The Path to Ithilien-Tempered Essences

[Joedangod]

With U19.2 we get a slightly strange, multi-stage RNG method to upgrading the Ithilien essences.

First you need to gather one of these materials:



These materials drop from the following places:

• Foragers Baskets.
• FI boxes.
• Throne.
• Yule Festival.

The items are not tied to your craft, any of them could drop for you. They are not bound so can be traded.

This update introduced a new set of recipes. Each recipe requires:

• 1xIthilien essence of X.
• 1xUniversal Solvent.
• 1x<Ithilien Craft Material>
• 8xBase Anorien Craft Ingredient (varies depending on your craft, Anorien Ingots for Weaponsmith, Brushed Anorien leathers for Tailor etc, etc.)

The recipe will output:



This "Wild Essence" can then be bartered and the Herb-Master in Henneth Annun to reward this box:



Which contains one of your choice from the following:



You then use that item from your inventory to reward you with 1 of 2 possible essences:



(To save space I avoided linking similar essences, for your main stat just sub in agi/will and tact mastery where appropriate. Same goes for physical mitigation).


So that's how to obtain your new essences in a nutshell. I have to say, I hate the RNG aspect on Ithilien tempered essences. We use so many essences that it's going to take forever to fully equip a character, you're also going to need an ungodly amount of solvents to achieve this. Out of 37 foragers baskets I managed to get 1 craft item. Me and a friend did 2 daily runs and received 1 craft item between our 4 boxes. The craft items drop rate is pretty darn low, no idea how often Throne/Yule fest will reward them.

[Eruceninde]

I really hope this is changed. While I think they should be harder to obtain, I don't think having a rather confusing method that is so heavily RNG based is the way to go. Maybe keep the material drop rare, but change the box to always give you Gold essences. At least then 1 of the RNG is eliminated but still kept rare. Otherwise you end up wasting alot of materials on a slightly better teal essence. To me it wouldn't be worth it.

[Phindecano]

The whole new Ithilien essences system is an absurd. While it provides a way to gather some essences for new players / alts by doing dailies, everything about 3 levels of RNG to get a legendary essence is senseless and again absurd.

Just some suggestions (although I don't hope devs gonna change anything):

1) There should be a way to get a legendary Ithilien essence w/o RNG. Introduce another box that drops only legendary Ithilien essences and place it in barterer for 2x[Wild Essence of Ithilien]. It'll allow players to choose if they need a legendary essence for higher price o 2 teal essences with low chance of legendaries for lower price.

2) The drop of both crafting items and Ithilien essences should be dramatically increased. As said by OP, at the moment it's impossible to equip a character with legendaries at all. At the same time teal Infused Ithilien essences are mainly worse than current Supremes. If it goes live with the current drop rate, I don't see any sense in farming it at all.

3) I hope developers understand that they introduce a senseless system that doesn't provide any benefit to players that already equipped their characters with T8 essences. To get some notable stats increase players should change at least 20-30 supremes to new legendaries. With the current drop rate and RNG it'll be very expensive.

[Joedangod]

I'd argue that such RNG based methods are "okay" when it comes to armour pieces and the like but the same methods really don't work on essences. The quantity is just too much. We have around 51 essence slots to fill, it's already enough of a grind without including the RNG on whether it becomes teal or gold.

Edit: It occurs to me that the sole reason to even include the "wild essence" step is to just give people a way to unbind the ithilien essences in the first place (without requiring people to slot and unslot the essences like they do currently).

[Knight.]

+1 for removing some of the RNG here.
+1 Ithilien-Infused Essence boxes only giving Ithilien-Tempered Essences

This is going to be a potential nightmare for those who wish to min-max.

[mmogaming]

Right now at 140 Baskets and NO crafting item. OUCH!

[NickSlaughter]

The whole new Ithilien essences system is an absurd.
2) The drop of both crafting items and Ithilien essences should be dramatically increased. As said by OP, at the moment it's impossible to equip a character with legendaries at all. At the same time teal Infused Ithilien essences are mainly worse than current Supremes. If it goes live with the current drop rate, I don't see any sense in farming it at all.

3) I hope developers understand that they introduce a senseless system that doesn't provide any benefit to players that already equipped their characters with T8 essences. To get some notable stats increase players should change at least 20-30 supremes to new legendaries. With the current drop rate and RNG it'll be very expensive.

agree

my opinion - totaly grindy, boring, non-endgame option, rng based, those essences - no idea who can be satisfied with such contest, as i see it only as *Waste my time, get nothing back* feature

1) many of the essences arent even better - ie i wouldnt care to upgrade my NI morale essences to get some useless Fate. vitality, fate ess - still no point to use those. might - ie no point to use for support/red cpt (i will keep robust ones)

2) in case of my rk, i use around 38 will essences - i admit i can get around 200 tact mast. more from each will essence, will be 7500++ tm in total - but completly meh, as i saw the RARE item for it - lot of ppl (here or in game), confirmed that they repeteadly got none of those materials out of 1000 extracts (turned into bastkets etc.)
do u realy want to waste our time such way? it will lead only in total frustration


3) but i can stay positive aswell, u finaly came out with so crazy and useless grind, that i can completly skip those essences without hesitation - and yes, i will play something else aswell, as its pita to get ppl for 6man t2c... only FI, sometimes ss or raid, ppl dont do any instances anymore except those recycled ones, which are boring or faceroll (FI, where 3man is solo instance for most classes etc., hardly enjoyable) - giving rare chance on those rare items in FI will only make this closed circle even worst - WAKE UP!



p.s. i still think that flower picking in such stage of the endgame is total fail, go back to Shire, because developing here is on such begginer level
or continue like that and your player base will become full of noobs, as the landscape, endgame contest is total joke - it was harder in Central or Eastern Gondor year back on level (during u16)


p.s.2 start looking around how many stats are broken just cuz dumb essence pumping - vitality - joke stat (is useless for all, including tanks, as Morale ess has better results for them); resistance - my rk has 25k+, where my tank is around 15k... (unbuffed.... no essences, just Will is too much now); morale of minstrels, 50k+ - basicaly they can have same amount as tanking wardens here or there
- those are side effects of making essences more and more OP and dumb, but its already taking taxes

[Samsgaard]

This is a bizarre and likely frustrating system, but I hope it stays that way, so I won't be tempted to engage it. We don't need new essences--especially not essences that are harder to get (or at least, upgrade) than current essences.

A reduction in the grind for Anorien t8s (upgrade path gated behind running featured instances for coins, which can only be done twice per day per toon) would have been welcome at this point. It's a very high barrier to entry for returning players or alts. Instead of an easier path, we get a harder one?

But let's be honest, stat inflation and grind don't bother Turbine. Frequent introduction of new essences drives the purchase of solvents, essence reclamation scrolls, and mithril coins from the store. From here on out, I expect we'll see a new essence level every six months or less, even when there is no change in the difficulty of landscape/solo content and no new group content.

Now that that's off my chest, out of curiosity:

1) The Wild Essence that is crafted--the release notes suggest that this is a real item (not a token that goes straight to the wallet) that is unbound and can be traded or sold. True?
2) As for the bound-to-account box that you receive after bartering the Wild Essence, is it when you open the box and select an essence that the "roll" for the gold version occurs? In other words, you open the box, select the type of essence, then check your bag to see if you got a teal or gold version?

[Joedangod]

1) The Wild Essence that is crafted--the release notes suggest that this is a real item (not a token that goes straight to the wallet) that is unbound and can be traded or sold. True?
2) As for the bound-to-account box that you receive after bartering the Wild Essence, is it when you open the box and select an essence that the "roll" for the gold version occurs? In other words, you open the box, select the type of essence, then check your bag to see if you got a teal or gold version?

Wild essence goes into bags even if you have a premium wallet.

The box gives the option of any item seen in the 4th picture, those items are then usable from your bag and once activated will produce either a teal or gold essence.

[Joedangod]

I'd also like to observe that this is a very alt-unfriendly update. It'll be months of grinding to gear just the one toon, the rest will get completely ignored. Either the drop rate on the craft items needs a massive increase or the RNG aspects need to be removed.

[Beastnas]

This whole thing is grind in it's purest form. Absolute filler. Half of the Infused are downgrades from current Supremes, the rest are sidegrades. RNGesus willing, you'll get a Tempered for actual stat progression, as if there was content that needed it.

Oh, and they're all bound to account.

[JiiPee]

This looks very bad system. Why there can't be just one crafting material you need to get, why every crafter need it's own material? Too much rng. Personally I don't have issue with this because I have all crafters but people who have only one crafter need to find someone to trade with what can be very painful at beginning because everyone is in need.

This system only serves solvent exploiters who still have huge stock of solvent.

[Alphlanc]

This whole thing is grind in it's purest form. Absolute filler. Half of the Infused are downgrades from current Supremes, the rest are sidegrades. RNGesus willing, you'll get a Tempered for actual stat progression, as if there was content that needed it.

Oh, and they're all bound to account.

This.

I don't understand why Turbine would bother with new essences, given that U19 didn't bring any new group content. Why not introduce new essences with an additional crafting tier, so that they actually take some time to cater to crafters as well?

This is honestly such an awful decision, Turbine never learns from their mistakes.

[Joedangod]

This.

I don't understand why Turbine would bother with new essences, given that U19 didn't bring any new group content. Why not introduce new essences with an additional crafting tier, so that they actually take some time to cater to crafters as well?

This is honestly such an awful decision, Turbine never learns from their mistakes.

To be fair, they introduced new, superior jewellery without including new group content so this is about par for the course.

[Alphlanc]

To be fair, they introduced new, superior jewellery without including new group content so this is about par for the course.

I was against that, but they are now introducing even better raid jewellery with 19.2, so we're basically back to square one I suppose?

[Joedangod]

I was against that, but they are now introducing even better raid jewellery with 19.2, so we're basically back to square one I suppose?

Well, also introducing new flower jewels so one step forward, one step back kinda thing.

[Rakanor]

This is just way too much RNG, I don't really see why we need a 3rd tier of t8 essences. Huge RNG to get the materials, and more RNG to get an essence which may or may not be better than your current supreme essences. Furthermore if you get unlucky with a teal it becomes basically worthless.

Surely all this should have been is a way to upgrade the current ithillien essences directly to supreme gold versions.

[Mercho]

This system seems unnecessarily complex and involves way too much RNG. I'd be willing to pay a higher material cost for a guaranteed result. I'd prefer a system like this.


Recipe for a Wild Essence of Ithilien

1 Rare Crafting Material
2 Universal Solvents
16 Craft Specific Items (Hides, Ore, Ect.)
1 Ithilien Essence

The recipe would yield a Wild Essence of Ithilien. The vendor would give you an essence box for your Wild Essence of Ithilien. The essence box would allow you to pick a supreme essence of your choice.


The rare crafting material doesn't need to come in 7 different profession specific varieties. Please just make one type that all professions can use.

[MolagBal]

agree

my opinion - totaly grindy, boring, non-endgame option, rng based, those essences - no idea who can be satisfied with such contest, as i see it only as *Waste my time, get nothing back* feature

p.s. i still think that flower picking in such stage of the endgame is total fail, go back to Shire, because developing here is on such begginer level
or continue like that and your player base will become full of noobs, as the landscape, endgame contest is total joke - it was harder in Central or Eastern Gondor year back on level (during u16)

This.



This flowers grind trend in U19.1 / U19.2 is ridiculous, the worst idea I've never seen in a MMO for end game stuff.
My kin and myself are frustrated about this, where is the fun ?

Those flowers are the way to occupy us before Mordor release, but it won't works for a lot of people.
What will happen in Mordor release, harvesting rare rocks and make a geology simulator to grind RNG essence v4 ?

Seriously Turbine, stop smoking your flowers and use your brain instead of killing the game.

[NeebPlayer]

What will happen in Mordor release?

What will happen is a level increase and a massive stat increase - very likely via new essences. Don't do any of the flower-picking. All this stuff will be trash in Mordor, the same way RoR stuff was trash in HD.

Another example that really stands out in my head: Onodrim crafted gear. It looked so ####ing shiny! We had no idea about essence gear. We knew there was not gonna be a new expansion. So we went crazy about gold Onodrim, only to get ####ed 2 months or so later when it became trash. At least that's how I remember it. I sold mine for 2k a piece and the dude who bought it continued to wear it and ignored essence gear for a long time just to feel better about spending a ton of money on soon-to-become trash items, I guess.

The EP said it best, flower stuff will continue to be useful in 2017, up until Mordor. And btw, Throne will also get scaled to the new cap with new drops. If you are gonna play now, do it casually. Whatever you pick up, sell it.

[bweldon]

This is worse than when the original Tier 7 process came out simply because at least when the Solvents were dropping at a reasonable rate in dailies and from high level mobs. Now we are looking at grinding to get items? and then hoping to make things right? Really if you want to make it more difficult at least make it worth while to chase the top level items. Not worth chasing or grinding, unless they are going to have the crafting items in the LOTRO Store or some other place where we can supplement the drop rates which from what I have heard are insanely low.

[Samsgaard]

Whatever you pick up, sell it.

Yeah, I'm thinking it will be more interesting to play this as a limited-time economic opportunity rather than as a limited-time stat inflation opportunity.

Apparently there will be at least two ways to make money off the new rare crafting mats: (1) just sell them; or (2) use them to craft a Wild Essence, then sell that. (I'm not sure if there's a third option of bartering the Wild Essence and selling the essence that comes out of the box, or if the output is bound--but even if there's a third option, it would be a poor choice, for several reasons.)

Obviously (1) will require no investment of an Ithilien essence or a solvent, but your market will be limited to people who have a toon that can craft with that particular rare mat and have access to the other ingredients. (2) presents the buyer with something that can be bartered for a new essence, no mats or crafting ability required; but you'll have to charge a whole lot more to recover the value of the other ingredients plus something extra for going to the trouble of doing the crafting.

[siipperi]

Cordovan said on yesterdays guest stream that they aiming release somewhere in this month, so probably within next ½ weeks. So just give up they release this with no player feedback listened.

[Curuer_Bauglir]

At least now is a good time to pick up spare essences, as news of the new Ithilien essences has caused a mass fire sale of the current T8 gold essences on world chat. Players are undercutting each others' prices in order to get rid of their current essences fearing they will be obsolete soon. I think once 19.2 goes live and people see what an RNG mess this is, the prices for current gold essences will go right back up, and my kinmates will have some spare gold in their pockets.

[Lightbulba]

-.-