HotFix – LOTRO Players

Downtime Notice: Sunday, October 15th 7:00 AM – 11:00 AM Eastern (-4 GMT)

Community Manager Cordovan posted on the forums about some upcoming downtime

The LOTRO game worlds will be unavailable from 7:00 AM – 11:00 AM Eastern (-4 GMT) on Sunday, October 15th for a hotfix. Thank you for your patience, and we will see you in the game soon.
And the notes on what’s being fixed are as follows:

This update contains:

Incomparable armor from the Plateau of Gorgoroth Instances and Gorgoroth Steel-bound Lootboxes have their proper stats restored.
Cloaks that were incorrectly categorized as medium or heavy armor have been re-categorized as light armor.
German voice-over audio for the Plateau of Gorgoroth Instances is now correctly in German.

Public Notices:

If a quest is on your Filtered quest list, then you will be unable to interact with that quest’s items on landscape. To interact with quest items remove the quest from the filtered list (Alt+R) and relog.
Even though Monster Players can acquire Gorgoroth Steel-bound Lootboxes, the boxes do not yet contain appropriate loot for Monster Players, and thus Monster Players cannot acquire Black Steel Keys.
If you are using custom UI skins, the Filter buttons will not display properly in the Quest Log or in the quest bestowal UI.
Some game text is not yet localized (Fall festival items and new Mordor barter currencies), and some localized text is in fact incorrect in French and German (cursed items, Tome of the Gourd-lurker, mount source information in the mount collection, new fall festival daily and multiday wrapper quests).

Mordor 21.2.1.b?

It has been a busy few days in SSG and here on our website. The instance update has taken care of this. First, we reacted to Cordovans first announcement to the mistake that has happened. Then, with a great community effort, we announced the different solution that SSG has come up with. And ultimately, we announced the update they released today.

Sadly, this update comes with a different set of kinks in the build. The one that was quickly noticed is that the instance and loot box armour (but not the jewellery) has also been reduced in stats, not only the Ash barter armour we had traded for.

Cordovan

Today’s hotfix incorrectly reduced the power of Level 330 Incomparable items acquired through the new Instances and Gorgoroth Steel-bound Lootboxes. We are working on a fast correction to this issue, and expect to release a hotfix this weekend. Players with incorrectly-reduced items will see those items automatically returned to their proper power level after the hotfix.

But another one has also happened. As I feared, given the experience with down and upscaling in LOTRO, the downscaling didn’t really go well. It has been actually great news to see that we didn’t lose too much light, but it wasn’t that great to see that now level 330 armour is lower in stats than our lower level items.

Bad news for players who bartered for new gold rings is that there has been some change there too. The rings with the barter price of 3300 are now also available through an upgrade of the old gold rings for 800 Ash of Gorgoroth. The upgrade is only available for the 326 gold rings, not the rings from the loot boxes, which may have been of a higher level.

Now, all of this keeps me wondering what kind of Inception-like story is behind this. A hotfix in a hotfix in a hotfix. What do you call a hotfix in a hotfix? Does it get hotter or colder? A lukewarm fix? I really have no clue. And while I do support SSG when it comes to people actually figuring out the mechanics of the game, I am not sure if they really did adjust the damage dealt by bosses properly. As per other player’s testimony, the Dungeons of Naerband last boss hits too hard. I won’t speak more to this since I didn’t yet have the time or a chance to test it. I did test Court of Seregost t2c and the last fight there reset on our group several times. Not a failed instance because of too many bats got away or something, just a random reset. If someone has a clue why this is happening, please let us know.

In any case, the solution they did come up with the gear was a good middle ground, I’d say, but another bug and inadequate scaling aren’t doing SSG any favours.

I hope you’re not all fed up with this topic, but I feel now that we have started covering it, we also need to follow and cover it until resolved.

Mordor: The deed mount

Since you’re probably used to my longer articles by now I didn’t want to post only a picture of the Meta deed mount and be done with it, so I waited a little bit for the first patch to go live. Must have something to complain about.

Before I start the complaining, let’s see this mount I speak of.

I was very surprised by the mount. At first disappointed, but later got used to it and learned to like it. For a moment when I received it I wrote a ticket because I didn’t get the gear to equip on my war steed. But the “gear” was there. All the gear is actually a hide. There is no gear on it, it’s just a mutated Agarnaith horse, hence the name The rescued steed of Agarnaith. I ride it now in both versions, war steed and regular mount and I named mine Groot.

The patch notes you can read here.

Probably one of the best changes is the cooldown on a travel skill to Allegiance halls, which I spoke about in the last article. The issue was that one quest could take you several hours if you didn’t have hurried traveler bought. The skills have now been renamed and their cooldown is on 5 minutes.

Did I find something to complain about? Well, of course I did.

While fixing one of the daily quests it seems like one in Lhingris has been broken – Trapping the trackers. It remains to be seen after I pick it up again will it be working and was there something that required for it to be picked up again. But while I was able to do it the day before (I didn’t finish it), when I went back after the patch I wasn’t able to do anything to advance the quest.

Some things getting broken in the process everyone should be able to understand. It’s an expansion and there will be some fixes in shorter intervals than usual. But what I do mind is that SSG has never stopped rolling out some hidden changes to the game. Some are more important, some less. But I think we should be made aware of them at least and not play explorers, detectives or what not. In the past floors have been changed, the spider queen in Big Battle Glittering caves was moved a little bit back to not aggro with its adds, in Defence of Minas Tirith the first spawn of soldiers that attack was moved by several seconds, in the Wastes a ramp was added in one of the crafting instaces so that we can go back to start if needed, and one of those hidden ones for now is that the crafted item that was giving you Allegiance Points has been changed to not give 2000, but 1000 AP.

I want to remind you once again that you can finish the introduction to all the Allegiances, it doesn’t have to be just one. If you do this, once you open the crafting instances the optional quests for each allegiance become available. With these you will be able to earn 2000 AP untill you finish the chapter 7 of the Allegiance. Once you finish chapter 7 the quest for that Allegiance becomes unavailable. So, if you hold back of getting that cloak, you can earn more AP and finish the other 3 Allegiances faster or you can earn 2000 fewer points with each chapter 7 you finish. I still didn’t hear back from MoL if this is intended or just a glitch in the matrix.

There is a small complaint I have about the access to Allegiances and crafting dailies. To do this you need to do all of the content, which is no small feat when we’re talking about an expansion with 5 regions. You need to finish the Epic Book, which is a small feat, so I guess those two cancel each other out. And then you need to finish the Black Book of Mordor. This looks very similar to Minas Tirith deeds for trait points and very unfriendly for people with alts who would like to do the instances eventually.

The lava AoE reach in Anglach has been reduced, but the same effect while questing in Dor Amarth remains. We will be taking damage on at least 3 obsidian nodes. They may have tought that in Udun we still do not have enough morale, but by the time we get here we should be able to live through it? I don’t mind it, just not sure if it’s intended.

One of the signs we are supposed to find isn’t really in the marked quest area, so you may want to be aware of that too.

And this item has also been fixed.

Another bad news for Beornings. The might cloak is heavy armour.

Update 15.1.2 Hotfix Notes

The patch notes for today’s hotfix are now available on the forums

It’s pretty much we all thought it would be.

We have fixed and exploit which was allowing players to become more powerful than we intended.

I think this will be the most debated

We have placed level restrictions on the following reputation items. Players now must be at least the level listed next to the item below in order to gain reputation from the item. We will of course monitor the feedback on the levels of these items and make any needed adjustments.
Gift Mathoms-8
Barrow-treasure-20
Cardolan-trinket-20
Pilfered Arnorian Coin-20
Stolen Arnorian Heirloom-20
Orc Battle-medallion-30
Orc Campaign-medallion-30
War-master’s Lash-30
Tomb-raider’s Sash-30
Black Badge-30
Band of Númenór-30
Signet of Rhudaur-35
Goblin-town Tabard-35
Elvish Relic-35
Mathom-35
Well-kept Mathom-35
Dourhand Crest-35
First Age Relic-35
Bone Amulet-40
Wicked Dagger-40
War Dispatch-40
Lossoth Spear-head-40
Gauradan Claw-40
Lossoth Luistin-40
Broken Engraving-45
Cracked Etching-45
Green Crystal Lamp Fragment-45
Durin Figurine-45
Uncut Moria-adamant-45
Worn Dwarf Carving-45
Cracked Dwarf Tablet-45
Purple Crystal Lamp Fragment-45
Durin’s Emblem-45
Fractured Ruby-45
Dol Amroth – Bank Token-90
Dol Amroth – Docks Token-90
Dol Amroth – Armoury Token-90
Dol Amroth – Great Hall Token-90
Dol Amroth – Library Token-90
Dol Amroth – Mason Token-90
Dol Amroth – Warehouse Token-90
Dol Amroth – Swan-knight Token-90
Ornamental Skull-90
Weathered Gondorian Relic-90
Pristine Wood-carving-90
Coast-raider’s Sash-90
Jewel-encrusted Scimitar-90
Unblemished Swan Statue-90
Bone Carving-90
Gold-studded Staff-90
Worn Medallion of Castamir-90

So what do yo think of the Reputation changes?

Scheduled Server Downtime: Wednesday, January 7th

Frelorn posted on the Forums of some upcoming downtime

The LOTRO Game Servers will be brought down on Wednesday, January 7th from 9:00 AM – 11:00 AM Eastern (-5 GMT) for a hotfix. Thanks for your patience, and we’ll see you back in the game soon!

Nothing was mentioned as to what this hotfix is for.