Discussion: Wait... is LOTRO a pay to win game? Does a free player stand a chance?

I just started having fun when I discovered that you can buy + permanent stat tomes for real cash? I also saw the exp bonus items, but those jsut speed things up, they dont give a permanent advantage for spending money.

So question is.. can these tomes be used more than once?

Say I am level 65 free player with 50 agility... can someone be lvl 65 with 200 agility because they spent 100$ (or whatever the amount is) on tomes?

Does this lead to where in order to be a part of a raid or successful guild that takes down end game content you basically have to buy the tomes? Because if you are Player A with X agility, why would they take you over someone else that is exactly the same level but has X+50 agility? In essence the other player paid their way to be there?

Please explain :/

Even though a player can purchase up to +70 of each base stat, that amount has had less of an impact since the removal of stat caps with the Rise of Isengard expansion. It certainly won't help anyone complete an encounter who otherwise wouldn't. (Keep in mind that it's common to see players with 2000-3000 of their main stat at end-game now.)

I've never heard of a kinship or raid leader requiring anyone to have these bonuses. If they did, they would receive major backlash from the community.

Most of these stat tomes are also available as extremely rare drops from instance and raid bosses in-game.

These bonuses are mostly helpful early in the game, as they can actually add a huge amount of survivability at the very lowest levels.

In short, no not really. At end game there are so many things that can increase your stats (especially your main stat) that the few points you can get from the stat tomes are not really too relevant overall. There is a limit in the number of stat tomes that you can buy. I think it may at 7 at this point though no sure. So that means that +70 is the most that anyone can get and considering that most peoples main stat at end game is something on the order of 1500 or more now the stat tomes are not terribly relevant. Also, the stat tomes are technically available in game but they don't drop very often.

Stat tomes are indeed available in the Lotro Store. You can buy 6 levels of tomes with a 7th level offered occasionally. These tomes will give you a 10 point permanent increase in the stat for which the tome was purchased. Giving a max of 70 pts you can add to your stats.

I will be honest that it does help but they are hardly "play to win" features. There are many many ways to increase stats in game making the purchase of them NOT absolutely necessary.

By the time you get to raiding and end game material you should alrdy have acquired sufficient stat increases through gear, leveling and acquiring traits along the way.

I think these stat tomes are more noticable to less experienced players at earlier levels since the raiding/endgame levels require the most important stat you will ever have and that is imho... how well you know and play your character and this is the 'best stat' and that is simply never going be available in the Store.

Jorlan

Don't forget you can earn TurbinePoints in-game as a f2p player, so anything in the store should be within reach (with some extra grinding).
Besides, there's many better things to spend your TP on than Stat Tomes.

Unless you play PvP, the answer is no. However, I wouldn't be surprised to see this change within the next six months to a year.

And if you're a creep in PvP, yes...you can pay to win.

Playing one toon to 75 will give you more than enough free TP to buy all stat tomes from the store. Wether you use the TP for something different is your own decision.

Envoyé par Duxa

...
Does this lead to where in order to be a part of a raid or successful guild that takes down end game content you basically have to buy the tomes? Because if you are Player A with X agility, why would they take you over someone else that is exactly the same level but has X+50 agility? In essence the other player paid their way to be there?

Please explain :/

Just to address this part:
For that, there would have to be a complete way to inspect your character/to have a "gearscore" in game. There isnt - well, technically one could compound your complete stats by entering your gear into a spreadsheet, but who´s gonna do that... even the my.lotro page does not have all necessary information.

Besides, effectivity in playing is dependent on so many factors that +70 even on all stats is not going to be a significant contribution. The increase would only really make a difference if you compare two players that are otherwise geared the same, played similarly and even on a comparable PC and network connection.

Keep in mind, those tomes are also available in game. They can be found in scaled instances, non-scaled instances and raids, lootboxes or lotteries - and since all those versions are tradeable, they shop up on AH as well. Personally, I bought somewhere between 20-25 stat tomes total, last two today, all with in-game gold, without ever resorting to the Store.

Envoyé par Duxa

Does this lead to where in order to be a part of a raid or successful guild that takes down end game content you basically have to buy the tomes? Because if you are Player A with X agility, why would they take you over someone else that is exactly the same level but has X+50 agility? In essence the other player paid their way to be there?

Please explain :/

Since RoI many classes get their main stat above 1500 so an extra 50 points has a very minor effect. I have found that most people who make groups go first by who they know, or is in thier kinship. After that its player reputation. If they are still looking for people they may do a quick gear check to see if they have gear that says they have grouped before or are equiped to do the role needed. But I have never seen a leader pick one person over another just because their stat is 50 points higher then someone elses. I think the only case where that would ever make a difference would be vitality if say a mini had real low health and the mobs did big aoe hits that are hard to avoid. And then your really losing out on the run because of the low health its just that 50 extra vit would give you an easy 150 health, but even then its really a minor amount.

Envoyé par Duxa

Say I am level 65 free player with 50 agility... can someone be lvl 65 with 200 agility because they spent 100$ (or whatever the amount is) on tomes?

At level 65, you will have more than 50 agility with no improvements at all. Any agility-based character at level 65 with merely 200 agility is seriously gimped. At level 65, the Captain skill In Defense of Middle Earth will raise the stats of EVERY player in the Captain's fellowship by more than 50 points. My level 75 characters all have over 800 points in their main stat.

Yes, 50 points is a nice buff but hardly make-or-break past level 50. This is not a pay-to-win game.

If you want to raid end-game (and there's not much to raid, but there is a lot of repetitive grind of the same few instances), and you're never planning to be VIP for a month, then save your Turbine points, because you're going to need all your class, legendary, virtue, and a few race slots open to be competitive. These are all a downgrade perk if you do sub for a month.

If you're just planning on doing landscape content, it's a non-issue. And yes, we had all those trait slots before the game went micropayment grinder, so it's not a new invention for it.

PvP is pay to win in LoTRO. PvE is heading in that direction, but it isn't there yet.

LOTRO is not a pay to win game. Yes , ya need to spend some money if you want to fully enjoy the content.
Try to see this from a different view...

If you want completly free MMORPG , that will be surely crapp MMORPG because people (stuff) who are NOT PAYED will not make you nice game , nor great content which LOTRO have now. So stuff who makes LOTRO and maintains it is actually WORKING... So if their work is good they will be payed, because people will like to play and pay... If something goes wrong and LOTRO stuff starts to be lazy upgrading and maintaing the game , less money will come for LOTRO stuff and soon game will be dead... So If you like LOTRO , contribute to LOTRO to stay alive... Its sure we all spend monthly more than 9$ on many unnecessary stupidities... So monthly 9$ if Im correct isnt a big deal...

Cheers !

I wouldn't worry about it.

- At 65 you won't have 60 agility unless you're a minstrel :-)
- You can only get a max of 60 or 70 agility from the tomes max, per stat.
- That's not enough to make a game breaking difference.
- If someone is slightly better than you, so what?
- You can get these tokens using points earned in a game (a waste of points though).
- If someone pays $1,000,000 to be the best, what does it matter? Let them! They haven't "won" anything.
- This game is not a competition!

Finally:
- Of course it's pay to win. Those who subscribe have many advantages over purely free players! But free players can experience all of the game they just have to work harder to earn points.

But isn't the whole point of PvE MMORPG's that you never 'lose' or 'win', especially based on some stats.

The pleasure is in the technique, the growing with your character, the earning of items and skills.

We've all grouped in MMORPG's with folks who have had a friend powerlevel them up etc. - they might be smurfed up the wazoo with powerful items but they still aren't very good.

If you buy items that makes the game no challenge you won't learn the skills properly will you? You are only cheating yourself in the end.

Anyway lets' get realistic - if you are going to make high level how many hours are you going to put into the game? Hundreds for sure - can you really no afford $10 for a month's VIP - that removes most of the F2P issues - remaining ones like stat tomes are marginal at best.

They are always going to offer shortcut store items to save time and effort for those whoa re prepared to pay. Cash rich, time poor players subsidise the game and its content. Fine by me...

I haven't used a single stat tome on my champion and his dps is no different from people who have rank 7 stat tomes (the 70 might) just do not matter much when you have 2k from equipment anyway.

Stattomes are pretty useless. They are still a leftover from the very fist trys to make money from the store.

But the game is so super-easy and un-challenging, that it can be hardly described as pay-to-win.

But of course it is.
They will try to make you spend by forcing you into massive grinds and a lot of very boring activities.
You can surpass those by spending money in the store to speed things up,
like gold-cap, inventory space, character stat-slots and inventory space.

The other pilliar-of-scam in this F2P-Game is 'Fuff' like cosmetic mount- and armor-skins .

You will always stand a chance in Lotro because it isnt ment to present you any sort of challenge outside of raids.

Usaly you use your TP to reduce or cut the horrible grind, so earning TP by performing the biggest and longest form
of grinding is remains only a theoretical fanboy-argument option.

When you find yourself creating and deleting alt after alt for farmng TP in-game, you could pretty much doing
anything else as it seem not to matter to you what you are doing as long as it prevents(or saves) you from thinking.