Thread: Duo skirmishes...

Did they do anything at all besides sticking a *duo* button just above the small fellowship button and linking that button to the small fellowship skirmish?... I ask because the duo's are ridiculously hard, and I did a duo and a small fellow (with one other player) of the same quest and there was no difference at all....

I guess it would have saved on programming and QA.

I'm yet to try it but it certainly smacks of taking the small fellowship skirmishes and just re-branding them 'Duo Skirmishes' from what I've read from other players. Then adding it to the Book update as a new feature. Cheeky!

Originally Posted by jmariner

Did they do anything at all besides sticking a *duo* button just above the small fellowship button and linking that button to the small fellowship skirmish?... I ask because the duo's are ridiculously hard, and I did a duo and a small fellow (with one other player) of the same quest and there was no difference at all....

According to a podcast with developers, they did try to find a middle ground between solo and small fellowships, although they ended up having to try a compromise solution because the skirmish difficulty doesn't scale so neatly as to make it easy to add a duo option. The exact nature of the compromise eludes me but scroll back on the podcast listings on this site and you should find the one with developers who announced the duo feature.

In short, though, small fellowships are not exactly identical to duos, despite your perception.

Also, when they first came out, some of duo skirmishes were harder than intended (based on dev's post), so they may have been as hard as a small fellow skirmish because of that. I am not sure if that issue has been fixed or not.

I remember reading that there were a couple of skirmishes that didn't scale properly for duos for some reason, though I don't recall which ones they were off hand. But the few duos I did worked wonderfully- and were most certainly not the same as the small fellowships, which we found near impossible as a duo.

While there may be differences between Duo and Small Fellowship skirmishes, it's still far easier for two people to split up and both do a solo skirmish than it is to stay together and do a duo skirmish. The risk vs reward for the duo skirmish just doesn't support a push to get people into a fellowship.

I know the wife and I tried a couple of the new dou's and well I could not tell any difference betten them and trying a small fellowship. I don't remeber exactly what ones we tried it was 3 of them.

After getting our teeth kicked in she totaly gave up, and has only logged in once since then to run volume 1 solo to get her white horse.

Originally Posted by revoked

Also, when they first came out, some of duo skirmishes were harder than intended (based on dev's post), so they may have been as hard as a small fellow skirmish because of that. I am not sure if that issue has been fixed or not.

Signed... + Rep for you.

Originally Posted by Herellomar

According to a podcast with developers, they did try to find a middle ground between solo and small fellowships, although they ended up having to try a compromise solution because the skirmish difficulty doesn't scale so neatly as to make it easy to add a duo option. The exact nature of the compromise eludes me but scroll back on the podcast listings on this site and you should find the one with developers who announced the duo feature.

In short, though, small fellowships are not exactly identical to duos, despite your perception.

I find it hard to believe that anyone could look at duos and think they were in the same solar system as 'middle ground' between solo and small fellowship. Maybe that was the original intent, but to believe this I would have to believe they are not very competent - and I don't believe that.

They in fact appear to be aimed at the people who were duoing small fellowship with two people.

Bree finish:

solo: 1 elite

3 man: 2 elite masters (am I recalling this correctly?)

middle ground: 2 elite masters

There are two differences between duo and small fellowship:

First, the opponents have a debuff that reduces their morale and damage (it's similar to the Tier 2 buff except in the opposite direction). Second, subsequent waves never come until the first wave has been defeated (so you can take your sweet time killing off a wave). This is all that was feasible in the time between the decision to create a duo mode and the time Book 1 was released.

If you are comparing lieutenants and number of mobs, the two would look identical.

I'm not sure what the list of known issues means by some mobs being too difficult, but the most likely is that there are some opponents for whom the defuff is only a minor inconvenience.