Sunset over Rohan

I was wandering around the start of the Rohan on the Bullroarer server, noticed the sky turning some lovely colours, so found myself a better viewpoint and enjoyed the show.

The LI Grind

I was skimming through the official forums and read a thread suggesting how we can prepare for the Rohan endgame.  Most of it was pretty much what I expected but I was fairly taken back when I read this bit about the new relics:

• T9 Relics cost 1566 shards each (9,696 for six)
• Eastemnent Relics cost three specific relics and 5568 shards each (33,408-61,596 for six, depending on luck).
• True Relics cost four relics (any four) and 11,136 shards each (66,816 for six)

*spits drink out* *wipes off the computer screen*

Let’s ignore the already ridiculous costs we have ingame right now and the 5,568 shards for Eastemnet Relics (plus more if you weren’t lucky enough to decon the correct specific relics and need to meld those.)  But… 11,136 shards for ONE relic.  What are the devs smoking? Srsly!?  Apparently this number has been reduced from 14k.  I guess we’re supposed to be thankful?

I’m not sure if this information is still correct, but I found these numbers here concerning crafted relic shard returns:

• T1 Crafted – 32 Relic Shards
• T2 Crafted – 79
• T3 Crafted – 464

I’ve never found deconning normal relics to yield me that many shards as I needed them for the melding anyway.  So my primary source for shards has been crafted relics.  I’m too lazy to do the math but it’s pretty obvious to see that it will take you a long time to get one True Relic.  Given characters need multiple LIs (some classes have it worse than others), these costs are outrageous.  Sure, this is beta and subject to change.  It would be really lovely if it was.

The thing is, the relic system was changed to supposedly make it easier to obtain relics.  It was supposed to be so easy that we wouldn’t even need to get them back on a max level decon.  It was so easy we could throw them away, get new ones and only buy the relic removal scroll in the store if we were feeling “lazy”.  Bah, the whole relic system has changed into a money grab from Turbine says my cynical self.

The only problem we had before the revamp was the randomness of it (and one could argue too many tiers).  It was down to luck if you got the right legacies on a weapon and got the relic you needed when combining.  I fully appreciate that Turbine has given us the control we’ve been asking for.  I don’t think they’ve implemented it correctly though.  Now we have:

• too many tiers (back to 9 tiers again)
• gold cost per meld is too steep (I spent nearly 50 gold  making relics for my RK’s LIs. It used to cost 100 silver to forge a t9 relic before the ravamp.. just saying)
• shard requirement is outrageous
• relic removal ability taken away from us and added into the store

I don’t like either how I remove a t6 legacy from a weapon and have it downgraded to a t2 but I can understand that they want us to put some work into the new weapon… though I could gripe about the whole throwing-away of a supposedly legendary weapon every 5 levels.

I can honestly say the LI grind is what has kept me from leveling many characters to level cap (well that and I find Stunland… I mean Dunland a bit boring).  I’m the type who likes to have well-geared characters, but when I think about all the work legacies and relics would take me, I just go “Meh….” and find something else to do.  Right now I cannot bring myself to grind out the compendiums on loads of characters to make loads of crafted relics, not to mention I should be doing all the guild crafting (I have every craft to max rank and reputation) so that they’re ready for the new crafting rep level.  But I just cannot be bothered.  It’s too much.

MoonwalkIntoMordor sums it up nicely:

Nobody can defend the current state of the system with a straight face. The best thing they can do is telling that “You don’t have to do it, so just ignore it and settle for tier 6″. Why should I ignore broken design? Why should I ignore the fact that they turned the system into an even worse resource sink compared to the old one, with the premise of fixing it? Telling that they want relics to be disposable, but making them so darned hard to obtain?

I am disappointed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pre-Order Drama Update

Whilst even with this news, I think Turbine is still charging far too much for the expansion, credit is due where it’s due.  At least now I’m thinking “when” I’ll buy the expansion and with cash or tp, rather than “if” I’ll buy it.  Sapience on the official forums:

As most of you know, last week we launched the Riders of Rohan pre-purchase program. While initial sales have been strong and overall response has been positive, we have been paying very close attention to feedback from our community, where some concerns have been raised.

First, many of you shared how much you appreciated the inclusion of Turbine Points as part of last year’s offers. While we believe that the Rohan packs already offer an excellent value, we’ve heard your request and are now adding bonus points into all tiers of the Pre-purchase packs!
The updated editions will now include:

• Base Edition: 1,000 Bonus Turbine Points
• Heroic Edition: 1,000 Bonus Turbine Points
• Legendary Edition: 2,000 Bonus Turbine Points

Are you one of the many players who already purchased Riders of Rohan? You get points too! Anyone who has already applied their Rohan key will see points credited directly to their account over the next few business days. You will not need to contact customer service to receive your points. They will be granted automatically.

Additionally, some players had questions about the instance cluster coming after the launch of RoR. While we are still not ready to talk about the details of the cluster we did want to confirm that we will be releasing a new instance cluster in an update after Rohan launches, and that the cluster will be free to all players who have purchased the Riders of Rohan expansion.
Thanks to everyone for your candid feedback about the pre-purchase offers and the Rohan expansion. At Turbine we have always made it a point to listen closely to our players and adjust when necessary to provide the best possible entertainment experience.

Note: There are a large number of accounts that will be receiving a points credit as part of this change. Please allow 3-5 business days for your points to arrive.

Instance News

Sapience on the official forums:

We are working on an instance cluster. Currently it is planned to be part of an update due to release after the Riders of Rohan expansion has shipped.

*sigh* Why? I’m not fond of this method of supposedly giving us new content through the year.  It feels like they’re purposefully stringing things out to make it look like they’re updating more frequently.  To me that will be a faux update, one that should have come out with the new expansion.

So it looks like we’re going to be in for the same problem as RoI.  Hit level cap in a couple of weeks and then have to wait around.  Lame.