Thread: Update 6: Commendations Developer Diary

Originally Posted by Martigan

Moors on my server is rubbish at the moment.

On hunter I'm slumming doing pve questing again, earning way more than I can doing actual pvp solo. So mostly in the moors I'm running around picking up bits of wood, killing brogs and goblins. Every now and then i meet up with a questing creep and we go to it. Not very satisfying.

The one time I did get loads of comms was when joining a "turn the map blue" raid, totally ignoring any actual pvp at all.

Other than that its all about if a side has an overwhelming majority, which ofc is a pretty underwhelming experience.

As for creeps getting a slap in the face, I witnessed 5 freeps trying to bring down a warg the other day an they couldnt. I've seen 10+ creeps keeping 20+ freeps bottled up in Tir. I've seen a predominantly red map with freeps being spam farmed in EC, Ive seen that as soon as Tol goes blue its instantly flipped back, I've been in several freep raids where we are mainly getting wiped all the time,I've seen my hunter squishier than ever with his noob audacity even though he has a full set of 75 pvp armour that took months to grind but is now totally useless.

maybe I should gtry out creep to see what all the fuss is about - but wait I have a life and I'd need to grind forever like on my freep to make it a viable experience.

What I havent seen is anything that has brought back some of the great pvp players we had on our server which have left for pastures new. I've not seen any of the small group action that I have played for years and has given me some of the best fun in LOTRO, I've not seen any satisfying 1v1 action where it actually felt balanced, I've not seen any of those great raid leaders we used to have on our server leading to awesome nights of pvp.

Irrespective of what our individual experiences are I've seen a tired map with no significant injection of pvp development that has generated perceptions of improvement, or created a buzz of action or actually brought back veteran pvp players and raid leaders. I've seen a grind introduced that makes it very difficult for players to drop-in and get a good pvp experience. Dont forget that much of gte player base in this game are mature players with real lives and relationships. We arent all singleton youngsters with time on our hands.

Nicely said, + rep! (Comming from a creep btw)

It is enough if someone has more than 1 (one) creep and you can immediately see the immense grind required to get all the skills and commendations required.

6000*7 + 2000*6 + 1000*6 + 7500*6 * 3 = 315,000 commendations

Ive been playing LotRO a long time, but only just recently gotten into pvp. I was having a bit of fun freep side so wanted to try it out creep side. Thing is, its really hard to earn the commendations for only 1 of my freep characters. I dont play all day, I work, have kids etc. So yeah, I have money and less time. The store is supposed to be for me, right?

But I know I have to be careful with the store. For instance, most of my RK LI's require 17 or 18 greater empowerment scrolls. That means that digital weapon which will be obsolete in 6 months would cost $55 on the store. Hah! I know the value of $55, and it's not a pixelated pouch. So I'm careful.

But when I looked at the comm costs for freeps, I just threw my hands up in the air. Whats the point in being VIP if I cant participate in being even ONE creep, let alone playing 2 or 3?


Thing is, I understand I can buy the creep stuff on the store... but what I feel like is that Turbine "took a poison pill" in order to very strongly urge me to spend my money on creep skills. It seems very obvious to me that they made a totally noxious grind so you'd just spend instead.

I can handle the nickles and dimes, but this sort of strong-arm tactic for $6 or $8 PER SKILL is way way way out of line in terms of what I see as decent or ethical.
The poison pill strategy may work on some players I suppose, but instead I feel poisoned as a customer, and I feel Turbine poisoned their brand reputation.
I feel Turbine doesn't care at all about my pocketbook, and simply will use any advantage it can to force me out of it, and moreover, doesn't even pretend to care. This sort of aggressive grab into my wallet is totally unsavory.


All this really means is that I cannot play creep side.

I played Guilds Wars 1 for years, and they had lots of Store things. They sold skills, packs of skills, storage, cosmetics, all kinds of things. None of it was ever this over-the-top bald-faced kind of greed. It was there, they made a handsome profit, and I never once felt cheated, duped, or strong-armed.

Seeing how things are creepside has REALLY done a number on my view of Turbines brand. Poison pill against earning creep skills in order to buy instead? Yes, I can see that. Poison pill to your brand reputation? Yes, clearly devolved to aggressive and greedy methods.

Ive been here since launch. Im not dramatic. Ive never said 'Ive had enough Im leaving etc'. But seriously, this is really messed up and has shaken my view of this company. Im totally scanning the horizon for another past-time, and don't think for one second Turbine, that Ill forget how far from the tree you fell. Next product you put out, I wont be viewing it through rose-colored glasses but instead with a healthy dose of cynicism, and even suspicion.

This comm system is just that far out of line to me, the greed of it baffles all my old ideas of what you were as a company.

Yeah, it's pretty obvious - creepside at least - that they want you to spend money in the store.

6,000 commendations to go from Audacity 2 to Audacity 3? Seriously? The pittance of a difference in mitigations isn't worth 6,000 Commendations to me.

Top that off with the fact that commendations are account wide, and I am forced to decide on whether I want to get 'Moors gear for my Freep or try to level my Creep that I had been playing for many years.

As it stands right now, I have stopped playing in the Ettenmoors. Between the in-fighting on both sides and the out-of-this-world costs related to Commendations, I have really been turned off to PvP in LOTRO.

This system MIGHT work if Turbine had an actual PvP system that worked, but the Ettenmoors went from an atrocious "we'll work on it if the developers can find the time" zone to a big cash grab zone.

And I agree with L_Loomis, the greed of it baffles all my old ideas of what Turbine once was as a company.

Well said from both the previous posters (+rep to both of you).

What I can't believe, is that there are hundreds (if not thousands) of customers who are unhappy about commendations and the cost requirements. Paying customers.

Turbine say they want our feedback, but here we have 50 pages of input - and they still ignore us.

As L_Loomis said:

I feel poisoned as a customer, and I feel Turbine poisoned their brand reputation.

You took destiny from VIP monster players and in return gave us a heavy grind with many unfair restrictions. Account wide cap? A cap at all is a slap in the face considering we never had any caps on destiny for 5 years and destiny wasen't even a grind. None of your players wanted this in any way shape or form. I know you want monster players to visit the store but you seem to forget many monster players have been paying VIP subs for months/years while PVE content was free2play. Did you forget that?

Turbine devs you shoulden't be twisting our arm too visit the store by deleting the destiny system which EVERYONE was happy with and giving us commendations that nobody wants. You should of gave us MORE CONTENT that makes the store worth visiting. Not destroying our old content or turning it into a grind to try force us into the store.

We would pay for a new pvmp map or a new pvmp class but VIP monster players are not going to pay for skills we could of gained using our destiny points. I don't know why you believe otherwise. Your only making PVMP's quit Lotro.

You want to force PVMP's too pay for old content by buying their skills in the store?
or
You want pvmp's too grind weeks for it? (grind in PVP = dead PVP)

Any of the 2 above options sound fair or right? If you want more money from us then give us new content.

As I've started to try to level up a warg and make them effective, I've come to a couple of conclusions:

1. For new creeps, the commendations system is horrible. You are junk as far as being effective against freeps, and the grind to try to earn enough comms to get sort of skills, corruptions, etc is absolutely beyond ridiculous. Relying only on comms your creep is going to be a near cripple for the first several ranks at least until they can earn enough comms to do something with, and even then they are going to have to rely on quests and groups to do it, not PvP.

2. The only way around point 1 in any way at this point is through buying skills in the store, and even that is going to be a horrendous number of points to buy a reasonable number of skills.

3. None of that addresses the cost of audacity for either side, something that is necessary to survive and be effective, but cost is very steep.

4. The main ones that are able to work in the system are those that had already stockpiled a large number of stones, crests, brooches, etc and were able to convert those into comms. Even with those, many people took a large hit on them. And the numbers that have destiny points stockpiled they can no longer use is just sad.


So here's the suggestions:

Lower the costs of skills and buffs, especially for creeps! Give new creeps a chance to be effective instead of just greenie bait.

Allow the use of all those stockpiled destiny points to still buy some skills. Leave the gain of destiny as it now is- at least until whatever replacement comes along. But give those of us that have destiny points another way to use them- and to help make our creeps actually playable.

Give us some other way, besides the store, to actually gain some of those skills and/ or abilities.


Overall, I understand the reason for comms, and I don't think it's necessarily a bad system, but it needs some major tweaks and fixes at the moment. I'd really like to play my warg some, but I'd also like him to be more than just freep bait for the first 5 ranks while all I can do is quests to try to get enough comms to actually buy some skills.

I really don't see what everybody's whining about. Low ranks have NEVER been able to do much damage , even with the destiny points system for skills. When I started I think it took me nearly three days to get to rank 1 on my warg, and that was when you weren't given free infamy for PvE. I don't think its any more grind getting comms than getting stones for your level 2 traits. Similarly in PvE its just like doing deeds, I mean 'kill 1000 goblins' for 'whatever' I think audacity is totally overated. I got rank 2 and traited for dps and normally kick 1000 infamy in a session. Making high level skills available in the shop IMHO is the worst thing that Turbine have done to kill PvP. I know at least fifty people on my server that left because some rank 0 puppy could buy rank 10 skills that they had spent months grafting to rank. All the people compalining seem to be the ' well I don't play that much creepside as I do other things as well' types. If you can't put in the time you aint gonna do ****.

Originally Posted by Gutterat

Couln't see any reference there to commendations either, which is what the thread is about.

I'll summarise my post for you in hopefully easier-to-understand terms.

Clearly you are an expert in such matters and I wouldn't expect my humble opinion to be as pertinant as your own. However for what it's worth, here it is, and thank you for showing my that I don't know nearly enough as you about how the situation really is. I apologise in advance if the opinions expressed below are wrong, hopefully you will be able to enlighten me and the thread readers all about it. I'll certainly consider your suggestion that I stop playing pvp. I'll also try and track down all the freeps I referred to in my original post, who were unable to bring down the warg, and tell them that you recommend they stop playing pvp as well. I'm sure your opinion will have as much significance to them, as it has to me.

• Solo I earn more commendations from pve than pvp.
• This is not preferable to me because I would rather pvp.
• Some raids are keep flipping and map turning rather than pvp because it gives more commendations.
• This is not preferable to me as I would rather pvp.
• Because players want to earn commendations, sides are often unbalanced, meaning worse pvp.
• Many posts in this thread refer to the new system making Freeps OP. I have seen many situations where this may not be the case. (I realise this point isnt about commendations but i threw it in the pot all the same)
• I have a set of lvl 75 pvp armour which is now useless.Now I have to grind many commendations to be viable for pvp. Before the new system it was possible to be viable in many builds.
• The time it takes to get commendations to be viable in pvp means that I do not have time to play creep.
• The changes in pvp, commendations and audacity, has not attracted many of the veteran players who have left my server in the last few months.
• PvP on my server used to be very good, it had some very good players on both sides, some great fights and awesome raids. The introduction of commendations, has not attracted these players back to pvp.
• In my opinion the new system which includes commendations has not improved the overall pvp experience.
• I find the new system inhibitive because of the time required to obtain commendations because I pve raid and have RL commitments.

Originally Posted by Martigan

I'll summarise my post for you in hopefully easier-to-understand terms.

Clearly you are an expert in such matters and I wouldn't expect my humble opinion to be as pertinant as your own. However for what it's worth, here it is, and thank you for <>[*]PvP on my server used to be very good, it had some very good players on both sides, some great fights and awesome raids. The introduction of commendations, has not attracted these players back to pvp.[*]In my opinion the new system which includes commendations has not improved the overall pvp experience.[*]I find the new system inhibitive because of the time required to obtain commendations because I pve raid and have RL commitments.[/LIST]

Clearly you are such an expert in such matters you completely mistook which one of your posts I was referring to.

Hi Turbine, anything to comment about commendations and audacity?

Originally Posted by Gutterat

Clearly you are such an expert in such matters you completely mistook which one of your posts I was referring to.

Yes of course you are so right - again. how could I have been so stupid. You are just so correct about everything, I really dont know how you do it. Thanks for pointing this out for me.

Honestly I have no idea what a lot of you are talking about decrying commendations. I have gotten 3k commendations in 2 days doing only pvp except for the tyrant raids (which is still mostly pvp), outpost and cleaning the hoarhollow. I run 75% of the time solo on my champ and have gotten a lot of kills BUT I can also guarantee the groups of creeps running around (and solo wargs who are way OP) have gotten more commendations off me then I have gotten off them. Creeps own the map most of the time, wargs own me solo (I'm pretty even with the other classes) and yet I'm still getting a ton of commendations and I know the creeps out there are also.

Originally Posted by avengingbananaslug

Honestly I have no idea what a lot of you are talking about decrying commendations. I have gotten 3k commendations in 2 days doing only pvp except for the tyrant raids (which is still mostly pvp), outpost and cleaning the hoarhollow. I run 75% of the time solo on my champ and have gotten a lot of kills BUT I can also guarantee the groups of creeps running around (and solo wargs who are way OP) have gotten more commendations off me then I have gotten off them. Creeps own the map most of the time, wargs own me solo (I'm pretty even with the other classes) and yet I'm still getting a ton of commendations and I know the creeps out there are also.

Whatever server you are on, I'll come there.
We have been raiding for 3½ hours straight, facing close to 30 freeps, with our group of 13-15 creeps and personally I made a grand total of 644 commendations and 1091 infamy and 12 deaths.

Now, if you tell me how long I need to play in order to get enough commendations to purchase one rank of audacity, feel free to share that.

I play on Silverlode. Now..I've only been in Moors hardcore for a month or so but from what I've seen: raiding only makes sense commendation wise if you're taking a keep for the 100 comm quest or pretending to so and farming the other side as they come defend. I play the majority of the time solo, the rest with 2 or 3 other people and raid for the tyrant quests. And yeah I've gotten now 3.5k comms since Thursday playing that way (only been in 1 raid and we killed 1 tyrant only). And again, we got some 2 wargs in Drullz and Daarlin that do nothing but run around in warg packs, hit you in stealth and if there's any chance of dying HIPs and sprint. They have gotten more rep from me then I've gotten from them by far.

So my point is: I have pretty good eq but I'm still a nooby moorwise and if I can get good comms in a creep controlled Moors then I'm really not seeing the issue. It took me 8k comms for my first 2 pieces and 15k for my next 2. Considering how long it takes Freeps to level up to 75 and get get all their eq along the way I'm really not seeing why creeps are complaining. It should not take creeps less time to get their stuff in Moors then it should take freeps to level to 75 considering how much damage a warg pack does already.

Originally Posted by lutemaster

Whatever server you are on, I'll come there.
We have been raiding for 3½ hours straight, facing close to 30 freeps, with our group of 13-15 creeps and personally I made a grand total of 644 commendations and 1091 infamy and 12 deaths.

Now, if you tell me how long I need to play in order to get enough commendations to purchase one rank of audacity, feel free to share that.

Yup I've played pvp throughout the day, solo questing, raid keep taking x 4, small group (3v3), full raid v full raid. Just logged off so dont know how many comms in total but its 600-700 for the day. I need 4k and 6k for each armor item.

I'm a lifer (aka, play for free) and hate going to the Moors when thinking about commendations and audacity. That is simply how awful commendations are. You need good PvE gear to be good out in the Moors without the audacity armour (freep side). Sooo I grind for all my gear and then most of it is worthless because now I have to go to the Moors and grind some more if I want to deck my toon out. Sorry, but no thanks.

And on creepside, the commendation price is incredibly bad. If I rolled a new creep it'd probably take me 5 months to get full audacity + all my necessary traits/skills/passives while covering costs of pots (used sparingly). By time that happens then audacity gets seasoned and I'll need 70,000 more commendations to finish the grind I literally just completed.

My main freep is ~80k from R11 and my main creep is ~60k from R11. I have no desire to play them cuz of commendations/audacity. The rate to aquire commendations vs the cost of skills/traits/armour, etc is incredibly stupid. This isn't even being fixed in U7. Complete fail.

Edit* and out of the 650+ replies to this thread, a good 200 are from different users.

Originally Posted by Martigan

Yes of course you are so right - again. how could I have been so stupid. You are just so correct about everything, I really dont know how you do it. Thanks for pointing this out for me.

Thats OK. Thanks for being so interesting and amusing.

So... More grinding. Goodie, goodie, goodie! My Reaver is R2 and only has 650 Commendations. How does this work? I understood we were supposed to be able to buy a class skill as soon as we ranked up!

Because of this stupid change, I suck. I'm squishy, I have to hold back and wait for groups. If I wanna take someone on, I'll only be able to get off ~3 hits before I'm gone. WHY do I suck like this? Because new traits cost anywhere from 1,500 Commendations to 7,000 Commendations. I simply don't have the Commendations flow to buy new traits AND new skills. This makes PvMP terribly unfair when you consider that somewhere out there... There's a fully traited Freep who has all of his skills. And you only have the 2-3 traits and 5-6 skills you started out with.

I haven't unlocked my Warg yet, so I'm unsure about that. However, if we could PLEASE switch back to DP? Or at least bump the number of Commendations up a little bit...

For me and (I think) my kinnies, this hasn't stopped PvE. It's only encouraged it.

I am not even surprised at what is happening. All boils down to $.

For monster players:

1. If you are new to PvMP and rolled a fresh monster, you WILL encounter vast grind problems. The experience becomes so boring, soulless, like a dead end job. You will be discouraged, because you will will not be able to afford audacity, but MIGHT afford a skill or two with time. You will be getting destroyed by your opponents in 2-3 crits. You will most likely rage and abandon this whole system altogether before you know it. It's a real cash grab for turbine, they really are forcing the store.

2. If you already had a rank 7+ creep, commendations are just another grind for you, it's not much of a problem. Top notch players can earn 20k infamy a day = 10k+ commendations. No problem there.

For freep players:

1. Commendations are actually a better currency for gear/jewellery now.

2. It takes about a week or two of active PvMP to gear yourself out (on a crowded server)

So, the main problem here is really with Monsters, especially the newbies that are just getting to know the zone and the system.

They should reduce the amount of commends needed for lower ranks, just to scale it with infamy-to-rank.

I think it's a much easier and pleasant system than brilliant/luminous stones, it drives pvmp a little bit more, just needs a few tweaks and scaling.

Turbine, do the right thing, listen to your customers, because there are some serious MMOs on the horizon that you can't compete with, the only way you can is just by listening to player base and reduce the store fever + lies. (About convenience, not advantage. About new PvMP zone that you guys basically never had coming and so on)

I no longer play this game, it's been over a year, but I do check on how things are developing from time to time. =)

Cheers to all,

Happy hunting!

For me, I hate the stats on the armor for guards, it is a huge hit to vitality. More than that, players make legendary weapons and items to fit a certain style of play and lugging around a whole other set of gear is not my idea of a good time. I think a better system for Audacity would be to attach it to the cloaks for the creeps. Have the audacity corresponding to the rank of the cloak up to lvl 6. After that just increase base stats and such and maybe make class specific lvl 14 capstone cloaks. Not to be an elite-est but I think Freep gear should be able to be as good as top grade raid gear. Keep the armor sets that give unique bonuses that are helpful in pve but especially tailored to pvp. The main point is that moors gear shouldn't be worthless outside the moors and you shouldn't have to change to completely new armor to raid in the moors. Also for the record it, it should take creeps longer to get decked out. 1. They are playing in the moors for free. 2. They start at lvl 75. It should take months, 3 seems like a reasonable number. Anyway just my thoughts.

I suppose an easy solution would be to make the quests repeatable. Like once for the big ones and twice for the smaller quests. TBH freeps do not need ANY more advantages in the moors than the stuff theyve already got. For creeps the only reward is audacity, which once its maxed there really isnt a lot to use your comms on, specially as the potions drop in DoF, which is a waste of space now.

Originally Posted by SilverCentaur

Also for the record it, it should take creeps longer to get decked out. 1. They are playing in the moors for free. 2. They start at lvl 75. It should take months, 3 seems like a reasonable number. Anyway just my thoughts.

Really? Are you serious?

Creeps start at 75 but with no skills (they need to be traded for comms) no traits (they need to be traded for comms) no corruptions (Guess what they need to trade?) no audacity (at this point you should get the idea of what im trying to point)...

Also for a low rank creep it's hard to get enough comms... They already are useless, wet paper armour with no dps at all. And you think that make it harder for them to get audacity is a good idea?

BR

Originally Posted by SilverCentaur

Also for the record it, it should take creeps longer to get decked out. 1. They are playing in the moors for free. 2. They start at lvl 75. It should take months, 3 seems like a reasonable number. Anyway just my thoughts.

And I am guessing that you started playing in Ettenmoors at level 40?

Try that, then come back and you might know how it feels like to be a rank 0 creep up against raid-geared freeps while you have no skills, since you need to earn your commendations first.

And for the record, only Reavers are Free2Play, all other classes cost money, or require VIP-subscription.

are you kidding me? You cannot compare a lvl 75 newly rolled creep to a lvl 40 freep. That might be the stupidest thing you've said. I understand that a newly rolled creep is going to get slaughtered by a freep in raid gear even if the freep has only 1 audacity. But why on earth should a new creep be able to be on pair with someone who has spent months lvling and grinding for gear? Also, can't you buy other classes on the creep side with turbine point? Which means you can just save them up by doing quest and such. The only way to enter the moors as a freep is to be VIP. Also for the record freeps without audacity get slaughtered despite their top raid gear when going against a top creep with audacity.

Is there a replacement for Destiny Point perks slated for Update 7?

Originally Posted by Nifroth

There are several ways how to help with this issue however!

1. Make creep skills super cheap at low ranks (100, 200, 400) or even free until rank 3
2. Add some sort of easy daily quest where a creep can get a free corruption for serving the tyrant or w/e (putting dynamite in DoF so it could finally be blown up j/k) This could be restricted to certain ranks, but I do not see any harm in giving a ranked creep a free corruption, lol. Not like they will $$ it as a ranked guy anyways and could easily afford it with commends.

There probably are other ways too, but these 2 are what I could think right now.

Good stuff. Here's another one I thought about:

Why not give a comm reward when you rank up? Especially for creeps! Giving a creep 1500-2000 comms when they rank up will allow them to actually think about getting those skills when they need them the most, and allow them by the time they are rank 5 or so to be able to think about getting a level or two of audacity. Seems like a fairly obvious way to help put a fix in.

This might have been pointed out somewhere but I will post what I have thought about recently.

Yay, you are now a new creep and you want to buy a class skill, it costs 2000 commendations.
Alright, let the grind begin! Infamy:Commend ratio for kills is 2:1. Lets say you also do every possible quest, most give you something like 40-80 infamy and 20-40 commendations with a few 100 commends quests it eavens out to about 2:1 as well.
So, by the time you earn 2000 commendations you have about 4000 INFAMY!!!! Nicely done, you are closing in on rank 4!
Now you have enough to buy your rank 0 skill and you have unlocked 3 more skills to buy, also about 4 or so class traits and, let's not forget corruptions. Adding it all up you easily pass 10k commendations.
Funny how a creep won't even be able to buy all of his skills like until rank 6! Let us not start dreaming about audacity, that's not meant for you, green-ring!

Did anyone really think about how a new player would feel as a creep? You play as the underpowered fraction overall AND you can't even afford the skills that you need to EARN by ranking (yes, they are in the store, but if the design is to buy every skill possible, even low rank skills just make it so that people have to buy turbine points before they creep :/ ).

There are several ways how to help with this issue however!

1. Make creep skills super cheap at low ranks (100, 200, 400) or even free until rank 3
2. Add some sort of easy daily quest where a creep can get a free corruption for serving the tyrant or w/e (putting dynamite in DoF so it could finally be blown up j/k) This could be restricted to certain ranks, but I do not see any harm in giving a ranked creep a free corruption, lol. Not like they will $$ it as a ranked guy anyways and could easily afford it with commends.

There probably are other ways too, but these 2 are what I could think right now.

A thing you should under NO circumstances do is give new creeps more commendations be it though quests or deeds as it would increase the number of people making a green creep just to exploit for commendations.

I post with the hope that someone actually reads this and tries to fix the commendation issue soon...and not by giving creeps 50% off for skills, LMAO

-Thorfinn

Originally Posted by sirwillow

Good stuff. Here's another one I thought about:

Why not give a comm reward when you rank up? Especially for creeps! Giving a creep 1500-2000 comms when they rank up will allow them to actually think about getting those skills when they need them the most, and allow them by the time they are rank 5 or so to be able to think about getting a level or two of audacity. Seems like a fairly obvious way to help put a fix in.

I thought the whole invention of commendations with a cap was to prevent exploiting and make it so that you can't have a new armour set just as it is released. This would make commend farming super easy and quick, since they are account shared. Roll a reaver 1-4 really quick, and done.
Think of it this way. A homeless person who reeks of alcohol asks you for some money for food. If you just give it to him there is a high probability he might go and buy more alcohol. If you want to help him, but him some food (skills, lol) Not the best of comparisons, but I hope you get my point :P

Really, in my opinion, the commendation costs are nothing to someone who plays for a longer period of time or has played some time already, a so called "vet" But for newer people, it's much harder to gain commendations because of several reasons - they are new, they don't know what is happening, they don't have all their tools to work for the commendations, etc. So the starting costs need to be reduced (more than halved super early) and them they could gradually grow to the current levels.

Originally Posted by Nifroth

I thought the whole invention of commendations with a cap was to prevent exploiting and make it so that you can't have a new armour set just as it is released. This would make commend farming super easy and quick, since they are account shared. Roll a reaver 1-4 really quick, and done.
Think of it this way. A homeless person who reeks of alcohol asks you for some money for food. If you just give it to him there is a high probability he might go and buy more alcohol. If you want to help him, but him some food (skills, lol) Not the best of comparisons, but I hope you get my point :P

Really, in my opinion, the commendation costs are nothing to someone who plays for a longer period of time or has played some time already, a so called "vet" But for newer people, it's much harder to gain commendations because of several reasons - they are new, they don't know what is happening, they don't have all their tools to work for the commendations, etc. So the starting costs need to be reduced (more than halved super early) and them they could gradually grow to the current levels.

I know this is a really stupid idea for a PvP area but why don't they just leave comms as they are and increase the infamy for actually killing people? I had a part in 15 kills last night and I think the highest infamy I got was 35!!! I can get more for killing the mayor in Hoarhallow....

Originally Posted by Gutterat

I know this is a really stupid idea for a PvP area but why don't they just leave comms as they are and increase the infamy for actually killing people? I had a part in 15 kills last night and I think the highest infamy I got was 35!!! I can get more for killing the mayor in Hoarhallow....

Hmm, not sure about the inf gain, it probably could use tweaking and the mechanic for getting less renown/infamy just because you are in a group, even if they are far beyond the kill range and weren't even anywhere near the kill (learn to live with this ofc, still annoying)
The thing is, even if the inf gain for kills was increased you would just rank faster, without any help of getting the skills it would mean there'd be even more stuff you just can't buy, lol. Only thing you could easily get would be the battlefield promotions, which are free. As a high rank it may not matter, but what I am talking about is attracting greenies so they actually stick with the game and are able to function to some extent at least :/

Originally Posted by Nifroth

. As a high rank it may not matter, but what I am talking about is attracting greenies so they actually stick with the game and are able to function to some extent at least :/

I don't think you'll ever do this, for creeps anyway. All the newbies keep talking about 1v1 and stuff like this when we all know u aint gonna be able to function and actually have a reasonable chance of killing a pc till at least rank 4 anyway. IMHO this has always been the case. And the only way to get this quickly is to join a good tribe that doesn't mind PvEing to get you all the stuff you need . We do this every night for members for a couple of hours before looking for creeps, but then again, this can be really boring for some people who just want to PvP.

I remember when they decided to make reavers FTP, in a vain attempt to attract some interest in the Moors, freeps were loving it - free infamy. Think there must have been 200 new reavers on the server that weeekend, a week later there were probably 5 or 6 that decided to stick with it. Because of the 'store attractions' they lost many hardcore players because these new rank0s could now buy skills in the shop that some Rank 10s had spent a year getting.

I see from the developers one reason for the comms was 'to slow down the rate of PvP' they've certainly done that on my server. Sometimes the only thing to kill (apart from npcs, ) is Tumbleweed.

Originally Posted by dietlbomb

Is there a replacement for Destiny Point perks slated for Update 7?

Yeah...the store. But probably with Riders of Rohan.

My guess is that the perks, as well as the Destiny Points you use to purchase them with, wil be phased out as most, if not all, of the perks that can be purchased with DP are already sold in the store. It's not advantageous to, or pofitable for, Turbine if players can purchase perks with DP. They'd rather have you purchase them with TP.

Originally Posted by Gutterat

I see from the developers one reason for the comms was 'to slow down the rate of PvP' they've certainly done that on my server. Sometimes the only thing to kill (apart from npcs, ) is Tumbleweed.

Totally agree. From my own perspective I've been grinding pve in the moors for the comms on my freep. I prefer solo and small group but thats not viable, even on the 3 audacity I've managed to grind so far, compared to the pre-audacity state of affairs.

But its got so tiresome I've actually stayed away from the moors the last couple of weeks. E.g getting ganked all the time up in the goblins is getting to be a pain in the a*se. I cant blame the creeps camping it but the stealth-track-kill a gobbo-stealth-track-kill a gobbo is disheartening. Took me several attempts over 2 days to get the gobbo quests alone done. I spoke with one high ranked freep and he said it took him 3 hours to do those quests. Its just not possible with 3-4 high ranked creeps camping the place. I even tried getting a 6 man group to stealth zerg the place and within 5 mins there were 10+ creeps there.

The problem is the relatively high number of comms you need v the quest rewards. After 2 weeks of grinding and not having much of a fun pvp experience I've gone back to levelling an alt.

ofc Ill be back but the new system is actually stopping me from playing pvp. Maybe I'm alone in that, but dont think so.

all the time it takes to run all over teh place pve questing is bound to limit high quality pvp. At some point i suppose we will all be running around on freep, in carbon copy builds, the creeps will have spent all their money in teh store and we will finally see if it all works. untill then zzzzzzzzzzz

p.s Gutter hope the hangover wasnt too bad . nothing like a good pvp pissup

Originally Posted by Thornpaw

Are commendations replacing all stones, sigils, seals, brooches, crests, tokens of valor-- there are a lot of barter items in the moors. Which ones are being replaced?

yes they are .

45 pages, no dev replys.

I have a question for the devs. Whats the reasoning of taking away destiny points from VIP monster players? Destiny is suppose to be one of our VIP perks is it not?

Originally Posted by Victiswolf

45 pages, no dev replys.

I have a question for the devs. Whats the reasoning of taking away destiny points from VIP monster players? Destiny is suppose to be one of our VIP perks is it not?

They've been avoiding this question since the change was announced. Evidence and guilty silence combined with no particular rush to replace the lost perk implies a cash grab by forcing people to the store if they want buffs. I'm increasingly disgusted by this lack of communication.

in my opinion the commendation system has failed badly for the creep side, it´s impossible to play many classes like I did when I was ranking 4 creeps at the same time.
now I have to focus on 1 and the fact I cant buy any new skill without insane grind has caused me to stop playing creepside

Originally Posted by Ceol-EU

in my opinion the commendation system has failed badly for the creep side, it´s impossible to play many classes like I did when I was ranking 4 creeps at the same time.
now I have to focus on 1 and the fact I cant buy any new skill without insane grind has caused me to stop playing creepside

Indeed. Turbine wants us to spend more time, and money in Lord of the Rings, so obviously they made the grind to get commendations for skills and audacity absolutely awful, which would result in us purchasing skills from the store instead.

What Turbine failed, and constantly fail at, is to understand that we (the people actually playing), want to have fun, and not grind our donkey's off.

So one of the reasons why we are seeing more and more target-ads about "Become a VIP now!" is obviously because they are loosing customer-base, and it doesn't take a rocket-scientist (or even a Turbine marketing exec.) to understand that people have had enough of the grind in this game, and leave..

after all the new freep vitue grinds i needed grind for scrolls on mutli freep toons grind for leg.. or buy it in store I went to creep side to avoid it them bamm new grind i have left lotro aftwer 4 years peebaa warg..harialabos kin leader SOL.landy.