Tuesday, July 31, 2012

Faire hobbits don’t get drunk

Yay for Farmer’s Faire! I have been really enjoying myself in the new Farmer’s Faire and have been racking up the goodies. If you want a good festival guide, let me direct you over to CSTM (http://cstm.mymiddleearth.com/2012/07/lotro-farmers-faire-guide-2012/).

For me though, I noticed that I pulled in enough tokens in the first 3 days to buy everything there is at the Faire. So, this post is “things I learned at the Faire”, aka Faire on Easy-Mode. If you want to swim in tokens like Scrooge McDuck, here are some pro-tips.

Deeds: There are several deeds; just do the quests in and around Bywater and you will get most of them started. The hardest ones will be the egg collecting. I’ll go there in a moment. Daweirdo and I compare egg notes and discuss deed strategy. The Shire reputation pony watches the festivities in the background.

The quests for feeding the Fat Mayor, Restocking the Faire, and Helping the Overworked vendor are so simple that I won’t bother to explain it here. For the restocking the faire, good to know info, DO use the “speed boost pie” you were given as often as the Cooldown expires. You will be on foot for the quest and the item gives you a +68% speed, so you are moving as fast as the fastest horse. Here I am flying across the Shire at Supergirl speed (because flying trumps running fast).

Proof that I cook. Sometimes. When a quest is on the line.

Tickets: UPDATE 08/06/12: Update 7.3 released today. "Festival Tickets are also now barter wallet items." Well, lovely. That is one way to support ticket sales in the Store; kill your competition. I'm not a big fan of that change. The tickets are NOT Bound. Gather all your alts and mail the tickets to whomever you want to be flooded with tickets. Gather the 3 daily tickets per alt, and walk over to the mailbox there in Bywater. This event is the first time in history that I have had all lildanas in one area… get tickets, mail them, repeat. Here, Danaarodel takes time out of her busy schedule of “sitting around Thorin’s Hall sorting extra clothes that don’t fit in the wardrobe” to go camp in Bywater for two weeks. She enjoys the atmosphere, working down her Anniversary firework supply.

Fishing: For these two quests: “Big fish, little fish”, and “Fishy, very fishy”, if you don’t move after the quest ends, win or lose, you can stay there and fish for barter fish, seemingly indefinitely. Those extra fish, especially Big fish, can barter all the tokens you might want. Note 2 Big fish barter for 3 tokens; gather several dozen of those Big fish and you will start rolling in tokens. (Two ways I have broken out of barter fish mode: walk away from water, and drop Fellowship.)

Note that “Fishy, very fishy” is on a 24 hour timer where every other daily festival quest is on a daily timer resetting at lotro midnight. There is some discrepancy about the CD timers if pass versus fail so I wouldn’t be shocked if the “Big fish, little fish” has a wonky timer also. “Fishy, very fishy” quest is one of the two hardest things to accomplish at the Faire (finding a golden egg being the other one), because you have to be very lucky and pull out dozens of fish before you pull out a bad one. On the bright side, all those fish barter for tokens, so it is still a win for you. Brettawyn looks on, preparing to pull a large net of fish. 

Mushrooms… shrooms: This event is super easy; it is almost a guaranteed win. You just have to get into the right frame of mind. Firstly, Priority #1 is to avoid the dogs. I play it like I play Pacman. No matter what, avoid the dogs.

How to avoid the dogs? Use the minimap. The dogs show up as “eyes”. Don’t even watch where you are walking, just use the minimap.

But Dana, I need to find Mushrooms. The DEL key and /follow are your friends. Hit DEL, then /follow, and you will walk to the nearest targeted mushroom. Keep your eyes on the dogs on the minimap, click on the mushroom at your feet. Take control of walking and change course if the /follow takes you in the path of a dog. Repeat.

The contest always lasts 3 minutes. I average 18 mushrooms per contest and it only took 8 to win. With the bonus 10 tokens for winning, this contest nets about 38 tokens per run, and is nearly an instant win every time. Of course, if anyone else is playing in the field; I take my 8 mushrooms and leave, wishing them luck. I don't know if the mushroom spawn rate is dependent on the number of players; there always seems to be shrooms-aplenty, but I want everyone to win.

The mushrooms have lots of fun effects. Beware the Nazgul! (Not really, he has no power here, the dogs are in charge.) Here I am tiny, and looking up at a Nazgul (stacked shroomy effects).

The Tiny effect actually works really well to help you; Green-spotted mushrooms make you little. You are harder to spot when you are little. Still, don’t taunt the dogs, you are not invisible. Here I am looking up at my hobbit friend Dazy… nothing quite like being knee-high to a hobbit to give you a different perspective to the world. (Dazy is riding the Symbelmyn Spring horse of 2012.)

On the flip side, the Giant effect makes for a more challenging run; Red-spotted mushrooms make you giant. The effect lasts a minute, so you can shake it off. The game is still the same; avoid the pacman ghosts (dogs). Reaching down to get mushrooms is a bit tougher for a giant. Change your angle to see the mushrooms at your feet. Friend Sparowen gapes at me as I storm out of the field, giant-size and full of mushroomy goodness. Sparowen rides the Farmer's Faire steed of 2012.

Chickens and eggs: Some good things to know.

Again, the DEL key and /follow are your friends. Hit the DEL key to target eggs, then /follow (shortcut button) to go directly to the egg. Even if you can’t see the eggs through the chickens, you can hunt eggs and win just fine. Use your horse if you feel too slow; it takes some persistence to mount up and down, but it might work well for you if you feel slow.

Colored eggs are fairly common. Spotted eggs are less common. Striped eggs are rare. If you find a striped egg, it might be worth a lot on AH. I have never seen a golden egg, after running the event well over a hundred times and spectating nearly as many (though friend Morthin says he has in fact seen one golden egg). "

Pictures or it didn't happen." ... on the lotro forum (http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.php?471024-Farmer-s-Faire-Egg-Scramble), Koonmaster posted a picture of the Golden egg. It is BOUND, awards 50 tokens plus 10 additional tokens for completing the deed "collect the golden egg". There do not seem to be any locks for it (no requirements to find other eggs first); it seems to be just random with a very low drop rate. Koonmaster credited for posting this Golden egg picture at the previous link.

It is an educated guess that the more people entered, the better the odds for a good egg selection. Update 08/03 - Wrong: It is a hunch that it might take a packed game to have a chance at a golden egg, but that is just my guess. It might be just completely random with a really really low drop rate. This Spectator next to me hasn’t seen a golden egg this year, and he has been there almost as long as I have. J To date, I can confirm two winners of Golden Eggs in Arkenstone. On interviewing them, there seems to be no correlation; it is random location, random group size, random everything. I have entered or watched enough egg hunts that, at this time, I have seen approximately 7000 eggs and none of them Golden. I can only guess that the drop rate is 1:10,000 or worse (mebbe 1:300 - 1:600 egg hunts).

Note: I can neither confirm nor deny that I in fact stepped on a chicken. Ate a rotten egg? Yeah, I did that a bunch to help clear the board so others could target good eggs and win (and hopefully help with the respawn rate by weeding out the bad eggs), but I try not to step on the chickens. If you are having trouble finding enough white eggs, team up with someone. I am certain more eggs spawn for greater numbers of participants, so if you need to, just trade off who will get the 5 white eggs and win the round. Float like a butterfly, peck like a chicken!

Bounder Rounds- Drunk hobbits: What I have learned, is that Faire hobbits do not get drunk… at least not in Arkenstone. I am told that if anyone accuses a sober hobbit of being drunk, the “drunkenness” gets reset. What I have actually seen though is not one single hobbit drunk, ever. And making it easier to tell if it gets "reset", if they are falsely accused, they say something, like “How Rude”. After collecting dialog over several hour periods, 7pm, 12am, 4am, 10am… I conclude that the quest is broken (there were not that many people in Bywater to screw it up at 4am). Hobbits just don’t get drunk. (Feel free to prove me wrong with a screenshot taken in Arkenstone, because hopefully, it will get fixed eventually.) Oh sure, they are more lively than this picture, but drunk?... not so much. UPDATE 08/06/12: Update 7.3 came into effect today. "Drunken Hobbits should no longer slink home to sleep it off and should be easier to locate and admonish for not going home to sleep it off". I'm glad to see the powers acknowledge the problem and have issued a hotfixed!

HOWEVER, I talked to my fellow Lorien elves about the plight of non-alcoholic hobbits, and the elves were more than happy to fill in as drunkards for the Faire, but you still have to get to them at the Vineyard of Lorien and they only agreed to drink at night. They do give credit toward the quest and deed. (Here I ride the Reveller's steed; how fitting.)

Farmer’s Faire Steed: When I saw the Farmer’s Faire steed across the away, and he looked at me with those big brown eyes, I knew he would be taking me home tonight. Ooh, baby. (That might be the mushrooms talking… who said that?)

Yes, Mr. Hengstacer horse guy, I’ll take him. 120 faire tokens, 2 race tokens, some silver coins. Not a problem. I hit a jackpot of mushrooms earlier and tokens are no longer relevant.

To buy the steed and one of everything offered in the festival, it only takes 1190 tokens. Trust me, it is easier than you think to rack up more tokens than you can use in a very short time, and as I write this column, we still have two weeks! Undoubtedly, I will take time out from egg hunting to let the lildanas all get their steeds. 

11 comments:

Lothirieth said...

I feel quite lucky regarding the drunken hobbits. I got to see the Faire for the first time yesterday since I just returned from a holiday and I got the required 7 drunk hobbits on my second try. It's much more subtle and harder to see, but they do exist on the Laurelin server!

I've not tried the other two games so much. I just barely got 5 eggs on my first try with only one other person participating. Later I tried it with 4 others and I got 0/5 white eggs and one coloured egg. :( I'm not quite sure how close the dogs have to be before they spot you, so I'm still working on that one.

The effects from the mushrooms are awesome! Can't wait to see them! :)

Lothirieth said...

Okay, I have a theory about these drunken hobbits. I just tried to do the quest and have sat here for 10 minutes and not seen a single drunk hobbit. Last night I was able to complete the quest in that amount of time. The only difference I can see is that it is now morning in the game world whereas when I completed the quest, it was night in the game world. So perhaps the hobbits only get drunk at night like the elves do? If that is the case I think this was slightly poorly designed as the hobbits should shut up during the day like the elves do.

Also I tried your tips for the egg hunting. I've tried 3 times, got 2/3 wins and once 4/5 eggs. It gives me a bit more hope for finishing this deed but dealing with players who blatantly snatch eggs out from under you sours the game for me. That and Turbine trying to make money off it. I'd hope people are stopping at 5 white eggs, but you don't know (especially given how the AH has exploded with people attempting to make money off of coloured eggs they've already gotten). I think it's a combination of greedy people (I personally stop at 5 whites and will no longer pick up single-coloured eggs as I've gotten them all) and the spawn rate being a bit too low. The later doesn't surprise me given the money-making aspect tied to it.

Ravanel said...

Hehe, I had the same suspicion as you, Lothirieth, but had to discard it. The first time I didn't get any drunken hobbits (daytime), but when I logged back the next day (nighttime) I found them all in one go. So I thought "it must only be at night". However, when I picked up the quest for the second time it was nighttime too, and no drunken hobbits. No drunken hobbits either when it was morning again. I now know where to look for, so I'm sure I didn't miss any the second nighttime. I'm actually in Bywater now during nighttime, and the buggers are all sober. There surely is something wrong with those hobbits.

Unknown said...

That is really awesome on your Hobbit win!

On Arkenstone, after nearly one week, I cannot confirm that anyone has ever seen a drunk hobbit in Bywater. fat hobbits...yes. stupid hobbits...yes. but no drunk ones. Still looking for any confirmation that it works on server. I am not one to complain, I play the hand as it was dealt, but I don't think it works as intended. Lorien elves FTW.

The dog avoidance is a matter of finesse. I coached people through it this week with good success but it still takes some intuition as to what the dog might path. Once you get it a time or two, it is hard to fail.

Unknown said...

That is an interesting theory by both of you concerning the nighttime/daytime hobbits! I wish it had played out to provide some explanation for the silliness. :D /agree Ravanel. You are a "party-goer" in Bywater in your first celebration hangin wit yo peeps and none of you get drunk when your history according to the Bounders says that you are a bunch of lushes?? Something is odd about that...

Yay for the egg wins Lothlorieth! Yeah, not very nice to not stop at 5 white eggs. I spent the evening last night entering the egg hunt over and over to prop up egg spawns, look for a golden egg, and capture no white eggs so that other people would win. That actually does work; I don't think anyone has ever lost when I was "helping" them win. I also pick up all the rotten ones because I am convinced that their removal improves respawn rate.

The AH market can be so funny. :D People will sell anything. I looked there when I was still hunting a striped egg; I bought a striped one for 5g (very little for something I wanted). Too bad the golden one is Bound... :D

Lothirieth said...

Yeah, appears my theory is wrong. Ah well. Today I tried again during ingame nighttime and didn't see any drunk hobbits at all!

How kind of you to help! I wish you were on my server! Though I'm thinking of just giving up. I could easily buy all the necessary coloured eggs, but that wouldn't solve the needing 20 wins. And I bet picking up the rotten ones do improve the spawn rate. I've watched as 3 rotten ones sat around and nothing else spawned for quite a while. Picking up rotten ones shouldn't be so bad if you turn off post processing affects I'd think. I've not tried it yet, though I do it for quests that make your character drunk. I can't stand the effect. It makes me dizzy in real life!

Anonymous said...

HI DANA ITS POP LOVE THE BLOG

Unknown said...

Funny that you mention the post processing effects...
I turned them off during a Watcher run ages and ages ago, and forgot to turn it back on, lol! So, good protip! Turn off post processing effects.
That said, I feel the irony of accusing the hobbits of not getting drunk when I in fact, refuse to show signs of drunken/rotten egg ness.

Good luck on the 20 wins; I wish I could help more. I can say that if you do NOT win a round, you can immediately start a new round; whereas, if you win you are on a 2 min CD timer before entering again. So, if someone is being a punk and swiping every egg, let them win and get on an alternate cycle from them so they are not in the round with you. :)

Unknown said...

Thanks Bluepop. Enjoy.

Ravanel said...

They've supposedly fixed this, so the hobbits do get drunk. Hurray!

Unknown said...

Yay for hotfixes! Updated this post directly to reflect the 7.3 changes!
I didn't care for the making-tickets-bound, but I'm glad that the hobbits are loosening up.

Post a Comment