Thread: LOTRO jumps the shark. Basic enhancements to the game now cost TP.

Just in case people hadn't noticed, after many years of being requested, Turbine has finally made enhancements to some basic game mechanics in U6.

The barter wallet has been changed to store all types of items. Unfortunately, this wallet costs 1000 TP:
http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.p...wallet-finally!

And the ability to use your skirmish soldiers on the landscape has been added. Sadly, this costs 100 TP *per hour*:
http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.p...Disappointment

If I've missed any other basic enhancements of U6 that cost TP, please post them here!

The soldier on the landscape thing probably won’t be well received at all. Ill-advised? Why is it ill advised, people have been paying TP for some time now. The wallet is a perfect example of paying for convience, I don’t see a problem with it. The soldier on the landscape might be perceived as advantage and that’s where the problems will arise.

These are both premium services that is why they cost Turbine Points. You do not necesarrily need either of them... they would just be added bonuses. There are ways of acquiring Turbine Points freely throughout Middle-Earth without the need to purchase them... so some players may just acquire them quicker then others.

I can see where you're getting at though in that it would have been nice if these were just free additions to the game. You need to remember though that since LOTRO went FtP, they need to have some source of income to create newer content. If the game remained PtP, I guarentee that these would have been free for all players.

It is what it is though.

I dont see anything wrong with either one, no one is forcing the players to buy it, both items are just premium services, you can deal without them, although it is nice the bag for the tokens.

You can purchase tokens to get your Soldier on landscape for Medallions and Marks as well.

I don't see this as a big deal. The barter wallet is no different to shared storage. As for the landscape soldier, this is not something I am going to use very often. If it was too easy to do, everyone would do it all the time and the servers would expire under ther load. Imagine a raid with 24 LMs.

I thought the idea of skirmish soldiers on the landscape was interesting....until now that I know it's limited to 1hr intervals and you have to pay to use. I don't think I'd even bother trying it now.

Originally Posted by mjk47

I don't see this as a big deal. The barter wallet is no different to shared storage. As for the landscape soldier, this is not something I am going to use very often. If it was too easy to do, everyone would do it all the time and the servers would expire under ther load. Imagine a raid with 24 LMs.

Would be funny do, sitting in a corner chatting about sports, once in awhile cast a buff, go back sit again and relax... lol (no so, soldiers should not be allowed in raids or instances, except maybe if you are running solo versions of the instances).

I don't think you can overload a server with landscape soldiers. I read somewhere that you can only use them in low populated areas. So they aren't even necessarily intended for "convenience", but rather to help out players when no one else is around to do so.

I don't have any problem with that costing TPs.

Do they (the wallet & soldier) cost TPs for everyone? Or is it just for f2pers (and premium players)?

So this feature will be free for VIPs, am I understanding this correctly?

Personally I do think it sucks that they 'fixed' the wallet, or finally made it do what it was supposed to do, and then want to charge us for it. The soldier thing... I was barely going to use it anyway and now I'm obviously not.

Originally Posted by DiceBox

...

Do they (the wallet & soldier) cost TPs for everyone? Or is it just for f2pers (and premium players)?

Both cost the same for anyone.

Soldier tokens can be bartered for with Skirmish marks (cheap for low levels, more expensive for high levels, and a medium stage) as well as bought in the store. Unlike lootbox keys, you can therefor specifically work towards achieving such a token through gameplay (a little more than a Foundry T2). The 1-hour will by the way calculated by the minute, as far as I know. Which means, find the hard mob, summon soldier, defeat him, dismiss. Not a stupid system actually, will prevent to have those stupid soldiers always out and clogging the data pipes, as well as not making slayer deeds to easy, which would be kind of counterproductive.

The wallet provides the basic (and by far most important) basic functionality for everyone (elminating mark/medallion/seal as well as relic shard grind on each new character). The premium wallet for 995TP will only allow it to store barter tokens as well and as such is primarily vault storage on speed.

People who cry foul because this wallet "was supposed to be here for free long ago" are missing a very decisive point: The account-wide marks and relic shards are much much much much much...pantpant...muchmuchmuch more valuable than some barter tokens which are mostly outdated and Festival stuff, most of which can also be traded via shared storage. Seriously, I´m not exaggerating, think about the difference not having to grind the same stuff for each char...
So, you´re not getting the wallet you were "promised", you´re getting a better one +the option on the old wallet which is also better than what was "promised" (by being account-wide).

Originally Posted by Kantaryo

Would be funny do, sitting in a corner chatting about sports, once in awhile cast a buff, go back sit again and relax... lol (no so, soldiers should not be allowed in raids or instances, except maybe if you are running solo versions of the instances).

NO! NO! No relaxing! No resting! My buddy is going to expire in another 32 minutes and this time we have to get Flagit for sure if we can keep the little clowns from doing DoT!!!! (Oh, and no /bio breaks!)

[Repeat disclaimer about soldiers in raids...]

I agree with OP.

At least the wallet needs to be free for VIPs. I would really love to see a single update without the store involved in anything. Before F2P (the store), i was just enjoying Middle-Earth by paying monthly fee and forgetting financial part of the game. Now we pay monthly fee + the game is all about the store, and losing its Middle-Earth feeling for me.

I don't oppose either of these decisions.

The Skirmish soldier setup essentially means they are intended for use when tackling difficult pulls or if you need a helping hand occasionally. Using it like that, a 1 hour token could last you many days or even weeks of play.

As for the Barter Wallet, it is not basic functionality, period. When it was first introduced Turbine never stated that it would be completely free to everyone. The pricing seems fair enough considering the space it saves. I equate it with Wardrobe Space or Shared Storage.

OP, it's safe to look up. Nothing will fall on your head.

I would rather pay 1000tp for account wide premium wallet, then 500tp for 10 slots of shared storage.

Skirm soldier costs seem a bit high, but ./shrug

I don't see a problem here.

Please, get your facts straight:

You can also buy Soldier time with Marks and Medallions that you can earn easily in-game.

The Premiu Wallet is a Premium item, just like Shared Storage is. I agree that the price is steep and that VIP's should have something to sweeten the deal, specially when you add that Destiny points can be acquired anymore, the pro's of going VIP are less and less.

On the one hand, the premium wallet looks expensive, on the other, having hunted through a number of my characters today trying to find where I stashed some of my ingots, I noticed that between all my characters, I'll likely free up around 90-100 spaces if I were to purchase it.

More annoying I find, is that The Great River is currently priced at 1500TP, which is downright overpriced for a single zone with no levelling.

I'm quite fed up with the Barter Wallet in the Store in this way... just about everyone I talked to has been wondering why they didn't put the Rep-items in it from the start. It's really more of a fix than a Premium Feature, no matter how they call it.

Originally Posted by Vandervahn

Both cost the same for anyone.

you seem to be very confused, my friend
let me give you a hand

Soldier tokens can be bartered for with Skirmish marks .... Not a stupid system actually, will prevent to have those stupid soldiers always out and clogging the data pipes, as well as not making slayer deeds to easy, which would be kind of counterproductive.

why didnt they said from the very beginning, you will be able to RENT a soldier on landscape ?
well, and the amount of marks and medallions isnt worth the one hour for it ...

it was anounced as an edition to the gamemechanics ... maybe new content abilities and skills,
but nope, just an usless TP option ...

and if you really cant see it, its pay to win ... 100TP/hour

dont you feel a LITTLE BIT phony by saying, thank god the soldier costs money, so we are not
forced to use it .... so when you ar grouping with some guy and he demands you to summon
your soldier as well ... ?

I´m not exaggerating, think about the difference not having to grind the same stuff for each char...
So, you´re not getting the wallet you were "promised", you´re getting a better one +the option on the old wallet which is also better than what was "promised" (by being account-wide).

are you trolling
its an functonality that was MISSING from the beginning, everybody asked, why isnt it there,
why is it brocken ?

now we know?

Wow. Something I actually get excited for and now im not, because Tuition takes precedent over stupid convenience in a game. What are you doing turbine? How could you possibly use something as an advertisement that not all people could use? What have you turned into?

Originally Posted by mjk47

I don't see this as a big deal. The barter wallet is no different to shared storage. As for the landscape soldier, this is not something I am going to use very often. If it was too easy to do, everyone would do it all the time and the servers would expire under ther load. Imagine a raid with 24 LMs.

/sound of keyboard being sprayed with tea

Originally Posted by Galahadur

Please, get your facts straight:

You can also buy Soldier time with Marks and Medallions that you can earn easily in-game.

Yes, but it is impossible to make a meaningful comparison without some actual numbers. So...

Landscape Skirmish Soldier Summon (1 hour): 1500 Skirmish Marks + 75 Medallions (@ Level 75)
Landscape Skirmish Soldier Summon (1 hour): 100 Turbine Points

Sure, you can do it with Marks and Medallions. But, to me, it looks like a phenomenally bad deal if you do. Seems to me like a pretty strong disincentive to using Marks and Medallions. They're touting the option while doing everything they can to discourage its use.

Originally Posted by Galahadur

The Premiu Wallet is a Premium item, just like Shared Storage is. I agree that the price is steep and that VIP's should have something to sweeten the deal, specially when you add that Destiny points can be acquired anymore, the pro's of going VIP are less and less.

I disagree, it's an aging feature that was introduced in a half-finished state. Turbine did say they wanted to expand the feature. I said it wouldn't happen until they found a way to charge money for it. And that's exactly what they did. They aren't giving us a new feature - they're fixing a broken feature for premium prices. Pasting a new label on it doesn't change that.

Originally Posted by TheREALify

I disagree, it's an aging feature that was introduced in a half-finished state. Turbine did say they wanted to expand the feature.

That's like saying SOA was half-finished because the level cap is now 25 levels higher. Of course they want to expand it, this is an MMO, that's what they do.

The only thing I care about as far as the skirmish buddy goes is if it will change how difficult it is to solo. If everything else remains the same, I don't care. I won't have to use it. But if they up the difficulty of soloing drastically to force us to spend time (marks) or money to summon the soldier in order to level, I will be one very unhappy customer.


I've been against the shared barter wallet from the beginning, for reasons that just don't belong in this thread. But that aside, I do have difficulty with it being a P2P option. I ALREADY P2P. My ViP subscription should be covering that, at least to a degree. And to the person who brought up shared storage, good point. Except that (and my memory may be faulty, it's been a long time) I'm pretty sure we got our first few spots of shared storage free with ViP.


ViP is looking like less and less of a value with each new added feature. It's almost like they WANT us to stop paying monthly.

Originally Posted by hitomo_x3

why didnt they said from the very beginning, you will be able to RENT a soldier on landscape ?
well, and the amount of marks and medallions isnt worth the one hour for it ...

it was anounced as an edition to the gamemechanics ... maybe new content abilities and skills,
but nope, just an usless TP option ...

Turbine always does this - their marketing says "hey stick around this great new feature is coming soon, or we have a HUGE AMAZING expansion coming. Everything is going to be better than ever!"

So of course they say "you will even be able to have your soldier with you in the landscape". That sounds much better than telling us the whole truth about this. Why be more honest and accurate when it will be not make the game and new improvements look as good. There not lying - just being intentionally vague so it sounds really good - until they actually need to tell us the details.

My main thought on the wallet: Turbine has stopped to release some basic game improvements for everyone. Whereas other subscription MMOs will just make the game better and everyone benefits, Turbine (for some improvements) thinks about how they can use this to make money, and decides to give the improvements only to players who are willing to pay extra money for it.

They told us that F2P will only make the game better for everyone, but in fact being VIP is worse that it was before F2P. Now when they make fixes and improvements to the game - some of the fixes everyone gets for free - and some they hold back and try to make money from it. Even as a monthly VIP paying $10 a month - you will not get the best game experience. That is reserved for players willing to pay a lot and spend a lot of TP.

I would not trust anything the Turbine marketing department say at this point. It always sounds really good early on when they tell us about it, but when it comes times for the details you learn all sorts of things that make you realize it is not as good as it sounded.

This is the real change from F2P - before you could feel like we had a common goal - players and Turbine - to make the game better. Now Turbine has an additional, different goal: to try to get as much money from players and the store as possible. This is a pretty fundamental change. In some cases, trying to make as much money as possible from player is directly opposed to the goal of making the game the best experience for players.

Originally Posted by mjk47

..Imagine a raid with 24 LMs.

lmao Ouch!

Originally Posted by cnrsnl

I agree with OP.

At least the wallet needs to be free for VIPs. I would really love to see a single update without the store involved in anything. Before F2P (the store), i was just enjoying Middle-Earth by paying monthly fee and forgetting financial part of the game. Now we pay monthly fee + the game is all about the store, and losing its Middle-Earth feeling for me.

Count me in that camp as well.

I see lots of "I don't see this as a problem" responses. That makes me wonder. Is that because there isn't a problem? Or is that because these people are blind? I suppose time will tell, although there are some players who can be tied to a beam, covered with tar and feathers and still claim "I really like this aspect."

Originally Posted by Vhivi

Count me in that camp as well.

I see lots of "I don't see this as a problem" responses. That makes me wonder. Is that because there isn't a problem? Or is that because these people are blind? I suppose time will tell, although there are some players who can be tied to a beam, covered with tar and feathers and still claim "I really like this aspect."

And there are other players who do their utmost to paint anything Turbine does as evil and part of their great conspiracy to screw YOU(yes, you specifically) over.

Of course those are the extremes, and naturally the minority.

Originally Posted by Vhivi

Is that because there isn't a problem?

Yes there is no problem.

Originally Posted by Reniannen

That's like saying SOA was half-finished because the level cap is now 25 levels higher. Of course they want to expand it, this is an MMO, that's what they do.

No it isn't - not remotely. SOA worked when it was released. And we got lots of expansions to it - for nothing more than our subscription fee. The barter wallet never did what it's name implied (IE, put all your barter items in it). And that functionality was asked, nay begged for by the players. And, as was prophesied, Turbine was unable or unwilling to add that functionality till after they'd established a way to make us all pay for it. Not even remotely the same.

Originally Posted by TheREALify

Yes, but it is impossible to make a meaningful comparison without some actual numbers. So...

Landscape Skirmish Soldier Summon (1 hour): 1500 Skirmish Marks + 75 Medallions (@ Level 75)
Landscape Skirmish Soldier Summon (1 hour): 100 Turbine Points

Sure, you can do it with Marks and Medallions. But, to me, it looks like a phenomenally bad deal if you do. Seems to me like a pretty strong disincentive to using Marks and Medallions. They're touting the option while doing everything they can to discourage its use.

You can make that amount of Medallions and Marks on just one Foundry Run at 75. I don't see how this is an issue? Unless you are efectivelly comparing apples (Marks) to oranges (TP). What do you think would be a reasonable exchange rates from marks to TP?

Originally Posted by TheREALify

I disagree, it's an aging feature that was introduced in a half-finished state. Turbine did say they wanted to expand the feature. I said it wouldn't happen until they found a way to charge money for it. And that's exactly what they did. They aren't giving us a new feature - they're fixing a broken feature for premium prices. Pasting a new label on it doesn't change that.

I never found anything "broken" with the current wallet. When it launched it was a blessing. I don't think you remember having every type of Skirmish Mark running around on your bags and vaults. Yes, the Premium wallet is better, but that does not make the Basic one broken.

Nowo answer me this: If it was free to VIP's, how would they undo the Premium wallet once that person drops from VIP?

I do agree that the price is high. It should be cheaper to​vips.

Originally Posted by Elrendos

These are both premium services that is why they cost Turbine Points. You do not necesarrily need either of them... they would just be added bonuses..

You need to remember though that since LOTRO went FtP, they need to have some source of income to create newer content. If the game remained PtP, I guarentee that these would have been free for all players.

VIPs give Turbine a steady and predictable source of income - for them it is PtP so why are features being constantly taken away from the VIP subscription (destiny for PvE being the latest) and nothing being added in?

Things that were not *needed* in game used to be part of the VIP subscription prior to F2P - we actually used to be given increased vault space as the game progressed where the only fee was in-game gold. Such developments are now store only. When Turbine went F2P they said lotro would still be subscription based but that the store would allow other ways to pay for the game. The current model may still offer a subscription but it is certainly not subscription based.

Originally Posted by Elrendos

These are both premium services that is why they cost Turbine Points. You do not necesarrily need either of them... they would just be added bonuses. There are ways of acquiring Turbine Points freely throughout Middle-Earth without the need to purchase them... so some players may just acquire them quicker then others.

I can see where you're getting at though in that it would have been nice if these were just free additions to the game. You need to remember though that since LOTRO went FtP, they need to have some source of income to create newer content. If the game remained PtP, I guarentee that these would have been free for all players.

It is what it is though.

You dont even need to spend TP to use the soldier, you can spend marks and medallions, stop the timer when you're not needing it. Etc

This is more storage. And for cheaper than the latest tier of shared storage for the units of space I get back. Reasonably priced, and the sort of thing they give you the 500TP a month stipend for.

I didn't see it mentioned in this thread:

The U6 barter wallet puts marks, medallions, and seals in the shared wallet for everyone.

The Premium Wallet expands that to include barter tokens and costs something.

I don't see the big deal.

I'm premium so I'm fine with having to pay for the shared barter wallet. But VIP's really should not let Turbine push you around like this. These basic, quality-of-life improvements are the least one can expect from the P2P MMO's I've played so far. IMO the shared barter wallet should work like the shared wardrobe. I.e. additional barter tokens can no longer be added to it once VIP lapses.

I just wanted to repeat what so many others here have already pointed out.

Skirmish Soldiers on Landscape can be purchased with marks and Medallions in game. They are not store exclusive and they are not required to complete content. They are not TP only.

Additional wallet storage is purchased through TP. However this is the same as Shared storage, wardrobe storage, vault space and other premium enhancements we've added to the game going as far back as the Siege of Mirkwood expansion, prior to F2P, when such things were included in the Adventurers' Pack that was an additional cost beyond the price of the expansion.

Just wanted to help clear up some of the confusion.

not sure what the big deal about the soldiers is really I would rather call in a few kinnies to help with some tough boss on the landscape than my herbalist. Frankly I tested it and the mobs in the new zone are not that tough that I need the healing. I think if I run into some quest with an elite I cant kill I will just call in some kinmates to deal with rather than waste money or marks/meds on my herbalist. Plus without invorgoration she cant sustain me against 3 mobs at once so not much help I will just use care and traps thank you.

Originally Posted by Galahadur

Originally Posted by TheREALify

Yes, but it is impossible to make a meaningful comparison without some actual numbers. So...

Landscape Skirmish Soldier Summon (1 hour): 1500 Skirmish Marks + 75 Medallions (@ Level 75)
Landscape Skirmish Soldier Summon (1 hour): 100 Turbine Points

Sure, you can do it with Marks and Medallions. But, to me, it looks like a phenomenally bad deal if you do. Seems to me like a pretty strong disincentive to using Marks and Medallions. They're touting the option while doing everything they can to discourage its use.

You can make that amount of Medallions and Marks on just one Foundry Run at 75. I don't see how this is an issue? Unless you are efectivelly comparing apples (Marks) to oranges (TP). What do you think would be a reasonable exchange rates from marks to TP?

I don't see the relevance of the Foundry to this. Players who need a soldier to help them on the landscape are not the players who know how to beat the Foundry in a timely fashion. It's much more likely that these players will get their medallions from solo skirmishes.

For a tool that is meant to help soloers who are having trouble in the landscape, it seems pretty expensive.

Originally Posted by NecrosIX

IMO the shared barter wallet should work like the shared wardrobe. I.e. additional barter tokens can no longer be added to it once VIP lapses.

This. Although I have no issues with the new wallet, so many people seem to do -Turbine should consider making it free for VIPs. Or give them a discount. Using a coupon maybe?