Reported Quest Difficulty Levels and Recommendations

[OldMadeOfLions]

Hi everybody! You know what everybody likes? Everybody likes when the level of a quest and the number of people you need to complete it as reported in the Quest Journal are... I don't know... accurate. Bringing five friends when you only needed to bring two, or bringing no one when you should have brought five... that's not so much fun.

This is where you come in! It would be really great if you could use this post to report instances like this; that way, we can revise the reported challenge level of a quest so it reflects the actual level you would need to be to complete it. Also, if you complete a quest and think the Recommendation is incorrect, use this thread to make that observation as well. Here's a format that should work:

QUEST: Name of the quest
CATEGORY: What category does the quest appear under in your Journal?
JOURNAL LEVEL: The level of the quest in the Quest Journal
JOURNAL ICON: Solo, Small Fellowship, Fellowship, Raid
ACTUAL LEVEL: What level do you think the quest should *actually* be?
ACTUAL ICON: What icon do you think the quest should *actually* be?
REASONS: Why do you think the Actual Level or Actual Icon should be as you've recommended? Include any info here that you think might be relevant, such as the levels of the monsters involved or between you and your objective, the number and classes of people in your Fellowship, anything like that.

This way, there will be one convenient place where we can monitor such inconsistencies and work toward that beautiful future: when players will once again trust their Quest Journals not to lead them astray. Rosy, I know... but with your help we can get there!

MoL

[Zerrius]

QUEST: The Silent Judge
CATEGORY: Angmar
JOURNAL LEVEL: 44
JOURNAL ICON: Solo
ACTUAL LEVEL: 44 is fine
ACTUAL ICON: Small Fellowship
REASONS: The Silent Judge is a signature mob with 2 normal mob adds, one of which heals. Pretty impossible to take on solo. A group of 3 works pretty well. Also just getting to the judge has you taking out spawns of 2 or 3 normal mobs on a fairly quick (3 minute?) respawn timer. If you are solo I doubt you can move fast enough to progress through the city he is in. There is also a level 45 elite who spawns ally spiders that attack you. He is pretty much death for any solo player or even a small fellowship without healing. However due to the way he paths through the city he can be avoided, so I'll stick with a small fellowship recommendation for this one.



QUEST: Mistress of Shadows
CATEGORY: Angmar
JOURNAL LEVEL: 43
JOURNAL ICON: Small Fellowship
ACTUAL LEVEL: 43 is fine
ACTUAL ICON: Full Fellowship
REASONS: The Mistress of Shadows is an elite who also has 2 signature mobs that added during the fight (at least when my group attempted her). In my opinion a group of 3 level 43s would probably not have a chance. This is pretty much a healer required quest due to the amount of mobs in the last encounter so I think this should not be marked as small fellowship.

[BuckleBelt]

Great Idea.

edit:
Nevermind what I said, I just realized you can list completed quests



QUEST: Adelard's Chapter
CATEGORY: Shire
JOURNAL LEVEL: 7
JOURNAL ICON: Solo
ACTUAL LEVEL: 9
ACTUAL ICON: solo
REASONS: Its a running joke that people suffer their first death (including me) in MD doing that quest where the bee hive falls, you fight bees, then before you can recover you fight bears. A few levels later I did it solo, a good fight. Used a potion and my burglar heal ability.

At the level you get the quest you need 2 people.

Options: Solo level 9-10
Or: Small fellow 7-8

[Atreides]

QUEST: Mistress of Shadows
CATEGORY: Angmar
JOURNAL LEVEL: 43
JOURNAL ICON: Small Fellowship
ACTUAL LEVEL: 43 is fine
ACTUAL ICON: Full Fellowship
REASONS: The Mistress of Shadows is an elite who also has 2 signature mobs that added during the fight (at least when my group attempted her). In my opinion a group of 3 level 43s would probably not have a chance. This is pretty much a healer required quest due to the amount of mobs in the last encounter so I think this should not be marked as small fellowship.

My only disagreement is with this one. I completed it as a level 42 LRM working with a 42 burglar and a 43 champion. It wasn't a cakewalk but it wasn't over our heads either and we didn't need a minstrel. If anything was going to be done to the advice I would probably go 44/small fellow first before I went 43/full fellow.

[Luindir]

Hi everybody! You know what everybody likes? Everybody likes when the level of a quest and the number of people you need to complete it as reported in the Quest Journal are... I don't know...

You know, this is an awefully inefficient way to gather information for a process (getting feedback on quest level appropriateness) that will/should continue through the life of the game - given that we'll always see new quests, expansions, and even changes to how it works by way of class and combat adjustments, weapon and armor adjustments, pet adjustments, food, etc. all the things that make "Quest Level Appropriateness" a moving target.

Here's an idea to kill this bird once and for all.

-------------------------------------------------
Concept: Quest Log - Quest Feedback

Front Office: Quest log continues to show the quest dialogue, the quest objectives, and the quest rewards, and a new section at the bottom that allows the player to click (optionally) on a scale of 1-to-5 on whether the quest level was just right (a "3") or way too easy, or way too hard.

Back Office: Devs get a recurring report, automatically generated, that shows running stats on quests and percentages of responses that fall in the 1-to-5 ratings each by quest name, that filters and elevates those quests whose majority of responses do not fall in the bell curve. This system would apply just as easily to quests today, to quests as the game mechanics are tweaked in the future, and for new quests that are introduced later or by expansion.

Summary: Need it. This will provide an ongoing tool and feedback mechanism that persists into the future, and so we don't have to do what gracious Zerrius did at the top of the page, in a one-off exercise that is really needed on an ongoing basis. Not talking about the intrusive process we had in beta where a survey form would pop up on the screen, but one that's baked right into the quest log item, and if we have feedback to offer, its right there to offer it, and you guys have all the data fields you're looking for automatically populated back office for your use - accurately.

[Delphar7]

Here's an idea to kill this bird once and for all.

-------------------------------------------------
Concept: Quest Log - Quest Feedback

For The Love of Pastafarians! Yes!

I know dev time is precious - but you can't tell me this wouldn't be a time saver both for us and for Turbine in the long run!

[skadoink]

QUEST: Addie's Missing Sons
CATEGORY: Breeland
JOURNAL LEVEL: 16
JOURNAL ICON: Fellowship
ACTUAL LEVEL: 15/16
ACTUAL ICON: Solo
REASONS: You don't actually have to fight anyone to get this quest done, the 2nd part, finding Malin, sure needs a full fellowship unless you've got higher than required levels. But the first part just needs you to be reasonably confident to enter the barrow downs, avoid fights, and find the Perch.

[Zeph]

Many of the East Angmar quests need an adjustment. An example from the top of my head.

QUEST: Counting the clutch
CATEGORY: Angmar
JOURNAL LEVEL: 49
JOURNAL ICON: Solo
ACTUAL LEVEL: 47
ACTUAL ICON: Small Fellow
REASONS: The goal is to click on six egg nests, but you have to fight through numberous 47 and 48 elite drakes. If you are careful you can take them one at a time so only a small fellow is needed.

A lot of issue is that if a quest only requires single elites they can usually be duoed or so fairly easily depending on your duo. Once a quest starts to require multiple elite pulls it becomes a full fellowship quest. Even a non-elite quest can become a small fellow quest in reality when you start to get three plus non elites in a pull.

I am assuming the Actual Level should be the approximate level of the mobs in the area that need to be defeated, that level in itself can change the fellowship size.

[OldMadeOfLions]

Luindir - this is less for continual feedback going forward, as we're in a much better position to have this information be accurate the first time. This format is really the best way to get the information we need to correct the *existing* problems. Plus, instead of having to implement new tech, send it out to the servers, and sort through lots of potentially duplicate information, we get it all in one place.

It's not as fancy, but I'd argue that it's more efficient, rather than less: I can take the data from a single forum post and fix one or two quests a day, instead of waiting for information on dozens of quests to make it through the pipeline and land in my lap all at once, at a time when I almost certainly already have too much to do.

MoL

[LetoAtreidesII]

QUEST: The Silent Judge
CATEGORY: Angmar
JOURNAL LEVEL: 44
JOURNAL ICON: Solo
ACTUAL LEVEL: 44 is fine
ACTUAL ICON: Small Fellowship
REASONS: The Silent Judge is a signature mob with 2 normal mob adds, one of which heals. Pretty impossible to take on solo. A group of 3 works pretty well. Also just getting to the judge has you taking out spawns of 2 or 3 normal mobs on a fairly quick (3 minute?) respawn timer. If you are solo I doubt you can move fast enough to progress through the city he is in. There is also a level 45 elite who spawns ally spiders that attack you. He is pretty much death for any solo player or even a small fellowship without healing. However due to the way he paths through the city he can be avoided, so I'll stick with a small fellowship recommendation for this one.

This is actually soloable - it is far from impossible to solo. I managed it at level 45 and so did a friend. A burglar would probably have an easier time soloing it than a champion even. Some classes, like minstrels and guardians, though, probably couldn't solo it, so a small fellowship icon might not be a bad idea.

[LetoAtreidesII]

QUEST: A Tenuous Thread
CATEGORY: Angmar
JOURNAL LEVEL: 50
JOURNAL ICON: Solo
ACTUAL LEVEL: 50
ACTUAL ICON: Small Fellowship
REASONS: The mobs you need to kill for this quest are all elites close to level 50.

[cmdrslack]

QUEST: Retake Weathertop
CATEGORY: Lone Lands
JOURNAL LEVEL: 20
JOURNAL ICON: Fellowship
ACTUAL LEVEL: 25+
ACTUAL ICON: Full Fellowship
REASONS: The final fight is insane. Overall, it's rather tough, but this is one of those quests that really reinforces "holy trinity" gameplay...to the point of people feeling classes are required for healing AND power regen. I've yet to find a good fellowship to complete this one...the final fight ends up sending people off to solo after the first few wipes.

[Warhawke]

QUEST: Retake Weathertop
CATEGORY: Lone Lands
JOURNAL LEVEL: 20
JOURNAL ICON: Fellowship
ACTUAL LEVEL: 25+
ACTUAL ICON: Full Fellowship
REASONS: The final fight is insane. Overall, it's rather tough, but this is one of those quests that really reinforces "holy trinity" gameplay...to the point of people feeling classes are required for healing AND power regen. I've yet to find a good fellowship to complete this one...the final fight ends up sending people off to solo after the first few wipes.

Completed this with a felowship of 4 all level 20-24, two minstrels, a champion and a burgler. It was hard but we managed it, that said we had failed when we'd gone with a guardian instead of the champion. We were also using voice and have played together for a few years so all that helped.

[BCOProwler]

Completed with a fellowship of 21-23, comprising of guardian, minstrel, champion, captain and hunter.

Everyone ran out of power quickly on the final boss, we ended killing the *spoiler*




additional troll with no power and somehow survived.

This quest is definitely underleveled by at least one level. For general gaming population and skill purposes I would make it a level 22-23 full fellowship quest.

[Capt_Justice]

QUEST: Retake Weathertop
CATEGORY: Lone Lands
JOURNAL LEVEL: 20
JOURNAL ICON: Fellowship
ACTUAL LEVEL: 25+
ACTUAL ICON: Full Fellowship
REASONS: The final fight is insane. Overall, it's rather tough, but this is one of those quests that really reinforces "holy trinity" gameplay...to the point of people feeling classes are required for healing AND power regen. I've yet to find a good fellowship to complete this one...the final fight ends up sending people off to solo after the first few wipes.

Agreed

As another poster stated, it can be easier when working well as a team, but since most might have to look for a fellowship to do it with less organization, I would definitely recommend increasing the Level based on others with the same difficulty.....24-25.

Also, I think for feedback there will be a variance due to groups that are used to playing together as opposed to ones that just fellow to complete a quest. I would say the latter is a lot more common.

[mipearson]

Re: Retake Weathertop

Seconded that this is a lvl 25 Fellowship quest.

The way that you're locked out of the instance if you have to retreat after a certain time makes it much more difficult. I think that while this adds another dimension to the quest, making the reward a little better would be nice.

They'll probably eventually fix the pathing bug on the second major boss, which will make the battle even harder.

[Pricia]

QUEST: Master of the Black Tide
CATEGORY: Lone Lands
JOURNAL LEVEL: 35
JOURNAL ICON: Fellowship
ACTUAL LEVEL: 37+
ACTUAL ICON: Fellowship
REASONS: I think the level needs to be changed for this quest. Just way too hard to keep everything cleared with a level 35 group.

QUEST: The Silent Judge
CATEGORY: Angmar
JOURNAL LEVEL: 44
JOURNAL ICON: Solo
ACTUAL LEVEL: 44
ACTUAL ICON: Small Fellowship
REASONS: Some classes might be able to solo it, others might not. As a minstrel, I can't see for the life of me how I could have done it solo.

I know there's way more, but I can't remember what the journal said at the time...

[ironwill96]

Hate to repeat what others have said, but Retake Weathertop DEFINITELY needs to be fixed. I also bug reported that the Journal icon and the Quest Icon levels don't seem to match. Journal Icon shows it as level 20 (at the time I was 22 so it showed as blue to me) but the quest text showed as Orange as if it was higher than me.

We did it with 3 Level 22's and got through the first boss but the second one wiped us completely. It is unreasonable for a level 20 instance to have a Level 22 Elite Master with 9000 HP followed by a level 23 Nemesis (the first time most people will meet a monster of this level!) with 13500 HP! Add to that the not being able to get back in to rejoin your party if you are defeated and this quest is terribly underleveled for what it is listed as.

Edited to fix terms!

[Gareth420]

Probably would be better rather than debating and bragging about how you soloed a lvl 20 fellowship quest to just do what the dev asked and take the debate to another thread.

[Capt_Justice]

...Hate to repeat what others have said...

I think that is what the Devs want to see. Confirmation on another's observations.

Probably would be better rather than debating and bragging about how you soloed a lvl 20 fellowship quest to just do what the dev asked and take the debate to another thread.

Yep, and when thinking about what should be considered solo or small fellowship, try to remember that if there was no one else around, would you have been able to solo the quest otherwise or not ? I know there are some very early quests that its not possible to lure/pull a creature without 2-3 of them attacking you. So, many just waited to get in a temp fellow or ran in and grabbed an item after others already initiated or cleared a mob(s).

REASONS: Some classes might be able to solo it, others might not. As a minstrel, I can't see for the life of me how I could have done it solo.

This is actually soloable - it is far from impossible to solo. I managed it at level 45 and so did a friend. A burglar would probably have an easier time soloing it than a champion even. Some classes, like minstrels and guardians, though, probably couldn't solo it, so a small fellowship icon might not be a bad idea.

Also, when considering if a quest should be listed as solo or small fellowship, most of the time it should be based on the least strongest class for that given situation. In most cases it is better to be relieved that you tried and succeeded at soloing a small fellowship quest than it is trying to solo a quest and repeatedly fail, having to give up and ask for help for a non-fellowship quest.

I have no doubt that there are some that with the right class can find a way to solo almost anything other than the obvious full fellowship quests, and then there are others that can't fight there way out of a box. But the real question is how will the 'average' player fair with the quest.

My only disagreement is with this one. I completed it as a level 42 LRM working with a 42 burglar and a 43 champion. It wasn't a cakewalk but it wasn't over our heads either and we didn't need a minstrel. If anything was going to be done to the advice I would probably go 44/small fellow first before I went 43/full fellow.

Then the quest level should probably be changed to 44 or 45.

[DarkChyle]

QUEST: Ivar the Blood Hand
CATEGORY: Lone Lands
JOURNAL LEVEL: 34
JOURNAL ICON: Fellowship
ACTUAL LEVEL: 38 if you like a BIG challenge 40 for a 50/50 chance with an unbalanced group.
ACTUAL ICON: Fellowship. Raid if you do it at 34
REASONS: The Level should be upped because at level 34 getting the key to get to the area with Ivar is a challenge and Ivar even if you do take out his banner guys is still a long hard fight. Since he respawns them and his minions. If you don't have a way to either DPS him down quick while at the same time a way to regen power there is no way you'll complete this quest even at level 38+. At level 34 even with a balanced group its more luck then anything if you take him down.

Also the Reclaim The Lost Maid quest you would want to up the Level on that one (35 fellowship) since you do need to kill Ivar to get the key to get to the Red Maid. That quest should be level 40 fellowship.

[cliffjeff]

I have to agree that Ivar is much harder than 34 =p

here's my additions:

QUEST: Master of the Black Tide (and most other Dol Dinen quests)
CATEGORY: North Downs
JOURNAL LEVEL: 35
JOURNAL ICON: Fellowship
ACTUAL LEVEL: 37ish
ACTUAL ICON: Full Fellowship
REASONS: Well, this is about Master of the Black Tide partly, but applies to most if not all Dol Dinen quests. That place is incredibly frustrating and made me take several days off of the game. The respawns are incredibly fast - the first thing I would do is tone that down. If the respawns were twice as long, the place would still be challenging (and tedious). Second, or alternately, I'd replace about half the elites with non-elites or signatures. The place would still be challenging if this were the case. Third, for this particular quest, I would definitely give some sort of warning in the quest text about how aggroing the boss aggroes the whole tent. It is incredibly cruel to have a group of level 35+ players spend an hour or more clearing to that tent, just to wipe because they didn't know they had to clear the whole boss' room before killing the boss...

also, while I have your attention ;p these quests are considered annoying to the point of jokehood among players:

killing wolves in the Old Forest. There's simply not enough of them, and they're too spread out.

norbog killing in the lone lands. Rare spawns that rarely drop the quest item. Took about 3 hours for 2 of us to finish it.

snapper soup. I never did this one myself, but I hear the snappers are really rare...

[gildhur]

We did it with 3 Level 22's and got through the first boss but the second one wiped us completely. It is unreasonable for a level 20 instance to have a Signature Level 22 Elite with 9000 HP followed by a level 23 elite with 13500 HP! Add to that the not being able to get back in to rejoin your party if you are defeated and this quest is terribly underleveled for what it is listed as.

Actually, Rigul the uruk boss is an Elite Master and the Mountain-Troll is a Nemesis. They're much stronger than Elites. Neither one is Signature. I think you're confusing the terms here. Named does not mean Signature. The progression of solo to group to raid stat is: Swarm, Normal, Signature, Elite, Elite Master, Nemesis, Arch Nemesis.

[Hijynx]

Hate to repeat what others have said, but Retake Weathertop DEFINITELY needs to be fixed. I also bug reported that the Journal icon and the Quest Icon levels don't seem to match. Journal Icon shows it as level 20 (at the time I was 22 so it showed as blue to me) but the quest text showed as Orange as if it was higher than me.

We did it with 3 Level 22's and got through the first boss but the second one wiped us completely. It is unreasonable for a level 20 instance to have a Signature Level 22 Elite with 9000 HP followed by a level 23 elite with 13500 HP! Add to that the not being able to get back in to rejoin your party if you are defeated and this quest is terribly underleveled for what it is listed as.

I didn't notice any difference between the quest text and quest journal. They matched for both of my characters.

I agree that Retake Weathertop is definately not a level 20 quest. It should probably be a level 22-23. The first time I completed it as a level 25 and it was very easy. We didn't use the pathing bug, my guard held the Troll's aggro the entire time, and no one was defeated (except the troll, of course). The second and third time (just because it's fun), I was at level 23 (hunter), we used the pathing bug, and it was still a good challenge. Of course, my PUG was a little unbalanced. A balanced group of 22-23's should be able to handle it after the pathing bug is fixed.

[Greyshot]

Re: Weathertop

Have to agree that this one needs the level recommendation boosted slightly. Mostly due to the fact of not being able to rejoin the mission even if the entire team wipes. Perhaps some kind of key that transports you just inside the last gate if you have made it that far would be appropriate. I'm not sure a full fellowship is required. It does require careful planning and cooperation, but that's a very good thing.

This is an example of an excellent mission that just needs some minor tweaking. I wish there were many more like this. The surprise at the end, despite the team wipe it caused, was probably my favorite moment of the game to date.