An Unfortunate Consequence of Solo-Only Quests

[Tiempko]

I purchased LOTRO when it was first released as an anniversary present for my wife - something we could do together. We spent over three years enjoying our journey through middle earth together. If, on Landroval, you saw a pair of hobbits walking their way casually through their adventures, it was probably us.

About six months ago she lost interest I the game. I waited for her to come back to the game, but she hasn't. With Isengard coming out I decided I wanted to finish up the Level 65 regions before they turned a dull gray.

I got into the Wild Huntsman quest chain in Enedwaith. I thought, "This is so cool. I wish my wife was with me she would love this."

But then I opened up a whole set of quests near the end that said, "You can't share these with a spouse. You can only do these solo."

We have run into this over and over again recently. Even on the main story line, we run into quests that we MUST do solo. I get through easily enough, but she experiences repeated death and frustration. Each time I coax her not the game, we encounter another one of these dead ends.

Which really has become the heart of the problem. There's nothing that we can enjoy together anymore. As soon as something gets interesting, we are told that we must split up, and she gets the anger and frustration of having to deal with things by herself.

As a result, I can't get her into the game any more.

If Isengard has more of these quests . . . I doubt that we will continue to explore very much. She gets frustrated . . . and I'm not enjoying the world nearly as much when I can't share my discoveries with her.

I thought you might want to know.

[Runesi_EU]

I'm sorry to hear that.

I've personally never understood the reason to force anyone to do these quests solo. Yes doing them with friends would probably make them insanly easy but isn't that the choice of the participants?

[Tallia]

sorry to say, I agree with the OP.
I play a lot with my partner, and there is nothing less annoying then the solo quests and getting frustrated if one does succeed and the other doesn't. For both.

why force people to solo these days? whats wrong with teaming-up? making the game easy (like it is now) result in the leaving of the older players. forcing them to play solo aswell.
if I want to solo a game, i take a single person game. and not joining a mmo

[Koomaster]

Yeah, this happens to my friends and I. We will be jamming along on a questline when suddenly 'solo-only'. For story-related vignettes I totally get that. It's more special when your character gets a one-on-one convo with an important NPC. But for stuff that's just fighting, it's hard to not not feel let down we are not sharing in the fight together. Plus like you mentioned, if someone in our group has trouble with the quest, we are all held up and it can be frustrating both to them and us.

[OldMadeOfLions]

I've been trying to keep the number of 'You Must Do These Solo' quests in the Epic line to a minimum in recent Books (there's only one in Volume III Book 3, for instance, and that's a sessionplay), but Rise of Isengard is going to have some. There are sometimes cases where we need to know you're the only person in the instance for story and gameplay reasons, but the bar for doing it is higher these days than it used to be.

MoL

[ashesofatrocity]

Yes i agree as well. I run into this prob when playing with my son. We will plowing through a ton of quests and then BAMMMM!!! You have to do this solo. The only thing I can think of as to why they do this is so they dont have to scale the quest for single and multiple players? Which im guessing gets rid of decent chunk of extra work.

[Rouven]

(...) There are sometimes cases where we need to know you're the only person in the instance for story and gameplay reasons, but the bar for doing it is higher these days than it used to be.

MoL

Could you elaborate a bit more on this part? Gameplay I think I understand, aka difficulty of the encounter - but story?

What do you mean by "the bar for doing it (forced solo quest?) is higher these days"?

[Roberto_the_First]

What do you mean by "the bar for doing it (forced solo quest?) is higher these days"?

i interpreted that as meaning that there needs to be a more compelling stronger reason for doing it. At least that's what 'raising the bar' means to me.

[BellusDuFenna]

My wife and I play LOTRO together, and we came up with a solution to these solo-only situations: I park my character and go sit with my wife, and cheer her on while she does the instance. Once she's done, I knock it out quick, then we group up again and move on.

[hallasan]

As primarily a soloist I agree with the OP.

IMO quests (general, epic, class), outside of specific narrative instances, should scale from solo to fellowship providing all players the opportunity to select a path to complete quests.

I would also like to see the fellowship of 6 be scaled to 9 for general and epic quests and raids scale from 6-24 in increments of 3 with scalable rewards.

[hucklebarry]

Could you elaborate a bit more on this part? Gameplay I think I understand, aka difficulty of the encounter - but story?

What do you mean by "the bar for doing it (forced solo quest?) is higher these days"?

He can certainly answer better, but I think it has to do with the coding for the scripts. When you do the epic line its not just mobs attack on sight. There are scripts telling actors what to do and when in addition to extra content like voiceovers, music, set changes etc. With more than one person present in the instance, they may not be able to tell the story with all the props, dialogue, and queues necessary for what they are shooting for. If they want gollum to run through a cave and have it callapse afterward so you can't follow, that becomes dramatically more difficult for each person you have to account for in the instance.

We see current instances today constantly bug because one person gets stuck behind a gate or someone else didn't move when the devs anticipated they would be somewhere else, etc.

This is my partial understanding of what he was referencing.

[Valinus]

Solo-only quests have always bothered me, too. While I understand there are reasons it is 'required' in certain situations, I have never liked it -- particularly when it comes in the middle of a group-oriented arc.

1) As the OP mentioned, it breaks up a shared experience.

2) It doesn't make sense:

"How did things go?"
"Good. That Elf Maiden said she loves me."
"No way. She said she loves ME."
"No she didn't. I was just talking to her."
"No, I was just talking to her."
"Alright. . . let's go ask her."

This Quest cannot be completed in a Fellowship.


For my part, I would like to see fewer (or zero) quests where you MUST be solo. IF that remains to be impossible, I would love tosee a tech developed where a group could be spread across instance layers so that while you are experiencing the quest solo you continue to have access to voice-chat, loot spam, and level-up messages. IF THAT remains to be impossible, I would like for there to o be a warning text at the beginning of the quest arc saying Portions of this quest arc will require the disbanding of your group. In that way, I can decide ahead of time how to spend my limited time available to play with my brother instead of spending 15 minutes of our hour together riding across the map to talk to an NPC that is then going to ask us to disband.

[Vilost]

My wife and I play LOTRO together, and we came up with a solution to these solo-only situations: I park my character and go sit with my wife, and cheer her on while she does the instance. Once she's done, I knock it out quick, then we group up again and move on.

See now that's awesome.

I run into these same problems very often, both with my kids and my husband. But the difference is (usually) I'm fine with solo only. As an avid gamer, I love solo quests as well, so for me it's ok. For my husband, for much the same reasons, it's fine. For my kids... not so much.

Our solution: if it's my oldest child, he's probably already blitz it (takes after his old man) if it's one of the younger two, we either avoid it, do it later, or, more likely, do it for them, being as how it's technically our account anyway. Not a great solution tbh. BUT (@OP) if it frustrates your wife that much, and she's tried it, then why not do it for her? Eventually she might get the confidence to do them herself, and meanwhile, hopefully Turbine will continue on with the "solo+1" thing.

[Rouven]

He can certainly answer better, but I think it has to do with the coding for the scripts. When you do the epic line its not just mobs attack on sight. There are scripts telling actors what to do and when in addition to extra content like voiceovers, music, set changes etc. With more than one person present in the instance, they may not be able to tell the story with all the props, dialogue, and queues necessary for what they are shooting for. If they want gollum to run through a cave and have it callapse afterward so you can't follow, that becomes dramatically more difficult for each person you have to account for in the instance.

We see current instances today constantly bug because one person gets stuck behind a gate or someone else didn't move when the devs anticipated they would be somewhere else, etc.

This is my partial understanding of what he was referencing.

Mhh, I guess I haven't quite experienced that dynamic yet. For most part I had the progression being triggered by talking to the NPC again.

[lf2536]

well, there are at times certain story based reasons that explain why you are being forced into solo-only play. let's take the Huntsman arc in Enedwaith. towards the end you have several mini-instances where you are forced to be on your own, there is a good reason for this, the Huntsman it trying to test the Free People through YOU, you are our champion, only if you prove your self will he allow the Grey Company to pass safely through. because it's you being tested, because it is you who is our champion it would not make sense for you to have help, you have to prove your character, your mettle.

[Lilka]

One option could be that the more patient or the more successful player takes the partner's character through the instance. Yes, you don't know how to play it well but these solo instances rarely involve any fighting that leads to death, although they can lead to frustration - I'm thinking of the poppy barrels of Dol Guldur, the whole Wilds Huntsman frustrations, etc. If these are only about moving at the right time, you could jump on your partner's computer and take them through it.

[djheydt]

I'm sorry to hear that.

I've personally never understood the reason to force anyone to do these quests solo. Yes doing them with friends would probably make them insanly easy but isn't that the choice of the participants?

I think, rather, that running an instance, with its extra (because limited) material would be too difficult to code and to run if it has to account for the presence of more than one player.

I are not a programmer, though I've been married to one for forty years now. Just guessing.

[Van'cali]

I dont' see why they can't just scale it like anything else you are given the choice of solo or fellowship on. Give inspiration if you want to solo and scale down from there with a larger group. That might take redesigning a little to make it challenging, but not by much.

[Thoroval]

I've been trying to keep the number of 'You Must Do These Solo' quests in the Epic line to a minimum in recent Books (there's only one in Volume III Book 3, for instance, and that's a sessionplay), but Rise of Isengard is going to have some. There are sometimes cases where we need to know you're the only person in the instance for story and gameplay reasons, but the bar for doing it is higher these days than it used to be.

MoL

So is the Solo+1 feature dead? My wife and I absolutely LOVED this feature in Enedwaith and have been dismayed that it hasn't been extended to anything else. I don't even care if we have to do them twice, once for me (with her helping) and once for her (with me helping). And as much as I'm in it for the story, I really couldn't care less if everything is written for one person and we have 2 present.

[djheydt]

My wife and I play LOTRO together, and we came up with a solution to these solo-only situations: I park my character and go sit with my wife, and cheer her on while she does the instance. Once she's done, I knock it out quick, then we group up again and move on.

My husband has had to do that on occasion. My Minstrel finally (FINALLY!!) got to do III.1.8, and he sat beside me saying, "Do this, do that, don't do the other thing," and as a result I died only once and got to finish the dratted thing. Never Again.

And recently I came up against the session play where you're Laerdan being ganked by thousands of Dunlendings, and I couldn't figure it out at all. All he could say in the heat of battle was "Get off the road!" and I got off the road, but too late. (slow music)

So he took over and played it for me, else I would have found it nigh-impossible to finish Volume I.

[whheydt]

In general, I can see the point about solo only when it comes to session play and I'll concede the point up thread about the Huntsman quests, but other that those kinds of situations (e.g. rescuing Rangers in northern Enedwaith), there is no point to making quests solo only.

As for the suggestion to take over the partners character...I've done that. Most recently for one of my wife's characters to deal with the instance late in Vol. I where you play Laerdan trying to "rescue" Narmaleth. That is a case where the character you are running is a lot closer to what I normally run (Hunters & Wardens) than what my wife was running (Minstrel).

If the instance involves noticeable combat...I've been known to sit next to her and "coach" her through the instance. The most recent example of that was her run through III.1.8 skirmish--the rescue in Nurz Gashu. Before it was broken, we'd tried duoing it, and that was an utter fiasco because duo skirmishes are, for the most part slightly cut down small fellowship, rather than scaled up solos. In the Rift skirmish, the whole mechanic changes from solo to duo.

Another option is, of course, to set the solo-only runs aside until you are a few levels over what it's set for. If that means waiting for the level cap to go up...then you have to be patient.

--W. H. Heydt

Old Used Programmer

[whheydt]

So is the Solo+1 feature dead? My wife and I absolutely LOVED this feature in Enedwaith and have been dismayed that it hasn't been extended to anything else. I don't even care if we have to do them twice, once for me (with her helping) and once for her (with me helping). And as much as I'm in it for the story, I really couldn't care less if everything is written for one person and we have 2 present.

Um... Kind of hard to draw the conclusion that this mechanic hasn't been extended to anything else, since Enedwaith is the most recent area added and is the first area to use this feature.

I agree that it should be used going forward and we will have to wait for RoI to find out if it is, though it's a pretty good bet that it will be. Once a tool is in the toolbox, it tends to get used....

--W. H. Heydt

Old Used Programmer

[hucklebarry]

Another option is, of course, to set the solo-only runs aside until you are a few levels over what it's set for. If that means waiting for the level cap to go up...then you have to be patient.

this won't help you in session play, but is a good suggestion otherwise.

[Happyfish]

I like story based stuff to be solo only. Look at lost temple, has anyone every actually been in a group that let you listen to the ghosts tell their story? Seeing as their are no more than 10 quests out of the hundreds in game, I dont mind developers letting us enjoy an instance at it's own pace, and not having an impatient partner /groundroll all over. I think their should be a compelling reason to make it solo only though- the mirkwood intro solo only didnt enhance anything IMO, but some of the ranger storylines I dont mind being alone.

[Aloro]

I've found it disruptive and sometimes frustrating, when a quest chain (especially the epics) forces the party to disband so we can all solo something.

Problems include:

* The obvious fact that people who want to group are forced to solo can be frustrating.
* Being forced to disband from your friends can badly break immersion, leaving it difficult to construct a shared narrative. We were all together fighting bravely for hours, then we came to the cave full of horrors, so we split up and all went in alone, at the same time. Huh?
* The disparity between character level, gear, and skill can leave one member unable to proceed, forcing everyone else to derail and wait. A perfectly competent group might not be made up of members who all solo with equal facility.

My biggest concern here is with epic quests. Session play is of course an exception and needs to be, but otherwise, I'd be much happier if there were no solo-only quests in the epic story at all.