Soldiers on the landscape

[whheydt]

Soldier on landscape is a total fail imo, because :

1) This is supposed to help ppl questing when leveling a new pg from 1 to 85... but... who have the marks to train a soldier before reaching the cap with a new pg?

Others have addressed the cost post-U5. Certainly pre-U5 it wasn't difficult to maintain a soldier at character level.

2) Player that was at cap for 2-3 month or more have powerfull gear and skilled soldier... and simply don't need any help questing from 75 to 85.

This makes a completely unwarranted assumption that the landscape content *won't* have difficulty set to the assumption that every player character has an on-level soldier available and in use.

--W. H. Heydt

Old Used Programmer

[Idgetated]

Yikes I'm just wondering what's going to happen with my quickslots (most notably on my poor hunter) with the added landscape skirmish soldiers [and then of course the mounted combat coming later]. New stuff usually means new skills or new gadgetry of some sort! Hey, Turbine, may we have another skill bar? Please?

Oh, wait... then I have to think about attunement and pet panels. Hmmm, mentally rearranging my screen for each character. It's getting crowded even in my imagination!

This COULD be a good thing, although I can't see using the soldier much if they change nothing else about the game. I was really hoping for some details though. I don't know whether or not to use all my skirmish marks to upgrade my soldiers for some of my characters. Course, it could also be a disaster. Guess I'll be reserving judgement until I know more but all in all, I'm optimistic.

[GCT]

There has been no indication that the soldiers will only be usable in new zones. The fact that soldiers on the landscape will be introduced in U6--which was clear from the initial announcement--certainly shows that they won't be restricted to RoR zones (unlike the warhorses, which Turbine has explicitly stated will only be usable in RoR zones).

I'm not concerned about how others play. I'm concerned about how devs create new content. I fully expect some dev or other to reason that, since skirimish soldiers are available for use, everyone *will* be using them and design landscape quests that can't be completed without one being deployed...thus changing an "optional" feature to "required".

--W. H. Heydt

Old Used Programmer

Thank you for that information!

And yes, I agree with you there. Soldiers on the landscape should continue to be optional. Not everyone wants to play a pet class.

[Blackbears]

Why not? Sounds interesting enough to give it a fair chance.

[Trilwych]

Why not? Sounds interesting enough to give it a fair chance.

I guess you couldn't be bothered to actually read the thread for opposing reasons.


When this hits, I suppose the biggest sellers in the TP store will be the Summon Skirmish Soldier scrolls (summon during combat) and--perhaps initially, at least--the refund scroll.

As this happens, it would be in Turbine's interest to retune content and/or create new content that "encourages" skirmish soldier use, essentially turning every class into a pet class (with horrible pathing and AI issues). It wouldn't take much, really--increase mob count and/or morale, make them hit 20% harder, whatever. In terms of store purchases, this ostensibly means increased purchases for all skirmish consumables like the refund scroll and shorten-command scroll.

On the other hand, I wonder if this could also decrease skirmish instance purchases only because using soldiers for PvE would be 'fresh' content, and perhaps players wouldn't mind running the same few skirmishes over and over for the leveling marks. Or skirmish instance purchases would increase; who knows.

From a purely business point of view, IMO, it would be in Turbine' best interest to tune content this way, whether old or both old and new. Because the skirmish soldier mechanics are already largely in place, development costs shouldn't counteract store revenues terribly. I would predict that the whole "advantage becoming necessary convenience" sweet spot for Turbine will be framed the same way the current Legendary Item system is: Maintain grind and investment levels just annoying enough and the PvE-soldier system 'useful' enough that the mechanics scrolls are constant top sellers.

Oh yay.

__________
IJ/IF skirmish rewards data | Crit crafting & the RNG | Dumb noob things we've done in LotRO...
"Be not so eager to advance that you fail to experience the moment, in life and in all things." -Deluros, Rivendell

[Gwenryth]

I'm looking forward to have my soldier and my bog lurker fighting on my side I think it's a good thing to give people like me (for example- without raid equip) the chance to compensate some things with the soldier.

And for those of you who are afraid of lags and so on- don't worry, I found a picture of the new, big servers... they are working really hard on it! As you can see- no more hamsterwheels! *scnr*

[Maelendil]

I disagree. I only had one alt who had not reached lvl 20 before the currency changes, a lvl 18 burg. I leveled him to 20 just to do a test. Just doing the training skimish will get the soldier one wants to rank 2 (lvl 24). After just one tuckbough skirmish I had a rank 3 (lvl29) archer, attribute and skill. After doing 2 more, I have a rank 5 (lvl37) one for my lvl 21 burg.

If anything it is too easy to overlevel a soldier at low levels. Even if the Lt kill deeds are nerfed it would still not be hard to keep an on level soldier. I am going to wait till the next update to test this, but my guess is I can just order my archer to attack a camp of 4 orcs my level and eat popcorn while he kills them.

And that is with a burg and archer, with a warrior and a minstrel or rune keeper you could probably pull an entire camp. Just tell your soldier to attack the very last mob of the camp, he will pull aggro on his way there and keep aggro on everything with his AOEs. Then, depending on the number of mobs you pulled, you can either nuke the last ones or heal your soldier.

This is how I leveled my captain from 20 to 35: keep a warrior at least 10 levels above yours, use defensive skirmishes (siege of gondamon) two level below yours (almost as much xp, but much easier), and check your screen from time to time to see if you get an annoying kind of lieutenant. Great when you need to work and have a double screen.

If you really have to focus on your work, just come back every twenty minutes to see if the skirm failed or finished and start a new one...

Now imagine that in open areas: dozens of braindead heroes, surrounded by high level soldiers killing everything in sight around them. Because if this isn't explicitely banned, it will happen en masse.

[plothole]

As long as this remains optional it's fine. It'd give us soloers a nice shot at small fellowship quests, for example. But I don't want to be forced to use a soldier everywhere.
EDIT// Suggestion: keep current and future quest difficulty as-is and introduce a drop and/or experience penalty when running around with a soldier. (Kind of like Guild Wars?) This would make a soldier a good companion for those who want to grind deeds, rush through lower level epic quests or just see some more difficult landscape content (like small fellowship quests) a good choice, while making having a soldier less of a requirement for others.

[vermknid]

Does the implementation of "soldiers on the landscape" imply a cessation to the introduction of future skirmishes? I haven't seen any announcements concerning the introduction of more skirmishes for the last expansion, Rise of Isengard, which I find worrisome, any thoughts?

Nearly three months since the release of the Rise of Isengard expansion and no news on future skirmishes. Maybe I'm premature in speculating what the introduction of "soldiers on the landscape" implies in regards to future skirmishes, but it's bothersome to think that a "major" component could be left to wither on the vine.

For the love of all that is fair and light in Middle-earth, someone allay my growing fear and talk me off the edge of a rant.

[West-northwestook]

Does the implementation of "soldiers on the landscape" imply a cessation to the introduction of future skirmishes? I haven't seen any announcements concerning the introduction of more skirmishes for the last expansion, Rise of Isengard, which I find worrisome, any thoughts?

Nearly three months since the release of the Rise of Isengard expansion and no news on future skirmishes. Maybe I'm premature in speculating what the introduction of "soldiers on the landscape" implies in regards to future skirmishes, but it's bothersome to think that a "major" component could be left to wither on the vine.

For the love of all that is fair and light in Middle-earth, someone allay my growing fear and talk me off the edge of a rant.

Take your pick:

Positve outlook: There have been no new skirmishes because the develepers are hard on work on making your soldier more useful to you and less of your very own Lalia.

Negative outlook: Skirmishes have joined the ranks of more hobbies, scaling classic skirmishes and group content in the open landscape.

/crosses fingers for the former

[Ellyllon]

Oh, God, they ARE your very own Laila! What a perfect way of putting it!

Still, I'm looking forward to having my Dwarf Rowsdower (which, incidentally, I had to spell 'Rowsdauer' or something like that because the game disapproves of the real spelling... Weird naming rules, Game. Weird.) following my boy elf, & my very cute elf minion for this girl.

They NEED to get rid of the cooldown on direct soldier. That's all I ask. Passive/defensive stances, necessary. That's it. I don't require a pet abilities bar - I just want to be able to shout, 'Get the big one!'

[Killien]

I love differing opinions and this thread has certainly been interesting.

I've been playing TOR pretty much exclusively since it launched, but I'm already finding myself getting a little bored there. The class stories are great, sometimes flat out awesome, but there's just not enough of it. Each new planet has a real same old\same old feel to general questing, and only a small splattering of class quest to keep me interested. My initial enthusiasm for accumulating a stable of alts is already fading fast.

Being able to summon my skirmish soldier is one of the reasons I'll be coming back to LoTRO for update 6. The new region is also right up there but the companion idea has my interest piqued. I feel a large part of the challenge factor was already sucked out of Dunland anyway as a sad byproduct of the otherwise excellent quest phasing mechanic. The resulting linearity meant you were tackling on-level mobs and quests for the majority of the time and for my Guard at least, it was largely mindless. Great stories I should hasten to add, but no challenge in gameplay.

So why would I want a companion to make it any easier then? Well, if nothing else it would make the mindless bits go faster, but a companion would bring a new element to general gameplay and that's what I need to make LoTRO feel fresh again. Whether they end up changing landscape content to balance the extra assistance is irrelevant as I see it, because either way, what we'll get is more options. I'm more concerned about what more quest phasing may bring us, locking us into a specific content path at a specific level before we can move on ala Dunland.

Easy content for one player will always be more difficult for another. Lets get back to scaling difficulty by level and allow us to play further up the scale to find a challenge if we so desire. If something is too hard, wait a level or two. Or, come update 6, summon your solider.

[Maelendil]

Easy content for one player will always be more difficult for another. Lets get back to scaling difficulty by level and allow us to play further up the scale to find a challenge if we so desire. If something is too hard, wait a level or two. Or, come update 6, summon your solider.

What we really need is a new Dol Dinen at 75. A place where even the best players won't go alone, but a good duo or trio could survive by sneaking around, and larger groups would have fun without being totally in brainless mode. Getting tons of misses because the mobs are five level above yours is not fun or challenging. Getting tons of mobs on you because you did not pull a group correctly is much more interesting as a game challenge.

This would make a soldier on landscape interesting: do you and your fellows choose to get some help from lallias, or would you rather try to keep a low profile and stay on your own ?

[Chanah]

I guess you couldn't be bothered to actually read the thread for opposing reasons.


When this hits, I suppose the biggest sellers in the TP store will be the Summon Skirmish Soldier scrolls (summon during combat) and--perhaps initially, at least--the refund scroll.

As this happens, it would be in Turbine's interest to retune content and/or create new content that "encourages" skirmish soldier use, essentially turning every class into a pet class (with horrible pathing and AI issues). It wouldn't take much, really--increase mob count and/or morale, make them hit 20% harder, whatever. In terms of store purchases, this ostensibly means increased purchases for all skirmish consumables like the refund scroll and shorten-command scroll.

On the other hand, I wonder if this could also decrease skirmish instance purchases only because using soldiers for PvE would be 'fresh' content, and perhaps players wouldn't mind running the same few skirmishes over and over for the leveling marks. Or skirmish instance purchases would increase; who knows.

From a purely business point of view, IMO, it would be in Turbine' best interest to tune content this way, whether old or both old and new. Because the skirmish soldier mechanics are already largely in place, development costs shouldn't counteract store revenues terribly. I would predict that the whole "advantage becoming necessary convenience" sweet spot for Turbine will be framed the same way the current Legendary Item system is: Maintain grind and investment levels just annoying enough and the PvE-soldier system 'useful' enough that the mechanics scrolls are constant top sellers.

Oh yay.

You mean that after dying a hundred or so times on the first day on account of your soldier's horrible AI, and after a month having maybe 300 customers left who've made it past level 20 (or whatever level this is going to start at), you think Turbine could lure enough new customers and get them to spend money on the game?

I can't see it, myself. But then, Turbine has never actually had its finger on the pulse. Had it not been for the IF, I might have bought some skirmishes when my subscription expired - I was actually planning to do. Then I realised that buying more content was dumb, since I'd be thrown into Gondamon or Tuck 80% of the time regardless, so what point was there to buying content I'd probably never use?

The idea of having a woefully subpar skirmish pet as a necessity because of difficulty in content (most likely an increase in random landscape mobs, which we already have far too many of and is one of my biggest gripes with gameplay mechanics) does not really induce me to give this company money.

Maybe I'm just weird but I don't think so. Since the whole RoI advertising fiasco, Turbine seems to be going from implementing bad idea to bad idea with record speed.

[LightStorm]

I've got no issue with soldiers being used on the landscape, as long as it is implemented correctly. Having a lvl 75 Loremaster with a farm of pets, and doing skirms, the developers need to sort out why pets/soldiers sometimes just stand there without attacking a target. This is really annoying in the heat of battle to see a pet that was attacking just stop and do nothing as you get pummeled. Also they need to get rid of the cd on soldier direct, and possibly give the player more options for control, or to leave on auto-attack.

I think they have ironed out a lot of pathing issues already, as I haven't had any major issues for a while, except when a pet goes into anti-exploit for no reason at the start of a battle, but seems terrain dependent.

On a separate point, will we see personal mounted soldiers for ROR, I wonder?

[whheydt]

...and possibly give the player more options for control, or to leave on auto-attack.

Sorry...turning every class (willing or not) into a pet class will help the game....how?

--W. H. Heydt

Old Used Programmer

[Armaius]

Sorry...turning every class (willing or not) into a pet class will help the game....how?

--W. H. Heydt

Old Used Programmer

Giving a bar with some very basic commands to keep soldiers from doing something moronic (probably won't stop them completely, but it'll help) will not necessarily turn all the classes into pet classes.

LMs - and to a lesser extent, Cappys (they can skip pets altogether if they choose and use banners instead) - have mechanics that are directly related to their pets. Flanking, for instance, is a fundamental part of playing an LM and has everything to do with the pets they have out. Even with the skirmish soldiers, the other classes do not have those same mechanics. The skirmish soldier is more or less an afterthought for the other classes. The class mechanics don't use pets, and don't require them to be effective. For the other classes to be made into fully fledged pet classes, it would require reworking them from the ground up.

However, we need at least to be able to give soldiers some basic commands. At the very least, the cooldowns for the limited commands - Attack and Summon- need to be eliminated. You do not want to running around doing quests with your skirmish soldier, with the commands now. The only one I would trust with the current commands now is the Herbalist...and she doesn't attack and has no way to attack. She hangs around in the background and heals.

We need at least a few basic commands, or its going to be like running around with Orochwele in Annuminas (which is a pain in the neck as there is literally no way to rein him in and make him stop aggroing everything he sees). Four commands would more than suffice - Stay, Follow, Return to Master and Attack. That's all that's needed. You could even make them skills similar to what we have now for the soldiers.

[whheydt]

Giving a bar with some very basic commands to keep soldiers from doing something moronic (probably won't stop them completely, but it'll help) will not necessarily turn all the classes into pet classes.

Balderdash. Control over the pet is the essence of the difference between a pet class and a non-pet class.

However, we need at least to be able to give soldiers some basic commands.

That would turn them into pets and make all classes into pet classes. I *don't* want a pet. If I wanted to run a pet, I'd be running a bunch of LMs and/or Captains. The skirmish soldiers are barely tolerable because they are almost completely "fire and forget".

We need at least a few basic commands, or its going to be like running around with Orochwele in Annuminas (which is a pain in the neck as there is literally no way to rein him in and make him stop aggroing everything he sees). Four commands would more than suffice - Stay, Follow, Return to Master and Attack. That's all that's needed. You could even make them skills similar to what we have now for the soldiers.

That's an argument against having skirmish soldiers on the landscape more than it is for turning them into pets.

Go read some of the threads where people have suggested adding pets for Hunters to see what quite a few people think of adding pets for currently non-pet-using classes.

--W. H. Heydt

Old Used Programmer

[12qw]

Balderdash. Control over the pet is the essence of the difference between a pet class and a non-pet class.



That would turn them into pets and make all classes into pet classes. I *don't* want a pet. If I wanted to run a pet, I'd be running a bunch of LMs and/or Captains. The skirmish soldiers are barely tolerable because they are almost completely "fire and forget".



That's an argument against having skirmish soldiers on the landscape more than it is for turning them into pets.

Go read some of the threads where people have suggested adding pets for Hunters to see what quite a few people think of adding pets for currently non-pet-using classes.

--W. H. Heydt

Old Used Programmer

I partly agree. Soldiers shouldn't have a stay, or follow command, but a no CD Return to Master (ATM called summon <soldier type>) is crucial. It really is just "fire and forget:" just hit the attack button, and forget about the soldier. Reducing the CD to zero won't make you have control your soldier any more.

[SongSinger]

So what aid on the landscape will us chickens have?

And will mounted combat see chickens on aurochs?

I am sure Sauron will be quaking in his shadows!

Cluck

[Khafar]

Balderdash. Control over the pet is the essence of the difference between a pet class and a non-pet class.

Depends on what's being controlled, and when. Setting a "stance" or other configuration for the pet is fine IMO as long as it never needs to be done during combat. This is how I use the Companion characters in TOR, and it works quite well - I tell my companion to use skills A, B, and C but avoid a couple of others, tell them I want them to focus on Healing me, that sort of thing. Then I just fight, and they play the role I've assigned them -- using the skills I want them to.

There are exactly two buttons I press on my Companion toolbar, and only on occasion:

1. Attack. When playing a DPS class with a tanking Companion, I'll sometimes let them start the fight ahead of me so I can avoid grabbing aggro away from them too early. This is really before the fight starts, so it's "fire and forget" from the point I press the Attack button.
2. Passive. This is more of a convenience, just so I don't have to revive my companion. If I'm running away from something I've aggroed, my Companion will often stay behind to fight. Sometimes I don't want that, so I'll force them into Passive mode for a handful of seconds. When pursuit stops, I turn this back off again.

Neither of those really makes it feel like a "pet class" to me. What does is when I need to actively manage the pet during combat. I don't enjoy that, which is one reason I don't play LMs or Captains here either.

LOTRO's skirmish soldiers can basically do that too, although they seem to be inferior in terms of both pathing AI and combat AI (in my opinion). Improve both of those, and I don't think it would be all that bad -- as long as they don't wind up causing too much server lag.

Khafar

[Nyrion]

I've missed what I'm sure has been a riveting discussion so far, but as Sapience has hinted Bullroarer will be coming up Soon(tm), and as The Great River will be the first zone to feature the use of landscape soldiers, I think it will settle the debate over whether they will be *needed* to quest(something I found unlikely, considering how high they would have to lift the difficulty over what it is now) with some finality.

[Bonomir]

I'm cautiously optimistic. I'd really like to know if this feature includes activating our "Personal Traits" when we bring out our soldiers, as that could be very advantageous for more dynamic traiting options for our toons. My caution though, applies to control over soldiers running crazy over the landscape, doing who knows what to our positions. Therefore, (long recommendations to follow), I see a need to do something to refine our control, without greatly impacting the user interface (or requiring more quickslots). I would like to see something like this for issues on additional controls for the soldiers:

The skirmish horn already has logic in place that recognizes 3 states, based on: a) a hostile target is selected (attack); b) no target selected (return error message: no target selected); and, c) self (or friendly) selected (return error message:cannot harm self). So, the logic is already encoded in game to seperate control for the 3 states. All that would be needed is to implement the control modules to take actions (and two of them already exist in game; "Attack Target" and the LM's "Return to Master" command).

As A&B are already in game; that leaves a new module for C, which could be done up in a very interesting fashion, dependent on the soldier type. So, in real practice, we already have a "rough" 3 state finite state machine (FSM) in place (but 2 of the states are ruled as error conditions today, and its clear a fork handler is behind the Skirmish Horn, which waits for an On-Click event to "wake up" and do its thing).

For state C, I would propose the soldier began either focus healing the friendly target (herbalist), or, for all other soldiers, goes into pure defensive mode to protect the target (no wandering off stirring up that nest of hostile, elite crabans over there, pal. Stay on the target's 6 (archers and sages) or 12 (bannerguards, warriors, protectors), and defend). That would be a nice improvement over what happens now. As it would probably be too much to ask to apply skill target forwarding, error logic would be needed if a hostile target was inadvertantly selected (but skill target forwarding would be the bomb).

Say I'm a caster in the Battle of the Tower skirmish; and I have a protector named Booger, a dwarven defender extraordinaire. While running up the stairs to the next encounter, Booger decides to wander off and check out the ancient frescos on the walls, standing an inch from them trying to decipher the ancient runic language. "Where the heck are you Booger? Get your old dwarven rump up here now!". Just blow the horn, while still running forward, with no target selected, and whoa! There's Booger, right there. (Return to Master).

Or, you pull the Gondamon skirmish for the 3rd straight time, and while on the south gate, a Blood Rook, a final encounter boss, and a big pack of dourhands pop. Booger, noticing something in the distance, runs out onto the road, hops up on the wall, and exclaims; "Whoa! I can see the gate to Rath Terag! It's right over there, boss. Come and look." "BOOGER!!!!!" Instead of arguing with Booger over the merits of sightseeing while in the presense of an enraged Blood Rook and that axe-throwing final encounter boss; just hit F1, and blow the horn to bring Booger back to his senses and into the fray. (Defend Target). Then, once you establish some control over the chaos, target the encounter boss, blow the horn, and put Booger to work occupying that guy, while you eliminate the rook. (Attack Target). (think how nice it would be in the Defense of the Prancing Pony to root Booger on the Second Watcher while you run out to deal with the torch-bearers, where the only thing Booger is good at is inadvertantly pulling the encounter bosses, sometimes 2 of them at once! Especially, the crow and orc on the southside).

The last thing needed would be to lower the skirmish horn CD making it more practical to account for the frequency of current mishaps or irregularities with soldier behavior. So, one new action module, duplicate and alter the existing LM "Return to Master" command, and lower the horn CD. BOOM! Done.

All things considered, that's a molehill, not a mountain; as it would have next to no impact on the user interface or further increase the need for more quickslots. (the hardest logic would be changing the soldier's "root", from yourself to an independent friendly target, which now appears to blindly default to the player's PC).

(note: if they allow the "Personal Traits" to come into play, I would really like the option to target inanimate objects for our soldiers. "OK, Booger, here's the deal. We need you to go defend that tree stump over there, and don't do something stupid, like get yourself killed. Got it? Oh yeah, watch out for bees, and good luck").

[Mark_J]

I'd like to know more about this (haven't read the whole thread so please let me know if this has already been addressed);

Skirmish soldiers can be summoned on landscape, restricted to areas outside of high-population zones. Landscape soldier tokens provide one hour of soldier time. This does not apply to your skirmish soldier while it is in a skirmish (skirmish functionality is unchanged). Full details will be included in an upcoming developer diary

Tokens? How does one obtain the tokens it is going to take for a one hour landscape skirmish soldier session?

[Hecki]

Found in the german forum:

Hallo Zusammen bin grad am beta testen und bin auf was schönes gestoßen



Also der Mützler wird Richtig teuer 1 Stunde kostet 100 TP

in english: 1 hour=100 TP

or in skirmish

Stufe 20-45 175 Marken+10 Medaillon pro Stunde
Stufe 46-70 500 Marken+25 Medaillon pro Stunde
Stufe 71-95 1500 Marken+75 Medaillon pro Stunde