LOTRO to relaunch as free to play?

[scharmers]

Tossing 495 lotto points at the store got me another one. Expensive lesson learned :)

[BrianRubin]

Oh that’s good to know thank you. I had no idea. When/where do these legendary items usually drop?

[Knightsaber]

It’s a quest reward when you get ready to go into Moria.

[scharmers]

You’ll get yours for Watcher in the Watet. The in-game explanation of the new system is hot garbage

[BrianRubin]

Oh I’m nowhere near Moria. My 51 Archer dude is still on the Misty Mountains.

[Knightsaber]

It’s sort of complicated.

But I will say my 115 (119 now, thanks Yule!) hunter does tons more damage. I have no idea where Ancient Script comes from, if it’s only instances, I’m going to mourn the loss of my expansion money and move on.

Ugh Traceries only drop in instances? I might be done.

[BrianRubin]

Alright, looks like I need to do some book quests. I’ve barely done any.

[Knightsaber]

Okay so, I did some asking and reading, and you can currently only upgrade LI’s via instances (and Moria solo instances, which is good if you’re there, I suppose).

But this:

The Legendary Item Reward Track is an upcoming feature that will provide players with a new way to advance their Legendary Items. Our initial intention was to release this Reward Track with Update 31.1, but the system needs a bit more time before it is ready, so the Reward Track will now release with Update 31.2 in early 2022.

Here’s how it will work: As you advance along the track, you’ll unlock rewards along the way. The track is account based, so any of your characters can contribute to its progress. All its rewards are designed to scale to the level of the character that claims them - regardless of when you as the player earned them. The Legendary Reward Track is a method for players to earn enhancement runes, traceries, and other rewards through regular gameplay, and players will advance the track by earning Legendary Item XP. The track will refresh about every three months with a new set of rewards.

We look forward to showing you more about this feature in the near future. Thank you!

This ‘reward track’ (aka Not A Battle Pass…it is actually free and has no pay-to-advance options…yet), takes the LI experience you get with normal quests after completion and uses this track…in February.

So it’s honestly pointless for me to play for two months, thanks SSG, well done. Not sure how you only put out half of a system, but there it is.

[Knightsaber]

Yes, they’re only Super Important ™. :)

[BrianRubin]

I know but there are just so many quests in the world I keep getting distracted with.

[DTG]

@Knightsaber

Not sure how you only put out half of a system, but there it is.

A common comment being made. The guess is that they had to appease their new owners with something new by year end, half-baked or not.

I stopped playing a couple of months ago and won’t even try again for a few months until this is finally finished. At my level (~100 to ~127) LIs are a big deal.

Those who built up an inventory of items under the old LI system are pretty screwed it seems…and SSG is being particularly vague about how those items will factor into the “reward track”, or even what the “reward track” is.

[Knightsaber]

They had a livestream about it. Happily it’s free for all, we’ll see how long that lasts.

It has Script, Traceries, Cosmetics, Embers, Essences, all of that funsies, apparently driven by quest completion + the old LI xp. The producer (who looks like he’s 12, if anyone was interested), did say you could apply old XP runes to it. And every three months it starts over. SWTOR has a similar thing in place I think? I haven’t been back there in a long time either.

But I guess alts that are getting to Moria are okay. I have two peeps in the 116-119 range and I just came to a halt after poking around today. I would have held on to all their old LI’s and waited to see what the whole system was like first.

Live and learn.

[BrianRubin]

Those are clearly words that mean things. To people deeper into this game than I am.

[roguefrog]

Oh crap. I have a couple 130 characters with built-up legendries. As they hosed now?

[Knightsaber]

I’m really not sure. If you can solo Library I guess things drop there.

They really screwed the pooch with this one.

[DTG]

@roguefrog

Oh crap. I have a couple 130 characters with built-up legendries. As they hosed now?

You can still equip and use your old LIs but they will no longer advance. If they’re maxed out, they won’t be able to be improved after you level beyond 130. If they’re not maxed, they never will be. Old scrolls and crystals and IXP runes and whatnot are useless other than as trading fodder for new currencies, and perhaps for use in the yet-to-be-implemented “reward track”.

Basically, you “appraise” your old equipped LI’s to get the new currency to get new LI’s and start the process again. Reportedly a maxed-out set can get enough currency to bring you basically to the same place in the new system. I have not yet tried it.

[roguefrog]

Ah, so I don’t lose my existing imbued LIs and can still use them if I want while also trying out the new system? That’s a relief.

[Legume]

I really loved this game and played for something like 12 years. I went through the whole “imbue” thing with a good LI, but after Mordor things started getting to be sort of confusing just because of the amount of content. I haven’t played for a year or so, but if they have changed the LI mechanics yet AGAIN, I will not be back. Just too much.

[roguefrog]

The LI imbue system is a total grind fest. I wonder if this means I no longer have to run those pave the way for Aragorn quests to get tokens to buy scrolls to powerup my legacies on my LI over and over again.

[DTG]

Yeah, you can appraise your existing LIs one time for new currency (ancient script) but you don’t lose the LI in the process. It just becomes a stagnant object that never gets better.