In the post, Severlin outlines four “rules” that the team intends to follow in regard to lootboxes, which can be summarized as follows: Lootboxes should contain no gear that players cannot acquire through purely in-game means, loot from new content shouldn’t be purchasable with endgame currency or real money, gear from high-difficulty raid content will be more powerful than its lootbox counterpart, and players must complete a raid to receive its gear from lootboxes.
From there, Severlin details how the endgame reward system will work in Update 23 specifically. Where Dragons Dwell will introduce a new endgame currency called Embers of Enchantment, which can be earned by completing weekly quests and deconstructing gear. This is similar to the current Ashes of Enchantment system, except that Embers of Enchantment will be awarded to players directly as quest rewards rather than indirectly via lootbox keys as in the current system, which will allow players to directly purchase the items they want rather than relying on the RNG of lootboxes.
Lootboxes will continue to appear in LOTRO, Severlin says, and they will contain cosmetics, gear, and Embers. The devs hope that this will “reward players who are awesome enough to support the long-term success of the game by opening lootboxes,” without making them “feel like they are forced to open lootboxes in order to play or excel in the game.”
