Maxing all Virtues for new characters is impossible unless you p2w - players beware (tested)

[LotroVidz]

Yeah i'm mad but i'm mad because of people like you speaking ill on such a great game, a game that stood the test of time longer than most mmorpg.

There are so many things to experience in LOTRO but you choose to focus on your virtues. Maxing all virtues is not necessary and you will never hear people in LFF asking for players with all 21 maxed virtue.

Also, how can you call this a scammy business model when you don't even have to pay a single cent to play this game and you are given the option to farm store currency if you are time rich.

Honestly, you are just one of those people that expects everything to be given to them instantly because you "think" that you and your half-baked test is so special.

We can have every grind in this game in an instant, by paying irl money. Even if you dont max out 21 virtues it still takes ages. People rather pay 60$ than grinding those virtues. This game and every system in it has become so boring that players rather pay IRL money to skip it. Its become pure trash honestly.

[Thorondir]

What benefit does one get from virtues that are NOT equipped?

There is a tiny passive bonus attached to virtues which you get even if not equipped. But the amount is not really worth going for.

[LotroVidz]

There is a tiny passive bonus attached to virtues which you get even if not equipped. But the amount is not really worth going for.

Ofc its not worth going for, it takes months/years to grind it. But you can have these bonuses in a few minutes using your wallet.

[Fegefeuer]

Yeah i'm mad but i'm mad because of people like you speaking ill on such a great game, a game that stood the test of time longer than most mmorpg.

There are so many things to experience in LOTRO but you choose to focus on your virtues. Maxing all virtues is not necessary and you will never hear people in LFF asking for players with all 21 maxed virtue.

Also, how can you call this a scammy business model when you don't even have to pay a single cent to play this game and you are given the option to farm store currency if you are time rich.

Honestly, you are just one of those people that expects everything to be given to them instantly because you "think" that you and your half-baked test is so special.

I'm sorry that showing you that you are being scammed hit too hard. So funny to read this comment, I can read it with angry tone

The game is fine, the business model is not. There are far better business models. Lotro business models is increasing scam practises more and more.

You should try other games. There are games that are more popular than Lotro and their revenue is based on cosmetics. Just explore. SSG monetize character progression and scam you and you are so blind that you don't even notice.

So, if SSG sells questpack of 20 quests for 500 dollars, but they add it in lotro store for 50k lp, then it's fine because you can farm it? Just lol.

[Fegefeuer]

The store and grind avoidance that accompanied it was introduced in 2010, so I don't think the virtue changes are going to suddenly cause the game to collapse due to a mass exodus. Anyone who thinks any f2p game is in actuality free to play at the highest level is delusional. I don't believe the game is filled with whales who are spending tens of thousands of dollars to max out their characters. I can't imagine it costs anywhere close to that much to max out a character anyway. People paying for a sub or making a yearly LP purchase are hardly whales. They're simply people paying to play the game, just as a person would go to Gamestop and buy a $60 video game. You seem to be casting an overly wide net with your definition of whales and wholly ignoring the size of the playerbase who spend money on content and still play casually or even play endgame instances without being obsessed with LI swaps, passive virtues, stat tomes, etc.

As for other games, I can't speak to their mechanics because I only play LOTRO, but I will say that some harm has come to LOTRO because of players asking LOTRO to be more like Game X, Y, or Z. LOTRO at it's core was a questing and instance based game whose uniqueness came from being set in Middle-earth. Pretty soon there was outcry that LOTRO didn't have PvP, so they half-heartedly implemented it and made no one happy since it wasn't good enough for players coming from other games. There was outcry that LOTRO was sub only while others were f2p, so the store was introduced. We can see how that turned out with our current debate. There was outcry that LOTRO didn't have mechanics to skip to endgame like other games, so they introduced Valars that made no one happy since players had to go back and redo old content anyway to get the maximum trait points. There was outcry that LOTRO didn't have customizable gear like other games, so essence gear was introduced and made no one happy because of the reliance on grindy/store bought solvents. There was outcry that gear became obsolete too quickly, so imbued LIs were introduced with their increased reliance on scrolls of empowerment, scrolls of delving, and crystals of remembrance. That's not to say all changes have been bad, but the farther people want to move LOTRO away from LOTRO and into a clone of some other game, the more the game suffers.

As for the cost, of course it costs more now, which is what many predicted way back when the store was introduced, despite the vast support of people believing they were truly going to get to play for free or a reduced cost. Everything that some of us feared with the store and grind avoidance has come true. I have no problem with a person being displeased with the virtue grind, but the simple fact remains that you don't need to max out every single virtue when you can only slot 5. Anyone who feels doing so is necessary to play this game is the reason ever increasing grind exists. They are the primary reason SSG has put stats in the store. They are the primary reason keys and lootboxes exist. They are the primary reason Valars exist. Which is just fine. There is no invalid playstyle in this game, but if your playstyle is to max every minor stat in the game, you have voluntarily chosen huge grind or store bought items and avoidance. To expect a company to tighten the valve on a profitable revenue stream that many players welcomed with open arms and evidently continue to support today is wildly unrealistic.

One of the best comments of this thread, only for reading this, it was already worth doing this thread. I think you are right, so I'm glad I am changing my playstyle to not max anything. But the fact still remains - it is a system that is created for the usage of the store. Grind done eternal on purpose to get the store workaround.

[Aedunj]

You can't cap all virtues without weeklies / multiple valar.
In total you need 2.433.900 vxp to hit 74 cap.

Doing all landscape deeds + mission deeds will give you 1.359.000 vxp. Doing all instance deeds including t5 raid is another 181.000 vxp.
So if you are a completionist you are still missing 893.900 vxp before u hit virtue cap if they dont raise it again that is.

If you buy 1 valar you only get 650.000 vxp.

Lets say you grind all weeklies each week + 45 missions to max out vxp gain. It's still going to take around 59-60 weeks nonstop on top of doing every vxp deed ingame.
Throw in some hobbit presents and festivals and maybe u can shave off a week or two.


As for benefits in total you get 23856 morale & 34475 mastery from the passives at 74.

[Thorondir]

Ofc its not worth going for, it takes months/years to grind it. But you can have these bonuses in a few minutes using your wallet.

Or you dont have them and you loose practically nothing ...

[Laerthan1997]

Or you dont have them and you loose practically nothing ...

Well actually there is a very big difference stat-wise between someone that has very bad virtues and one that has them all maxed, lvl 74 virtues are actually insane compared to having even lvl 60 virtues.

[Braer]

Or you dont have them and you loose practically nothing ...

And if you don't have them because the effort or the cash options don't appeal to you then are you so bothered with; maxing trait points, stat tomes (when they are relevant again), the best of essences, the best LI relics and legacy choices, switch LIs over hybrid LIs, a maxed bridle and every other mechanic to progression?

Wispsong had it, it just gives players the excuse to give up advancing and makes balancing the content to a character's strength an impossibility and highlighted by missions that become one-shotting everything at one extreme to an endless dirge of "special" mob skills to deal with at the other.

All the "practically nothings" add up and in an environment that has a fine line between a killing shot and suffering special mechanics then the latter might well be more interesting play if you're not so time limited, I pick the speedier option as I have several classes to progress. I suspect those that aren't concerned don't get how powerful their characters can be when geared and played optimally. And if you aren't pushing the stated limits then you aren't going to notice where they can be pushed further

But these days I'm much less interested in playing with folk who don't admit to taking the "bribe" when the virtue revamp got implemented and deny flaws due to varying access to vxp during levelling that can irrevocably loose fixed sources of vxp but soon after entails a limited availability and the more rewarding repeatable sources tied to cash purchase of content initially, and a few months denied access if choosing the much lauded free to play model with the ever present link at the top right corner of this page.

The revamp was all about the visuals and none of the maths as initially BR had earnings at half their implemented increments and certainly no review of the varying access at different level cap regions that the legendary servers would be going through. The better repeatable sources added recently remain in the realm of the capped character so denied my locked 104 cook despite utter "ownage" of missions, why?

[Fegefeuer]

Thank you Aedunj for the calculations! And wonderful comment, Braer

[Arnenna]

The new virtue system has some benefits, and for many of us, it's manageable to keep up on our mains or characters that have been here a while and have done the legwork prior to the changes.

But make no mistake . . . . it's one of those "it grows in the background" systems - just like imbued LI's. It's only a valid race for those who were at the starting line when the gun went off, and the more time passes since that moment, the more "fall behind" time gets added. It will age exactly like imbued LIs aged - not well, and a couple of years from now, it will have surpassed the problems we now see with LI's.

Call it a ticking bomb, it's on a timer and eventually, it will go off and it will be the new LOTRO cause of people parking alts or leaving to play something else.

I really like the advantages added to the virtue system, but, the price players will pay for it will be dire, unless they add more ways to earn VXP, or leave in place all avenues that they ever add for VXP, especially for players coming up behind the early birds. For example, take my main, who is about to max up on all virtues again very soon. Great right? But she had all her virtues over-capped when this system hit, so the head start was there. She was here for all the weeklies when the Vales gave VXP, and she has been working through MM, Wells and Mission VXP gains all this time too. The Vales gains are already gone, the rest will follow soon.

In a nutshell, re-add VXP back for basic part of all deeds, rather than just for advanced. Leave the VXP in place for Vales weeklies. And so forth.

[LotroVidz]

The new virtue system has some benefits, and for many of us, it's manageable to keep up on our mains or characters that have been here a while and have done the legwork prior to the changes.

But make no mistake . . . . it's one of those "it grows in the background" systems - just like imbued LI's. It's only a valid race for those who were at the starting line when the gun went off, and the more time passes since that moment, the more "fall behind" time gets added. It will age exactly like imbued LIs aged - not well, and a couple of years from now, it will have surpassed the problems we now see with LI's.

Call it a ticking bomb, it's on a timer and eventually, it will go off and it will be the new LOTRO cause of people parking alts or leaving to play something else.

I really like the advantages added to the virtue system, but, the price players will pay for it will be dire, unless they add more ways to earn VXP, or leave in place all avenues that they ever add for VXP, especially for players coming up behind the early birds. For example, take my main, who is about to max up on all virtues again very soon. Great right? But she had all her virtues over-capped when this system hit, so the head start was there. She was here for all the weeklies when the Vales gave VXP, and she has been working through MM, Wells and Mission VXP gains all this time too. The Vales gains are already gone, the rest will follow soon.

In a nutshell, re-add VXP back for basic part of all deeds, rather than just for advanced. Leave the VXP in place for Vales weeklies. And so forth.

Its already as bad as LIs or worse imo. Lets say you grind all weeklies each week + 45 missions to max out vxp gain. It's still going to take around 59-60 weeks nonstop on top of doing every vxp deed ingame.

This is an INSANE task for alts/new players. The original system didnt force you to complete every single deed in the game. And if you did that, your virtues would have been maxed out.

[Arnenna]

Its already as bad as LIs or worse imo. Lets say you grind all weeklies each week + 45 missions to max out vxp gain. It's still going to take around 59-60 weeks nonstop on top of doing every vxp deed ingame.

This is an INSANE task for alts/new players. The original system didnt force you to complete every single deed in the game. And if you did that, your virtues would have been maxed out.

Like I said . . . it only works for those who were here for the starting gun. Nobody is forced to grind out every virtue at the moment, and that is the only redeeming feature as it stands now. The extra 1.5 essence worth of either morale or main stat is nice to have, but it's very much a min/max, push the boundary advantage, which at the end of the day, will not save you from a 400K hit in a t2 raid boss, let alone higher tiers. But, later, like in a couple of years time, we will see the issue where new players will struggle to max their slotted five and then it's really going to count. It's nowhere near as bad as it can be yet.

[Gunhard]

Of course its not possible fast, even if you'll complete all deeds it will take a lot of time and you will need to do weeklies still. But this is how mmo work, right? If you want all virtues for some reason then you have to use store, this is not something new. I personally think we have too many fluffy virtue lvls, would be nice to reduce that amount. Main reason is lotro very alts unfriendly in terms of lvling compared to modern mmos. We have bind to account gear but this is not much taking into account virtues, class points, legendaries and leveling to 130.

[LotroVidz]

Like I said . . . it only works for those who were here for the starting gun. Nobody is forced to grind out every virtue at the moment, and that is the only redeeming feature as it stands now. The extra 1.5 essence worth of either morale or main stat is nice to have, but it's very much a min/max, push the boundary advantage, which at the end of the day, will not save you from a 400K hit in a t2 raid boss, let alone higher tiers. But, later, like in a couple of years time, we will see the issue where new players will struggle to max their slotted five and then it's really going to count. It's nowhere near as bad as it can be yet.

Let's just drop the "you are not forced to max out" argument. You are not forced to aquire the best gear, you are not forced to max out LI's, this goes for every single grind in the game. Yet, it should be a reasonable grind to max out a character each level cap, EVEN for new players! Otherwise I see it as a flawed or heavily p2w system, as most systems currently are. There are no excuses here, maxing out a character should ofc take time but it doesn't with this store. If you can max out LI's,Virtues,gear etc with store in a matter of minutes, the grind shouldn't be years in the game, period.

AND even if you don't want to max out all virtues the grind is still insane for the average player not using the store.

So whatever arguments you come up with is very weak.. Just because you don't need something doesn't mean its okay to slap years of grind on it, or make it 3 minutes effort through the store. BAD GAME DESIGN.

What happen to the "buying stats for real money = BAD", this design still applies to most f2p MMO's.. Yet in Lotro its "fine" to have every gameplay system monetised for irl money..

[LotroVidz]

Of course its not possible fast, even if you'll complete all deeds it will take a lot of time and you will need to do weeklies still. But this is how mmo work, right? If you want all virtues for some reason then you have to use store, this is not something new. I personally think we have too many fluffy virtue lvls, would be nice to reduce that amount. Main reason is lotro very alts unfriendly in terms of lvling compared to modern mmos. We have bind to account gear but this is not much taking into account virtues, class points, legendaries and leveling to 130.

This is not how most MMOs work, lotro is taking most of its systems grind to the next level of extreme.. It's not fair to force years of grind on players, and at the same time having 3 minutes options using the store. This is heavily p2w and a horrible game design.

You are the type of player that has made this game design "okay", and that is fine.. But I will still raise my opinion on this. I will only play Lotro for a few weeks after each expansion release anyway to check out the story and dungeons. But after that, i'm out, no way I'm going to level an alt or p2w when there are so many other mmos out there doing endgame so much better than this p2w/grindfest.

[Elmagor]

Let's just drop the "you are not forced to max out" argument. You are not forced to aquire the best gear, you are not forced to max out LI's, this goes for every single grind in the game. Yet, it should be a reasonable grind to max out a character each level cap, EVEN for new players! Otherwise I see it as a flawed or heavily p2w system, as most systems currently are. There are no excuses here, maxing out a character should ofc take time but it doesn't with this store. If you can max out LI's,Virtues,gear etc with store in a matter of minutes, the grind shouldn't be years in the game, period.

AND even if you don't want to max out all virtues the grind is still insane for the average player not using the store.

So whatever arguments you come up with is very weak.. Just because you don't need something doesn't mean its okay to slap years of grind on it, or make it 3 minutes effort through the store. BAD GAME DESIGN.

What happen to the "buying stats for real money = BAD", this design still applies to most f2p MMO's.. Yet in Lotro its "fine" to have every gameplay system monetised for irl money..

You can see difference between "You don't forced to do it" and "You can't do it without p2w"?

[TharbadThief]

Like I said . . . it only works for those who were here for the starting gun. Nobody is forced to grind out every virtue at the moment, and that is the only redeeming feature as it stands now. The extra 1.5 essence worth of either morale or main stat is nice to have, but it's very much a min/max, push the boundary advantage, which at the end of the day, will not save you from a 400K hit in a t2 raid boss, let alone higher tiers. But, later, like in a couple of years time, we will see the issue where new players will struggle to max their slotted five and then it's really going to count. It's nowhere near as bad as it can be yet.

I don't want to take part in these kind of discussions that much, but here, concerning the bolded+underlined part, I'd like to point out that in practice, the benefit from passives to Morale/Masteries is not even that much. The values mentioned above are the totals, and for every Virtue the character actually has maxed, the difference diminishes by 1704 Morale or 4925 Mastery points.

[thinx]

The main problem of the virtue system is the system of increasing returns with level.

The first 60 levels give ~20% of the stat for ~75% of total VXP.
The last 14 levels give ~80% of the stat for ~25% of total VXP.
(varies by a few % for passive and active)

The purpose of the system (map stat progress/level to virtues) is clear, but essentially it means that players can only benefit from virtues if their virtue level matches player level.
This may sound right, but in the end it means that the hordes of L50 raiders (traces of sarcasm...) profit from the system, while capped players need to overcome 3/4 of the grind without noteworthy reward.

We got similar mechanisms in crystals and stat tomes...

[LadySelene]

Personally I see passive bonuses as - if I leveled all 5 virtues I use and several more I might probably use, then I don't have a choice but to level those I'll never use, and this VXP at least will give a small passive bonus, so, it will not be wasted.

And I love, when a VXP bonus weekend is underway, to finalize old deeds for LP

[Belechael]

11,000 weekly vxp from MM and Limlok is not a lot to work with but it's there.
It literally took me almost a year to get my virtues to 74 by doing these weeklies.
Around June 2020 to April 2021.
And that is also with the deeds in MM/MB, Langflood, Wildwood and Dlderslade.



No they don't.


I agree with the OP, VXP cannot be capped without 8 months of weekly wrappers or valar vxp tomes.
You guys are so quick to defend SSG ....

What is wrong with having to spend 8 months of playing a game you like to get everything capped?

I have been playing since day 1 and I only have 1 character near the virtue cap.

If you want a game that you can get to the cap of EVERYTHING in just a couple of months in addition to NOT PAYING for anything then tough luck, this is not your game.

[BinaryTertiary]

the system was designed with dailies/weeklies in mind and especially now you get a ton of it from missions, minas morgul and limlok dailies

[Braer]

What we got with the re-vamp is a shiny new UI and a mechanic intended to replace the ILI money machine. How long since they dared add another crystal or two to the ILI? How many ranks added to the virtue system in the interim? How many Striking, Binding and Enchantment upgrades? With the price of VXP accelerators that didn't work, never had a chance so now they go out of their way to make a joke out of a valar 120 exploit that's too contrived their marks don't have it in them to join the dots. Ofc they largely forgot to totally remove the ILI cash converter.

The power curve is not linear, it's yet another exponential curve that can't be sustained without ever rising gaps in relative player character power that makes balancing the content impossible. When you address this with multiple tiers you just have fewer and fewer people at a particular tier to group with, not great when servers can't handle current pops. When you're more concerned with hiding your deficiencies how are you to grow? Once you choose to put the knee in everyone telling you to remove it only makes you keep on it?

[Arnenna]

Let's just drop the "you are not forced to max out" argument. You are not forced to aquire the best gear, you are not forced to max out LI's, this goes for every single grind in the game. Yet, it should be a reasonable grind to max out a character each level cap, EVEN for new players! Otherwise I see it as a flawed or heavily p2w system, as most systems currently are. There are no excuses here, maxing out a character should ofc take time but it doesn't with this store. If you can max out LI's,Virtues,gear etc with store in a matter of minutes, the grind shouldn't be years in the game, period.

AND even if you don't want to max out all virtues the grind is still insane for the average player not using the store.

So whatever arguments you come up with is very weak.. Just because you don't need something doesn't mean its okay to slap years of grind on it, or make it 3 minutes effort through the store. BAD GAME DESIGN.

What happen to the "buying stats for real money = BAD", this design still applies to most f2p MMO's.. Yet in Lotro its "fine" to have every gameplay system monetised for irl money..

You are completely misunderstanding my point it seems. Yes, it's nice to take a character to the highest they can be, and yes, grinds make that difficult or tedious some times. The point stands though, the passives you get from virtues that are not slotted - do not make a lot of difference when min/maxing is already the goal. And please, don't step into that arena where you say it's not ok to say that nobody needs all these passives, when one of your own firm favorites is "you don't need raid gear" to casual players. It's either none or both, that's not a pick or choose to suit argument.

With regards to this . . . "If you can max out LI's,Virtues,gear etc with store in a matter of minutes, the grind shouldn't be years in the game, period."

We disagree there too. Character progression shouldn't be in the store - at all. It should always be earned. The "yeah its ok in the store as long as the in game earning method isn't too long" thing doesn't cut it with me, and it never will. It should ALL be earned in game. The store should appeal to players for other stuff, convenience, cosmetics, storage etc. The whole buy a valar and use it to level up one char and then max out virtues on different characters - shouldn't exist. If you're gonna complain, complain fully, without half measures.

The Virtue system is just another LI system, ticking down, and it will progressively get worse. That is my argument. I'm not sure why you've taken such exception to it. It's accurate, because as bad as you think it is now, it will grow worse over time - guaranteed. What's to disagree with there?

[LotroVidz]

The point stands though, the passives you get from virtues that are not slotted

So you are using this as an argument to keep the system as it is?
1. The passives are useless considering the time required to farm them. Bad system design
2. You can max out virtues using the store in a few minutes. Bad system design
3. Even if you ignore the passives it takes a crazy amount of farm. Bad design

With that argument it feels like you are trying to defend it, i mention 3 points above why this system is currently garbage. That the passive bonuses are useless is also bad lol..

when one of your own firm favorites is "you don't need raid gear" to casual players.

This is taken out of context and a very poor comparison. Casuals don't need T3+ raid gear since it's part of the raid progression..They can get raid gear from T1 or whatever tier they can handle.. The virtues system is not tied to raids so I can't see how this statement is relevant here lol. If a casual has no intention to do raids, why should they earn raid gear? Makes no sense to me, please explain what you mean.

It's either none or both, that's not a pick or choose to suit argument.

SSG need to find a middle ground with the store stuff, right now they are favouring the store in every system. Which is bad.

With regards to this . . . "If you can max out LI's,Virtues,gear etc with store in a matter of minutes, the grind shouldn't be years in the game, period."

If it takes someone with cash to max out a character, is it fair to be able to do so in a few minutes using store? My point is there has to be some form of balance here, we will never get rid of the store so the least I can see happening is SSG finding a middle ground in this.

We disagree there too. Character progression shouldn't be in the store - at all.

No we don't disagree here. Ofc I agree with this, but it won't happen. What we can hope for is that SSG tone down the P2W in this game.

The "yeah its ok in the store as long as the in game earning method isn't too long" thing doesn't cut it with me, and it never will. It should ALL be earned in game.

I agree, but at the same time you know it isn't realistic. That's why I'm saying if something takes a few seconds to max out in the store, it isn't reasonable to make the grind in-game several months/years lol! That's why every gameplay system in this game is so tedious right now.

The Virtue system is just another LI system, ticking down, and it will progressively get worse. That is my argument. I'm not sure why you've taken such exception to it. It's accurate, because as bad as you think it is now, it will grow worse over time - guaranteed. What's to disagree with there?

You said that it will become like the LI system, but the in-game grind is IMO just as bad. We are already there, the virtue grind is HORRIBLE. Maybe it's not being discussed since many players just play their mains, and the rest is just using valars.