Thread: Relic Shards not easily obtainable with release of RoI?

This is coming from a person with all his remarkables and extraordinary relics slotted in his weapons.

Right now the ways to obtain shards are from lucky crits on relic combines, refining relics for shards, trading in 4 Tyrant Crests and 4 Chieftain Brooches for a class skill relic box at GV. (feel free to correct me if I'm wrong)

Although tier 7's remarkables are barely an improvement to tier 6 extraordinaries, it is now a pain to make any remarkable/extraordinary relic if you were not prepared before the release of RoI with a gazillion shards.

You can't trade in 10 dull spirit stones and 10 glimmering spirit stones for your class relic in the moors anymore for 330ish shards. It now takes 4 Tyrant Crests and 4 Chieftain Brooches for a class skill relic box at GV AND it has been reduced to give only 79 relic shards. That's the same as refining a tier 5 relic for 79 relic shards. How is participating in 4 keep takes equivalent to 79 relic shards? I just don't understand.

Right now this is how many shards you get from refining certain relics. (Didn't include the self crafted ones because I didn't look into them yet.)

Tier 1 = 1
Tier 2 = 2
Tier 3 = 9
Tier 4 = 32
Tier 5 = 79
Tier 6 = 192
Tier 7 = 464
Moors Relic box = 79 shards

I don't see any easy way to farm shards post roi, other than duoing level 65 STH T2 at 75 for tier 4 relic boxes and that would be a pretty boring grind in my opinion.

Am I the only one annoyed at this? Or am I missing the new easiest way to obtain relic shards? Do tell.

Relic shard costs wouldn't be such a big deal if you got them back during a reforge, or at the least, in a decommission. The way it is now, people are fearful to put relics into on-level legendary items because their relics will be lost. Why put your nice runes into an item that is obsolete in a few days? These are runes that represent literal weeks of grinding. They are not going into anything but level 75 Reforged items, which means gameplay gets put on hold until end game gear is acquired. And then I hear that there will be level 75 Extraordinaries come December and I feel my stomach turn because I've melded 70 Remarkables and I'll never get my effort back for them. It's very poor planning in my opinion.

Bear in mind that the crafted relics give a god awful lot of shards. If you can afford a couple of crafting alts and do the daily one that dosen't require anything but ordinary mats the results can be quite impressive.

Assuming 1 day a week is lost becuase of how the cooldowns push the crafts later and later you could get 384 shards per alt that way. If you can also aquire sufficent compendiums to go crafting those to refice you can get even more as the 3 day cooldown recepie is 128 shards AFAIK, and i think the last one is 256 per. So potentiolly there's nearly 900 shards a week in there. And a single toon can grind enough volume 1 compendiums to keep 3 crafters busy making stuff. So depending on your volume 2 compendiums supply you could get nearly 3K shards a week, character slots allowing.

Originally Posted by Darth_Carl

Bear in mind that the crafted relics give a god awful lot of shards. If you can afford a couple of crafting alts and do the daily one that dosen't require anything but ordinary mats the results can be quite impressive.

Assuming 1 day a week is lost becuase of how the cooldowns push the crafts later and later you could get 384 shards per alt that way. If you can also aquire sufficent compendiums to go crafting those to refice you can get even more as the 3 day cooldown recepie is 128 shards AFAIK, and i think the last one is 256 per. So potentiolly there's nearly 900 shards a week in there. And a single toon can grind enough volume 1 compendiums to keep 3 crafters busy making stuff. So depending on your volume 2 compendiums supply you could get nearly 3K shards a week, character slots allowing.

One day cooldown = 64
Three day cooldown = 128(according to you, can't check atm cd is down)
One week cooldown = 364

64x7 + 128x2 + 364 = 1068 shards a week from one character with his/her crafting up.

For players that play all day everyday, shards are still scarce to come by unless you're deconstructing a lot of weapons and combining those lower tier relics. Even if you have crafting alts, (which is not a safe assumption for a good amount of people I know,) the lack of easy ways to obtain shards post roi is simply annoying.

It takes 4 tier 6 relics + 1,392 shards to make a level 65 Extraordinary relic.
It takes 3 Tier 7 relics + 1,687 shards to make a level 70 Remarkable relic.

I'd say it would take ~4 weeks to get enough shards for all... let's say 6 extraordinary/remarkables that you want from scratch now, just from solo crafting and combining relics with critical combines producing shards. Pre RoI, you could get all the shards you needed and more in about 4 hours spent in the delving of fror farming worms.

havent done any 12 man content at 75 yet, but arent they dropping t6 or t7 runes? Most people are going to be grinding SM and S4M so much that I would think you are going to end up with a decent about or runes that way. Combine or decon at will.

Originally Posted by MrJaZn

One day cooldown = 64
Three day cooldown = 128(according to you, can't check atm cd is down)
One week cooldown = 364

64x7 + 128x2 + 364 = 1068 shards a week from one character with his/her crafting up.

For players that play all day everyday, shards are still scarce to come by unless you're deconstructing a lot of weapons and combining those lower tier relics. Even if you have crafting alts, (which is not a safe assumption for a good amount of people I know,) the lack of easy ways to obtain shards post roi is simply annoying.

It takes 4 tier 6 relics + 1,392 shards to make a level 65 Extraordinary relic.
It takes 3 Tier 7 relics + 1,687 shards to make a level 70 Remarkable relic.

I'd say it would take ~4 weeks to get enough shards for all... let's say 6 extraordinary/remarkables that you want from scratch now, just from solo crafting and combining relics with critical combines producing shards. Pre RoI, you could get all the shards you needed and more in about 4 hours spent in the delving of fror farming worms.

It's been a while since i refined a 3 day cooldown relic, so my number is probably wrong, ( i was under the impreshion it douibled each time. I also forgot the week long one is BOA, so can't help the toon in question. Also anyone with more than 3 or so slots has crafting alts, it's called the toons your not playing. Anyone who bothered to get the full mines of Moria expanshion and didn;t manually grind the TP's, (i.e. most everyone), has 5 slots. So really having 2 or 3 toons that can craft that your not currenttly playing heavilly should be par for the course for everyone.

Really though, even with just one toon. 1K a week isn't bad, it's a handful of weeks to get everythign sorted, a bit longer to stockpile stuff, and viola, you can sell spares for gold on AH to those still grinding. Hell my hunter has so many shards ATM, (and is only 63), that when she hit's 65 she'll be able to meld any relics she wants to the instant she hits cap. Relic supply for that half of things allowing. Simple leveling is giving me more than enough.

Not saying it's not a grind, but it's a lot kinder than leveling LI's and deconing for a hundred or so shards a time. And isn't some multi month horror show.

Originally Posted by badkarma44

havent done any 12 man content at 75 yet, but arent they dropping t6 or t7 runes? Most people are going to be grinding SM and S4M so much that I would think you are going to end up with a decent about or runes that way. Combine or decon at will.

A 12 man 75 skirm raid drops '1' tier 7 rune. So given you've got 12 people running it, effectively you'd have to run 12 skirm raids for everyone to get one. It will help, but it's not going to be a reliable way to farm relics.

Originally Posted by JRonnie

A 12 man 75 skirm raid drops '1' tier 7 rune. So given you've got 12 people running it, effectively you'd have to run 12 skirm raids for everyone to get one. It will help, but it's not going to be a reliable way to farm relics.

wow, a 12 man skirm drops only 1 t7? I hope its drops a ton of t5-6 relics then. thats pretty sad.

Originally Posted by badkarma44

I hope its drops a ton of t5-6 relics then,

Nope just one tier 7 no other relics.

Originally Posted by Thornpaw

It's very poor planning in my opinion.

It's very obvious planning: they've done this for only ONE reason, to encourage scroll sales in the Store, there's no valid in-game reason for it.

/sarcasm on
I hear that in December you can choose to use TP instead of shards for melding.
/sarcasm off

Originally Posted by Kerin_Eldar

It's very obvious planning: they've done this for only ONE reason, to encourage scroll sales in the Store, there's no valid in-game reason for it.

Most of us run plenty of skirmishes anyway for the symbol. The runes/relics are least of our problems

Originally Posted by Kerin_Eldar

It's very obvious planning: they've done this for only ONE reason, to encourage scroll sales in the Store, there's no valid in-game reason for it.

Although this will definitely boost TP relic removal scroll purchases for players who already have their extraordinary relics made, that still doesn't fix what I see as a problem in obtaining shards on a new character leveling up. I'm currently leveling up an alt and I guess I'm going to have to craft 1/3 day relics as much as possible on every character I have crafting up on so by the time it hits 75 I'm prepared with a couple thousand shards minimum. I know I'll be leveling a ton of trash weapons in moria to level 11 with khuzdul tablets/dwarf tools so all those relics will net me some shards while combining also.

Originally Posted by Thornpaw

Relic shard costs wouldn't be such a big deal if you got them back during a reforge, or at the least, in a decommission. The way it is now, people are fearful to put relics into on-level legendary items because their relics will be lost. Why put your nice runes into an item that is obsolete in a few days? These are runes that represent literal weeks of grinding. They are not going into anything but level 75 Reforged items, which means gameplay gets put on hold until end game gear is acquired. And then I hear that there will be level 75 Extraordinaries come December and I feel my stomach turn because I've melded 70 Remarkables and I'll never get my effort back for them. It's very poor planning in my opinion.

You are touching on why I'm hear surfing today. The T6 extrodinary relics I made... What do I do with them? I noticed they don't show up in the relic recombine window for turning T6's into T7's. Not that I'd want to. Each T6 extrodinare took 3T6 relics and (I don't know off the top of my head and world down) a boat load of shards. There needs be a way to get this effort back.

Like 1normal T7 and 1T6 extrodinare can be turned into one of the new top tier T7's. People jumped for this new relic system and defended Turbine making relic removal a 'store' only item because the new system was going to be so much better. I don't see it. The old system I wanted to upgrade to a new weapon and I had a maxed LI with all T8's in it I deconded it. Got my T8's back added a couple T8's I'd grinded while using the old weapon and hit combine and my old T8's became T9's with no loss of the effort I'd put into the T8's.

Now I don't see anything to do with my old T6's. I think if you decon a weapon with T6 extrodinare's in it the guy ought to give you shards equal to the shards that went into it. That is give the shards that 3 normal T6 relics give plus the amount of shards it took to meld those three into the extodinare.

To repeat. The deconning of a weapon with relics in it should give shards deconed from the relics back in addition to the various relics the LI itself returns.

If a deconed LI would return 1 T5 , 4 T4's, 5 T2's et without any relics in it, and it is deconned with 3 T6 extrodinares it sould give those same relics + XXXX shards with XXXX being what you would get from refining the 9 T6's that went plus the shards used to meld those 9 into the 3.

I planned to open a thread on this topic when I saw it already existed:
I never worried about shards as I had a lot of old T9 relics on most of my characters. So I never understood the complainment but now I have started to level a new char and don't see how I'm supposed to get enough shards to meld the relics I want.

Even if you take only the extraordinary runes you need about 600shards/relic - the lvl70version costing 1.6k shards each. ###? How am I supposed to get 3.2k shards (just for my gems ... not even talking about a complete set of 6relics) after the nerf to moors relics and the insane raise of bartercosts?

Seriously when you removed t7-9 (which was an aweful decision as some of the old T9 relics where like 5times better than what is best now) you promised that you would heavily reduce the grind and therefore it would be okay that we can't remove the relics from our old weapons without visiting the store.
But now we have even more grind than before and still have to visit the store in order to keep our relics.

I was never happy about the fact that there exist items that have a major impact on gameplay in the game that can't be obtained anymore. This is somewhat against the rules of MMO, imo. But the grind now needed to get enough shards with new chars is insane... really.

I ran into this issue yesterday when trying to make some Remarkable relics, and was shocked at how high the shard costs were but how hard shards were to get.

If you want a single remarkable relic, you need the 3 Tier 7s, plus 4 more refined T7s worth of shards. Shard cost has gone up about 4 fold from what it was at the lvl 65 tier, with fewer ways to get them (moors relics much harder to get and give fewer shards).

It is a grind (shards) within a grind (relics) within a grind (legendary items). At some point, grinds become not worth the effort.

For me that point has been reached.

It is ridiculous. I'm glad I farmed a bunch of stones and turned in for the relics before it got changed. But even now I feel like I didn't get enough. And even worse, the Remarkable and T7 relics are, at most, only slightly better, and in some cases worse than T6 and Extraordinary/True relics.

Turbine has failed again, but this hopefully didn't come as a surprise to anyone.

It's pretty obvious now that they want us all to buy the relic combining crit scrolls to even have a chance at getting good relics. All about the TPs...

As the original poster mentioned, you can get a lot of tier 4 relics from running Northcotton Farm or Stoneheight (level 65 instances), and at tier 1 those instances can be soloed (depending on your class), or at least very easily duoed. I have soloed NCF and Stoneheight several times on my burglar, and from the runs I have done I would estimate that you get around 10 tier 4 relic boxes, which each deconstruct to between 1 and 3 tier 4 relics. It should not take you very long to get the ~1500 shards needed for the best relics. And the relic boxes can be traded, so I can run NCF on my burglar and trade the relics to my minstrel.

It is pretty hard to get lots of shards in a hurry unless you have lots of skirmish marks to dump on relics.

It isn't so tough over the long haul, though. I personally make the lowest crafted relic on 3 crafters/day.
At 64 shards each, that is 192 shards a day, which adds up quickly. And you can give the relics to whichever character needs the shards. As a bonus, often get an IXP pill when deconning the crafted relics.

Originally Posted by Merowin

As the original poster mentioned, you can get a lot of tier 4 relics from running Northcotton Farm or Stoneheight (level 65 instances), and at tier 1 those instances can be soloed (depending on your class), or at least very easily duoed. I have soloed NCF and Stoneheight several times on my burglar, and from the runs I have done I would estimate that you get around 10 tier 4 relic boxes, which each deconstruct to between 1 and 3 tier 4 relics. It should not take you very long to get the ~1500 shards needed for the best relics. And the relic boxes can be traded, so I can run NCF on my burglar and trade the relics to my minstrel.

Yeah, I've been running champ/burg duo's fairly quickly and in 3 runs I believe it's something like 50 relic boxes total, so 25 each. If you're doing challenge mode especially duoing, you get 3.8g or so each which is a nice new way to farm gold/relics/shards or whatever your intention is.

STH/NCF T2 isn't a solution to the obvious problem. It's a work around. I know for sure alot of casual players do not want to spend their skirmish marks or time grinding NCF/STH during their few hours they have to play. It's just not fun. I find it more fun going to listen to chat in Bree OOC or Creep OOC now than grinding out old instances we already grinded pre roi.

Feel free to not hold back with that +rep button!

I'd like to add that you can run Stoneheight bosses 1 and 2, then leave instance. Rinse/repeat all day until you have what you need. I generally get 7+ tier 4 boxes per run doing tier 1 solo. Once you refine those it adds up to 224 shards each time at a minimum. I Generally end up with 11 or so tier 4s once I decon the boxes. I'm averaging 350 shards per run on the 2 bosses.

You also get 4 x 50k ixp runes each run which is nice...

I see three possible explanations to such a brainless grinding system :

1) They have no idea what they are doing, they even maybe think that they know better than us what we enjoy.
2) They have no time to spend on this problem because Turbine wants to pay as less developpers as possible.
3) The commercials have the full power on deciding the content of the game and the devs have nothing to say anymore.

In my opinion it's a mix of them three.

Starting to craft daily on 2 toons my once a day relics and it still feels painful. I suppose STH t2 duoing will be the way to go when I hit level cap on my alt. I hope they fix this in some way in the next content release update as I can see this as being a low priority and don't foresee a fix now.

Shards should drop in chest loot tbh, along with many other goodies

Originally Posted by deeman25845601

It is ridiculous. I'm glad I farmed a bunch of stones and turned in for the relics before it got changed. But even now I feel like I didn't get enough. And even worse, the Remarkable and T7 relics are, at most, only slightly better, and in some cases worse than T6 and Extraordinary/True relics.

Turbine has failed again, but this hopefully didn't come as a surprise to anyone.

It's pretty obvious now that they want us all to buy the relic combining crit scrolls to even have a chance at getting good relics. All about the TPs...

The grind is totally ridiculous!

I hope someone from Turbine provides a decent response to this thread. Somehow, I doubt they will.

I farmed about 5k worth of shards to prepare for the expac, I certainly didn't expect THAT much of a nerf. I've completely ran out of reliable ways to get shards and need a tonne more to make good relics, and have zero desire to do so.

Good work to whoever makes these decisions.

Honestly the only dev/GM response I got from this thread was a forced name change as my name violated the CoC - Naming Policies. I used to be Nealcaffrey and rocking it in my forum sig, but then it was changed after I made this thread. Coincidence? I think not. Did I break the CoC with my name? Yes, because I was ignorant of the specifics.

In case anyone doesn't know, Neal Caffrey is the main character on a popular tv show named "White Collar". Neal's a pretty awesome modern day burglar although he had his hips on cd when the FBI showed up.

Back on topic.

I'm really surprised there hasn't been more outspoken outrage towards this. This thread is only 2 pages long with 26 replies(quite a few mine) and has had 1600+ views. If you're angry about these changes I suggest you at least make a post saying something as simple as "I'm very angry with the relic shard system post roi. This needs to be fixed somehow, or put back to how it was pre roi." If the developer's aren't aware of this for some reason, let's make them aware with a 10 page thread complaining about it.

The grind for relic shards is just plain stupid. The worst thing you could of done is take 1 more rewarding thing about being VIP away from VIPs. If you put back the stone barter system and the relic shards obtained from the class relics in GV, I see you as getting more subscribers just to farm stones in the Delving.

***That's more money for you Turbine, in case the concept is too hard. Give incentive to go VIP to the people who care less about pvp, but still care about being relic awesome in PvE.***

Likewise, I'm upset by the change in the relic system overall, and yes, extremely annoyed how hard it is to grind shards now.

So for now, I personally won't bother with the t7 or remarkable relics, they're barely upgrades to t6/extraordinary anyway, and absolutely not worth the grind.

Originally Posted by mjmallon

Likewise, I'm upset by the change in the relic system overall, and yes, extremely annoyed how hard it is to grind shards now.

So for now, I personally won't bother with the t7 or remarkable relics, they're barely upgrades to t6/extraordinary anyway, and absolutely not worth the grind.

Agreed, upgrade from T6 to T7 is uninspiring. Fact that T7 is useable at level 70 suggests that level 75 relics will come soon enough (not confirmed, BTW, just speculation). I'm good with my T6s, which limits my outrage (+ have 10k shards on my main). Fact that I've won 2 relic removal scrolls in lotteries sooths my angst somewhat there too. I also have something like 75-80 crafted relics in vault to shard for whichever of my chars needs them. So while I think they've priced shard things outrageously, hasn't hit me personally very hard yet. Forgetting relic extraordinary relic costs, shard prices of LI related scrolls are so outlandish that I have to wonder who they think will pay 10k or more shards for a single scroll. How do most folks get 10k shards???? Seems like a truly bizarre game balance decision.

I guess you have to prioritize what you are upset about. I dislike the LI grind more than the relic grind. Grinding greater SOEs for my two guys is pretty daunting, particularly for 3rd age LIs, so not doing more than a few scrolls for now until I get my 2nd ages going. And 2nd ages are irritating as the number of majors is quite important for Captain weapon/item and the lottery stuff remains there in a few aspects (e.g. how many majors you get on reforge, which specific legacies you get on reforge controls the great SOE grind needed, which stats you get on 2-H weapons is still totally random, OOCPR FTW?).

yes, it's a grind. but like you said, stoneheight t1 gains 10 t4 relics in 25-30 min, which is almost a tier 7 every half hour. Not that fast, not that fun, but when is grind ever fun? It's just doable.

Originally Posted by Sheilyn

Seriously when you removed t7-9 (which was an aweful decision as some of the old T9 relics where like 5times better than what is best now) you promised that you would heavily reduce the grind and therefore it would be okay that we can't remove the relics from our old weapons without visiting the store. But now we have even more grind than before and still have to visit the store in order to keep our relics.

I was never happy about the fact that there exist items that have a major impact on gameplay in the game that can't be obtained anymore. This is somewhat against the rules of MMO, imo. But the grind now needed to get enough shards with new chars is insane... really.

^^^^^^^^^^^

Originally Posted by mrfigglesworth

yes, it's a grind. but like you said, stoneheight t1 gains 10 t4 relics in 25-30 min, which is almost a tier 7 every half hour. Not that fast, not that fun, but when is grind ever fun? It's just doable.

It's no longer feasible to get good relics for all your LIs. If you are able to stand hours upon hours of grinding, you can probably struggle your way to getting relics for your two main LIs. Then, unless you are an absolute sucker for punishment, you're gonna shell out the TP to get them back, which was exactly what they said wouldn't happen because they'd lessened the grind (now we find this turned out to only be a temporary lessening of the grind).




The worst part is they don't seem to even notice stuff like this anymore. They probably don't even realize (or care) that they've broken another promise. I wouldn't be surprised if they add new relics in the next update (the current remarkable ones are only listed as level 70) that are even more difficult to grind, /sigh.

Maybe its the result of years of fanboism getting to the developers heads, who knows .

Originally Posted by Evendale

^^^^^^^^^^^


It's no longer feasible to get good relics for all your LIs. If you are able to stand hours upon hours of grinding, you can probably struggle your way to getting relics for your two main LIs. Then, unless you are an absolute sucker for punishment, you're gonna shell out the TP to get them back, which was exactly what they said wouldn't happen because they'd lessened the grind (now we find this turned out to only be a temporary lessening of the grind).




The worst part is they don't seem to even notice stuff like this anymore. They probably don't even realize (or care) that they've broken another promise. I wouldn't be surprised if they add new relics in the next update (the current remarkable ones are only listed as level 70) that are even more difficult to grind, /sigh.

Maybe its the result of years of fanboism getting to the developers heads, who knows .

And the real kicker to this, arguably the best tanking setting is a store only relic....

Hm, I´d like to throw a totally radical thought out here, which is that some people should maybe step back and look at this issue with a bit of a distance. There are a lot of relic levels, and each has his superior melded relics. The lower relics are all only a fraction less worthy than the higher relics. And still, all you people look at are the highest tier relics.

Now, convert that to game standards. Which highly desirable itmes in this game do you get without a lot of time investment or grind? None. And I guess, most of you agree with that mantra, that only hard work should be rewarded.

Well, think of the True-Rune-relics and the remarkable melded ones as just the same... the highest desirable items that you can only get with a considerable input of time and effort. If you agree wih the former paragraph, why cant you agree with this paragraph?

Originally Posted by Vandervahn

Hm, I´d like to throw a totally radical thought out here, which is that some people should maybe step back and look at this issue with a bit of a distance. There are a lot of relic levels, and each has his superior melded relics. The lower relics are all only a fraction less worthy than the higher relics. And still, all you people look at are the highest tier relics.

Now, convert that to game standards. Which highly desirable itmes in this game do you get without a lot of time investment or grind? None. And I guess, most of you agree with that mantra, that only hard work should be rewarded.

Well, think of the True-Rune-relics and the remarkable melded ones as just the same... the highest desirable items that you can only get with a considerable input of time and effort. If you agree wih the former paragraph, why cant you agree with this paragraph?

Because:
A) The extraordinary/remarkable relics are (generally) much much better than lower tier relics, and the new ones will be better still.
B) There is a grind and then there is a grrrrrrrrrrrrrrriiiiiiiiiiiiii iiiiiinnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnndddddd ddddddd.
C) The store allows you to avoid the near unfathomable grind completely.
D) Even worse, some relics can only be bought in the store.

If you were heavily involved in end game and actually realistically considering undergoing the effort it takes to grind the best relics, I'm sure you'd understand.

It's rather easy to obtain relics, actually... if you know where to look. Spend Skirmish Marks and barter for Tier 4 relics. They are decently cheap and you can often get 2 or 3 in each set.

Another easy way to obtain them is running Stoneheight and North Cotton Farms. Certain classes can solo most of these. I can do all of Stoneheight on my Warden with ease, and then I run NCF up to the first boss solo too. Doing so usually results in at least two tier 6 relics (after combining all of the tier 4's you get for both instances). Doing the entire Stoneheight instance will put it on cool down for the day though... as for NCF, run the first boss until your hearts content he he. So just doing this, if I were to do it each day (which I don't... I usually only play on the weekend) then I could essentially get upwards of three tier 7 relics in a week just from running Stoneheight and NCF each day. Not to bad if you ask me. And if it's shards you are after, just break down the tier 7s at the end of the week.

Originally Posted by Evendale

^^^^^^^^^^^


It's no longer feasible to get good relics for all your LIs. If you are able to stand hours upon hours of grinding, you can probably struggle your way to getting relics for your two main LIs. Then, unless you are an absolute sucker for punishment, you're gonna shell out the TP to get them back, which was exactly what they said wouldn't happen because they'd lessened the grind (now we find this turned out to only be a temporary lessening of the grind).




The worst part is they don't seem to even notice stuff like this anymore. They probably don't even realize (or care) that they've broken another promise. I wouldn't be surprised if they add new relics in the next update (the current remarkable ones are only listed as level 70) that are even more difficult to grind, /sigh.

Maybe its the result of years of fanboism getting to the developers heads, who knows .

tbh with how cheap i'm selling settings on the AH, people are assuming they're much easier to come by, which is true. I still dont feel like im grinding that bad if each tier 7 is worth 3-4 hundred shards and it's easy to get a tier 7.

I guess i'm still remembering tier 9's and and THAT grind. Either way, don't expect anything to change on the subject of the store. people will use, turbine will profit, make more p2w stuff, people will use, turbine will profit, etc.

I find it hard to believe you guys in the last two posts have actually grinded any of this stuff given what you say, as:

• You're actually quite a lot better off turning in SMs for t6 relics rather than t4 (unless maybe if you want to meld for shards).
• One run through STH or NCF (T2) grants you almost exactly enough t4s for one (ordinary) t7 relic. But you're better off duoing it for speed.
• You should meld t4 relics (not t7s) to maximize the number of shards you get.

Who is gonna grind a level 65 instance every day for weeks on end just to get relics? Are you kidding?

To get enough relics and shards for one T7 remarkable relic, you have to run Stoneheight 6-7 times, or 13-14 times as a duo with someone else. One T7 remarkable can also be obtained via about 20,000 SMs.

Imagine if they add in T8s and, a T8 version of remarkables. Those numbers could triple or quadruple. We'll soon see I guess.

Originally Posted by mrfigglesworth

I guess i'm still remembering tier 9's and and THAT grind. Either way, don't expect anything to change on the subject of the store. people will use, turbine will profit, make more p2w stuff, people will use, turbine will profit, etc.

I'd happily go back to the t9 grind if I could keep the relics on decon without having to use the store. That grind wasn't even that bad on average - the only problem was that good or bad luck on the last few tiers of reforging massively effected your returns, which was silly.

I'm not expecting anything to get better, I'm expecting it to get worse - this is Turbine we are talking about here. I'm just agreeing with other posts about how ridiculous it is that they've gone back on their word by increasing the grind to the point where everyone other than diehard grinders are virtually forced to use the store if they want to get good relics for all their LIs.

Originally Posted by Evendale

Because:
A) The extraordinary/remarkable relics are (generally) much much better than lower tier relics, and the new ones will be better still.
B) There is a grind and then there is a grrrrrrrrrrrrrrriiiiiiiiiiiiii iiiiiinnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnndddddd ddddddd.
C) The store allows you to avoid the near unfathomable grind completely.
D) Even worse, some relics can only be bought in the store.

If you were heavily involved in end game and actually realistically considering undergoing the effort it takes to grind the best relics, I'm sure you'd understand.

You didnt adress a single one of my points. Basically, you´re only reiterating the same statements you made in the very first posts. People have given you examples of how to "easily" get shards. Stoneheight first Boss takes only a couple of minutes Duo, and only a bit more solo. And there´s another thing to do; you just take the item XP pills and throw them into some cheap LIs from the auction house. Third way, the crafted relic thing. Gives you thousands of shards if you´re really earnest about it per WEEK.

Bottom line is, if you really want relic shards, they´re not all that hard to get with a little effort now and then. Its only difficult to get them if you quickly need a burst of relic shards; but there are various instances in the game where success is time-gated and needs foreplanning (for example, guild crafting cooldowns). And all that doesnt even touch on the as-of-yet unknown new ways to get relics with Update5.

I also dont see how the Lotro store "allows to avoid the grind completely". If you´re speaking of the ability to buy relics and decon them there, have you looked at the prices of said relics? How many players do you think are willing to pay all these TP just to get enough shards and base relics to meld remarkables? Even if some rich people actually do - its kind af hypothetical problem. And if you´re speaking of the relic removal scrolls, well, thats one thing I use my farmed and VIP TP for - its what they are there for for me. And all they do is make some intermediate steps easier.

As to your uncalled for ad hominem attack, although you know nothing about my game progression, I indeed do have what I consider the best relics for my playstyle on my LIs. And objectively, my main has more refined equipment and a longer instance log than you. Is this a gauge for prowess now?

9 guilded crafters making T1 relics every day, soloing STH for ixp runes and relics when I feel like it (not every day). I dont feel getting shards and T6-7 relics is such a big grind. Actually I have overwritten 4 T7 remarkable ones with ordinary T7s just the other day on my champ - at least I can eventually combine them later on if needed, while remarkable ones are basically a dead end.

Now getting the lvl 75 2nd ager with like 4 T2 legacies is such a grind for scrolls it cant even be compared.

Originally Posted by Vandervahn

You didnt adress a single one of my points. Basically, you´re only reiterating the same statements you made in the very first posts. People have given you examples of how to "easily" get shards. Stoneheight first Boss takes only a couple of minutes Duo, and only a bit more solo. And there´s another thing to do; you just take the item XP pills and throw them into some cheap LIs from the auction house. Third way, the crafted relic thing. Gives you thousands of shards if you´re really earnest about it per WEEK.

Bottom line is, if you really want relic shards, they´re not all that hard to get with a little effort now and then. Its only difficult to get them if you quickly need a burst of relic shards; but there are various instances in the game where success is time-gated and needs foreplanning (for example, guild crafting cooldowns). And all that doesnt even touch on the as-of-yet unknown new ways to get relics with Update5.

I also dont see how the Lotro store "allows to avoid the grind completely". If you´re speaking of the ability to buy relics and decon them there, have you looked at the prices of said relics? How many players do you think are willing to pay all these TP just to get enough shards and base relics to meld remarkables? Even if some rich people actually do - its kind af hypothetical problem. And if you´re speaking of the relic removal scrolls, well, thats one thing I use my farmed and VIP TP for - its what they are there for for me. And all they do is make some intermediate steps easier.

As to your uncalled for ad hominem attack, although you know nothing about my game progression, I indeed do have what I consider the best relics for my playstyle on my LIs. And objectively, my main has more refined equipment and a longer instance log than you. Is this a gauge for prowess now?

Oh please. Your repeatedly say "it's easy/not hard to get relics by doing X". Well, that's only true if you have a very generous meaning for the word easy. I've provided a lot of detail as to why I don't feel its easy (see my post directly above yours).

Ad hominem is entirely justified when you make posts that include heavy use of subjective language instead of providing factual support for your views (though imo its a bit of an exaggeration to call what I said an ad hominen) .


But apparently there's four people now who all agree getting high tier relics isn't very difficult. I guess this game appeals to the mindless grinder types more than I thought (sorry if that comes across offensive). I don't think there's any way I could bring myself to make crafted relics every day.