Back in March, I had been wondering what the future of skirmish points was likely to be, and whether they would be worth anything in days to come. Now the latest Developer Diary has come up with a partial answer:
"Classic instances will use the Skirmish reward system with some modifications and additions. What does this all mean in plain English? Classic instances will use the Skirmish reward system. All normal item drops from monsters and bosses have been replaced by Skirmish marks. Any spaces, like Annúminas or Helegrod, that had barter systems in place have had their item drops and barter NPCs removed. However, have no fear – many of the unique items that could be acquired from all instances have been added to a new Skirmish camp vendor: the Classic vendor. New unique tokens are also awarded for Classic quests and Challenge mode. In addition, we’ve put Legendary Item jackpots on end bosses, and even small chances to drop Tomes that permanently increase your character’s base stats! To sum up, Classic instances will give you everything they did before, except now they share a unified reward system."
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SKIRMISH POINTS TO REWARD CLASSIC INSTANCES
Kairos posted this on July 30th, 2010.
Categorized as Classic instances, Rewards, Scroll of Empowerment, skirmish points.
Shorthand Link:
Full link: http://lotro-chronicles.blogspot.com/2010/07/skirmish-points-to-reward-classic.html
SKIRMISH POINTS: WHAT WILL THEY BE WORTH TOMORROW?
Kairos posted this on March 26th, 2010.
Categorized as barter items, economy, skirmish points.
Shorthand Link:
Full link: http://lotro-chronicles.blogspot.com/2010/03/skirmish-points-what-will-they-be-worth.html
Every form of barter currency appearing to date in LOTRO has turned out to be, in effect, non-transferable. Vile Coins, Rift-iron Coins, Battered Annuminas Armour, Marks of Triumph... Remember those? All water under the bridge by now, or just rubbish cluttering up chests. Medallions of Moria and Medallions of Lothlórien, collected with so much effort, are worth little or nothing to players currently at l.65.
Will we see the same thing happening with skirmish points? A lot of people will be upset if it does. By the end-game, unless you spend them on upgrading your soldier, the only really valuable item you can barter for skirmish points is the Scroll of Empowerment, which costs 1,950 SP and will upgrade a LI legacy by one tier - but, at the moment, it only works on l.65 LIs. Now a lot of players, myself included, have already upgraded as many legacies as we care to on our current LIs, and are simply collecting SPs in view of the inevitable next upgrade, or even the eventual appearence of First-Age LIs. We are assuming (gambling, if you prefer), that Scrolls of Empowerment suitable for the next lot of LIs, whatever they turn out to be, will still be available in exchange for our accumulated SPs. Should this prove not to be the case, we will find ourselves in the same position as holders of Imperial Russian government bonds the day after the Bolsheviks seized power...
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LATEST LOTRO DEVCHAT FROM WARCRY
Kairos posted this on November 12th, 2009.
Categorized as Champion skills, clobber, design, Dev Chat, Inspired by Greatness, legacies, legendary items, Orion, siege of mirkwood, skills, skirmish points, Skirmishes, warcry, Warden.
Shorthand Link:
Full link: http://lotro-chronicles.blogspot.com/2009/11/latest-lotro-devchat-from-warcry.html
WarCry Network had a chance to chat with Turbine's developers on 11 November. The full transcript is available on their site. Nothing earthshaking was revealed, and in fact most of the responses were either disappointing or else offered nothing new.
Dev Orion clarified the new development he calls 'Inspired by Greatness', a mode which will enable players to solo Epic Quests by temporarily increasing stats: "In the current implementation, the buff increases your statistics to allow you to readily handle the foes present within instance spaces. What that means, in the short term, is that a player deciding to take the solo version of an epic quest that contains an instance will be bumped up to the approximate level of an Elite creature. This also includes some bonuses to regen that make it possible for players to survive against multiple opponents".
One of the most eagerly awaited elements of Siege of Mirkwood is the new multi-boss raid in Dol Guldur. In answer to a question about how many bosses this would include, dev jwbarry replied "The raid at the end of the cluster features multiple boss fights, it's a full raid not a lair raid. There will also be at least 8 skirmish raids launching. These are designed for 12 players and have been balanced as such, including custom built bosses for each" - so nothing really new, there.
Little of interest was said about legendary items, other than Graal reiterating "The addition of scrolls that allow legacy tier upgrades and various other improvements to Legendary items allows players to continue to upgrade their Legendary Items far beyond what is currently available. Initial ranks of legacies will be somewhat lower in Mirkwood to make room for these upgrades".
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Dev Orion clarified the new development he calls 'Inspired by Greatness', a mode which will enable players to solo Epic Quests by temporarily increasing stats: "In the current implementation, the buff increases your statistics to allow you to readily handle the foes present within instance spaces. What that means, in the short term, is that a player deciding to take the solo version of an epic quest that contains an instance will be bumped up to the approximate level of an Elite creature. This also includes some bonuses to regen that make it possible for players to survive against multiple opponents".
One of the most eagerly awaited elements of Siege of Mirkwood is the new multi-boss raid in Dol Guldur. In answer to a question about how many bosses this would include, dev jwbarry replied "The raid at the end of the cluster features multiple boss fights, it's a full raid not a lair raid. There will also be at least 8 skirmish raids launching. These are designed for 12 players and have been balanced as such, including custom built bosses for each" - so nothing really new, there.
Little of interest was said about legendary items, other than Graal reiterating "The addition of scrolls that allow legacy tier upgrades and various other improvements to Legendary items allows players to continue to upgrade their Legendary Items far beyond what is currently available. Initial ranks of legacies will be somewhat lower in Mirkwood to make room for these upgrades".
Read the rest of this entry »
