Sturdy Steel Keys Being Deprecated in Update 37

[Cordovan]

When Update 37 is released Lalia's Market will no longer offer Steel-bound Lootboxes from Dusty. Additionally, Sturdy Steel Keys will no longer be available in the LOTRO Store. Players with any Sturdy Steel Keys in their banks or inventories should use them to open or unlock any remaining Steel-bound Lootboxes they wish prior to the release of Update 37.

 

[Devolved]

Okay, pretend I'm someone who looks for game info here on the forum instead of wandering around all the alternate social platforms....


First question - Why?

Second question - with 37 in the final stages on Bullroarer, why this last second notice to use up yet another thing we've paid for and have stashed away for rainy days?



Aggravated frustration dictates I stop with 2 questions.

 

[Rondoe7869]

Okay, pretend I'm someone who looks for game info here on the forum instead of wandering around all the alternate social platforms....


First question - Why?

Second question - with 37 in the final stages on Bullroarer, why this last second notice to use up yet another thing we've paid for and have stashed away for rainy days?



Aggravated frustration dictates I stop with 2 questions.

Well most rational people would look on the "official forums" first instead of all the other social stupidity out there. They already yanked the option out from under us first and then said "our bad" and put the keys back in. At least we are getting informed of the change this time before they screw up and yank things out with out some intel first, or taking things away like reputation tomes from skirm camps at the 11th hour before a patch with that whole fiasco and then putting in some dumb blurb about the "health" of the item-instead of saying "hey we need to monetize this"

 

[Devolved]

Well most rational people would look on the "official forums" first instead of all the other social stupidity out there. ....

Yeah, I think we're on the same page here. That was indeed my point, not knowing if this had been posted 'out there' somewhere before now.


Oh, yeah - third question. Exactly when is 37 dropping so we know how long we have to scour through every character/vault on every server....

 

[Vilan]

I guess your rainy day has arrived.

It sounds like the boxes and keys aren't being removed from your inventory, they just aren't selling any more. If gold were worth anything, I would buy a pile of lootboxes and sell them at a tidy profit to folks who have spare keys but didn't get the memo in time. I'm sure some others are though, so there should be plenty of boxes available for some time, for a price.

 

[YamyDeAragon]

When Update 37 is released Lalia's Market will no longer offer Steel-bound Lootboxes from Dusty. Additionally, Sturdy Steel Keys will no longer be available in the LOTRO Store. Players with any Sturdy Steel Keys in their banks or inventories should use them to open or unlock any remaining Steel-bound Lootboxes they wish prior to the release of Update 37.

So a lot of people with very old alts that for varied reasons may not being able to level up enough yet, will lost their precious sturdy ​

steel anniversary steel keys? here is a better idea: Convert any existing sturdy steel key into the new black key kind, & get rid of the old lootboxes kinds if you wish.

 

[Devolved]

The wording specifies using what you have in banks and inventories.

Edit: Converting the Sturdy keys to Black ones would lessen the bite of this change - including the BTC ones from 3rd and 4th year anniversary boxes.

 

[Cordovan]

We will find future avenues to get the items from these that still have value to you, I know the Red-painted Steed is expected to arrive in a future reward track. The Pick a Mount box will need some discussion. Anything else?

 

[Devolved]

Put this off to 38 to give everyone time to hear about it and get things handled?

Convert Sturdy to Black?

 

[rainith]

We will find future avenues to get the items from these that still have value to you, I know the Red-painted Steed is expected to arrive in a future reward track. The Pick a Mount box will need some discussion. Anything else?

I believe there were some paintings (housing decorations) that were unique to these boxes.

 

[Vilan]

The wording specifies using what you have in banks and inventories.

Says Lalia will not sell more lootboxes and the store will not sell more keys. Nothing about actively deleting what you already have, though Cord could confirm or deny that.

 

[Rufkin]

We will find future avenues to get the items from these that still have value to you, I know the Red-painted Steed is expected to arrive in a future reward track. The Pick a Mount box will need some discussion. Anything else?

Low numbered stat tomes. Stat Tome 1s are available in Yule, but other than that tomes 2-9 were found more often in the old lootboxes than anywhere else, from my experience.

Also, can we get a clear idea of what is happening, please?

• If we go off only the information you've stated, SSG is taking the boxes off a vendor and the old keys are being removed from the store. If that is all that is being done then that means we will have an influx of greedy players trying to sell these old boxes for thousands of gold, for the next decade or more.
• Are these old keys/lootboxes being made useless or turned into something else? This would be optimal, in my opinion.

 

[Creefast]

Some else asked this but I don't see a reply - when is Update 37 coming out? Thanks!

 

[Calding]

When Update 37 is released Lalia's Market will no longer offer Steel-bound Lootboxes from Dusty. Additionally, Sturdy Steel Keys will no longer be available in the LOTRO Store. Players with any Sturdy Steel Keys in their banks or inventories should use them to open or unlock any remaining Steel-bound Lootboxes they wish prior to the release of Update 37.

This wording is still very vague, are you announcing that we MUST open the boxes in our inventory before U37 because it will no longer work afterwards? I understand that there is likely a desire for people to use up the keys as quickly as possible, so we don't go through this all over again if the intention is to disable their use in a further update, but it would still be very nice the actually know if there are more changes coming in U37 than just removing the sources for acquiring the older keys and lootboxes.

 

[Happy Kirby]

This wording is still very vague, are you announcing that we MUST open the boxes in our inventory before U37 because it will no longer work afterwards? I understand that there is likely a desire for people to use up the keys as quickly as possible, so we don't go through this all over again if the intention is to disable their use in a further update, but it would still be very nice the actually know if there are more changes coming in U37 than just removing the sources for acquiring the older keys and lootboxes.

Yup. That's what Cordovan means. In another post below, he said they are taking the contents (need to specify here which stuffs we wanna keep outside of the old lootbox) in there and distribute them in other ways like reward track.

 

[Daylee]

I concur, please make a way to convert Sturdy Steel to Black, like you did with the obsolete ingredients a while back. In my experience I always get better jewelry in the Steel Bound than the new one. It was hard to get any jewelry with stats in the beginning times. PLEASE don't make those character bound. I'm still passing some of them to alts.

 

[Manny.L]

I also suggest converting Sturdy steel key to black key. Or, leave the current condition, old key + lalia old lootboxes. I believe those do not have the ability to influence the balance of lotro. Either some valuable items be got from lootboxes or from Reward track, they are the same.

Just make something obsolete is not a good way, as we have seen this in the past.

 

[Elmagor]

Not everyone playing right now, and not everyone seen that messages. So their keys must be converted into keys what they can be used for already existing lootboxes, it's just fair

 

[auximenes]

So a lot of people with very old alts that for varied reasons may not being able to level up enough yet, will lost their precious sturdy steel anniversary steel keys? here is a better idea: Convert any existing sturdy steel key into the new black key kind, & get rid of the old lootboxes kinds if you wish.​

Not everyone playing right now, and not everyone seen that messages. So their keys must be converted into keys what they can be used for already existing lootboxes, it's just fair

/signed

 

[Estinien]

We will find future avenues to get the items from these that still have value to you, I know the Red-painted Steed is expected to arrive in a future reward track. The Pick a Mount box will need some discussion. Anything else?

I thought when you guys originally said you were removing these Lootboxes from the game that you'd mentioned you'd add ways to get the various items in game at a barterer.

I don't feel like 'Reward Track' is a very reasonable replacement. These were acquirable in game, now you're moving them to "oh if you're playing at the right time, you can get them from the Reward Track, otherwise zero chance.". That feels like a disingenuous way to hold to your word.

It's the same thing with tradeable Tomes of Defence. These were the main ways to get those. Even after you removed Sturdy Steel Keys from being acquirable in-game, at least we could buy them in the store and then trade the Tomes of Defence from opening Lootboxes to our friends (or sell them in AH, as some do).
Now those are essentially Store Exclusive (outside of a super low drop chance from Hobbit Presents for Bound to Account ones, and an extremely low drop chance to get a tradeable one from Traveller's/Adventurer's Lootboxes).

Almost all Raiders use Tomes of Defence at higher tiers (especially for Tanks), so this sorta becomes a 'Pay To Win' option since you're removing ways to acquire them through mostly in-game means.