UPDATE: It appears that they either implemented this change incorrectly, or reverted changes. You can still currently use any reputation on any level character, even with a newly-created character. If this is an error on their part, I would expect a correct fix and implementation to this system either real soon, or just after the holidays.
Update 2: Frelorn has responded to the community discussion thread, saying that “we are going to table the change until we all get through the holidays and had some more time to implement this in way that is best for everyone involved.” See his full post here.
Turbine has added level restrictions to use (via right-clicking to add the respective reputation to the intended character) the various consumable reputation items in game in a surprise hotfix. According to Community Manager Frelorn, this change was done “in part due to an investigation that found the current system was being overly abused by a number of players.” (source)
A list of the reputation items and current level restrictions can be found here. There appears to be a couple of side-effects to this change, including a level 35 requirement on the hobbit Gift Mathoms (which are already bound, and attained via questing), which will hopefully be addressed and fixed in a future patch.
If you would like to join the LOTRO forum discussion on this piece of news, head on over here.
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And que the Forum rage.. in 3…2…1….. Ah, yes there it is…
Many moons ago this is how it used to be when you had to physically hand in rep items. You had to make it to the barter npc alive to turn them in. I saw this coming and I’m surprised it took this long. Perhaps now people will start playing the game instead of spending all day everyday making burner toons.
No offense…but saw this coming?
Turbine initiated the change long ago to dismiss the level restrictions. The players didn’t do that. They should have seen that this would cause players to use rep items on lower level alts (a no brainer). I honestly do not see an abuse in any way shape or form. When the level restriction was removed (by Turbine) it allowed players to do this. In other words players used the rep items as intended (to gain rep).
Do some players utilize their in-game gold to buy rep items off the auction hall? Of course they do…and it has been part of the game economy for as long as I have played (since 2010). Have some players spent tons of gold on tons of rep items to make a decent amount of tp (over 500)? Most likely…although that probably is less than 1% of the total account population.
What did Turbine think players would do??? NOT use rep items???
I do NOT have an issue with Turbine setting some minimum level on rep items …but tbh what I do take issue with is the fact that Turbine made it sound (or it did to me lol) that it is the players fault for this. They should just own up that they made a mistake and they feel they need to reinstate some minimum levels on most rep items.
There should be no level restriction on Gift Mathoms (they are bound).
Again I don’t have a disagreement with rep items having minimum levels (as long as they are level appropriate)…but I think (and maybe I am in the vast minority here) that Turbine should have seen it coming and should take full flak for the storm.
BTW if they made ‘burner toons’ somewhere along the line they had to 1. earn the tp for the extra toon slot, 2. earn the money they spent on all the rep items. These are not newbies who do burner toons…these are players who have probably spent TOO much time playing several ‘all day’ session to get to where they are now. They have played the game, and felt like they were just using the resource turbine allowed them to as it was set up.
The introduction of the beorning class and the speed in which you can get a toon from creation to accepting mail is about 10-15 minutes. That is where the problem is. The average per toon before was probably closer to an hour plus. Anyone I know that farmed TP in this fashion would make one or two a day at the most. If you have enough marks and meds you could get 1000tp an hour easily. That is why, from my point of view, I saw it coming. People are willing to put in 10 times more effort and time to get something for nothing than it would ever take to pay for it.
I apologize Amenhir if it seemed I was coming down on you…that wasn’t my intention, although after reading it I can see how that may had seemed.
In my opinion it still isn’t something for nothing as you put it though. Even if they did a beorning toon they had to spend TP on the class to get it…and somewhere along the way they gained the massive amounts of gold needed to buy a ton of rep items.
A 1000 tp in an hour is a huge sum. When you consider you get 5tp, 10tp, 15 tp then 20 tp for each rep level. That is only 50 tp total for kindred. That would mean to get 1000 tp someone would need to get Kindred with 20 different factions with rep items. Is there even that many with rep items available in the game? Of course yes they could do it twice to 500tp.
The only people I know in game who have ever commented on doing something of the sort would perhaps gain a few hundred tp on a toon over a couple of weeks before deleting that toon. Maybe I am just sheltered then or never needed tp that bad. But yes I have used rep items on low level toons I never intended to level up…but to me it was just a better option than putting the rep items on the AH. I don’t ever recall buying rep items on the AH just for tp farming…although I have probably close to 8,000 gold across all my alts. I just haven’t been to that point yet I guess.
I think you have to include how long it takes to grind the marks or gold though as no matter how many you have, they run out and you have to get more.
I did some buying of rep from skirmish camp yesterday and spent 17k marks. I got 2 alts to kindred with a few of the cheapest factions, and earned 300TP. This was almost instantly because they were bank alts next to skirmish camps anyway. But I’ll have to grind hours of BB to get those marks again!
This is kind of crazy news…now not news(!)…but still news as it will be coming…
I think I understand how the rep item TP grind works and it keeps a lot of rep item farmers busy, a lot of group activity, and it keeps the lower areas active as well…
I imagine this will have quite an effect on the AH and economy as well…
Some equipment is also Rep bound so will this impact cosmetics as well…?
I really hope they don’t knee-jerk this into being without a full introspective analysis of repercussions throughout the game…
Have just read through the Forums…
The REP Item level list has vanished!
I can see the in game logic of the change* but this is a game and this mechanic for me keeps it limping along
FINAL POINT: I have always loved the F2P of LOTRO, indeed I refer to it as P2P ie play to play as by playing you can earn TP… now you still need to play** to get the rep items to be used on your low chars…(poor exploited lowbie char!)
* the out of game logic for the change is of course to encourage players to buy more TP with RW currencies…
**play: farm rep items self, generate GP to buy rep items OR get to know nice players in game who kindly give rep items…
Frelorn removed the bit about the abuse, then posted an edited version, and then completely removed it and followed that up with a post about holding off til after christmas.
Yep, taking offense in the way that Turbine calls this ‘abuse by some players’ !
It is abuse now to take advantage of game mechanics and rules? Wow.
What next? It is morally forbidden to create an alt. play it to top lvl, delete it and do it all over again?