Is LOTRO Pay to Win?

Before delving into P2W, it’s important to realise that monetisation in games has sometimes been…sketchy. Online gaming nowadays lives in the shadow of the “lootbox saga”. A cursory search led me even back as far as April 2018 where Belgium banned lootboxes as illegal gambling.

Later that year, the UK launched its own enquiry into “immersive and addictive technologies” especially if children were playing, concluding:

…instead in-game credits should be earned through rewards won through playing the games.

Why the Context Matters

This is actually the backdrop we’re playing with, the core of it for me seems to be:

• Do people know what they are paying for?, and
• does paying real money give a real advantage over other players?

That’s why this context is so important – it impacts the question of player equality.

How Do You Get Lootboxes?

You can buy lootboxes for in-game coins from other players.

In LOTRO, the main methods are:

1. As loot on the landscape: defeated Level 20+ enemies may drop these into your Pending Loot.
2. Buying from other players: you could use silver to purchase these from the Auction House.

Any reference to “pay” in this discussion relates to the handing over of real money from a customer to a game studio. For LOTRO this is Standing Stone Games.

In The Lord of the Rings Online, the two main transactions are becoming a VIP (having a subscription) and purchasing
LOTRO Points.

It will be these two transaction types that I’ll delve into shortly.

I recently saw this interaction in LOTRO’s World Chat:

Player One: I beat this game.
Player Two: What does that even mean?

MMOs, where content, zones and stories are almost continually added are different from standalone single-player games where it culminates in an “End Boss” and you have completed the game.

Always Something to Do

Even so-called completionists have their work cut out for them in LOTRO. There is almost always something to do.

There are dailies, reputatations, tier difficulties to overcome and gearing advancement even at the level-cap.

1. Advantage Over Other Players

When you are in Player-vs-Player (PvP, or PvMP in LOTRO), you or your team can beat the other player or their team, depending on the context.

In non-PvMP, one group may beat a Raid Boss, while another may not.

“Advantage” is a very sweeping word in MMOs with multiple definitions. But to define it as P2W, it needs to be over other players, rather than just paying for advantages on your solo adventures.

2. Quicker Advancement

Being able to raise your level to the current maximum cap could be called “Winning”, as could getting the current Best-in-Slot gear quicker.

Another way might be that, somehow you can get through the content quicker. Reaching the end of the current storylines could be classed as “winning”.

3. Ability to Generate In-Game Funds

This is what I used to call the “Rich Getting Richer Scheme”. Having oodles or coins, or credits, or “jiggory tokens” may be your in-game goal. You may decide that your ability (or lack of it) is how you define “winning”.

The same could be said of access to, or restrictions from, the player-to-player markets, if your game supports them. LOTRO’s equivalent is the Auction House.

• Bonus XP
  through weekends or Destiny Point usage enables VIPs to level quicker than non-VIPs. However, you only have to ask in chat how easy it is to over-level and the overwhelming consensus is “very”. With the level cap at 150, VIPs and non-VIPs alike will reach Level 150 before they run out of content. That makes the XP boost nice to have, but hardly an unfair advantage.
• Auction House:
  Yes, being able to sell more items should, if you do your homework, earn you more in-game currency, quicker than being able to sell fewer. But that does not limit the number of items you can sell in total. We all pay the same listing fees, and if a VIP can sell it, so can a non-VIP. That means, while VIPs could get richer quicker, this doesn’t stop non-VIPs getting richer. VIPs just “rent” a bigger shop space. At least, I think that’s a reasonable way to see it.
• Access to Content:
  I mentioned earlier that a possible definition of “win” was “getting to the end of the content”. While VIPs do get access to certain zones at no additional cost, it is only while they’re VIPs, so it’s not a permanent bonus. And all people need to purchase the latest content, either as an expansion, or in the LOTRO Store as a questpack. Non-VIPs still get all major zones up to L95 for free (and recently, Before the Shadow, too). As LOTRO Points are earnable, you can technically earn the remaining zones, albeit with a lot of work. Anything VIPs get in their sub is more like “bonus material”.

A few years ago, non-VIPs used to have a really low maximum number of gold per character. Now, all players have exactly the same amount.

I felt like making this a separate section, as my mind works better in proverbial “boxes”. There are two types of “Hobbit Gift” in LOTRO – Silver and Gold. Silver ones are daily and granted to every single player for that day – VIP or no.

Gold Hobbit Gifts are only for VIPs and are available for free, once a week. In both types, players can choose to use Mithril Coins (via LOTRO Points) for more, but that is not a perk of VIP. That’s just a personal choice. It’s also arguably a type of gambling, but that’s not why I’m here right now.

In any case, both F2P and VIP have to pay Mithril Coins to open gifts, so in that it isn’t a differentiating factor.

Mithril Coins

This currency is used to purchase largely cosmetic items: outfits, old mounts and war-steed appearances. They may also be used to purchase a Premium property like a Rohan Housing, but you can use LOTRO Points, exchange them for Writs and avoid Mithril altogether.

Getting free Mithril Coins then is maybe a Quality of Life, or “treat fund”, but does not count as an unfair advantage.

Medallions

Okay, free Medallions means you can get some decent gear at a Skirmish Camp. But it’s not the best gear at any level and, in a lot of cases, you can craft better for the same level even excluding earnable equipment.

And all players can earn Medallions by completing Skirmishes. Marks can be converted to Medallions also.

So, given Medallions are only one item in Gold Gifts, and you only get ten, and they can be earned by everyone in other ways, that’s not really an advantage, much less an unfair one.

Gold Hobbit gifts may turn up 3×Reputation Acceleration Tomes. These grant extra reputation when completing reputation-increasing activities.

All reputations can be completed by all players and these tomes still require VIPs to hit the achievements required by that reputation faction. They are worth 15,000 rep points – after the first couple of standings, they’re not a “level’s worth”.

While they do help you hit the maximum standing (“Winning” I suppose), they only speed it up. You’re not granted the rep points, but still need to do deeds or slay enemies. I would put this in the “nice to have” group rather than call it a genuine advantage.

What are LOTRO Points?

Buying LOTRO Points in the in-game Store. Just not the one I've crossed out.

LOTRO has its ingeniously-named LOTRO Points. These is a quasi currency, which can be purchased in bundles using real money. The store from which you spend those points is accessible from an obvious button within the game itself. I did a cost-per-point comparison (in £GBP) of the different “bundles”.

Unusually, and arguably exceptionally, you can earn LOTRO Points, by completing Deeds. While not all deeds grant Points, many do, and every character you create can complete the same number of deeds, contributing to your overall balance.

“Bridge Currency”

Two of the three MMOs I have properly played have a “bridge currency“: real money is exchanged for that currency, which can then be exchanged for in-game items. Only FFXIV of the three does not, with its out-of-game “Optional Items” store being priced in regional currencies.

LOTRO Complicates things further with Mithril Coins, which are purchased with LOTRO Points, which are purchased with real money!

So, in case we lost our way, we’re trying to figure out if LOTRO is Pay-to-Win. Real money may be used to buy LOTRO Points.

So, can the spending of those points classify as “winning” as per our original definition? To know that, we need to summarise what you can buy with them.

I am excluding the following types of items as they’re not relevant for asking if LOTRO is Pay-to-Win or not.

1. Cosmetic/Vanity Items: those that only modify the appearance of something, like your outfit, weapons or War-steed. Emotes and pets also.
2. Storage and Slots: I did a whole comparison of LOTRO Storage costs and, while you can store more with more storage, items that “give advantage” can be put into decent stacks on a character.

Here are some LOTRO Store items that could give an advantage:

1. Armour/Gear: I have only just found this out, but there are some low-level gear options. e.g. Golden Jacket of the Benefactor (150). In fact, if you go to catalog?cat=LOTROCAT053 there are three such items. They have stats, but they don’t scale.
2. Stat Tomes: permanent additions to your basic stats.
3. Temporary Buffs: 5% Attack Damage, Hope Tokens, Morale/Power Scrolls, Regeneration Tomes etc
4. Convenience: Shorter Milestone/Return cooldowns, Improved Steed Speed, Character Runspeed, various in-the-field services.
5. Potions: instant heals or heals-over-time.
6. Crafting: CXP Boosts, Toolkits and Tier Completion.
7. PvMP Items: Silence Immunity, Infamy/Renown Gain, Stun/Root Removals, Disarm Immunity
8. Level Skip: Known as “Valar” items, these packs allow a player to advance straight to different levels, with an on-level set of gear and other “catch up” buffs.

Weekly Coupon

Did you know there is a free weekly coupon? Each week, a new freebie code is given, only for that week.

All players can redeem that code. An example is this week’s that gives 5×Max Morale and Power Scrolls.

Keep your eye on the Sales and Promotions LOTRO Forum each for each week’s giveaway.

In the same order, then:

1. Armour/Gear: After a few levels, none at all. Get into crafting early and you’re sorted. You can get by on quest reward gear if you haven’t ever changed your landscape difficulty.
2. Stat Tomes: You can’t deny that buying these enhances your stats. But that stops at L110, so far as LOTRO-Wiki says. If my L131 Guardian used the Tome of Might 20 (she can’t yet) that would give her +267 Might. I have rank 1, so I would gain 264 Might. Currently I am on 9,152 – meaning +264 Might would give me 2.9% over someone without the tome. And you don’t have to get them from the Store.
3. Temporary Buffs: are temporary and are bonuses/perks. Moreover, many are acquired in other ways, or from free codes.
4. Convenience: Depending on your class, shorter Return To may be irrelevant (e.g. Hunter, Warden, Mariner) and the rest are just about moving quicker. Non-paying people spend longer on journeys, or waiting for travel. Not paying is not a barrier to travel, it just requires a bit of patience.
5. Potions: helpful in combat, definitely, but are often given as free codes too. They can drop in Hobbit Gifts, and of course Scholar crafters can make healing potions. Basic potions can also be bought for in-game silver from a Healer NPC.
6. PvMP Items: I will try to get a PvMP-er to comment here. But these items are priced very low. The most expensive combat item is 50LP, coming in at GBP£0.42. This makes them really accessible and 50LP can be relatively easily earned through deeds. At the moment that seems not a huge disadvantage if you do not put real money in.
7. Level Skipping: See Level Skip Packs/Valars below.

PvMP Items

I had a very helpful conversation with a LOTRO player called “Mord” about PvMP consumables. The key conclusions were:

1. Store-bought items were no more powerful than those you can earn in-game.
2. Items bought with PvMP commendations are multi-use with a cooldown. Quite a few of the LOTRO store were single use, or a limited number of uses.
3. LOTRO store items may help a new PvMP-er with no rank get started.

So, earned ones may be more useful and store ones may help someone be competitive, but against players with rank, they won’t give massive advantages.

Level Skips are Advantageous

The Valar (level-skip) packs available at the L150 Cap.

Being able to skip levels, or catch-up to higher – or the most recent – content, is not unique to LOTRO. If for no other reason, they allow players to engage in the content they’re most interested in. If they want to get to endgame group content because that’s what they prefer, then they can currently skip to L140 and quest up to the level cap.

Is this an unfair advantage? Being realistic, no one is going to complete LOTRO deeds at 5-20LP each to earn 6,695LP for the L140 level boost! Paying is therefore advantageous.

Levelling in LOTRO Isn’t Hard

The beautiful white tree levelling-up animation ends in a kind of pretty snow shower!

But on the opposite side, there are so many ways to level it can be hard to choose a path. If your aim is L150, then you can find tons of levelling guides on YouTube, tips on the Forums and guides on blogs.

The main ways seem to include missions, crafting, speed questing (only doing on-level ones before moving on).

I don’t have a levelling guide – mostly because I’ve not hit L150 on a character I’ve levelled from L1 and due to the immense amount of content others have made on the subject!

While some items are clearly advantageous, that does not create an unfair playability issue between gamers, so does not constitute pay-to-win, by a right definition.

Earlier, I quoted a UK enquiry into the addictiveness of online games, that said

…instead in-game credits should be earned through rewards won through playing the games.

While LOTRO have not replaced gear or lootboxes, they have done exactly what that enquiry recommended. You can earn LOTRO Points “through playing the game”. Some of these might even be by accident: slayer deeds ticked off through quests, exploration deeds completed by rocking up to the next quest hub, increasing your reputation standing with your current faction.

Sure, earning rewards takes time and work. But that’s no different from earning real money in the so-called real world, is it?

Why Buffs are not P2W

Such buffs in LOTRO can come from a huge array of sources, including the following free ones:

1. Silver Hobbit Gifts
2. Cook crafting (food)
3. Scholar Crafting (Scrolls, Potions)
4. Jeweller Crafting (Hope Tokens)
5. Free Coupon Codes LOTRO give out each week
6. Anniversary Gift Boxes (5% attack damage)
7. Some gear items grant out of combat runspeed (See: Hustle for a list, some of which are craftable)

Heck, each class has buffs and skills that add to the clutter of icons, as do some pets/soldiers. If that person was in a raid, other team members should be buffing, boosting and cleansing.

Buying Non-Essentials/Conveniences is not P2W

A recent forum thread that, in all honesty, got blown out of proportions (it’s hard in a two-sided debate for either side to listen well to the other). But the general complaint revolved around:

• Conveniences like a faster mount, or more milestones “force” people to pay real money, or buying the expensive store crafting toolkit.
• Optional Items like expansion-pack unique mounts.

These were being used as evidence of P2W. They’re not, because they’re non-essential. You can live with one milestone on a 1-hour cooldown. You just need some patience if you want to zip around the map. Many locations have earnable Return To skills.

You Can Earn Mounts. A lot of them.

And you don’t need to pay real money for a mount. Sure the First Free LOTRO Mount is a silly 32%. But LOTRO Festivals and Events have 62% and 68% speeds. Many factions have earnable Reputation Mounts with speeds in the 60% range. Both these types are earnable.

So again, paying for a mount may enhance your perceived LOTRO experience, but their existence as paid items in the store is not evidence of P2W either. It’s paying for an optional product, rather than an unfair upperhand.

What we’ve seen so far, the following items are not really evidence of Pay to Win. That is because either non-paying players can still play, fight or hit those targets at some point, or the items can be earned or created as part of playing LOTRO.

• Accelerators
• Speed Boosts
• Consumable Combat Boosts
• XP Boosts
• Stablemaster Unlocks

If you were unable to complete the content, or unable to hit level cap without spending money, then I could understand. Sure, the Stablemaster thing is annoying (I’m a VIP, but I have an F2P account I use when playing with my daughter, so I’m aware!). But paying to unlock a feature is not exactly unfair. My daughter may think it is, but she doesn’t like paying for anything really and she’s only eight.

So, if you’re going to use “Pay to Win” as a phrase, we need to be clearer in our minds what our definition of “Win” is.

Unlock a Bunch of Stablemasters for Free

All players get a series of gifts. In one of your first ones is a 1-hour Writ of Special Passage.

While you may not have Swift Travel as an F2P, unlock as many of the stables as you can in one hour with that item. Travel to each, click on the Stable-master to unlock it and then do another route.

This makes your travel network a bit smoother when starting out.

LOTRO don’t sell lootboxes. But they sell keys to lootboxes. Which amounts to the same thing, if we’re truly honest. Sure, you have to wait for an NPC to drop a free lootbox on defeat. But unless you have them on your filter, they drop them quicker than Bilbo Baggins’ reputation at his eleventy-first birthday.

Ignoring purely cosmetic items, you can get stat/combat gear in a Steel-bound Lootbox. Rarely, this will be teal-level (incomparable).

Incomparable gear or essences are inferior to Legendary gear and essences, which you cannot get from lootboxes.

However, it is made clear what items can come in those boxes, and which ones are rare. This could be seen as an advantage, as buying keys means you can open boxes, which may contain gear.

How Much Do Keys Cost?

Black Steel Keys in the LOTRO Store.

In the LOTRO Store, Black Steel Keys cost
×195 each, or
×900 for five (180 each).

Free Keys

Character-bound Black Steel Keys are given away for your 3rd and 7th Anniversary Event. These are granted to every character, too, present and future.

Once that character is Level 20, they can open a lootbox with their character-bound key. No charge. No real money.

Earnable Keys

You lovely, end-game Delving runners can earn Bound Black Steel Keys. in your Delving Chests.

While Delvings are endgame, that does not negate the fact that you can earn free keys and therefore open lootboxes for free. And these ones are Bound to Account, meaning any of your characters can use it (so long as they’re a high enough level to open the boxes – L20).

There’s no denying that there is a lot of content in The Lord of the Rings Online. More than the current level cap of 150’s worth in fact.

But you do not need to pay for all the content to reach L150. In fact, with all expansions up to L95 for free, with festivals, crafting and missions, you could reach Level 150 without paying anything at all.

Pay-to-Play is Not Pay-to-Win

But of course some expansions are going to be for real money. If you want to play the endgame content, then you will need to purchase the endgame content. What game doesn’t charge for expansions in one form or another? FFXIV does it per expansion (though you can now get 3 ‘packs’ as an F2P) and I believe SWTOR moved to “Subscribers get future expansions included” model.

But it seems unrealistic to call paying for content “Pay-to-Win” when it is simply “Pay-to-Play”.

If endgame is your goal, then level to L140 first – through the quests, deeds, missions and the dailies you get along the way. Then purchase Corsairs of Umbar (or whatever the latest expansion is by the time you read this!).

That way, you won’t have paid anything until you need to, giving you time to enjoy Middle-earth and decide if you’re ready to invest, or not.

Levelling and Gearing

All players can reach level cap and earn the top gear if they succeed at the top content.

Accelerating levelling doesn’t prevent a free-player from hitting the same targets.

Access to Content

All players need to pay for the latest content, so all players are treated equally. Paying for the latest expansion is pay-to-play, not pay-to-win.

While some other zones are locked out to non-VIPs, they can be unlocked with LOTRO Points and are largely bonus material, not a competitive advantage.

Lootboxes

The boxes themselves drop as free loot from defeated enemies. SSG even give away lootbox keys and make them earnable, as well as stating what is in the boxes and the chance of items dropping.

The gear you can obtain in lootboxes can be bartered for using earnable Motes of Enchantment from the Traveller’s Quartermaster anyway.

Plus, you can play the game to get better gear than lootbox armour.