Note: This article refers to information available prior to the launch of LOTRO F2P. This information has been integrated into our other guides.
Crafting is another game system seeing some changes with the launch of LOTRO free-to-play. While the changes are not massive, they do raise an important question: Is crafting still worth it?
The Supply and Demand Outlook
The outlook for crafted gear is mixed. While the influx of new players at launch will see renewed interest crafted goods, especially at low levels, good alternatives to crafted gear have also increased. Players will be able to start skirmishes at level 20, and the skirmish barter vendor now offers a handful of options in each level range that are comparable to “crit” crafted gear. Players who group up for Great Barrow and later instances will have additional gear set options.On the other hand, the outlook for consumables is rosy. Food, scrolls and hope tokens are still very helpful for speeding up leveling and beating tough encounters. Sure, some folks will buy consumables from the store, but most will save their TP for items that can’t be bought in-game.
Finally, class items and crafted legendary items should enjoy a small, but steady market.
More Crits While Leveling
Perhaps the biggest change to crafting mechanics is that you will be able to crit a recipe (and use crit components) in the second anvil of a tier, when you are still working toward mastery. This is great news for new players, since it means you’ll be able to get much more use out of crit gear that you’ve crafted yourself. You’ll still want to complete mastery on each tier though -- you can only have the second anvil open on one tier at a time.Other Changes Now in Beta
Training for Gathering Professions. Prospectors, foresters and farmers, beware! After F2P launches, you’ll need to complete a "read a book" quest from a crafting supplier to unlock the second anvil of each tier.
Unlock for Crafting Guilds. Everyone can join a crafting guild once they are at the expert tier of a profession, but Free and Premium players have to buy access to the crafting guild from the store to advance farther than acquaintance standing with the guild. You can buy and make the guild reputation recipes for crafting tiers you have achieved, and stockpile the reputation items prior to buying the guild unlock. But you'll need that unlock to buy and use guild recipes for improved outputs, including "crit" gear. Special thanks to Ajay for helping us figure this one out!
Cooked Food. Food now boosts in-combat morale and power regeneration ratings instead of pulsing a heal or power restore every 30 seconds. While the net effect of the food will be the same in most cases, expect lots of discussion about this change - especially as it relates to the Lieutenant fight in Dol Guldur, Champion’s incoming heal penalty in Fervour and the ICMR/ICPR caps.
Crafting Panel. Jewellers, Metalsmiths, Tailors, Weaponsmiths and Woodworkers will enjoy the new sub-categories that group gear recipes by the level of the item they produce.
Armaments and Standards. New Tier 6 recipes (dropped) for Captain’s armaments and standards. With the changes to the captain class, expect these to be popular.
Farming in Ered Luin? In Beta, there is a door outside Thorin’s Hall to a new zone called The Greenhouse, which has normal farming fields inside (but no superior fields). The catch? No farming vendors or workbench yet, so this may not go live with F2P launch.
12 comments:
You should mention that access to crafting guilds must be bought by F2P/Premium. Good articles though! I'm a f2p beta tester and will offer any additional info where I see it is needed!
I tested crafting guilds on a Free account in Beta and couldn't find a limit. I had no trouble joining the Tailor guild on my first character. Then I opened a second slot and leveled a cook, who was also able to join a crafting guild.
We'll keep an eye on it and if we can verify the actual limitation, we'll update the article.
Hi Lunatuna, not sure how far you went into the crafting guild, but I had to "buy" Friend status with the weaponsmith crafting guild. I believe the gating for the crafting guild (where you have to spend TP) should be earlier during the guild process, either when you join or after the first reputation level. I had to pay 295 TP I recall. Not certain if this was changed after the latest patch, will need to check.
Ooh, this is exciting! My tailor is in the Artisan tier, but only Acquaintance with the Tailor Guild. Does it offer you a further unlock after Friend?
No further unlocks were needed after that one to reach Friend. I was sort of surprised there was a lock without even mentioning it beforehand. I could see someone grinding up to Friend, hitting the lock, and not having the TP to purchase further crafting guild access (and thus making their grind to Friend rather worthless). I hope this is much more clear when F2P goes live. There's also the possibility that the last patch changed this, but I haven't checked yet. Looking forward to when you hit the TP requirement.
I mentioned on the forums somewhere that I thought it was silly I needed to bribe the guild to become a Friend. Seemed like an elitist society :p
Thanks for your help on this Ajay, I'll update the article. I looked at the description of the unlock in the store again yesterday and it doesn't say any of this, so I'm going to bug it in game as well.
I'm hoping for clarification from Victorie about this rather soon. I will post any info that doesn't seem beta specific here when I get it!
D24. Crafting Guilds, Crafting Restrictions and Store Purchase
Everyone can join a crafting guild once they are at the expert tier of the profession with a guild.
In order to be able to advance to farther than acquaintance standing, you have to buy access to the crafting guild from the webstore.
If you are a VIP you get this ability automatically.
If you become a Premium from VIP, you can advance within the current tier and get as much reputation as you want, but you won’t advance to the next tier unless you buy the item or subscribe again.
From Victorie's great FAQ thread.
Great find, Ajay, thanks! I've been testing this a bit on Beta, but it's better to get official word from Victorie. Thanks for tracking this answer down. :)
No problem, great website you guys have here! Also, Tawariel, I believe we may have participated in the Helegrod Giant Wing raid on beta (Yajard is my character).
As for the update, looks like how it was in beta is working as intended. Even if you downgrade while as an Ally to your guild, you will have to purchase access to Kindred status.
As an fyi, I recently upgraded to VIP, and for my characters who were already in crafting guilds, not only did it open up Friend status, but it also gave me credit for all the symbol turn ins I'd done beyond that. So, if you managed to keep track of your rep points, you could advance a character's rep while free/premium, then upgrade to VIP and automatically be at Kindred (in theory). The farthest I got was halfway through friend with one of my alts before subscribing, but I assume it'd continue carrying over the points beyond that.
Wow Cal, that is great! Unfortunately, if they changed that, I'd doubt it would be noted in the patch notes. It's still probably better to bank your guild rep turn-ins for a subscription month.
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