Update 36 Release Notes
Here are the release notes for Update 36: Gondor Renewed, released on Wednesday, May 31st, 2023.
Of Special Note:
A New Story Begins in A Renewed King’s Gondor!
After the defeat of Sauron, King Elessar and Queen Arwen seek to bring peace to their kingdom, but the danger is not gone and new foes seek to threaten Gondor. Adventure awaits in the new zone of King’s Gondor East, set after the War of the Ring when fresh breezes have dispersed the fumes of the Dawnless Day and allowed the sun to shine again! Discover the beginning of a new Epic-style storyline, ‘The Song of Waves and Wind,’ and team up with Legolas, Gimli, and friends both old and new to investigate the continuing threat of the Heirs of Castamir!
The Song of Waves and Wind
A new story debuts with Gondor Renewed called “The Song of Waves and Wind”! For characters level 140. Start the first chapter by speaking to Glindor in Minas Tirith (Midsummer)! This new story is available to anyone who is VIP, purchases the “Gondor Renewed” quest pack, or who purchases quest packs associated with the story that are released in the future.
King’s Gondor Awaits
Gone are the gloomy dark skies, replaced with bright and sunny fields and hills. Players familiar with the original Central and Eastern Gondor regions will be familiar with King’s Gondor from a navigation standpoint, but there are new additions, and places players previously could not go are now open to allow for further exploration!
The Quest Pack “Gondor Renewed” unlocks more than 80 quests and Deeds for level 140 characters. Includes King’s Gondor East and The Song of Waves and Wind. Free to VIPs!
How do I get to King’s Gondor?
Go to Minas Tirith (After Battle) and head South through the Pelennor Fields. Exploration is now possible beyond the point where there previously stood an impassable! Questing begins in this area of the Pelennor Fields and in the under-construction version of The Harlond. From there, you can explore Gondor up to Linhir, where the gates are currently closed.
Landscape Difficulty: The Paths of Valour!
We have reworked the Landscape Difficulty setting system introduced with Treebeard and are now opening it to the general game worlds as an option! Read full details about this new Landscape Difficulty option in the release notes below. A new Faction and new rewards are now available by playing these higher difficulties. Activate your difficulty and adjust it in the future by speaking with a Hardened Traveller, which can be found in major hubs and new player zones throughout Middle-earth:
- Outside of the Prancing Pony in Bree
- Near the Stable Masters outside of the 21st Hall
- Just inside of the exit of Post-Raid Archet
- Just outside of Mossward
- Along the road Northward out of Celondim
- Just outside the door to Thorin’s Hall
- Down the road from the Hobbit starter area exit waypoint
There are titles available for activating a difficulty of 3 or higher and keeping it there from level 10 to level 50, and then to level 130 respectively. The title granted depends on the class you play, but can be used by any character on your account. Make sure to select your Landscape Difficulty prior to achieving level 10 to be eligible for these titles! In order to earn these titles, you must keep the difficulty system active for the entire leveling span from level 10 thru 50/130. Entering areas of the game world where it is temporarily suppressed will not invalidate your title attempt, however turning it down or off via the Hardened Traveller will.
More Delvings!
More Delvings are now available! The Annúminas instances Glinghant, Haudh Valandil, and the Great Barrows instances Sambrog, Thadûr and The Maze have been converted to be playable as Delvings! Find them in the Instance Finder (Control+J by default).
News and Notes
Classes
- Several player stun-removal skills were inappropriately flagged as ‘Immediate’ causing them to occasionally cancel themselves and fail to free you from stuns. These skills are now correctly ‘Fast’ rather than ‘Immediate’ skills.
- High Elf, Beorning, and Stout Axe Dwarf racial recall skills can now be used while mounted on any steed.
- Beorning
- The Beorning Trait “Battle Born” now correctly gives additional critical damage for off-hand weapons.
- Brawler
- The Brawler mounted combat skill “Take Breath” will now properly update the incoming healing rating when active.
- Innate Strength: Raw Power
- Fixed description of the trait to state that it grants +2.5/+5/+7.5/+10%.
- No change was made to the actual bonus granted by the trait, This is purely a tooltip change to have it reflect real values.
- Tracery Innate Strength: Damage/Threat
- Skill bonus has been modified [+10%->+5%], but is now added directly to the value of Innate Strength: Raw Power buff, which makes it considerably more effective than it was previously.
- Burglar
- Aim skill now works with ‘Throw Knife’.
- Captain
- Fighting Withdrawal can now be used while rooted to free yourself.
- The class deed “Fear the Darkness” should now properly advance even if “Courageous Convocation” is traited.
- Captain skill “Defensive Strike” is now properly affected by the tracery “Single Target Attack Damage”.
- The buff from Inspire: Self-motivation should now correctly overwrite itself rather than failing to apply when you still have a few seconds of duration remaining from your previous skill use.
- Champion
- Blood Rage and Continuous Blood Rage are now both correctly labeled Fast, rather than Immediate, skills. This prevents you from accidentally double-clicking the skill and putting it on cooldown without gaining the CC-removal effect.
- Tracery Swift Strike: Damage & Power Cost
- Renamed to Swift Strike/Blade: Damage & Power Restore
- Tracery now increases the Power restored by Swift Strike rather than reducing the (now non-existent) Power cost. Magnitude changed from [-33%->+20%].
- Guardian
- The Cardolan Essence of Retaliation effects’ durations no longer benefit from the War-chant duration legacy.
- Lore-master
- Clever Escape is now a Fast skill. This prevents you from accidentally double-clicking the skill and putting it on cooldown without gaining the CC-removal effect.
- Rune-keeper
- The skill “Do Not Fall this Day” no longer breaks the target of the skill out of Stealth.
- Warden
- “Forced March” will no longer be toggled off when you enter combat. It still only applies a bonus to your out of combat Run Speed.
- Seared Flesh now appropriately benefits from bonuses to your Fire Damage.
- Readied Blade’s buff now provides Disarm Immunity for its duration.
- The trait ‘Movement Training’ now correctly increases Mitigation ratings from the Conviction and Dance of War buffs.
- Damage dealt by the trait ‘Taking Advantage’ increased.
Crafting
- The crafting ingredients “Tuft of Torahammas’ Fur”, “Great Hoary Aurochs Hide” and “Speckled Shell Fragment” can now all be stored in crafting carryalls.
- Beasts in the Ettenmoors that drop crafting hides will now correctly drop Gundabad Hides instead of Eorlingas Hides.
- Crafters can now make two new tiers of selectable craftable essence boxes.
- Gundabad Skarn Deposits have been renamed to Brilliant Skarn Deposits.
- Frost-rimed Black Ash Branches have been renamed to Heavy Wind-swept Black Ash Branches.
Items & Rewards
- The Homestead Steed can now be correctly placed on a hitching post by hobbit, dwarf, and Stout-axe dwarf characters.
- Might-based selection boxes no longer reference or contain medium armour.
- Many medium Might-based armour pieces obtained from quests from levels 1-75 have been updated from medium to heavy armour.
- Enemies in Moria no longer drop obsolete Legendary Item rewards.
- The Distillation set now properly identifies itself as a Distillation set and not a Crock Pot.
- Incomparable Earrings received from the 3-stack instances from Return to Carn Dûm have had the names of their set bonuses changed to reflect the stats given by the items in their groups.
- The “Dwarf-make Helm” cosmetic has been renamed to “Dwarf-make Circlet”.
- The Champion Legendary Item Tracery “Brutal Strikes Damage” now only appears in The Berserker barter profiles.
- The decorative band on the Sightseer’s Straw Hat will now correctly display dye colors.
- The weapon Candelleth’s Hammer is now categorized correctly in the Auction House.
- The Veteran of Helm’s Deep Quartermaster now offers items for Beornings and Brawlers.
- The Homestead Steed can now be used in Zirakzigil as well as in Caras Galadhon and other appropriate areas in Lothlórien.
Landscape Difficulty
- We have reworked the Landscape Difficulty setting system introduced originally to Treebeard and made it available as an option to the general game worlds!
- We’ve added a new Faction and reward structure called The Paths of Valour that can be advanced by playing on higher difficulties.
- You can activate your difficulty setting by speaking with the Hardened Traveller that can be found in major hubs and new player zones who will offer you an array of quests representing the different difficulty levels.
- Upon accepting and completing one of these quests, your challenges on the roads of Middle-earth will increase substantially.
- The difficulty system turns itself off in group instances (3+), in the Ettenmoors, and any time the Delving system is activated. It will reactivate when you leave any of these areas.
- There are titles available for activating a difficulty of 3 or higher and keeping it there from level 10 to level 50, and then to level 130 respectively. The title granted depends on the class you play through with, but can be used by any character on your account.
- In order to earn these titles, you must keep the difficulty system active for the entire leveling span from level 10 thru 50/130. Entering areas of the game world where it is temporarily suppressed will not invalidate your title attempt, however turning it down or off via the Hardened Traveller will.
- Existing characters above level 10 will not be able to earn the titles themselves, but will be able to use those titles if they are earned by another character on your account.
- When playing at Fearless or higher, enemies of your own level or higher may drop Tokens of Heroism.
- These can be turned in to complete weekly tasks from the Hardened Traveller, which will increase your reputation with the Paths of Valour faction.
- At Fearless difficulty (3-6), these tokens can drop for up to 3 members in a Fellowship.
- At Heroic difficulty (7+) they can drop for up to 6 members in a Fellowship.
- The drop rate of these tokens increases somewhat with higher difficulties.
- The difficulty settings and effects are pretty much the same as they were on Treebeard, though we’ve changed up the names a bit, and added a few variations to the hotspot effects you can encounter under the Eye of Sauron.
- The Hardened Traveller has a menu of barter rewards that include a small set of Reputation accelerators for the faction and Morale/Power potions. More importantly, he also offers an array of 8 new Epic variations of familiar emotes which you will be able to find on the Collections panel.
General Landscape Changes:
- Court of Celeborn now has a map.
- Floating objects in the Allegiance Halls and in Mordor have been grounded.
- Incorrect textures in Minas Tirith has been resolved.
Localization
- Stablemaster map text has been updated for the German game client.
Missions and Delvings
- Delving Barter Vendors and Mission Givers have also been added to all our Skirmish Camps. We did this to make it easier to turn in delving quests no matter where players are. Delving Mission Givers have also been given that title as a role to make it easy to spot them.
- Created a Selectable Delving Extraordinary Box that only drops in instances at tiers 7+. While still rare, new instances have a significantly higher drop rate for this item.
- The Delving Tracery Archive Travel Skill no longer has any reputation requirements.
- Mission: Jorthkyn and the Hounds
- The Mission now appropriately identifies that you need to kill 8 wargs along with the 8 Jorthkyn to advance the quest.
- The Mission had some pesky low-level monsters that really wanted to get in on the fight. They have been reprimanded to stay in their lanes.
- Fixed an issue with the mission “Dangerous Deliveries” where the player would pick the pie up twice upon completing the induction to pick up the pie.
- The bridge in the mission Patrol the Township that was bereft of physics has found its physics and will now support your character as it should.
- Before the Shadow missions that referred to previous mission givers have been updated with references to current mission givers.
- The mission “The Nettinglade” had a single cocoon that decided it didn’t want to sparkle. The spider responsible has been admonished and though it pledged to swallow all Light in the world, it relented and allowed it’s cocoon to sparkle once again.
- Delving Reward Changes:
- Delving Selectable Crafting Boxes that drop at tier 7 and above can now be disenchanted instead for 20 Delvings Writs. These boxes now have a six hour expiration timer on them. These changes do not affect existing Crafting Boxes.
- Changed how many writs completing Delving quests give. Tier 1-3 now give 10 writs, Tier 4-6 give 20 writs, Tier 7-9 give 30 writs and Tier 10-12 give 40 writs.
- Two new cosmetic pets added to Delving Barter.
- Delving armour will now be disenchantable for more Delving Writs. Common armour will disenchant for 10 writs, rare armour will disenchant for 20 writs, incomparable armour for 30 writs.
- Added Tier 1 and Tier 2 Essence Boxes to the Delving Barter for Writs, and removed Tier 0.
- Added Morale and Power Potions to the Delving Barter for Writs. Morale and Power potions also drop as rewards from high tier instance Delving Chests.
- Delving Mission Givers in Skirmish Camps now give Weekly Delving Quests.
- Mission – Defilers in the Dale – Corrected a visual bug where the cauldron’s contents and bubbles could become visibly offset after being destroyed.
- Rewards that drop from Delvings have been updated with new Delving-specific icons.
PvMP
- We have adjusted the distribution of Infamy/Renown while grouped. In the past, there was a modifier that increased the value of player kills when more than 6 kill contributors were involved. This resulted in the value of a single kill, while in a raid, to be valued over 2x what the kill should have been worth.
- We have adjusted this modifier to make these values – in the absence of any other modifiers – equivalent to equal distribution of the infamy value of the kill.
- We have adjusted the bonus modifier to infamy/renown gains when killing ranked players. This change rewards a higher contribution bonus for killing players of a higher rank.
- The War-spoils Carry-all icons have been updated and no longer display a bottle of liquid
- Lootboxes found by monster players now always drop 3 items from three specific tables:
- Table 1 includes potions, barter lockboxes, and the potential for 500 commendations with weighting toward the barter box, and then equivalent draws for the remaining items.
- Table 2 includes an equal chance for random perk items from a pool of 5 items.
- The 3rd table has an equal chance to drop a single Audacity upgrade scroll, 2 Audacity upgrade scrolls, Lord’s Symbols, Captain’s Marks, 1k Commendations, 1.5k Commendations or a new Cosmetic Selection Box.
- The Cosmetic Selection Box contains 2 new skins for each class. Previews are available on NPCs present near the Gramsfoot retreat circle.
- The Selection Box also contains several new cosmetic weapons: Thrâng’s Sword, a silvered scimitar, a spider-clan trident, an off-hand Gundabad mace, a Spider-clan staff, an Easterling Ghost Bow, and a new Dunharrow Shield.
- The Box also contains a new cosmetic type that can be slotted into appearance Corruptions to change the style of your ‘March!’ skill emitted effects. These include: a white glow, fire trail, acid trail, and a “blue-foot” trail.
- The eggs around Grodris in the Isendeep Mine will now hatch if disturbed during the battle against the matron.
- Fixed an issue with the first and second marshal rewards not providing keys to the chest. The quests for First and Second marshal now correctly reward the key to the chest.
- Tokens of Valour will now go into the War-spoils Carry-all.
- Updated the new Monster Play tutorial to reference using skills on training dummy Kelsen, Jalessa, or Light training-dummy Orion. If you choose the other training dummies you are locked in combat for the full duration of the spawn – which is five minutes. This is bad. Please use the safety dummies. Use those initial skill training dummy Kelsen, Jalessa, or Light training-dummy Orion.
- First Marshal An and Tyrant Uzulthrang are back in action and ready to rush Tol Ascarnen when the opposition is in control. The rewards on the quests to use these two is increased significantly. Each has also been buffed appropriately.
- All values and costs for Lainedhal’s Insignias were reduced. You can now purchase the old versions for nostalgia, but the tier 15 version is available to all rank 1 players and better for 2000 commendations and has a 1m cooldown just as the monster player brand.
- The Rank 9 mount available in monster play now has a full +68% movement bonus because it should have been upgraded along with all other mounts that are this hard to get.
- We adjusted the damage done by Spider Hatchlings to be more in line with creatures that are level 140.
- There was a bug introduced when we lowered the cost of monster play potions where we did not lower the amount purchasable from the barter NPC. This has been corrected and now you can only purchase in stacks of three.
- Mazauk and Old Goldhead have been refreshed and stand ready to help you capture Lugazag or Tirith Rhaw.
- Old U21 gear was using old Audacity values. This has been reduced to 1.
- Freepside Ettenmoors quests now award considerably more IXP when completed.
- The Freepside weekly quest, ‘Battle Across the Ettenmoors’ now gives slightly improved rewards.
- Many monster player skill power costs have been adjusted. In particular, several healing skills cost substantially more power.
- The base critical heal multiplier for most Creepside heals has been reduced from 1.5 to 1.2.
- Increased damage of ranger session play skills.
- Orc Defiler
- Cooldowns reduced for Fertile Slime and Fungal Spores.
- Fungal Spores initial heal potency reduced.
- Enhanced Fungal Spores now rolls for a critical heal on each pulse, rather than following the critical outcome of the initial skill use.
- Fertile Slime no longer has an initial heal.
- Healing from Improved Blessing of Darkness now occurs every 1 second, rather than every 2 seconds.
- Constant Pain now pulses healing every 2 seconds, and will restore some power to the defiler when it does.
- Orc Reaver
- Blade Toss now only applies its slow and/or knockdown effects to targets facing away from you.
- Spider Weaver
- Several spider animations should no longer slow down when you gain attack speed buffs.
- Trapdoor Sanctuary now lasts 10 seconds; when traited, it will heal 5% of your max health each second.
- New Potions (of Bravery and Essence) are now correctly usable by the Free Peoples.
- Insignias now have a 3 minute cooldown and provide 15 seconds of combat state immunity (Tyrant Brands still have a 1 minute cooldown and only provide 5 seconds of immunity for now).
- Alwuld the Item Trader now carries the updated Morale and Power potions.
- Potions of Essence now correctly restore different amounts of Power, according to their quality and rank requirements.
Quests, Deeds and Instances
- Tier 4 of Gwathrenost, the Witch-king’s Citadel is available.
- All slayer deeds in the Wells of Langflood, will now properly reward players with LOTRO Points.
- Gwathrenost, the Witch-king’s Citadel – The final Objective of ‘The Storming of Gwathrenost’ now functions similarly to ‘Into the Hiddenhoard, allowing the Player the choice of whether or not to abandon the quest after completing it. The option to complete the quest via the Quest Actions panel was causing some players to mistakenly erase their progress in a given reset cycle, so this has been removed.
- Azanulbizar – Quest: Death in the Dale – The quest guide for this quest has been corrected to highlight the proper area.
- Azanulbizar – Quest: Elusive Prey – The quest guide now properly highlights the general locations of all the Rare foes in Azanulbizar.
- Sagroth – The Sewer Water debuff that can be applied to players during the Gárvadach encounter now carries the resistance type “disease” instead of “corruption”.
- Several fading or overlapping combat music bugs have been fixed in the Race of Man and hobbit tutorials, the Archet raid, and the Trouble at Tuckborough skirmish.
Miscellaneous
- The Allegiance panel can now be resized an additional horizontal distance.
- Certain Brawler Belt Buckles were appearing under the Lore-master class in searches in the Auction House. That has been fixed.
- Upgraded the compiler used to compile the 32 bit game client to make it compatible with upgraded OpenAL.
- Clydesdale mounts can now be used in Thorin’s Hall and the Hall Under the Mountain
- The Assistant Stable-master at Elrond’s Stables in Rivendell douses the horse less frequently.
- Facepaint rewards acquired from Hobnanigans now correctly shows on Human avatars.
- The Draught Horse cosmetic pets received in the Homesteads and Harvests Coffers have been renamed to “Miniature” Draught horses.
- Matching full size Draught horse cosmetic pet tomes have been granted (account-wide) to everyone that purchased the Homesteads and Harvests Coffers.
- The Homestead Steed mount scale has been increased to match the expected size of a draught horse. Many animation issues have been resolved for the Homestead Steed mount as well.
- Updated the icon for the Stoorvales/Clegur Milestone and for the Clegur travel skills.
- Several Run Speed buffs and debuffs were overwriting effects of greater potency. Player-applied Run Speed Effects should now only overwrite effects of the same kind (out of combat speed buff, in combat speed buff, or debuff) and the most potent effect should always be the one which is actively applied.
Known Issues:
- In French and German the Tokens of Heroism may display as Tokens of Valour.
- The Stable-master panel in Collections has not been updated to include King’s Gondor.
- The Deeds “Boar-slayer of Lower Lebennin” and “Boar-slayer of Lower Lebennin (Advanced)” are not bestowing/advancing properly.