Dev Diary Feedback: SoM Skirmishes: Randomization and Scaling

[TurbineCommunity]

Brian “Zombie Columbus” continues his series of developer diaries about the new Skirmish system coming in The Lord of the Rings Online™: Siege of Mirkwood™ with Part 3: Randomization and Scaling.

Read more about the Skirmish system and post your comments here!

[Drarin]

The more I read about these skirmishes, the more they sound like DDO

[redviolin06]

Sounds like a lot of fun!

One questioned that may have been previously answered, but I missed it if it was:

How often is each skirmish repeatable? I assume there is some sort of cool down. Do we know yet?

[Jadzi]

How often is each skirmish repeatable? I assume there is some sort of cool down. Do we know yet?

I don't think it's been explicitly stated. However, it has been said they're intended to be 'popcorn' instances, enjoyable things you can pop one after another. I'd assume that means little to no cooldown.

[jwbarry]

Sounds like a lot of fun!

One questioned that may have been previously answered, but I missed it if it was:

How often is each skirmish repeatable? I assume there is some sort of cool down. Do we know yet?

They do obey the 5 instances per hour limitation currently in the game.

Each does have a daily quest associated with it that provides an extra incentive and bonus for running each skirmish every day and cycling through them instead of hammering the same one over and over.

That being said, there is no specific or unique timer or cool down to any of the individual skirmish spaces. They can each be played as frequently as you would like.

[Hyetal]

Man, I'm so psyched. Skirmishes sound so damn cool. I know they're supposed to be complementary and all that, but I see myself spending all of my LOTRO time in them once SOM goes live. >D And of course, the first thing I'm gonna do is jump into a 12-man on the hardest difficulty solo. Once I can get THAT down, everything else should be a cakewalk. ;D

[cicdle]

Man, I'm so psyched. Skirmishes sound so damn cool. I know they're supposed to be complementary and all that, but I see myself spending all of my LOTRO time in them once SOM goes live. >D And of course, the first thing I'm gonna do is jump into a 12-man on the hardest difficulty solo. Once I can get THAT down, everything else should be a cakewalk. ;D

I am so with you on that. With just 5 levels and 1 book worth of new content, I should have that done in a month on my two main toons. After that, I am going to have fun in skirmishes in between instance runs with the kin. In fact, I can't wait to build more adhoc group for skirmishes. Only have 3 peeps, no problem; only have 6, no problem; TV died and there are 12, no problem. Instance too easy, crank it up. Tired of this one, switch instances same rewards.

[KainXI]

These sound like they are going to easily be the best addition to the expansion. I'm very psyched about them

[Dalthyn]

When I read the words "rogue-like" in this diary, I smiled. I've been wanting some dynamic content like this for a while, and rogue, nethack, angband etc, are exactly why I've always wanted it.

I can't imagine it will be QUITE as randomized as those games, being as it's a lot harder to generate MMO content on the fly than it is to render a random dungeon where your character's represented by an '@', and you can kill a nasty, evil 'N' and have it drop a '!'. Heh.

To know the devs are at least somewhat inspired by these games is awesome though, and definitely has me more excited about this content.

[NotYetMeasured]

What character levels are the skirmishes going to be for?

I think I saw something a while back that said you could start at 30 or so? So does that mean that every single one will be scalable from 30-65 or are there some limitations?


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[justiceoc]

sounds cool, thumbs up.

I am really looking forward to these mini 12 man raids, if you will.

Getting really geeked for December to roll around.

[jwbarry]

What character levels are the skirmishes going to be for?

I think I saw something a while back that said you could start at 30 or so? So does that mean that every single one will be scalable from 30-65 or are there some limitations?


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They system opens at level 30, with the tutorials and a few skirmishes being available. New skirmishes open up every 5 or so levels.

Currently all skirmishes scale to cap.

[Russano]

They system opens at level 30, with the tutorials and a few skirmishes being available. New skirmishes open up every 5 or so levels.

Currently all skirmishes scale to cap.

So at least some of the the skirmishes will be available outside of Mirkwood*? That's encouraging!

-R

(*The region Mirkwood, that is; you'd still presumably need SoM to access them.)

[NotYetMeasured]

They system opens at level 30, with the tutorials and a few skirmishes being available. New skirmishes open up every 5 or so levels.

Currently all skirmishes scale to cap.

Thanks for the definitive answer!

Interesting! I wonder: will there be a benefit for capped characters to starting at 30 and hitting them all (beyond enjoying the content), or would they do just as well to go straight to "end-game" skirmishes once they've learned how it all works. I suppose if they all scale to cap then every skirmish is an "end-game" skirmish.


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[gildhur]

I suppose if they all scale to cap then every skirmish is an "end-game" skirmish.

This. Since you can make any skirmish your level, it's a HUGE addition to end-game content.

[tmccarthy]

I have one concern with the new skirmish system. Could it become so popular (or leveling efficient) that we end up with a large segment of the population doing nothing but skirmishes? Perhaps this wont occur with the cap on how many skirmishes you can run in an hour. I would just hate to see middle earth depopulated because everyone is running skirmishes.

Any thoughts?

[anwar]

Gonna love these skirmishes, my only concerns are:

"Second, in the interests of balance we have only implemented solo, small fellowship, fellowship, and 12 man raid sizes for Skirmishes. This means when you select size, you can only select 1, 3, 6 or 12."

Probably too late of course...it's always too late by the time we hear of stuff..but what the hell...

1. Judging by the difficulty of current 3 mans, I doubt any normal or casual couple will be able to do these, regardless of difficulty sliders and couples ARE the most popular group size in the general world. I see no reason not to include 2 as a choice..perhaps using the "1" model, but on a higher difficulty.

2. I would recommend having the starting places for these instances IN the general world in areas close to 2nd step newbie areas (instead of totally outside the general world), so new players will see some other players in their worlds at level 10 or so, just so the world doesn't appear empty of players to them.

Other than that, looks good, I may be almost totally into 2-mans and not a "leet" player so I won't use them much, but I think many will really enjoy them.

[doofendra]

I have one concern with the new skirmish system. Could it become so popular (or leveling efficient) that we end up with a large segment of the population doing nothing but skirmishes? Perhaps this wont occur with the cap on how many skirmishes you can run in an hour. I would just hate to see middle earth depopulated because everyone is running skirmishes.

Any thoughts?

I was planning on lvling my 35 burg solely on skirmishes...but i would like to know if you can gey XP from them

[Redrider.]

The skirmish system sounded like a novel idea but now I have some concerns. Mostly because of the dreaded word "randomization" that headlined the dev diary.

After playing MoM with the LI RNG... for myself at least, this word has a lot of negative connotations associated with it. I will reserve opinions after people try it out and we actually see it in practise though.

[Artanisul]

The skirmish system sounded like a novel idea but now I have some concerns. Mostly because of the dreaded word "randomization" that headlined the dev diary.

After playing MoM with the LI RNG... for myself at least, this word has a lot of negative connotations associated with it. I will reserve opinions after people try it out and we actually see it in practise though.

What random aspect could be a negative to you? This is just an honest question, not trying to be snarky. The one I see off the bat was mentioned in the Diary, Elite wolf behind a tent.

[Hakon_Stormbrow]

This sounds awsome! Instances should be designed like this to enhance replayability.

And the ability to run it siolo is priceless. Finally something to do when its not raid night and nobody is around. (hopefully there are rewards which will allow you to continue developing your charater).

[Jadzi]

The skirmish system sounded like a novel idea but now I have some concerns. Mostly because of the dreaded word "randomization" that headlined the dev diary.

After playing MoM with the LI RNG... for myself at least, this word has a lot of negative connotations associated with it. I will reserve opinions after people try it out and we actually see it in practise though.

Let me see.

Spawns of monsters will usually be in the same general places to keep playthroughs moderately consistent, but each time through will have its own variety.

Lieutenants have a chance to show up with any group of monsters in any Skirmish.

What this basically means (at least to me) is that each skirmish will have set places where mobs will spawn or come from. Each time, you get a randomly selected group, with a Lieutenant every so often. Some groups will probably be harder than others, but I doubt it'll be as bad as the randomization of say... II.5.5.

2. I would recommend having the starting places for these instances IN the general world in areas close to 2nd step newbie areas (instead of totally outside the general world), so new players will see some other players in their worlds at level 10 or so, just so the world doesn't appear empty of players to them.

With Skirmishes though, the Reflecting Pool is not needed; the new Skirmish-join UI will be all you need.

If it's UI-based, we may not need a starting location at all.

[ShinryuLOTR]

All sounding excellent so far, and could well be the best part of the xpac (certainly the most lasting in any case).

What I'm curious about, and it may have been touched on somewhere else and it's completely slipped my mind, is how the skirmishes will react to players of different xp levels. If I, at level 55, wanted to bring in 2 level 37 friends, 2 level 40 friends and a level 65 friend how would that work? Would the skirmish default to my level (55), to the top level in the group (65), to an average level, etc.?

[ShinryuLOTR]

If it's UI-based, we may not need a starting location at all.

True, but if there are associated quest givers as stated in the journal these can be located in quality locations. Even if we don't have to do skirmishes + quests I'm sure many will try to do just that if the rewards are worthwhile.

[jwbarry]

All sounding excellent so far, and could well be the best part of the xpac (certainly the most lasting in any case).

What I'm curious about, and it may have been touched on somewhere else and it's completely slipped my mind, is how the skirmishes will react to players of different xp levels. If I, at level 55, wanted to bring in 2 level 37 friends, 2 level 40 friends and a level 65 friend how would that work? Would the skirmish default to my level (55), to the top level in the group (65), to an average level, etc.?

When you create the skirmish through Skirmish Join you select the level you want it to be at.