Important: Changes to some Reputation Items

[TKH]

https://www.lotro.com/forums/showthr...s&goto=newpost

So, we lose one steady and great way to earn TP with our new lowbies.

Guess that the rep item grinding that is very useful to rack a good number of TPs in a short time, in exchange of time/skirmish mark/gold, finally takes a toll on their TP selling.

[Lordthebruce]

A serious issue with this is that Mathoms are awarded as quest rewards in Oatbarton at lvl30. According to this...those rep items wont be useable for 5 more levels. There may be some quest rewards in the shire that pay mathom at even lower levels.

You should review those levels again.

[Askanko]

Mathom usage should be level 20 indeed.

[MrOrdinii]

As far as I can remember, Mathoms are given as quest rewards in The Shire from about level 7 so how is this going to work now? Will Hobbit characters get the rep directly?

[Yula_the_Mighty]

Gift Mathoms should not have level restriction because:

1) They are character bound. You can't use a high level character to stock up on them. Pass them on to a low level character for mass use.

2) They are quest rewards. The number of gift mathoms that a character can acquire is limited.

3) The quests that award gift mathoms start a very low level in The Shire. I do not know what the lowest level quest that awards Gift Mathoms. It has to be under level 10.

[Beaniemooch]

I'm really not a fan of this change. I understand that Turbine doesn't want to encourage people to create characters and feed them rep items for much higher levels, just to earn TP. On the other hand this is the only way some people can afford to play and has been in place essentially since F2P came out.

The levels of some of these rep items is set too high, as evidenced by the Shire rep for level 35. Even the Bree rep can be earned before level 20. It would've been nice to have a discussion about this before it was implemented.

[Frelorn]

This was done in part due to an investigation that found the current system was being overly abused by a number of players. If after some time we need to adjust these numbers, we can do so relatively easily like we did today without even bringing the servers down. (Yay!)

That being said we will leave things as they are for now and revisit these numbers again after the holidays.

[Mar-Evayave]

I whole-heartedly agree with the sentiments shared and disagree with the announcement. Particularly with the mathoms. These are things that players are going to be earning at a much lower level than specified.

But even beyond mathoms, I can understand not wanting players to grind TP by stockpiling them on higher toons. But what about when players have high level toons who have finished a specific type of rep? What do they do with the surplus? Well, they send it to their alts. Only now, the alts can't use them because they are too low level. And unfortunately, that means that they start piling up, taking away some much needed storage space.

I can understand the reasoning for some reputation. Dol Amroth and Central Gondor for example. But these are, to my knowledge, the first consumable rep items we've had since Moria. What has changed all of a sudden?

How is it any different from farming slayer deeds on trash toons that are deleted and remade just to do it all over again? Even those players who use endless amounts of rep items on trash toon after trash toon... they still got those rep items somewhere. They still put forth some effort on their main in order to obtain them.

I think one of the things that makes LOTRO have the BEST f2p model out there is the easy access to TP. So long as a player is willing to invest the time to grind, they can get rewards without having to pay money. And, from what I've observed, players who are able to earn stuff freely are more inclined to reach for their pockets than those players who are constantly being forced to pay.

[peachykins]

This was done in part due to an investigation that found the current system was being overly abused by a number of players. If after some time we need to adjust these numbers, we can do so relatively easily like we did today without even bringing the servers down. (Yay!)

That being said we will leave things as they are for now and revisit these numbers again after the holidays.

Funny how all of a sudden players are abusing the system. I call BS!

[Frisco]

This was done in part due to an investigation that found the current system was being overly abused by a number of players.

I don't think it's fair to call this "abuse". We're not talking about an exploit here. It's a mechanic in a video game that was implemented on purpose. Misguided? Maybe. But that's Turbine's fault, not the people who played the game they were given.

Like Open Tapping (which turned end game into 24-man raids vs. normal mob spawns), having no level restrictions on rep items was just not very well-thought-out on the part of developers. But it seems like the default is to blame players rather than take any responsibility for the game they create.

[DeadlyGazebo]

I agree that the restriction should be lifted for gift mathoms, as those you can't stock up on and gift to another character.

The bree rep items might want to go to level 18 rather than 20? I think there may be people below level 20 attacking the barrow downs and getting some of those. Mathoms might want to be a few levels lower as well; as someone pointed out, you can get some in oatbarton, and some north downs creatures drop them too, both of which I think will cause people to be getting them below level 30. Perhaps level 25 would be better?

[Orivien]

I can imagine that this is going to make some people mad. I would lie if I said I didn't see anyone creating alt just to farm tp via reputation items and then deleting it.
Even I send reputation to my crafting alts because as a conpletionist I collect big amounts of items as I finish every region, every quest and every deed. It made me feel like I'm gaining additional reward for my hard work But I dare to say my ways are not really abusive.

To mathoms - I agree that level is not appropriate since we collect them already in Shire, or Barrow downs.

[peachykins]

I don't think it's fair to call this "abuse". We're not talking about an exploit here. It's a mechanic in a video game that was implemented on purpose. Misguided? Maybe. But that's Turbine's fault, not the people who played the game they were given.

Like Open Tapping (which turned end game into 24-man raids vs. normal mob spawns), having no level restrictions on rep items was just not very well-thought-out on the part of developers. But it seems like the default is to blame players rather than take any responsibility for the game they create.

It's been a few years at least I believe since they lifted the restriction & now all of a sudden there's a problem- um no.

What I see is Turbine no longer wants people earning great amounts of easy tps.

[Leixy]

I support this change completely. It should have been done when the rep drop system was devised.

Obviously gift mathoms, which are quest rewards from lvl 7+ quests, should have their level requirement removed. All the other rep items seem to be appropriately given, but Bree items should be lvl 15+.

the new way to farm TP will be to power level to 45, then run around and do your explorer/low lvl slayer deeds while getting rep items.

[Eirika]

I'm really not a fan of this change. I understand that Turbine doesn't want to encourage people to create characters and feed them rep items for much higher levels, just to earn TP. On the other hand this is the only way some people can afford to play and has been in place essentially since F2P came out.

The levels of some of these rep items is set too high, as evidenced by the Shire rep for level 35. Even the Bree rep can be earned before level 20. It would've been nice to have a discussion about this before it was implemented.

Hi Frelorn and thanks for the update - I do concur the Mathom situation needs to be looked at sooner rather than later as gift mathom and mothom drop in the barrow downs which are easily accessible in the late teens and early 20's....that would mean stockpiling them for 5 to 15 levels depending on your prowess.

Just a thought

Lothhil BW Hunter

[ShireDweller]

Wow. Merry Christmas to you too, Turbine.

[Brandon_Blackbird]

When people abuse a system, the system gets changed.

This was an easy way for someone to turn gold (infinite suppy) into TP. That to me is something that needed to be addressed. Gaining over 1000 TP in a short amount of time just from buying things on the AH or with skirmish marks and then turning them in on a level 6 character, deleting that character and starting over with another character, resulting in thousands of TP earned in a day... that's an abuse of the system.

I do agree that mathom levels need to be adjusted, the gift mathoms at the very least.

[ani6morphs]

Have the changes been reversed? I loaded up my level 10 Beorning, and was able to use a Moria rep item I had in my stash. After thinking maybe it wasn't retroactive to our current stashed reputation items, I loaded up a higher toon, went to Angmar, attained both a War Dispatch & Wicked Dagger (which was posted in the forum as level 40 requirement), sent that to my Beorning, and was able to use both.

[Askanko]

This was done in part due to an investigation that found the current system was being overly abused by a number of players. If after some time we need to adjust these numbers, we can do so relatively easily like we did today without even bringing the servers down. (Yay!)

That being said we will leave things as they are for now and revisit these numbers again after the holidays.

I just blow my whole vault of rep. items to my alt characters. Does this change only apply to newly created characters or is the change not yet activated ?

[matalan]

Have the changes been reversed? I loaded up my level 10 Beorning, and was able to use a Moria rep item I had in my stash. After thinking maybe it wasn't retroactive to our current stashed reputation items, I loaded up a higher toon, went to Angmar, attained both a War Dispatch & Wicked Dagger (which was posted in the forum as level 40 requirement), sent that to my Beorning, and was able to use both.

Hi!

I too logged and tested this out and had no issues gaining rep on a toon below the level required. The tooltips for the rep items currently have no level restriction in place, so I believe when Frelorn stated they would be leaving things as they are until after the holidays, that he meant the change has been reverted for now; OFC that's just my interpretation!




EDIT - just to add my 2 cents. It used to be that rep items had to traded in to an NPC located in the area where that rep would drop from mobs, in batches of ten IIRC. So in a way back then the items were level gated - if you couldn't get the toon to that NPC then no rep for you! So in a way I can understand this change. Why it has taken so long to realise that being able to just click on the rep items in your bag to gain rep would lead to TP farming is beyond me, that's on Turbine for the massive oversight, not the players at all IMHO.

[TharbadThief]

When the price of rep items got lowered at skirm camps and deeds started to reward rep as well, I made a post here along the lines of: I have a bad feeling this means they are going to change something crucial in the system of earning TPs. Well, I was right and this is probably just the 1st step.

[Leixy]

Yup, that's because Turbine messed up, again.

They put in "Item lvl xx" instead of "Mimum level xx" requirement for the rep items.

You can still click all your items below lvl.

They actually make this mistake a lot. lol. Amateurs.

[LordVoronturEU]

This was done in part due to an investigation that found the current system was being overly abused by a number of players. If after some time we need to adjust these numbers, we can do so relatively easily like we did today without even bringing the servers down. (Yay!)

That being said we will leave things as they are for now and revisit these numbers again after the holidays.

You are aware, I hope, that Gift Mathoms are handed out as quest rewards for normal Shire quests?
For those, I would revert the level back to what it was before the change.

For the others, I think it's not a bad idea to do this.

[LordVoronturEU]

I'm really not a fan of this change. I understand that Turbine doesn't want to encourage people to create characters and feed them rep items for much higher levels, just to earn TP. On the other hand this is the only way some people can afford to play and has been in place essentially since F2P came out.

The levels of some of these rep items is set too high, as evidenced by the Shire rep for level 35. Even the Bree rep can be earned before level 20. It would've been nice to have a discussion about this before it was implemented.

I understand your point, really. That said, if it has been abused by storing massive amounts of items just to use them on new chars for TP, and repeated, I don't think it's a bad thing that gets limited.
It's how it used to work, remember?

We all had to be the specific levels "in the Old Days".
Some couldn't be used without the appropriate rep tier either.

[Nostro44]

It's become a problem for Turbine recently because of the large number of marks that are given out in instances, particularly big battles. People are exchanging these for rep items in skirm camps (something that originally wasn't available) and getting tp on garbage characters. Really it's Turbine's lack of foresight on these matters that has caused this change (nothing new there then).