Reputation
Reputation
Premise: Lord of the Rings Online has always experimented with the concept of reputations. In the early days, they allowed reputation tokens to drop, supply a little from defeating enemies in instances, and offered special recipes from specific crafting guilds. With Legacy of Morgoth, they attempted something new by scattering little objects across the ground that players could collect or unlock using special keys. They also introduced the concept of favoured reputation where VIP members could obtain bonuses for all their characters once they reached a certain tier with at least one of them. They replicated this experience again in Kingdoms of Harad but shuffled around certain elements. The sections below analyze each part of the reputation process.
Quests: The advertisement for Kingdoms of Harad gloats of having over 400 quests. Those numbers are quite inflated since the developers use the game's "quest system" for both quests and deeds. There are approximately 75 quests dedicated to The Song of Waves and Wind Epic. Only about a handful of those quests contribute to their region's reputations as you pass through them: Kintai of Sul Madásh, Temámir of Jiret-menêsh, and City of Zajâna. There are at minimum 30 quests that count towards the Tales of Regional deeds in Adagím, Kighân, An Shêru, and Idagâl. The actual total number of quests would come to about 200 quests across all four regions, 100 deeds, and about 100 daily repeatable quests. Common quests give 300 reputation points, 500 for the occasional quest and deeds, 700 for quests in each region's main questline, and 1200 for each reputation capstone deed.
Standing: Unlike your typical faction, a lot of these reputations will start you out as an Outsider. You need about 10,000 points to get to neutral. The interesting thing is how the Return To Skills can be obtained after completing a single tier at Neutral Standing. This is nice since the changes in Update 46.1 ports you directly next to the quest-givers in Zajana instead of at the outskirts of the city by the stable-master. Hamat Renewed faction works like your typical faction and still requires Friendly status. Doing all the quests in a region generally gets you past Acquaintance and into Friendly status.
The crafting lore-master requires a very low standing (Acquaintance standing should be enough) with the Kintai of Sul Madásh and does not require you to be level 160. Task Items can be obtained from mobs level 151 or above, including missions and scaled instances, but are not available inside the Kingdom of Harad instances. 10 task items can also be turned into any of the four factions for 300 reputation points each. If the Temámir of Jiret-menêsh and City of Zajâna reputations feel somewhat lacking at the Kindred tier, that is because they were extended two months after release with Update 46.1. Hamat Renewed was extended to Celebrated in Update 48 in conjunction with the content available in A Glorious Hunt quest pack.
"I wonder what they do with all the items." - Hatric
Ground Objects: Scattered about in the regions are a number of small objects that can be collected. Amusingly, their loot sparkles were removed in Update 46.1. However, things are done quite differently than in Legacy of Morgoth. Instead of only having the larger objects require a key, all objects must now be unlocked. Don't expect to find any of the Kingdoms of Harad new Mûr Ghala Sârzai currency either as you pick them up. Instead of providing you a number of exclusive items that can be sold for a large sum of money at the vendor, you now receive a bunch of common "junk" items from any object that's ready to be sold to a merchant near you.
Although there is a recipe for the Kintai Harvesting Tool, I do not recommend using a golden beryl (the new shard for the crafting tier) in exchange of what would normally cost 25 more Mûrai Planks. If you are having trouble obtaining resources or like a more convenient way to obtain them, the proto-beast quests from Corsairs of Umbar on Bel Inzûl do scale upwards into the latest tier. The recipe was modified in Update 46.1 since many players were upset to learn they were receiving a single consumable in exchange for 5 beryls instead of a reusable variant. This leaves only one option: You need to barter crafting materials for the tools themselves at each faction location. Make sure the material are not in your Carry-All. These include...
- Adagím - 10 Mûrai Planks from a forester or 5 Recorded Lore of Mûr Ghala from a scholar for 1 Kintai Harvesting Tool. For the Kintai of Sul Madásh, this tool works for both Unsullied Seed Pods for 250 reputation or Bounty of Unsullied Seed Pods for 500 reputation. If you are looking to optimize your return investment, only go for the upgraded objects. Do not confuse these with the Unblemished logs that are abundant through Adagim your forester can collect.
- Kighân - 10 Mûrai Ingot from a prospector for 1 Temámir Salt Grinder. For the Temámir of Jiret-menêsh, this tool works on Salt-encrusted Stones for 250 reputation. You can find silvered ore deposits across all four regions.
- Kighân - 5 Polished Garnets from a jeweller for 1 Temámir Dissolving Tincture. For the Temámir of Jiret-menêsh, this tool works on Encased Crystals for 500 reputation. Garnets can be found from the silvered ore deposits or from other collectable loot like corpses and chests.
- An Shêru - 10 Brushed Mûrai Leather from a forester for 1 Zajâni-made Key. For the City of Zajâna, this works on Zajâni Caches for 250 reputation. Do not confuse these with the Desert Artifact that scholars can collect.
- An Shêru - 5 Recorded Lore of Mûr Ghala from a scholar for 1 Zajâni Rune Kit. For the City of Zajâna, this works on Zajâni Rune-rocks for 500 reputation.
A handful of these keys can be obtained through the congratulatory quests (not deeds) you obtain after reaching each reputation tier. The Hamat Renewed reputation does not have any objects. This means there will be no "keys" you can collect or visible objects on the ground in Idagâl. Instead, you will be able to collect Bóro Signet for 250 reputation or Dôlo Insignia for 500 reputation off the various Ordâkhai enemies throughout the Mûr Ghala region.
"Fred! I told you no more duels!" - Resolina