Currency Consolidation

By: Brian 'Zombie Columbus' Aloisio

Goals

• Unify the wide variety of marks awarded in Skirmish and Scaled Instances
• Create a continuum between Skirmish, Scaled and endgame reward systems
• Enhance the offers at the Skirmish vendors

The short, short version

All the various marks and tokens that appear in Skirmishes and Classic Instances are being collapsed into three new currencies; Marks, Medallions and Seals.  These three currencies will also be used in the new Isengard instance cluster, as well as future instances.

Wait, what?

In practice, this should change little about how Skirmishes, Classic Instances and endgame Instance Clusters are played.  Enter an instance, collect currency  for beating bosses and taking control points, than spend it at barter vendors.  The big change is that now all instances share these three currencies instead of a wide variety of special marks.  The distribution of these currencies between different kinds of content will both simplify things and draw a strong line between the gameplay styles.

So, specifically, what happens to my stuff?

It all turns into these:

When Update 5 launches, many of your various marks and tokens will be automatically converted into one of the three new currencies.  Skirmish Marks will turn into Marks and Skirmish trait rank will be unchanged.  Upgrading Skirmish traits will now cost Marks.  The Skirmish Mark refund item from the LOTRO Store will now refund Marks.

The Skirmish Exchange vendor in the Skirmish Camps is now the Currency Exchange vendor, though he now can only downgrade currency.  Seals may be sold for Medallions, and Medallions sold for Marks.  Additionally, he will exchange Superior Fourth Marks for either Medallions or Seals.

Here is the full breakdown of the marks, tokens and barter items that are being converted:

The following will turn into Marks:

• Skirmish Marks
• Recruit's Mark
• Footman's Mark
• Veteran Footman's Mark
• Esquire's Mark
• Veteran Esquire's Mark
• Guardsman's Mark
• Veteran Guardsman's Mark
• Sergeant-at-Arms Mark
• Veteran Sergeant-at-Arms Mark
• Arnorian Armour Fragment
• Battered Arnorian Armour

The following will turn into Medallions:

• Eruilan Campaign Mark
• Adlan Campaign Mark
• Naillan Campaign Mark
• Cannuilan Campaign Mark
• Lefnuilan Campaign Mark
• Enguilan Campaign Mark
• Odothuilan Campaign Mark
• Annúminas Mark
• Eregion Mark
• Helegrod Mark
• Great Barrow Mark
• Inn of the Forsaken Mark
• Halls of Night Mark

• Veteran's Fourth Mark
• Fourth Mark
• Superior Third Mark
• Veteran's Third Mark
• Third Mark
• Veteran's Second Mark
• Second Mark
• Veteran's First Mark
• First Mark

• Broken Arnorian Pauldrons
• Broken Arnorian Shirt
• Broken Arnorian Leggings
• Thorog's Fang
• Thorog's Claw
• Thorog's Horn
• Scrap of Storvâgûn's Armour
• Zaudru's Stinger
• Amulet of the Witch-King

And then there is the Superior Fourth Mark:

Instead of automatically converting, you will be able to bring your Superior Fourth Marks to the Skirmish Camp and exchange them for EITHER Medallions or Seals.

Marks

Marks replace Skirmish Marks in many ways.  They are primarily gained from Skirmishes, though a decent amount will appear in Classic instances.  All Skirmish traits will now cost Marks to upgrade.  Much like before, Marks can purchase the widest variety of items from the Skirmish vendors, though more potent rewards will often cost some Medallions or Seals in addition.

Marks are acquired at different rates than Skirmish Marks were, so barter vendor prices were similarly changed.   The new prices reflect the adjusted acquisition rates of the new currencies, so the net time it takes to acquire rewards should not change by much.  We've aimed to make the net acquisition times for rewards the same as it was, or lower.

Drop rates:

• High - Skirmishes
• Moderate - Scaled Instances

Medallions

Medallions are found from a variety of sources.  They take the functional place of Campaign marks, Instance marks and the "level band" marks (First, Second, Third, Fourth mark).  More potent rewards will cost some amount of Medallions in addition to Marks, much as they currently cost Marks and the some kind of special token (Veteran's Third Marks, Great Barrow Marks, Cannuilan Campaign Marks, etc.) They are awarded primarily for completing Encounters while in Skirmishes, from beating bosses in Classic and playing in the new Isengard cluster.

Drop rates:

• Low - Skirmishes (primarily Encounters)
• Moderate - Scaled Instances
• High - Isengard Instance Cluster

Seals

Seals are the top end, rarest currency.  In value, they are somewhere between "Superior" marks and the endgame instance currencies (like the Medallions of the North-men.)  They will appear primarily in the endgame instance cluster, but some can be found completing challenge quests in Classic instance or the Raid quests in Skirmishes and Draigoch.  Seals are the currency for purchasing the new Raid sets, as well as other high end items.  In addition, there will be some items that have a second price point that includes Seals.

Drop rates:

• Low - Scaled Instance Challenge quests (size 6 and higher)
• Moderate - Skirmish and Scaled Instance weekly Raid quests
• High - Isengard Instance Cluster bi-weekly quests (all sizes)

Quest standardization and daily changes

With these broad currency changes and the introduction of the Instance Finder, we've taken a pass on all instance quest rewards.  We had two goals in mind here:

• Replace or modify daily quests in favor of repeatable quests
• Standardize the reward amounts in quests

When Instance Finder comes online, daily quests get put in a difficult situation.  One of the main reasons we use daily quests (also weekly and bi-weekly quests) is to encourage a rotation of content.  Instance Finder will now handle this encouragement, and actually cause some problems with dailies.  It would be very possible to find yourself placed into an instance that you have already completed the dailies for.  We've made adjustments to keep instances rewarding without punishing players if this situation appears.

As we took a pass on all the instance quests, we found that many that did not grant sufficient rewards.  This was seen most on the quests of older instances.  We buffed up or downright added gold/xp/item xp to these quests, and slightly reduced the amounts of other quests to get to a nice even amount across the board.

Classic Instances

The challenge quests no longer have a daily cooldown.  Their rewards have been adjusted and are now based on both how long the instance in question is and how hard the challenge is to complete.  3 person instances grant Medallions, while 6 and 12 grant Seals.

Similarly, the random quests bestowed in some instances are not fully repeatable.  Their rewards have been reduced to Marks and now use the normal currency calculation for their reward.  In other words, running an instance at 40 levels below your level will grant very little reward.

Skirmishes

The daily Skirmish quests are now grant only reputation and have no daily cooldown.  The bonus experience and Marks they provided have been factored back into the Skirmish and Instance Finder bonuses respectively.

More of everything, for less!

Lastly, Update 5 sees a pass on all the Skirmish vendors.  Prices have been adjusted to compensate for the new currencies.  We've also reduced the costs of some items.  The crafting vendors and legendary item vendors also have additional items for sale.

FAQ

Q:  Will Mark reward amounts increase as group size, tier and level change?
A:  Yes.  In fact, Medallions and Seals will similarly change, though at different rates.

Q:  Why are the Superior Fourth Marks not automatically converting?
A:  Superior Fourth Marks were the top end token that could be collected prior to Update 5.  We wanted to give players who accumulated them a chance to trade them in for either Medallions or Seals based on their preferences.  They will be made to automatically convert into Medallions when Update 6 launches.  All other tokens are being automatically converted.

Q:  What's going to happen to the Draigoch armor?
A:  The price of the initial four pieces has been converted from Superior Fourth Marks to having two different price points.  The first is a moderate number of Seals, the second is a large number of Medallions.  Combined with the conversion options for the Superior Fourth Marks, this should allow players to maintain the progress they made towards that set, or even get ahead.

Q:  Why were the Skirmish daily quests removed?
A:  As mentioned earlier, daily quests do not work well with Instance Finder.  No one wants to be placed in a Skirmish they have already have completed the daily for.  However, the net amount of rewards the daily gave is not something we want to remove.  The reputation reward is now granted every time you complete a Skirmish, net XP gains inside the Skirmish were increased to compensate for the XP on the daily and the bonus currency the Instance Finder effect grants more than makes up for the Skirmish Marks the dailies used to give.

Q:  Why do some quests not have any currency rewards listed in them?
A:  The way we award currency is sometimes managed by the instance as opposed to the quest.  The perfect example is the new Orthanc Raid.  The challenge quests have no currency rewards listed in them, but when you finish them you will be awarded a sizable number of Seals.  We hope to make this information clearer in the future.

Q:  If all instances provide the same currencies, why should I care about what instance I'm in?
A:  The unique drops from the boss chests in instances remain in place and we hope to add more over time.

Q:  How does Seal acquisition work in the new Isengard cluster?
A:  The 3 and 6 person instances have bi-weekly quests that award Seals.  There is a separate quest for tier 1, tier 2 and the Challenge mode.  All three will be completed simultaneously if you beat challenge mode.  You may continue to run the instances for the Medallions the bosses award as well as the loot drops in the chests.
The Raid is similarly setup.  Each of the bosses awards an increasing amount of Seals based on the tier you defeat them at and if you complete the Challenge.  The main difference in the Raid is the weekly lock mechanism.