Open-World Skirmish Soldier Gripe

[-atilius-]

I don't complain about much. I loved RoI, no complaints with anything they did with that expansion. Same with the LI system, they could keep the current system all the way to Mordor as far as I'm concerned, doesn't matter to me. Furthermore, I have no problems with Turbine releasing armor in the lotro store for newer players. And unlike some people, I don't "expect" a new pvmp map, a new one would be icing on the cake to me. But when I read that Turbine will be allowing us to use our skirmish soldiers in the open world, I honestly thought that it was some sort of typo, and had to read it a few times over to make sure I read it correctly. The idea of everybody using their skirmish soldier out in the real world makes my heart skip a beat.

After I registered this tid-bit of information, I initially thought it might be kind of cool. The idea of being able to use my skirmish soldier whenever I wanted was tempting. However, after thinking about it more, I've started getting a nagging feeling that this is a poor idea. There's three reasons why I don't like this idea, an issue of immersion/lore, an issue of balance, and lastly a technical issue.

#1 Immersion - I think skirmish soldiers are great where they are right now (lore/immersion-wise that is). Skirmishes and soldiers seem to go hand-in-hand. Skirmishes are very much portrayed as being a part of a war. To emphasize this idea, skirmishes are grouped into different "campaigns." Following the same theme, the armor/jewellery/weapon rewards from skirmishes are also categorized (or named) by ranks ("Recruit's Medium Boots of Eruilan", "Veteran Guardsman's Armband", "Sergeant-at-Arms' Club of Naillan" to name a few). Furthermore, to compensate for the difficulty of skirmishes, you are given a "soldier" under your command. It doesn't take long to get the idea that skirmishes are meant to model smaller battles in part of a larger war. This is why doing 6-man or raid size skirmishes feels so epic, with 12 people and their soldiers plus class pets steamrolling through a fortress or defending an encampment, it really feels like you're part of a true battle, compared to the normal quests you do in the rest of the world.

This being the case, the idea that your "soldier" will be usable for whatever you're doing is very immersion-breaking to me. When I think of individual classes, I associate them with archetypes. For example, the burglar is a thief or low-life; the captain is an old war veteran; the hunter is a noble ranger or local hunter-gatherer; the minstrel is a travelling entertainer or local musician; etc. I imagine a human hunter near bree killing boars for their meat and skin, a young hobbit delivering pies to his neighbors in the shire, and a sword-and-board dwarf engaged in combat with a group of goblins to reclaim a stolen heirloom, but in all three cases, there's a soldier standing there helping them in their endeavors.

Huh? What's a fully armored soldier doing helping a bree-lander hunt boars? And why is there a sword-wielding soldier running around with a young hobbit helping him to deliver pies in peaceful hobbiton? And why would an enlisted soldier care about some dwarves' family heirloom when there's a war going on? Skirmish soldiers belong on the battle-field fighting orcs, not delivering pies in the Shire.

If this mechanic gets implemented, we'll be seeing those blasted skirmish soldiers everywhere. You'll walk into the crafting hall and every other player has a soldier standing next to them patiently waiting for god-knows what reason. You take a stroll through Bree, and there are going to be as many soldiers as normal townspeople walking around. The instant I see a skirmish soldier running around delivering pies with a hobbit, my feeling of immersion is going to be instantly shattered.

#2 Balance - Assuming players can use a skirmish soldier as soon as they hit level 20, which is the current level one can obtain them, people are going to be using skirmish soldiers all the time in their normal questing. Because of this, either Turbine is going to have to make EVERY mob relatively harder (simply increasing damage and perhaps basic stats of all mobs would probably accomplish this) or risk making leveling too easy. Assuming something gets changed to allow for skirmish soldiers in the open world (it'd be far too easy otherwise), whether it be mob difficulty, or nerfing all players somewhat (which I sincerely doubt they'd do) this will mean that skirmish soldiers will be required for having the same level of difficulty as before they were introduced. In other words, if/when Turbine makes things harder to allow for skirmish soldiers (it should be obvious they have to), not using your skirmish soldier while questing would just be gimping yourself, and therefore, skirmish soldiers will become integral in leveling and questing. This will add a new dimension of difficulty to leveling: not only will you need to be on top of getting class deeds done for your class traits (and possibly other deeds for virtues), keeping your armor/weapons/jewellery as on-level as possible, and making sure you have consumables such as morale/power potions for when things get rough, but you will also have to keep your skirmish soldier up-to date as well, and this means running a LOT of skirmishes for the marks. There's a significant difference between a brand new skirmish soldier with a couple of newly acquired traits and one that is on-level with on-level traits. And so, with mobs adjusted to allow for skirmish soldiers in the open-world, it will be very easy for either you to have a skirmish soldier that isn't nearly good enough, forcing you to run skirmishes to get your soldier up to par.

#3 Technical - skirmish raids are notorious for being laggy, mainly due to the fact that you have 12 people, with 12 soldiers besides class pets. Now imagine this in the open world, everywhere you go. Obviously, you're not going to be in raid-sized groups everywhere you go, but for every one player now, you will have one skirmish soldier as well. This will GREATLY decrease performance for those with any sort of lag problems, especially when you group or are in crowded areas. Skirmish soldiers tend to cause lag problems more than human players, as I recently participated in a full 24 man gatecrashers raid without much lag at all, but a 24 person skirmish (counting skirmish soldiers) once caused so much lag I once had to restart my computer due to the game completely freezing my computer. And if they let us use skirmish soldiers in instances... I don't even want to think about it.



Kudos to anybody who actually read my whole rant. You're probably having trouble believing I don't complain about much in the game, but it's true. I really just don't like this idea. However, it's more than possible Turbine will be greatly adjusting the skirmish soldier mechanics to fit the open-world environment. But, in order to bypass all the aforementioned problems and any others such as bugs, it will require quite a bit of work on the developer's part changing not only the skirmish soldier mechanics but also world mob mechanics and difficulty to allow for skirmish soldiers, which will take time away from them working on new content, for a pretty major game change that I don't think is necessary in the least.

[Tamiya]

I did just read all of that, believe it or not.

Some very valid concerns. I wonder if this is a knee-jerk reaction to SWTOR's companion system.

To me the biggest issue is balance and fun. I can't imagine Turbine rebalancing all 75 levels worth of landscape quests just to accomodate the extra companion that everyone's going to get. With an herbalist, you can simply let it heal-tank everything while you kill things and get constant morale and power heals, which kills off a lot of intricacies in solo gameplay with CC and power management and pulls and aggro and whatever else.

[Link64]

#2 Balance - Assuming players can use a skirmish soldier as soon as they hit level 20, which is the current level one can obtain them, people are going to be using skirmish soldiers all the time in their normal questing. Because of this, either Turbine is going to have to make EVERY mob relatively harder (simply increasing damage and perhaps basic stats of all mobs would probably accomplish this) or risk making leveling too easy. Assuming something gets changed to allow for skirmish soldiers in the open world (it'd be far too easy otherwise), whether it be mob difficulty, or nerfing all players somewhat (which I sincerely doubt they'd do) this will mean that skirmish soldiers will be required for having the same level of difficulty as before they were introduced. In other words, if/when Turbine makes things harder to allow for skirmish soldiers (it should be obvious they have to), not using your skirmish soldier while questing would just be gimping yourself, and therefore, skirmish soldiers will become integral in leveling and questing. This will add a new dimension of difficulty to leveling: not only will you need to be on top of getting class deeds done for your class traits (and possibly other deeds for virtues), keeping your armor/weapons/jewellery as on-level as possible, and making sure you have consumables such as morale/power potions for when things get rough, but you will also have to keep your skirmish soldier up-to date as well, and this means running a LOT of skirmishes for the marks. There's a significant difference between a brand new skirmish soldier with a couple of newly acquired traits and one that is on-level with on-level traits. And so, with mobs adjusted to allow for skirmish soldiers in the open-world, it will be very easy for either you to have a skirmish soldier that isn't nearly good enough, forcing you to run skirmishes to get your soldier up to par.

This arguement falls flat on it's face when you consider how we can group up in the landscape to do things. The game is already solo friendly as it is. When you group with another player, you are infinitely more powerful than just you whipping out your skirmish soldier. For that reason, and the fact that it's in Turbine's best interest for players to be able to reach the level cap quickly, I really don't see Turbine going through every single one of the mobs in the landscape trying to boost their stats to make up for a soldier's presence. Nor I think would they risk making some blanket change to the combat system for that purpose when it could throw so many other things out of balance (or just plain cause bugs).

I don't see the lore issues you raised. It would be one thing if the soldiers were usable from the start and all the hobbits had men or dwarves following them around the shire (granted all of us players with dwarves and elves and men can run around there anyhow) but being that you can't use it until level 20, you'll have pretty much progressed to areas where the soldiers' appearance is not so out of context as you might think. However your third point is the one thing I am concerned about with this idea and it'll be interesting to see how the devs address it.

[jayspeed]

I'd say just wait and see how it turns out. None of us know what will happen. Maybe they've made hardware upgrades that will improve server performance so having 30 characters and 30 soldier's in Galtrev won't cause the hamsters to cry.

As for the lore point of view, it's a game. I'd much rather see soldiers appropriate to middle earth's lore along side our character than cosmetic pets. I think seeing soldier's in a time of war is better than seeing little bunnies, turtles, foxes, and squirrels following players around.

Just say no to cosmetic pets. (Unless they are client side only)

[Hipo]

Very valid concerns.

I look at it this way though, something I said in another thread but hold true here too.

This is an evolution of gaming. From TOR's compainions, to WoWs pokemon's, to lotro's Soldiers. This seems to be a feature MMOs are implementing as a natural progression type of mechanic. TOR obviously did it 'right' with story attached to theirs.

But I dont think you need to rebalance trash mobs tbh. Now I'm sure some ppl are going to hate what I'm going to say next but regardless, it will allow for faster leveling. This is a game that has a higher majority of its playerbase at the top tier lvs.

It could also put more money in the Turbine coffers because as you said, getting your soldier at lv 20 would give Skirmishes more play during leveling-Which would hopefully increase the amount of skirm packs being bought and store soldier packs being bought.

[OnyxSoulbane]

While lag could very well be an issue for some, i seriously doudt even Turbine would be foolish enough to allow soldiers into the world at large for not only lag, but could you see capped farmers working lower levels of the game cleaning up deeds/quests/farming rep items with scuffed up. buffed up. capped out soldiers in tow? Now most agree Turbine hasn't been let's say the sharpest knife in the drawer in many area's, but they cant possibly be that dumb.

Also, don't be so sure it's gonna be the same soldier you use in skirmish's. I am sure players knowing this will grind skirmish's ahead of time and be ready to dump the marks on soldiers how they need them the day of rider release. Wouldn't surprise me one bit if it is a whole new soldier just like the whole new horse. Allowing players this much prep time for our current soldiers is just shooting themselves in the foot, not to mention costing themselves loads of sales in the store for those players that didn't prep ahead of time. Remember, the store is god.

When the details finally come about this stuff, don't be surprised if it isn't something like i just said. However it comes, it will be to Turbines advantadge with the store, and not the player's. That you can count on.

[Abiyah]

When I did the skirmish tutorial for the very first time, I had the thought of how cool it would be if the soldier were available to use in the rest of the game. That was way back then, now I don't think it'll be such a great idea, for pretty much the same reasons as the OP.

One of the reasons Turbine has put the new armor in the store is to help new players level faster, to get caught up with the rest of the game. Using the soldier will help accomplish that, too, if they are indeed going to be eligible for use throughout the game world and not just in Rohan. Add in a stone and scroll of expedited xp, and the new player will be able to burn right on through the early levels. This is going to cause some problems.

Skills aren't going to be well-learned; there won't be enough fights for the process. Proper rotations won't be figured out. Sure, older established players can tell them how to set up the quickslot rotation, but learning the actual rotation, the muscle memory involved, will be shortened because they won't be spending enough time at each level to learn it. Sometimes even getting new skills every other level is too much-- a new player won't have learned what one does before she's got another one to learn how to use properly. Burning through the levels will also mean the grind for virtues won't be done, but that will be overcome by buying them from the store. And lastly, the leveling will be so fast, they won't be able to keep up with ranking the soldier-- unless all they'll be doing is skirms to make the marks, which pretty much negates having the soldier for the open world anyway.

I'm seriously hoping Turbine thinks this one all the way through first. Along with the mounted combat, two new combat systems in a short time span, with the track record Turbine has of bugging, makes me wary of grandiose plans.

[-atilius-]

This arguement falls flat on it's face when you consider how we can group up in the landscape to do things. The game is already solo friendly as it is. When you group with another player, you are infinitely more powerful than just you whipping out your skirmish soldier.

But how often is the average player grouping for quests? The only area I ever group for quests is Angmar and, very occasionally, Moria. All the other fellowship quests are either soloable or quests that can be skipped without significant repercussions. While it's true some people have friends or leveling partners, the majority of players quest by themselves. With a skirmish soldier, people might be encouraged to group less as soloing will be easier without an across-the-world mob nerf. I'm afraid questing is going to be too solo-friendly.

But I dont think you need to rebalance trash mobs tbh. Now I'm sure some ppl are going to hate what I'm going to say next but regardless, it will allow for faster leveling. This is a game that has a higher majority of its playerbase at the top tier lvs.

I'm not so much worried about faster leveling, as skirmish soldiers seem to help more with survivability than fast killing (from what I've experienced atleast), you'll spend the same amount of time running around trying to actually find the mob or quest location, which tends to be what takes up the majority of questing time. I'm more worried about easier leveling. Imo questing is very easy at the moment, the majority of small fellowship quests are easy to solo, and full fellowship quests are generally skippable, if not soloable by some classes on level.

Skirmishes don't open up to players until lvl 30. If you're still killing boars in Bree and\or delivering pies in the Shire at lvl 30, an accompanying skirmish soldier is probably the least of the weirdness going on there.

They open up to players at level 20, but what you're saying is still true. I was more making a generalization of the type of quests that it would seem weird to have a skirmish soldier on. A prime example of this might be the level 30 north cotton farm quests, which involved next to no combat, just several chain quests of gather this, make that, deliver this, collect that.

[Cappie.evg]

...Star Trek Online did the Companion thing first, in fact you got to take an entire away team with you after gathering enough officers....just sayin.

[jayspeed]

...Star Trek Online did the Companion thing first, in fact you got to take an entire away team with you after gathering enough officers....just sayin.

I might be wrong but I think Guild Wars did it first with multiple companions (hero NPC's). That said, it's not really about who does it first, it's about who does it best. I prefer to see Turbine borrow the idea's of other MMO's and improve upon them for our game.

[Nindolvoth]

I'd say just wait and see how it turns out. None of us know what will happen. Maybe they've made hardware upgrades that will improve server performance so having 30 characters and 30 soldier's in Galtrev won't cause the hamsters to cry.

lol when I read this it reminded me of the insurance commerical where a guy is trying to save money by powering his computer by training guniea pigs to row a boat.

[jhan75]

fortunately this is optional,

seeing how there are only TWO commands for skirm soldier

and they don't have the passive command or stay here at this loc command like cappy/lm pet,
it will be a bad bad mob agroer for the player...

[Chewie-nl]

For the leveling part im ok with the soldiers as long as they build a hard level cap into the game, so lets say skirmish soldiers in the open world allowed up until your character 75.

The new 10 levels solo as it used to be.

What about the moors btw? Are soldiers allowed there?

Must be annoying if a freep raid rolls 24 herbalists :')

[Tamiya]

For the leveling part im ok with the soldiers as long as they build a hard level cap into the game, so lets say skirmish soldiers in the open world allowed up until your character 75.

There's little reason why Turbine would want to change the gameplay of the first 75 levels when it's been working fine all along. Do people really need more help with low level questing?

I think this is a feature that's going to be increasingly more important and prominent in the new region in Update 6 and in the future end-game, i.e. from 75 to 85. I'm expecting to see new solo and landscape content with increased difficulty that takes into account the existence of the soldier companions, such that even landscape pulls feel like skirmish pulls (e.g. one hale + two weak mobs, or one elite lieutenant + bunch of trash, and things like that).

fortunately this is optional,

seeing how there are only TWO commands for skirm soldier

and they don't have the passive command or stay here at this loc command like cappy/lm pet,
it will be a bad bad mob agroer for the player...

Honestly I'm not sure why some people are so against giving soldiers more of those controls.

When I'm soloing on my LM, I rarely ever need to control their movements. I put it on Assist and Guard mode, the pet automatically attacks things that I'm hitting and automatically uses its skills when they're down with cooldowns. I rarely ever do anything extra to control or micro-manage the pet when soloing. The times when I need the additional commands to control movements are when the pet goes havoc and starts pathing away on its own, or gets stuck somewhere, or veers off a little bit close to mobs I'm trying to avoid, and for those moments I'm so thankful there are commands to get the pet to return to me and stay still.

The soldiers really need some of the same commands.

[Peredur]

I am waiting until I read more details on this but I think it could be a positive addition if implemented in a sensible manner. I guess you could say that about any change but we will see. What made SWTOR's Companions so nice was that the story was written with them as an integral part and they were fleshed out with emotions and a history; not to mention the love interest for some. They were also generally intelligent and very useful. I don't expect Tubine to beef up our Soldiers to the level of SWTOR"s Companions; not even close; but I hope they improve them somewhat so they are more than just a dumb bot.

[Chanah]

Don't know other people's experiences, but since RoI, my skirmish soldier has gotten even dumber. I have a herbalist. Whenever I did T&M and cleared the jail yard, she'd just stop in the middle of it. No obstacles, no mobs, she'd just plain stop unless i went back to get her and escort her to the next gate.

If the soldier AI is considerably improved, they might be a help to late level questing (we don't know what that's going to be like yet). But at this point, the idea of using soldiers, with their horribly limited AI and pathing problems, in the open world - not good.

Presumably Turbine is aware of this.

[Temlor]

Turbine will be losing more than five accounts if they require players to Skirmish just so they can adequately play the Rohan landscape content. My friends and I hate Skirmishes and we will not be Skirmishing our way to Mordor (or buying Soldiers/Traits from the Store).

[MalcolmReynolds]

I always wanted the skirmish soldier to come with me on the journey but never could.

SWTOR indeed did it right. Not only the personal story but special skills for every companion as well as whole set of gear (and a new stat attribute that lets you boost companions). Also the party limits were altered - they are included in the limit so if the party is full - you need to remove a companion to let a new player in your party (actually the companion goes away on it's own). And the "sell trash items" option - sweet quality of life improvement.

The game was built around them so in most cases you need them for the leveling process.

The difference here is that they won't be required up to lvl75 - which is fine, soloes can still solo purely. Alters can get their chars faster to max with their skirmish soldier and everyone should be (technically) happy.

I assume that the soldier will get new skills or at least the command menu for it will be enhanced.

[Aztec_Soul]

I had an opposite reaction. I was ecstatic at the possibility of bringing along my archer soldier to compliment my own Captain pet in true group management in the open world, as I do in skirmishes. However, I had a gut-wrenching feeling of extreme skepticism at the prospect of having mounted combat, especially since I'm so used to having a herald/archer with me as my 'brother' target when I solo at all times.

I think that the introduction of skirmish soldiers in the open world will make way for regions that are more challenging, and thus necessitate the need for a helping hand. Assuming this is the case, I think soldiers will only be for the regions introduced with RoR and beyond. I wouldn't be surprised if they would actually be required to continue on the epic line, given that mounted combat will be mandatory through a specific region in Rohan.

Initial reactions aside, we have to wait on more information to be given. These are just things we gamers will have to deal with, and hope that the new features are balanced and well-thought out.

[Temlor]

These are just things we gamers will have to deal with

Wrong. A lot of Tolkien fans will not put up with whatever change Turbine chooses to make. Some of us do not want to see an inappropriate idea from a trash game imposed on this one. A lot of us will simply stop playing this game as soon as it stops looking like Middle Earth.

[-atilius-]

Turbine will be losing more than five accounts if they require players to Skirmish just so they can adequately play the Rohan landscape content. My friends and I hate Skirmishes and we will not be Skirmishing our way to Mordor (or buying Soldiers/Traits from the Store).

There's an easy alternative. You can trade in your medallions for marks in a 1:3 ratio. This makes mark gain incredibly easy, especially for a level-capped character, even without running any skirmishes at all. For example, if you run the Foundry t2 challenge, you get about 500 medallions, trade these in at the skirmish exchange for 1500 marks, rinse and repeat a few times and it'll be very easy to level up/trait your skirmish soldier.

[StavroMuellerBeta]

For example, if you run the Foundry t2 challenge, you get about 500 medallions, trade these in at the skirmish exchange for 1500 marks, rinse and repeat a few times and it'll be very easy to level up/trait your skirmish soldier.

The issue many have with skirmishes is not the fact that it's an instance, but the fact that it's another pet to control. And if the issue is that it's an instance rather than open-world, telling someone to grind group instances isn't a reasonable solution.

[Abiyah]

There's an easy alternative. You can trade in your medallions for marks in a 1:3 ratio. This makes mark gain incredibly easy, especially for a level-capped character, even without running any skirmishes at all. For example, if you run the Foundry t2 challenge, you get about 500 medallions, trade these in at the skirmish exchange for 1500 marks, rinse and repeat a few times and it'll be very easy to level up/trait your skirmish soldier.

Do you suppose everyone who plays this game is level-capped, and even then capable of running Foundry T2 challenge? I have to say, this is a short-sighted "easy alternative". There are many who don't skirmish at all, let alone groups as T1, much less T2; and if there are thousands of new players coming to the game everyday, as Sapience suggests, are they all already at level cap? What's the alternative for them?

[Abiyah]

Don't know other people's experiences, but since RoI, my skirmish soldier has gotten even dumber. I have a herbalist. Whenever I did T&M and cleared the jail yard, she'd just stop in the middle of it. No obstacles, no mobs, she'd just plain stop unless i went back to get her and escort her to the next gate.

This^. The soldiers were designed to use in skirmish instances, and they are not 100% reliable even in what they were designed for.

If the soldier AI is considerably improved, they might be a help to late level questing (we don't know what that's going to be like yet). But at this point, the idea of using soldiers, with their horribly limited AI and pathing problems, in the open world - not good.

Presumably Turbine is aware of this.

I can just see the soldier's reaction on being called to duty outside the confines of the skirm instance-- FREEZE.

[ronaldburgundy]

For certain classes (ie. burglar and captains.. YES CAPTAINS) I feel that the soldiers will be a serious problem. Burglars are supposed to go around solo and not attract a lot of attention. The captain class will also take a hit. Captains get a herald because lore wise they have the leadership abilities to run around with somebody who wants to fight for them, now all the sudden all classes can do this? Everybody has the ability to call people forth to fight alongside them? Doesn't work for me.

Warden + sage = why even bother trying solo content, just stick to doing small fellowship quests if you dont want to be bored.