,...) than actual "juicy" fruits that can be used for dyes. Same goes for "petals", "roots" or "threads" when farming flowers. But no you usually get more thyme, parsley, etc...
Criticals in farming special foods should grant you corresponding rare items beside doubling the harvest.

Originally Posted by Elekmekil

Indeed

And since you need more of it to make a complete medium AND light armor sets (7 items) compared to just 1 or 2 weapons or 2-3 tools per alt. Only thing that's is almost as needed as flax is brimstone for heavy armor (6 pieces per alt) but it is a lot easier to find.

Not to mention:

Brimstone: Used for Captains, Guardians, Champions - 3 Classes
Flax: Used for LM, RK, Mini, Warden, Hunter, and Burglar - 6 Classes - Then flax is also used to make cloaks, which is for everyone as well.

So going by this, there should be twice as much flax going around as brimstone... Plus hunters are probably the most popular class, meaning we need even more flax.

A few months ago I spent two days where I did nothing but grind looking for flax....I ended up with 6.

I'll never look for it again. Pointless waste of time.

Scarcity of Flax is not a new thing. When they first switched to the new crit items there was a monster 20 page thread about it.

Originally Posted by RusselDog

Scarcity of Flax is not a new thing. When they first switched to the new crit items there was a monster 20 page thread about it.

Then they certainly should have fixed it by now.

Your time is often much better spent doing a skirmish and buying the crit ingredients with marks. I'm very glad we have the option to get it from the crafting vendor, but I'd really prefer to get it as we should, while getting logs.

/signed

Originally Posted by Elekmekil

Speaking of which brings the problems in farming: Straw for some Weaponsmith traps is very, VERY rare.
How come farming for berries can bring you lots more Cooking criticals items (parsley, thyme,...) than actual "juicy" fruits that can be used for dyes. Same goes for "petals", "roots" or "threads" when farming flowers. But no you usually get more thyme, parsley, etc...

Don't touch my food crits! =)

If you farm some for straw, you'll get quite a lot of it. I think I have a stack of 23 in stash (despite a 'main' hunter) from just making rep cooking and a little bit of craft xp cooking.

In 100 elder fields I had 52 elderberries...I think that's way more than enough for a rare-ish dye ingrent (yeah, when I tried same a couple of weeks back I got only 33 berries but that was good too).

Do 100 fields and profit.

*** on topic ***

I don't see less flax at all - making an alt now; for lowlvl ones I had plenty off humanoids and quite a few from picking up wood. Perhaps you don't pick up as much wood as you used to? Or kill less of the humanoids?

I think it depends on which flax that's being discussed. It seems to vary, in my experience, depending on the crafting tier it's for. Apprentice, Journeyman, and Supreme seem to be the easiest to find and come across (from my experience), while all the others (which generally have the most worthwhile stuff while leveling anyway) are far more rare.

Someone mentioned this has been an issue in the past, which means they may or may not address what many of us probably consider to be an issue. While it would be great if they could fix it, I think making it even a bit easier to obtain from the skirmish trader (aka putting it in packs of 5 or so, rather than having 1, as I think it is) would be a decent solution.

Originally Posted by Littlebit

Then they certainly should have fixed it by now.

It used to be a lower drop rate. Turbine upped the drop rate. However, the up was not enough. Part of the issue is that players harvest many more ore nodes than they do wood nodes.

Originally Posted by Macroscian

Don't touch my food crits! =)

If you farm some for straw, you'll get quite a lot of it. I think I have a stack of 23 in stash (despite a 'main' hunter) from just making rep cooking and a little bit of craft xp cooking.

In 100 elder fields I had 52 elderberries...I think that's way more than enough for a rare-ish dye ingrent (yeah, when I tried same a couple of weeks back I got only 33 berries but that was good too).

Do 100 fields and profit.

*** on topic ***

I don't see less flax at all - making an alt now; for lowlvl ones I had plenty off humanoids and quite a few from picking up wood. Perhaps you don't pick up as much wood as you used to? Or kill less of the humanoids?

Umm, straw is still kind of rare, its not like its a great, awesome, game changing thing to have, and for its rarity, its not worth it. I have four farmers, two of which are supreme, the other two are expert or artisan, I still don't have alot of straw.

Define plenty? I also just raised five alts from level 1 to level 35 this past month, all but one of them was an explorer, gathering materials as they went, I looted maybe eight flax total (between all tiers) and harvested maybe another 25 (again between all tiers). Now switch over to the other crit items, I looted more cook and scholar items, between all tiers of the cook crits I got well over 50, and about 30 various candles. Then I had at least two stacks of each of the three (apprentice, journeyman, expert) for jeweler, weaponsmith, metalsmith. I also harvested the same amounts of wood and ore, except for expert level, which I got about twice as much yew as gold/iron because my woodworker alt eats too much.

So in comparison I had over 100 of each for jewelery, weaponsmith, metalsmith, at each tier. And at most I got 50 flax between all of the tiers. I would say its rather rare... Sure this is one experience (well four) but it happens frequently to me and I have heard others say the same... hence the "monster thread" with over 20 pages and this thread and one that was out ~three weeks ago.

So maybe it is plentiful... but if it is, then maybe it just needs to be a little more plentiful. I mean, come on, let's face it, tailored gear for the most part is worthless without it.

Hi =)

I still suspect it's as Yula says above - turning on Track Wood helps getting more of the node extras.

I made a tiny test after this thread - in 100 rowan wood I had 10 common flax thingies. Unsure how many nodes got me up to the 100 logs, at least five were Heavy versions - wasn't all that many. Took a little bit over an hour, combined with polishing off last half of the advanced slug deed in Shire.

A statistical freak occurence? Perhas, but fact remains I feel they're common enough.

I'll try kill a couple of hundred babylvl dwarves there too, just for reference, see if I get any flax fibres - I have a suitable lvl 9ish now after slug deed =)

I have only two sup master farmers but frankly it's rare I need or wish to grow any stuff that lands me straw =) Do 100 fields as a test, perhaps.

Originally Posted by Macroscian

Hi =)

I still suspect it's as Yula says above - turning on Track Wood helps getting more of the node extras.

I made a tiny test after this thread - in 100 rowan wood I had 10 common flax thingies. Unsure how many nodes got me up to the 100 logs, at least five were Heavy versions - wasn't all that many. Took a little bit over an hour, combined with polishing off last half of the advanced slug deed in Shire.

A statistical freak occurence? Perhas, but fact remains I feel they're common enough.

I'll try kill a couple of hundred babylvl dwarves there too, just for reference, see if I get any flax fibres - I have a suitable lvl 9ish now after slug deed =)

I have only two sup master farmers but frankly it's rare I need or wish to grow any stuff that lands me straw =) Do 100 fields as a test, perhaps.

You really need to do more than 100 logs to do a decent test. Also as someone else stated some of the flaxes seem more or less rare depending on the tier.

Originally Posted by Yula_the_Mighty

It used to be a lower drop rate. Turbine upped the drop rate. However, the up was not enough. Part of the issue is that players harvest many more ore nodes than they do wood nodes.

^ This. Part of the problem is that a lot of people pick explorer and always have mining tracking on (because its more profitable and used for more professions) and only visually acquire wood nodes. This, paired with the fact that twice as many classes use tailoring for their armor, makes for scarcity. The flax seems to drop just as often for me as brimstone, the catch is that I use flax up waaaay faster and I'm always tracking ore. My woodworker alt gets tons of them, because I can only track wood on that character. Problem is, that's the only profession that regularly tracks it.(node farming for the sole purpose of getting the crit items is an exercise in futility for any of the professions. The drop rate is low for several of the tiers across all the crafts.) If all my alts were always tracking wood instead, and I only had one alt hunting ore, im sure I'd be complaining about scarcity of ore crit items. But that isn't even possible.

While people may not like using skirmish marks for it, it is there, and easily attainable that way if you aren't being lucky in wood drops.(killing humanoids is the worst drop rate for them, unless they are grey and you can mass exterminate them constantly, and even then it only keeps up with node drops at best, in my experience)

And as a second alternate suggestion, if you get your tailor toon up to level 55(able to use the max crit crafting tools, %18 i think) and also have a scholar alt that is up to moria and can thereby make the +crit tailoring scrolls, you can easily pump your base crit to at least 40% or more without having a tailoring crit item at all.(and since the crafting crit scrolls are mass-producible with common scholar mats,(and the buff lasts a minute versus a one-shot crit item) this way takes faaar less work if you happen to have a tailor+scholar at the right levels.(or even just have a scholar friend and buy mats off the AH to have them produce the scrolls for you) It will take a little more leather that way, but it does bypass the flax entirely.

So 3 methods:
1) nodes/humanoids
2) Skirmish trade
3) Best tailor tools possible + best scholar-made scrolls possible + always a supreme crafting table.(both tools and scrolls are level-dependent on your tailor's current level.)

Originally Posted by Grimbran

And as a second alternate suggestion, if you get your tailor toon up to level 55(able to use the max crit crafting tools, %18 i think) and also have a scholar alt that is up to moria and can thereby make the +crit tailoring scrolls, you can easily pump your base crit to at least 40% or more without having a tailoring crit item at all.

Not to nitpick, but 5% base chance + 20% (top tools) +12.5% (supreme scroll) = 37.5%

That's as good as it gets without the +45% crit item. (+35% for journals on one-shots)

Originally Posted by Belias_Lassiter

Not to nitpick, but 5% base chance + 20% (top tools) +12.5% (supreme scroll) = 37.5%

That's as good as it gets without the +45% crit item. (+35% for journals on one-shots)

Plus 5% superior crafting table, you missed that part. Thus 42.5%

Originally Posted by Grimbran

Plus 5% superior crafting table, you missed that part. Thus 42.5%

Where did you get that idea? Superior crafting stations allow the production of artisan and above level items but have no impact on crit percentage.

When I make armor (for example) with a scroll my crit chance is 83%, w/o 70% regardless of whether I'm using a regular ol' forge in Bree, or the superior one in Thorin's hall.

Same holds true for ovens and workbenches.

(Note: while the display shows 83% I suspect that's the actual 82.5% rounded to the nearest whole number.)

From what I recall, oddly enough the barrow downs seemed to 'contain' the largest drop rate for flax.

I didn't think the undead had any interest in such things, maybe it has "unholy" properties......

It's always been more difficult to get flax but it has indeed gotten more difficult.

hmm, my bad. I could have sworn superior tables gave an extra 5%, I guess not. Still, 37.5% with no flax at all isn't bad, considering you don't have to rely on *any* crit drops. So all you need is extra leather for the additional tries, and leather is easy to farm.(and I cant seem to go 5 feet in moria without seeing a scholar node for easy supreme mats to make tons of the scrolls.) That is the route I go after my supply of flax is gone for a given tier when I'm crafting a set. Works great for me, but I guess it depends on if you'd rather farm extra leather hides or extra crit items. Since the base leather materials and scholar scrolls are easy to farm up, and the crit items are luck of the draw with horrid drop rates, i never try to farm specifically for crit items since it takes much much longer.(though you can get lucky buying flax off the AH cheaply on occasion) Plus, scholar crafting scrolls also bump up your crit on one-shot recipes too, in addition to the one-shot scholar crit tome that normally goes with them. Maybe I'm biased since my first SMK crafter was a scholar and I learned to milk that craft for every benefit I could.

The overarching problem is that the crit item is flax fibers, and they are found while harvesting lumber. They should have been some kind of drop of hide bearing animals, that way you can get your hides and crit items in the same place.

Ive been out harvesting golden flax fiber with my hunter today and honestly I dont see any difference in drop rate from a few months earlier.as in before update2. I do agree they could increase the rate of drop a little bit.

Originally Posted by macdadg

The overarching problem is that the crit item is flax fibers, and they are found while harvesting lumber. They should have been some kind of drop of hide bearing animals, that way you can get your hides and crit items in the same place.

Not a bad idea, something like "sinew" dropping off animals that can be used as part of the process.

Originally Posted by Macroscian

Don't touch my food crits! =)

If you farm some for straw, you'll get quite a lot of it. I think I have a stack of 23 in stash (despite a 'main' hunter) from just making rep cooking and a little bit of craft xp cooking.

In 100 elder fields I had 52 elderberries...I think that's way more than enough for a rare-ish dye ingrent (yeah, when I tried same a couple of weeks back I got only 33 berries but that was good too).

Do 100 fields and profit.

*** on topic ***

I don't see less flax at all - making an alt now; for lowlvl ones I had plenty off humanoids and quite a few from picking up wood. Perhaps you don't pick up as much wood as you used to? Or kill less of the humanoids?

Perhaps you need to reread the post to see a lot was farmed in wood and humonoids with no drop.

Originally Posted by elzada

Perhaps you need to reread the post to see a lot was farmed in wood and humonoids with no drop.

My point was after making several alts I can safely say 'it's random'. Perhaps it's too random but I've had both quite a few and quite few. 10 in 100 lumbers, perhaps 30 nodes? 40? is rather a lot.

As to humanoids...

Had a veritable genocide on baby dwarves in shire, farming for specific low tier recipes. Flax looted - 2 in 300+ kills. Did the goblin deed in shire later and flax looted in those much fewer kills (is it 30+60 kills?): 14.

Perhaps it's just too random.

I'd like to add that past weeks I also needed resin and didn't have a lot at all, compared with flax.

My experience with flax is that the lowest levels are hard to keep in stock. This is probably due to two things - less humanoids to kill (lots of animal killing at lower levels) and more outfitting of alts.

I also think that certain mobs don't have the same loot tables as others. A good example of this is the dwarves in the Shire, I usually will have much better luck off the dwarves in Ered Luin, not just for flax but also for recipes and other stuff. Undead also have very different loot tables - usually they drop a ton more scholar materials than other mobs.

Back before the update that changed how farming was done, I remember getting flax fibers from farming. It was much more successful than chopping wood. Why can't we get it back into farming? It's definitely an appropriate place for the items. As far as lumber goes, I tracked wood for about 100 logs worth of yew wood and only got six flax fibers in that time. In the same time, I mined 31 Rich Iron Ores and got four brimstones. There's definitely an imbalance for crit items when chopping wood.

Is there any particular type of flax that is the hardest to get hold of? I ask because I always seem to get a lot of it while I'm out foresting.

Well I know this is a old thread but i used it to prove a point flax drop rate still are terrible. it got better for a bit then 2 months ago bam right back to broken. same with tailor scroll drop rates. do you folks at LOTR think you could fix a little problem that has gone on for 2 years sometime soon. I have just about had it. Heavy Rowen used to give common flax about 1 in 3 before now you can find 10 heavy rowen and not get one piece. I used to craft my armor at 7 and 12 in crit now I split and do some parts in crit and some green and i farm heavy 200 to 300 logs at a time. I can't get flax to roll new toons to save my soul. I am a alt-aholic and roll at least 5 toons on every sever and have 2 accounts plus my wife has 2 accounts the same.

Please return the drop rate back to where it was 2 months ago it was fine.

Also the success rate seems messed up lately too. I have had to craft 7 and 8 items to get a crit that is not 55% in my book. How about a auto crit after 4 tries that is only 25% crit rate. no one should have to use 8 common flax to make 1 piece 7 level armor . This crit failure started about the same time as the crit drop rates droped off.

I have notice that mobs do drop crit stuff now but killing mobs at low level make me over level my area before I want to mining or farming wood does not.
So i think they tried to add more crit drop on mobs and somehow got the balance all wrong now mine and wood don't drop at the right rate anymore

I was going to start a thread tonight about this very issue. I didn't realize this old thread was here. I've been trying to level a few low alts (I'm a altoholic too) and keep them outfitted with good armor but flax is all but non-existent. When you do find any on the AH, it's in low quantities and so ridiculously high-priced that it's just not feasible to buy it. And actually gathering it yourself is an exercise in futility. Over a two night period with three of my explorers of various levels and tiers, a total of 7+ hours harvesting mostly wood, I managed a meager 9 flax!!! That is totally ludicrous.

Turbine, PLEASE adjust this. It is making tailoring all but useless.

I have never actually farmed flax.
I store that and all the other craft crit items I find in my house chest. Tailoring is the main craft that I use...and I currently have (on average) about the same amount as I have brimstone...but I USE my flax.

In the entire time I have been storing these materials, I have noticed an extreme disparity in the number of items I get for each craft.

The highest drop, are whetstones and chalk...the worst dropping one, as I look at my supplies...is resin. The stack numbers for my resin range from 5-23 per tier, ~and only 5 tiers~
That is compared to 6 tiers of every other crafting item, and I have between 20 and 100 of the whetstone per tier.

ALL the crit mats should have the same drop rate. If I have 20 to 100 whetstone per tier... I should have the same for all the rest.

If I have 3 explorers, one at lvl 25... then I should have more of the lower tier mats (on average) than the higher tier ones.

I agree flax seems really scarce please increase flax drop rates

/signed

Is it just me or are there heaps more gems and scholar items dropping on humaniod mobs now?

I again farmed wood in the shire 400 rowen logs and if I got 15 flax :-( This is a joke then I go to craft armor and use 15 flax to craft on set of 12 level armor. So if i add my time and mats to the price to sell a piece of armor critted I would have to sell a 12 level piece of armor for about a gold. or just not bother and make it for myself.
Well this is mostly the case for most now so that is why no one can buy and good armor in the AH for a good price.

I think they need to look at this for real, it takes 6 flax for a set of armor but for weapons and such u need 1 or 2 crit mats per toon. I would say flax drop rates need to be tripled at least. Also heavy wood is not dropping crit matts but yet rich mines always drop something, Why ? yes I know mobs drop crits too but no one should have to farm 400 wood for 15 crit matts!!

I have to start every toon as a explorer to farm matts til 20 level. Who needs 10 tailors. Critted 12 level armor should sell for maybe 100 silver if anyone starting the game has a chance to buy it buy 12 level !!

Then journeyman recipes do start to drop till you 20th level and no longer need them for the toon your on

So to be of any use to the new player 12 level need to drop at 10 to 12 level play, journeyman need to drop after 12 not 18 or 20.

The whole game is set so U always have to have a higher level toon to make stuff for lowbies. Ok this would be at least ok if lowbies could buy the stuff they need in the AH but on most servers this is not the case. I am on 7 servers now and most have next to nothing for low level toons.

So if i was to start brand new here on Lotro get here and can't afford or make my stuff, I think i would just this is BS and leave. I wonder how my players have done just that!!

Why does no one from LOtRO answer ? I have spent over 500$ on this game and would like to see a answer for this I am a unhappy customer. U guys at LOTRO need to see I am not alone there are posts all over on this

PS: U guys dropped the ball really bad for Easter too no sales one ###### Pax horse giveaway the Friday the 13 Lotto was broken and I never got my gift boxs that I won. No treasure hunt at least in the spirit of the Easter egg hunt nothing. and now spring festival that to start till spring is over. Ok now we have a big celebration for 5 years of LOTRO not impressed!! Oh ya while i am in a run the worst Lag i have ever seen but you say its all good!!

If i would not have so much in this game i would have been gone long ago!

Well is it me or does it seem like this flax drop has got a bit better? My wife thinks its bumbed for the spring fest.

Wondering?

Anyone care to comment?

Mmm...

Unlike many of the posters, I tend to keep track of stuff that drops when I go material collecting for my 7 crafters. I have a level 75 Hunter/Explorer, quite possibly the best combination for material harvesting.

When I go out, I tend to be in ore mine mode, and not wood detect mode, but so happens that where there is a metal, there is a wood in sight most of the time.

When I harvest materials, I tend to focus at a tier set of materials at a time, and usually try to harvest at least 500 ores of the prime metal, and 200 of the precious metals, and usually about 300 branches of wood as my standard run.

When I mine for ores, I get of course the ores, but I also get gems and importantly chuncks of rock salt and brimstone.
My experience with ores is that I get 1 gem for each 20 ores I collect, 1 Rock salt for each 40 Ores and 1 Brimstone for each 40 ores. So after colelcting 80 ores I have 2 gems and 1 Brimstone and 1 rock salt. It can be observed that I get as many combined salt rocks and brimstones as gems, the reason you see less, is because the drops tend to be evenly split between rocks and brimstones.

When harvesting wood, you get of course the wood, but you also get Tar and Flax.
My experience is that I do get a tar about every 40 wood branches, but lately it has been about 1 flax per 60 branches.

If the wood products are to match the productivity of ores, one must consider that wood has no counterpart to gem drops. As a result, the rate of tar drops need to be doubled to 1 tar per 10 branches collected, and the flax needs to be dramatically increased to also be 1 flax per 10 woods collected, so after collecting 20 wood branches you would have 1 pitch/tar and 1 flax.

For tier-7 materials, I don't experience a problem, but recipes do not use tar nor flax. My harvesting runs for T-7 tends to show that Ores drop 1 pure calenard for each 20 skarns, and the Byrch has the same ratio as well with its drop. In either case, my database shows they both have a 1 on 250 ore/wood collected chance to collect a Cracked Rhi Helvarch Sigil.


Sue