Thread: And the winner is.. Opening Envelopes for The Lost Invivations Quest

Originally Posted by Alcaniel

Nope, there is a definite exploit being used, but I'm not going to spell it out. The quest is intended to limit you to only opening up enough letters to get 6 lost invitations, and once you get the 6th, you can't open any more envelopes (unless you buy another badge from the Lotro Store, otherwise you have to wait till the next calendar day to open more). There is a way to circumvent it, which many people are doing. I too hope that this is dealt with, it's disheartening to see so many people obviously circumventing the intended limit with no repercussions, and not at all fair to the rest of us who are playing by the rules.

I hate to break it to you, but I've only opened envelopes as I got them, and have got steeds on seven toons so far. Sometimes multiples on the same toon. No exploits, no extra badges, don't even do the quest with all of them every day. It's just the RNG. No idea what's up with the toast emote, only have got that twice and it was auto-granted to both toons.

Originally Posted by Chanah

I hate to break it to you, but I've only opened envelopes as I got them, and have got steeds on seven toons so far. Sometimes multiples on the same toon. No exploits, no extra badges, don't even do the quest with all of them every day. It's just the RNG. No idea what's up with the toast emote, only have got that twice and it was auto-granted to both toons.

I think there's a good chance you're mistaken about the existence of the "real" exploit. It was spelled out on the forum yesterday, and the forum posting seems to have disappeared. I was watching people on Riddermark who appeared to be using it; and the posting of eight emotes by the same person on the AH on the same day seems to me to confirm it. Chances are that the emote wouldn't drop that many times to the same person in one day, either auto-absorbed (like all my dupes are) or not.

I'm also doing it the intended way - 6 invitations per day per character. So far I've done 239 quests, gotten 13 Wardens and 7 Lossoths and 14 emotes on 30 characters. Of these there were two duplicate Wardens and 3 recorded duplicate toasts (there were 1-3 toasts absorbed before I started counting them). None of my extra /toasts dropped as transferrable loot.

My paranoid theory is that the chance of getting a horse is inversely proportional to the level of the character, so that you're least likely to get a fast flagless horse on your main. Both my 75s have been shut out on horses. I seem to get the most horse drops on characters that haven't earned the riding skill yet. I fooled it with my level 11 Westfold Master Metalsmith... I bought him the riding skill rather than waiting for the level 20 quest.

Love the invitation quest...
After working on getting my 2 horse tokens and my 40 anniversary tokens to get my fireworks steed... On my 40th token, I see...

"You have been granted the Lossoth Steed Skill"

ROFL! On my 40th token... it was awesome!

I must be the unluckiest SOB alive. I've run this quest daily since the Festival began with anywhere from 3 to 10 characters per day and all I ever get are the Lost (too many to count), Unwanted (8), and Tokens (4). NUTS!

Originally Posted by Chanah

I hate to break it to you, but I've only opened envelopes as I got them, and have got steeds on seven toons so far. Sometimes multiples on the same toon. No exploits, no extra badges, don't even do the quest with all of them every day. It's just the RNG. No idea what's up with the toast emote, only have got that twice and it was auto-granted to both toons.

You're definitely luckier than I am, I've only done the 6 per day, not buying any from the LOTRO store, and I've managed between 7 characters to get the Lossoth Steed twice (on the same character, darnit!) and the /toast emote twice (on different characters).

That said, there is defnitely an exploit, I've had it explained in detail to me how it works. The sad thing is that since Turbine doesn't seem to have done anything about it, some of the folks I'm aware of that DO know about feel that it must be ok to do. I've reported it, but was offline when I got the response, so it was just the generic "we'll investigate, but can't comment back to you on specific actions..."

To the person who PM'd me about it, and anyone else thinking of doing the same, NO, I will not tell you what the exploit is. It's CHEATING!

I'd LOVE to get the horses and emote on more characters than I have it on, but I'm not willing to cheat to do it -maybe I'll have a run of good luck before the anniversary celebration is over!

Originally Posted by Tuco

I think there's a good chance you're mistaken about the existence of the "real" exploit. It was spelled out on the forum yesterday, and the forum posting seems to have disappeared. I was watching people on Riddermark who appeared to be using it; and the posting of eight emotes by the same person on the AH on the same day seems to me to confirm it. Chances are that the emote wouldn't drop that many times to the same person in one day, either auto-absorbed (like all my dupes are) or not.

I'm also doing it the intended way - 6 invitations per day per character. So far I've done 239 quests, gotten 13 Wardens and 7 Lossoths and 14 emotes on 30 characters. Of these there were two duplicate Wardens and 3 recorded duplicate toasts (there were 1-3 toasts absorbed before I started counting them). None of my extra /toasts dropped as transferrable loot.

My paranoid theory is that the chance of getting a horse is inversely proportional to the level of the character, so that you're least likely to get a fast flagless horse on your main. Both my 75s have been shut out on horses. I seem to get the most horse drops on characters that haven't earned the riding skill yet. I fooled it with my level 11 Westfold Master Metalsmith... I bought him the riding skill rather than waiting for the level 20 quest.

Riddermark you say? Perhaps that's why it seems like so many people around me have the horses when I don't

And I came to the same conclusion on the paranoid theory oddly enough (even called it the same thing ha). I seem to get luckier on my alts, but my two highest characters have yet to get anything but unwanted messages and invitations.

Originally Posted by Alcaniel

You're definitely luckier than I am, I've only done the 6 per day, not buying any from the LOTRO store, and I've managed between 7 characters to get the Lossoth Steed twice (on the same character, darnit!) and the /toast emote twice (on different characters).

That said, there is defnitely an exploit, I've had it explained in detail to me how it works. The sad thing is that since Turbine doesn't seem to have done anything about it, some of the folks I'm aware of that DO know about feel that it must be ok to do. I've reported it, but was offline when I got the response, so it was just the generic "we'll investigate, but can't comment back to you on specific actions..."

To the person who PM'd me about it, and anyone else thinking of doing the same, NO, I will not tell you what the exploit is. It's CHEATING!

I'd LOVE to get the horses and emote on more characters than I have it on, but I'm not willing to cheat to do it -maybe I'll have a run of good luck before the anniversary celebration is over!

I don't need no exploit to help me in winning these mounts. I have been running over 40 toons on 8 servers, 3 accounts & been doing fine with winning. I try to pick a certain time to take all them out to run the quest & seem to have very good luck within that time frame.

Originally Posted by Eartholloth

I don't need no exploit to help me in winning these mounts. I have been running over 40 toons on 8 servers, 3 accounts & been doing fine with winning. I try to pick a certain time to take all them out to run the quest & seem to have very good luck within that time frame.

Could you send some of that luck my way?

I know there was a horrible exploit with last year's summer festival and the races, allowing all those aggravating people enough tokens to buy a thousand force-emotes in a morning.

Turbine really didn't seem to care enough to put a stop to it.

Originally Posted by Chanah

I know there was a horrible exploit with last year's summer festival and the races, allowing all those aggravating people enough tokens to buy a thousand force-emotes in a morning.

Turbine really didn't seem to care enough to put a stop to it.

None exploits are needed for that either. The fastest and easiest way to get tokens in festivals are the ale/inn league quests.

at lvl 40
22 quests in an hour/day = 66 tokens/day = 110 emote consumables/day

Originally Posted by Laerien

I ignored and almost reported it, but after many second thoughts and since I don't know details I had no idea what to write in the reporting panel, also I think is not fair reporting only one name while a several players were there.

it is discouraging indeed.

Sorry, but this is the exact wrong thing to do. You should report, and let the GM's sort it out. In any event, a big part of keeping exploits under control is deterrance. People are much less likely to cheat if they know that their account is at risk. But if no one reports because 'they can't catch everyone, so it's unfair,' then everyone gets to cheat at will.

Originally Posted by Laerien

None exploits are needed for that either. The fastest and easiest way to get tokens in festivals are the ale/inn league quests.

at lvl 40
22 quests in an hour/day = 66 tokens/day = 110 emote consumables/day

Yes. 110 per day. Not well over 1000 per day, with 4 deeds finished the next day giving them a way to permanently annoy others and plenty left to sell. Those folks were exploiting, and I won't go into the details of that exploit on the forum either.

Originally Posted by Laerien

I think you misunderstood my point. The only thing I could do is copy and paste the chat conversation into the text box.

If I don't have any details that confirmed the exploit exists I have nothing to write. So in this case I had not enough information (at that moment because I had not read this thread) to make a decision that could make a player being banned for joking.

The reporting function not seems to me something to play with.

To be clear on something: I dont support any type of cheating, even I consider macroing and multibox with 3rd external programs (which many here use) is cheating in my book and deserves deletion.

Even if you felt you didn't have hard evidence at the time, you were being silly. Turbine isn't going to ban anyone for joking about exploiting. A GM would go into the logs and see what the character was doing, and make a judgement based on that.

And even now, Turbine still has the logs. It would seem that you have both the time this occurred and the player name. You could still make a report. But you choose to do nothing.

You have no right to complain about anyone cheating if you have evidence and refuse to do anything about it.

I counted the times I bought the badge it was 41 times, plus doing the quest with 9 characters since around day two of the festival. I've gotten 3 dusk steeds, two on the same character which is one I don't play that much or like, but I keep because I play that one with my husband, plus is my jeweler, kind of disappointing that it was that one who got two steeds. I got one lossoth steed on my 75 captain. I'm calculating that my return rate was around 4% or so. I hate to think that there's an exploit which people are using to get advantage, it should be squashed right away. Since I have both versions of the horses now on 3 characters I won't be spending TP on this anymore, it will take me about 8 months to replenish those points at VIP, and that is not buying anything else.

If only the repeated items were account bound so that is possible to pass them to a different character. At the very least it would be nice if Turbine would make it so that the RNG doesn't produce an item a character already has. It seems like such a waste since the drop rate is so low for some people.

Re the items being bound, I was under the understanding that they were... I've seen players complaining that extra emotes they got poofed because they already had it and any extra mounts can't be sold or traded, neither of which I can confirm because I have yet to get anything but useless letters, invitations and if I'm lucky tokens.

However, I see some players on trade offering up multiples of the anniversary emotes for trade or sale so is that yet another exploit?

It's definitely disheartening to see those who exploit game mechanics get away with it, not only because they end up with all the goodies which they don't deserve, but because they obviously must not see anything wrong with cheating and by doing so probably are taking away most of what little percentage the rest of us had for odds.

Originally Posted by Iyalim

Here is a list of some of the items I have received when opening an envelope for this quest.
...
Steed of the Dusk-watch
...
Has anyone received anything else from these envelopes?

Thanks Iyalim for this thread! +rep
When I first saw this quest ingame I just told myself "What a boring quest.." and skipped that entirely. Then I saw here what can I get during this quest.. And the very second envelope I opened I got Steed of the Dusk-watch! :-) Ok, since then nothing beside anniversary tokens but I will be trying every day..

Been doing it night & day and buying badges, but now nearly no money left, I have won nothing but my friend has got 3 steeds so far is it that hard to make it fairer..

Haven't had any sniff of a horse. Had the toast emote twice (on 2 different char) but that's it.

Originally Posted by Tuco

My paranoid theory is that the chance of getting a horse is inversely proportional to the level of the character, so that you're least likely to get a fast flagless horse on your main. Both my 75s have been shut out on horses. I seem to get the most horse drops on characters that haven't earned the riding skill yet. I fooled it with my level 11 Westfold Master Metalsmith... I bought him the riding skill rather than waiting for the level 20 quest.

It's just a question of random number generator ... I've done the quest once per character per day on anywhere between three and seven characters each day of the festival, and I've had a total of five horses (on characters level 66, 51, 33, 75 and 23 in that order) and one emote (on the lvl 33) so far, so for me the winnings were more in favour of the high level characters. I've tried with a few characters between 15 and 35 that could really use one of the horses but had no luck so far. The 75, 66 and 51 on the other hand are my three highest toons and only needed one or two tries each to find a horse.

All I ever got were Invitations followed by Unwanted Messages until yesterday, received a Warden Steed fortunately on a character who needed a mount.

Well, I just got my third dusk watch steed on my level 13 alt and yet nothing on my main still. They really should have made this stuff bind on account. Throwing out extras when my main doesn't have it yet is just outright painful.

Originally Posted by Ringer88

Well, I just got my third dusk watch steed on my level 13 alt and yet nothing on my main still. They really should have made this stuff bind on account. Throwing out extras when my main doesn't have it yet is just outright painful.

Ow! Painful. I just spent a day advancing my lvl 7 cook/farmer champ to 20 for the riding skill because he got a Lossoth Steed. On my main server only my lowbie metalsmith (who bought 'Riding' when he won the Anniversary pony last year) and my backup warden got the Dusk-watch. Three others got the Lossoth, and my other four don't have either of the new ones yet, including my two lvl 75s.

On the servers where I seldom play now I've done pretty well so far -- overall I've won 12 Dusk-Watch (two dupes), 8 Lossoth and 15 toasts (3+ auto-absorbed dupes) on 252 sets of six-invitation quests (no, I'm not using the exploit). That comes to (for me) about a 14% chance of getting some premium reward and an 8% chance of getting a horse on any one set of six invitations.

One of my alts, out of 18 envelopes, has gotten 17 invites and 1 unwanted invitation. I gave up for him. On the other hand, another alt got the Lossoth pony on his first envelop....go figure. My main has only done the quest twice and hasn't got anything besides unwanted invites....ah well! Congrats to all the lucky winners!

Well, since trying since day one on three alts and one main(all who would win nothing, but those undelivered envelopes) I finally won a Dusky Steed this morning on my 65 main!!

**does a little dance**

Originally Posted by Valadilene

Well, since trying since day one on three alts and one main(all who would win nothing, but those undelivered envelopes) I finally won a Dusky Steed this morning on my 65 main!!

**does a little dance**

Congrats

Lost Invitation
Unwanted Message
Anniversary Token

I'm not very lucky with these things...

Originally Posted by Eartholloth

Congrats

Thank you!

I was lucky (??) enough to get another copy of the toast emote, two days after i originally got it..
But then when I checked my bags I couldnt find it.. filed a ticket.. no response.

However I belive I understand what happened, just like the inn league emote /dancejig once you have it (known to you) your barred from collecting it again..
well.. yet another place where the 'tooltip' isnt anywhere near as explanatory as it could be.. should have had the 'barring skill: toast emote' added to it just like the jig emote needs it...

NOT mad at all tho.. logged in the toon that I would have given the emote to and the second envelope he opened had the dusk watch steed ~ yay

There sure seems to be alot of lucky players. 26 characters, quest done daily on most of them and so far a couple of emotes and one of each mount, all on low level alts on servers I seldom play and usually only for festivals. I don't recall the last time my main has won anything, even the giftboxes are 99.9% food items and .01% celebrants that as a hunter I seldom need. I understand not letting the mounts and emotes be tradeable, but other than wanting us to spend even more tp(like all their "point" sales announcements, the ones that heralded the anniversary event as well as these latest two new bundles, pointed us to) there's no reason to not let them be account bound.

I've done the quest daily on my 9 characters for 3-4 days. So far have looted one Lossoth horse (for a character I actually play, though not the mains) and 5-6 grand toast emotes.

I was quite sad when I hadn't won a single horse and my bf pulled two Lossoth steeds in a row from two envelopes with his loremaster , but now that I have one I'm actually satisfied and not gonna be mourning if I can't get it for my main (who is kind of a mount collector). Will keep trying, though. Very strange to read about those people who keep pulling out horses on daily basis. Very lucky

One of the emotes I looted was on character who already had it, so I was able to get it in an envelope in her inventory. I will give it to my bf or to some of my hobbit characters if they haven't got it by the end of the festival

I like the quest, I think the festival is great fun, but I imagine that being in the end that does not receive anything due to randomness of the system, it may leave you with pretty bad feeling. (And no, saying "it's just pixels and polygons" doesn't really help much ) So I would hope that in the end, everyone who dedicates to this quest reguarly would win at least one horsie/pony.

I have done the quest daily on my main for the past week (some 40+ envelopes), and no mounts. I did win the toast emote once, which is a very cool animation. Was really hoping for a mount before the festival ends though.

I have not spend TP on additional envelopes. Just the six per day.

Have been doing the envelope quest daily on 3 toons (no store bought attempts) since the start of the event. Have only received a single /toast emote on 1 toon.

The Coterie has been running after envelopes for the past week, opening hundreds of them so far. We've looked in corners, roofs, lamp posts, targets, tents and barrels. We've done the headless-chicken run for the floaters and found you can grab these while mounted. Picked only floaters to see if Fortune would favor us. All to no avail, yielding only a few tokens and useless paper.

However, I may have found a way to tilt the Luck Plane! While Ambadil was running about yesterday, I was sharing my sad tale with others in /OOC. Opening my third envelope of the day, I found the /toast emote and used it at once. (I think it should be called /quaff as much misses the mouth.) I was congratulated on my luck and continued bounding about. The sixth envelope seemed to do nothing but, looking to my chat, I saw the Steed of the Dark-watch and mounted immediately. HUZZAH! It's lovely and fast but he needs a new outfit.

So, yes, It Can Happen To YOU! But you have to complain in the right place....

Originally Posted by Carven

The Coterie has been running after envelopes for the past week, opening hundreds of them so far. We've looked in corners, roofs, lamp posts, targets, tents and barrels. We've done the headless-chicken run for the floaters and found you can grab these while mounted. Picked only floaters to see if Fortune would favor us. All to no avail, yielding only a few tokens and useless paper.

However, I may have found a way to tilt the Luck Plane! While Ambadil was running about yesterday, I was sharing my sad tale with others in /OOC. Opening my third envelope of the day, I found the /toast emote and used it at once. (I think it should be called /quaff as much misses the mouth.) I was congratulated on my luck and continued bounding about. The sixth envelope seemed to do nothing but, looking to my chat, I saw the Steed of the Dark-watch and mounted immediately. HUZZAH! It's lovely and fast but he needs a new outfit.

So, yes, It Can Happen To YOU! But you have to complain in the right place....

LOLOL. I'm pretty fashion conscious (one way or the other, depending on which toon it is, inveterate rp'er here), and one of the things I *love* about the Duskwatch and the Champion's Steed (and the Lossoth, really, too) is that they do not require an outfit! The first two are nicely neutral, the third is ye basic black, and goes with everything).

And they don't have flags. If Turbine realised how much 'don't have flags' contributed to mount choices, there are several that would be featured in the store 366 days a year.

Originally Posted by Carven

The Coterie has been running after envelopes for the past week, opening hundreds of them so far. We've looked in corners, roofs, lamp posts, targets, tents and barrels. We've done the headless-chicken run for the floaters and found you can grab these while mounted. Picked only floaters to see if Fortune would favor us. All to no avail, yielding only a few tokens and useless paper.

However, I may have found a way to tilt the Luck Plane! While Ambadil was running about yesterday, I was sharing my sad tale with others in /OOC. Opening my third envelope of the day, I found the /toast emote and used it at once. (I think it should be called /quaff as much misses the mouth.) I was congratulated on my luck and continued bounding about. The sixth envelope seemed to do nothing but, looking to my chat, I saw the Steed of the Dark-watch and mounted immediately. HUZZAH! It's lovely and fast but he needs a new outfit.

So, yes, It Can Happen To YOU! But you have to complain in the right place....

Then I guess I'm even more unlucky than I originally thought I was (and that was pretty bad). I've complained, moaned, bi***ed, and everything else that I can think of everywhere I can think of, and still, after running this quest with perhaps two dozen characters on 5 servers multiple times each day every day, all I have to show for it is one emote, 11 anniversary tokens, countless unwanted messages, AND NO MOUNTS. Curse my luck, and to all of you with multiple wins nearly daily, I say to you...

Originally Posted by Adder

Then I guess I'm even more unlucky than I originally thought I was (and that was pretty bad). I've complained, moaned, bi***ed, and everything else that I can think of everywhere I can think of, and still, after running this quest with perhaps two dozen characters on 5 servers multiple times each day every day, all I have to show for it is one emote, 11 anniversary tokens, countless unwanted messages, AND NO MOUNTS. Curse my luck, and to all of you with multiple wins nearly daily, I say to you...

That is just weird cause you'd think that many toons eventually you would win at least 1 mount. With me it is just the opposite, I have mounts coming out of my ears. LOL Hubby has not done this quest very much & did it today getting both mounts in the quest.

I hope ones who have not gotten one get one before this event is over. Sending ya all some luck

Ran my three alts through it today thinking maybe it is just my main who is cursed. Nope. Nada.

Finally won a dusk watch steed tonight on my main. He seems to be luckiest, getting 2 Lossoths, 2 toast emotes, and now tonight the Dusky. Now if my alts could just win some steeds! I did get the toast on one of them tonight though.

I like the idea of a small chance of a very good reward from this quest. It makes the grind for tokens much more interesting.

Originally Posted by Madra

Hi! Yes, there is a Bug. I tried to post it yesterday in the Forums, but i got an Infraction so i wont post it again. Its an absolute amateurish Failure from Turbine, one of the easiest Things ingame, its nothing where you need anything special and you can open as much Envelopes as you want. But thats not the Problem.
Turbine wants Money for a broken Quest (for the Tokens or the Steeds), is that ok? I think this is the interesting Question.
Look at the Treasure Hunt, the Skirmish-Soldier-Token, the steelbound Lootbox (or what its called in english^^), now this Event. Everywhere they want Money for ###### Content. Thats not ok for me.
To clarify: I`m Vip since more than a year, dont need or want the Emote or the Steed, but i`m frustated in the way things go.

Please Turbine, make Content and Events where the Players have fun and dont get frustrated how greedy you are.

Greetings

Noone is forcing you to buy badges now are they?