I'm not gonna use the soldier at all, and won't even run skirmishes anymore because of the restriction and because of the obvious money-grabbing philosophy.
Players should have an option NOT to summon a soldier if they don't want to have a companion with them on their journeys, not the other way around, farming for enough resources to summon him only when it's absolutely necessary and when there are absolutely no players around.. others have said everything already about this, no need to write more.
I'm not gonna use the soldier at all, and won't even run skirmishes anymore because of the restriction and because of the obvious money-grabbing philosophy.
Players should have an option NOT to summon a soldier if they don't want to have a companion with them on their journeys, not the other way around, farming for enough resources to summon him only when it's absolutely necessary and when there are absolutely no players around.. others have said everything already about this, no need to write more.
Restrictions = no go
players DO have the option not to summon a soldier, dont want to use one (and i can understand why you wouldnt) then fine dont summon one.
Im not sure i understand what you mean by not running skirmershes anymore becuse of the restrictions.
In a skirmish instance your soldier runs as normal with no time limit and behaves as they always have. The only "costs" is when you want to summon one on the land, personally i wouldnt use TPs to buy the time tokens and just use marks and medallions from skirmishing so in a sense the soldiers pay for themselves.
Again though i dont plan on running my soldier 24/7 only when i need him and so far the 1 hour token has lasted me a couple of days now.
Im finding the soldier on the landscape allows for a bit of flexibility. I used up ten minutes killing 16 trolls outside of estelden a quest ive always gone around when soloing unless i found someone to share it with. My protector was killed a few times squished by trolls but i survived (thanks to my protectors unslefishness) and finished the quest. I had a good time and at the end of the day thats what its all about.
If soldiers were cheaper and had longer time tokens and what not i feel people being people would abuse it. The costs as they are now (even though turbine throw 500tps at me a month im still happy just to use marks and medallions) as i said before make you think when and where to use a bit of help and for how long.
Anyways it all comes down to choice, we have the option to use them or not, and surely thats a good thing
Hey ho to the bottle i go, to heal my heart and drown my woe.....
Oh, yea, lotro did very well. So, well that it went f2p to survive. Actually lotro didn't well at all.
As an above poster said, this sort of statement is flat out incorrect. Saying it is like saying someone who asks for a raise at work must be broke and on the verge of homelessness so they have to ask for a raise to survive.
NO! You ask for a raise at work because getting paid more is a good thing. You can be doing just fine, all your bills paid, own your own house and car and still want a raise. It's not a sign of desperation. If Turbine were making $10 Million/yr on subscriptions and knew they could make $20 Million/yr by going free-play instead then why NOT do it?
The hard facts show that there were never any server merges. That would be the #1 sign of collapse if LotRO were really doing bad.
Anyway, as for my thoughts on Soldier pricing I have to agree Turbine, as usual, priced themselves beyond my desire to pay. For some reason they want to go the Gucci route (sell a few items at a high price) rather than the Wal-Mart route (sell a lot of items at a low price). It's a problem I've seen in the entire F2P industry and then they complain that only 10% of players buy stuff. Well NO Kidding!
All we have to do is ask ourselves which company, Wal-Mart or Gucci, is richer. The answer shows which pricing strategy works best. Gucci makes about $5 Billion/yr while Wal-Mart makes $400 Billion/yr.
Hmmm, which would YOU rather have? Me? I'd prefer the $400 Billion. Turbine, like all other F2P MMO's seem to prefer the $5 Billion.
I just got through all the solo content from the Great River zone. As a semi-raid-geared captain I didn't have any trouble completing the quests. Some of the quests there did look like they might be challenging for light armour or medium armour classes, especially if they have weak gear.
The folks at Turbine opened up a new avenue of criticism with this landscape soldier thing. If players have trouble completing landscape quests, they are going to blame the store by default now. My guess is that the blame game won't be pretty.
I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend. ~ Faramir
I'm kinda glad that soldiers are just rented for reasons Turbine may not care for. It means that a soldier is not mandatory to get by. I don't like npc companions. They just get in the way.
Reminds me of a Captain's herald(yes, I know a herald is not a skirmish soldier) that was named "Thoushaltnotpath".
Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, totally worn out & proclaiming "WOW, what a ride!"
Civ II rules after all these years......
As an above poster said, this sort of statement is flat out incorrect. Saying it is like saying someone who asks for a raise at work must be broke and on the verge of homelessness so they have to ask for a raise to survive.
NO! You ask for a raise at work because getting paid more is a good thing. You can be doing just fine, all your bills paid, own your own house and car and still want a raise. It's not a sign of desperation. If Turbine were making $10 Million/yr on subscriptions and knew they could make $20 Million/yr by going free-play instead then why NOT do it?
The hard facts show that there were never any server merges. That would be the #1 sign of collapse if LotRO were really doing bad.
Anyway, as for my thoughts on Soldier pricing I have to agree Turbine, as usual, priced themselves beyond my desire to pay. For some reason they want to go the Gucci route (sell a few items at a high price) rather than the Wal-Mart route (sell a lot of items at a low price). It's a problem I've seen in the entire F2P industry and then they complain that only 10% of players buy stuff. Well NO Kidding!
All we have to do is ask ourselves which company, Wal-Mart or Gucci, is richer. The answer shows which pricing strategy works best. Gucci makes about $5 Billion/yr while Wal-Mart makes $400 Billion/yr.
Hmmm, which would YOU rather have? Me? I'd prefer the $400 Billion. Turbine, like all other F2P MMO's seem to prefer the $5 Billion.
I will start that i am also a bit dissapointed by the high price of the 1h token, this said after reading KualaBango's post made me realize why i wouldn't want the price to be lower. The higher prices in the shop actually allow there to be more equality in the game as the lotro store is just there to provide extra for those who need it and are willing to pay for it(here im talking about the price over the whole lotro store, not just soldier token).
Thou i think that maybe turbine could have done a good deed and provided with the new update, if not for everyone, then at least paying customers a free hour or half hour to test it out. Like an investment which doesn't cost them anything just provides advertising. I for one will probably not buy the 1h token in anywhere the near future, not to say never. And i guess, because of the price a lot of people will do the same.
Great example of what I am hoping to see happen with the addition of landscape soldiers. Making the landscape quests harder rather then easier. The soldier provides a way to complete hard quests if you really really want to rather then coming to the forums asking for the difficulty to be reduced.
I'm not sure if you are being sarcastic or not, but either way, you are completely wrong. The quest I mentioned is a small fellowship quest, that's why I needed the soldier. Had I found a small fellowship (not an easy thing to do in Angmar nowadays) I wouldn't need the soldier at all.
It's not a "harder quest" it's simply a quest that was not designed for a solo player. That's what I see the soldier for: Completing quests that are not meant for solo play when you cannot find other players to help you (it was still hard as hell because it was one player and a "stupid" NPC instead of 3 players).
I hope they don't start making the quests harder because of this feature, however, I wouldn't mind seeing some more elites running around the landscape: they were always a challenge to solo, but hardly impossible. With a soldier around it will make them accessible for the more casual player.
If Turbine were making $10 Million/yr on subscriptions and knew they could make $20 Million/yr by going free-play instead then why NOT do it?
And yet with all the extra money they can't make some new decent features. This lanscape soldier is actually just a skirmish features and that's quite old stuff.
What annoyed me most is the way they presented this "landscape soldier". Update 6, you'll be able to summon your skirmish soldier on landscape. Just not in instances. End of story.
Since hirelings/mercenary it's a common feature in most mmos probably everyone believed it will work like it does in other games. You summon/hire them and they stay with you. After all they didn't say anything else. Turns out, there is a fine print and you can't actually summon them without a paying a huge price for just 1 hour.
To make matters worse, the skirmish skills are not available in landscape. Yep, your skirmish soldier is broken on landscape. I have a tank soldier for my minstrel and it can hold agro on any elite inside a skirmish and he never drops below half hp. On landscape it was killed by an elite 4 levels smaller. On the next 2 elite it lost agro but it was better cause I would have got killed anyway. Why? because it doesn't have any skills or traits!
I've seen a champ with that herbalist of his trying to kill some elite except his soldier run out of power so I had to jump in and throw some heals. Didn't try that on my champ, but he said this never happened on skirmishes.
Theyre selling ferraris on wallmart.
Thats how I would sum up the soldier on landscape, selling something which few are willing or able to pay for on a store thats meant to sell high quantities as this is, after all, an MMO.
To me its a question of how long it will take before so few tokens are sold that the feature will either be discarded or its price lowered in an attempt to revive it.
Those who do use it have allready mentioned that they do in very small quantities of time, whilst the rest ( amongst them myself) are unwilling, due to indignation at the price, to even try it.
With people getting by just fine without them, as is the purpose to make them optional and not a necessity, and others criticising their lack of skills, it makes me wonder how long it will take before we stop hearing about the soldiers on the field.
It's not the price in the store that bothers me but the price in marks. The feature is priced so high, they might as well not put it in at all (except for an expensive store convenience feature I guess). Disappointing, I would have liked to have the option once in a while for variety and also to get over a bump in the road.
Can be soldier summoned in solo epic instance? I just realized that the most difficult battles I ever had were exactly in that solo instances (Moria - Gwanthor etc., Princ of Rohan epics etc.) and not on landscape.. I would gladly buy token for 100TP if it helps me kill Gwanthor and other epic bosses..
Did you ever get an answer on this question?
Or does anyone know? I am wondering about the same thing.
It's not the price in the store that bothers me but the price in marks. The feature is priced so high, they might as well not put it in at all (except for an expensive store convenience feature I guess).
I think that's the point. They obviously want people to buy these with TP, not skirmish marks, and hopefully for real money. It's sort of like stat tomes - you can get them in game, but you'd have to be a total masochist to try for them all yourself. Not when you can spend a modest amount of $$ and get them immediately. It's supposed to be a "no-brainer". Do you really want to run skirmishes for hours in order to pay for one hour of Soldier time? Or spend what you'd pay for a can of pop from a vending machine for the same thing?
So why put an in-game means to get all? Pretty much so they don't have to listen to as much complaining about Store-only items, selling advantage, etc. It's a bit of CYA.
It's supposed to be a "no-brainer". Do you really want to run skirmishes for hours in order to pay for one hour of Soldier time? Or spend what you'd pay for a can of pop from a vending machine for the same thing?
False dichotomy for me, as I'll take option 3, do without.
Mind you, there is an in game need for them now. If you want to do good parts of the Limlight Gorge quests solo, it is tough going, and a skirmish soldier would make a big difference. I've done the elite master spiders and huorns solo on my Captain, but it isn't trivial, and the Nemesis ones aren't doable by me. I expect some classes (and some less well geared folks) will have troubles there. I'm just grabbing kinfolks to do the dailies at this point, soloing the mobs was just to try it out.
If these sell well, I'd be surprised. I expect them either to go on sale soon, or given out in lotteries, as some folks may love it once they try it and get hooked, but be unwilling to do the initial expenditure for a 1 hour benefit...
False dichotomy for me, as I'll take option 3, do without.
I am sure Turbine is unconcerned about this choice. Turbine wants dollars in their offering baskers. If Yula or Delgon refuse to pay we will have do without. Turbine is not going to give up the dollars to provide an acceptabe acquisition method.
I have no doubt Turbine will put some in the Lotto. Or one of the get one free coupon offers. A lot of product sellers of consumables give away free samples. Even sellers of illegal drugs give away sample in the hopes that people will becfome "addicated" to the product.
I've noticed that Turbine is very resistant to lowering Lotro Store prices beyond the periodic 20% off sales. It is clear Turbine read the manual what happens if you heavily discount goods six months from now. We are dealing with a system that only makes product to order with no need for a parts inventory. Turbine doesn't run into the Target issue of - what do we do with the winter clothing now that it is Spring?
Unless stated otherwise, all content in this post is My Personal Opinion.
If these sell well, I'd be surprised. I expect them either to go on sale soon, or given out in lotteries, as some folks may love it once they try it and get hooked, but be unwilling to do the initial expenditure for a 1 hour benefit...
I'll be surprised if they don't sell pretty well. It's $1 for what could be 12-15 different uses, giving you what amounts to a short-term "buff" to help you get past challenging content. Not "Limlight Gorge" challenging, but "Andy Idden at level 34" challenging. Maybe you're in Goblin Town at level 47 and having trouble with a few quests, so you summon your soldier, knock them out in 10 minutes, and are on your way (with 50 minutes left on your Soldier).
Those who want to summon a Soldier and then fight with them for the next hour solid probably won't buy too many of them. But I think most people will figure out that's not what they're for.
My guess is that they'll be seen fairly commonly for certain places and quests, and hardly at all elsewhere. People will use them sparingly, when they're needed most.
I'll be surprised if they don't sell pretty well. It's $1 for what could be 12-15 different uses, giving you what amounts to a short-term "buff" to help you get past challenging content. Not "Limlight Gorge" challenging, but "Andy Idden at level 34" challenging. Maybe you're in Goblin Town at level 47 and having trouble with a few quests, so you summon your soldier, knock them out in 10 minutes, and are on your way (with 50 minutes left on your Soldier).
Those who want to summon a Soldier and then fight with them for the next hour solid probably won't buy too many of them. But I think most people will figure out that's not what they're for.
My guess is that they'll be seen fairly commonly for certain places and quests, and hardly at all elsewhere. People will use them sparingly, when they're needed most.
Khafar
If you're geared good enough, a herbalist will make a decent summon to go tree farming in Limlight for a while.
If you're geared good enough, a herbalist will make a decent summon to go tree farming in Limlight for a while.
I farmed 8 trees solo with no soldier last night after doing it grouped for a while (I wanted to fill up my task tradein items). No soldier needed for a well geared Captain, and I saw other classes soloing them as well...
Last edited by DelgonTheWise; Mar 20 2012 at 08:16 AM.
I'll be surprised if they don't sell pretty well. It's $1 for what could be 12-15 different uses, giving you what amounts to a short-term "buff" to help you get past challenging content. Not "Limlight Gorge" challenging, but "Andy Idden at level 34" challenging. Maybe you're in Goblin Town at level 47 and having trouble with a few quests, so you summon your soldier, knock them out in 10 minutes, and are on your way (with 50 minutes left on your Soldier).
Those who want to summon a Soldier and then fight with them for the next hour solid probably won't buy too many of them. But I think most people will figure out that's not what they're for.
My guess is that they'll be seen fairly commonly for certain places and quests, and hardly at all elsewhere. People will use them sparingly, when they're needed most.
Khafar
From my experience questing at all level, I hardly remember seeing anyone with a soldier, to the point that I wondered if other players see it. (I remember maybe seeing one or two)
You are right people might use it, especially soloer. But the issue, and that's a gamebreaker for me, is that my soldier is probably dumb even if compared to the average orc. He will get stuck often in skirmishes, reacts as he is on drugs or drunk, etc.
If the devs decide to invest some time in tweaking the soldiers' AI, I might invest some TP in using them. Otherwise, I will pass.
To make matters worse, the skirmish skills are not available in landscape. Yep, your skirmish soldier is broken on landscape. I have a tank soldier for my minstrel and it can hold agro on any elite inside a skirmish and he never drops below half hp. On landscape it was killed by an elite 4 levels smaller. On the next 2 elite it lost agro but it was better cause I would have got killed anyway. Why? because it doesn't have any skills or traits!
Can someone confirm this is the case? I know we don't get our Personal skirmish buffs outside of Skirmishes which is fair enough imo, but if our soldiers can't use the skills we've levelled and paid for, that's another matter entirely.
I think that's the point. They obviously want people to buy these with TP, not skirmish marks, and hopefully for real money.
Khafar
I'm pretty sure this has been the conclusion many of us have reached regarding the reason behind the cost of soldiers on landscape.
The obvious chargrin, and please forgive me if I sound snobbish, is that for those of us who pay subscription we were actually thinking this feature would be cost free considering the fact that we are ( forgive the redundancy) paying customers.
I know this would have looked horrible, and that it would have created a gap between those paying subscription and those who dont. Imagine a whole group of players using their soldier on a daily basis whilst others need to pay 100 tp for a mere hour.
yet still there is the matter of paying for a service and yet be told that for access to new features one must spend even more.
its sad that turbine would jeopardize its good relations with players by pulling the " read the fine print" on us, since amongst the benefits to a VIP there is no mention of unlimited access to new features, only new areas.
once again Im forgive me if I sounded like a snobb
I am usually very critical of the store, but after thinking about it since U6 the skirmish soldiers on landscape situation doesn't bother me. I think the skirmish mark price should be lower--around 1k marks and 25 medallions, for instance, and more like 75 TP--but notice that Turbine did not design The Great River around players needing soldiers. As far as I can tell, TGR is as solo-friendly as Endewaith was at level 65 when it was released. Using a soldier definitely goes into the convenience category, IMO.
On the other hand, requiring VIP players to use (a huge amount of) TP to get more functionality with the barter wallet does strike me as a shameless money-grab, simply because Turbine originally released an incomplete product with the barter wallet and is now making paying customers in effect pay again for what should have been included in the original product or added shortly thereafter.
yet still there is the matter of paying for a service and yet be told that for access to new features one must spend even more.
VIPs have always paid for "extras" (e.g. more storage, more characters, more wardrobe, etc), and this is pretty obviously an "extra". It's not meant to be a staple of gameplay, and it would be unbalancing if it were.
I got an hour worth of Skirmish Soldier and I have to say they're pretty useless once you get to a certain point. I only got one because I have a lot of TP to use (I hardly play anymore, nothing else to spend it on), and have to admit, I only used it as eye-candy once in the Battle of Ost Celebrant to make it seem like something closer to a battle rather than the ####ty excuse for a battle Turbine pumped out.
Morvathir 65 Guardian (Rank 7), Morcallor 65 Craptain (Rank 0.5), other toons unworthy of mention. Slavetothebum R4 Reaver, Bummagic R2, other toons unworthy of mention cause they have not done the rite of initiation.
but notice that Turbine did not design The Great River around players needing soldiers. As far as I can tell, TGR is as solo-friendly as Endewaith was at level 65 when it was released. Using a soldier definitely goes into the convenience category, IMO.
Most of Limlight Gorge is spec'd as small fellowship. I've soloed (without a soldier) a bunch of Huorns and a few spiders. Died once to a troll, and wasn't inspired to try again, but it is doable. Soloing Huorns is actually a very good deal, as you get all the task drops. Haven't tried any of the nemesis ones seriously, and don't think they are in my reach.
I'd guess the majority of players if they want to solo good parts of Limlight (e.g. because they aren't into grouping) would need a soldier to succeed, depending on their class, equipment, experience. Mind you, a soldier wouldn't get them through the ore quest with the 3 trolls, and likely wouldn't let them down a big spider with its nasty adds. Once the "gold rush" is over and the first wave hits kindred there, I expect it will get harder and harder to assemble a group for limlight runs, just like it is pretty hard to get a group for Pits in Dunland...
VIPs have always paid for "extras" (e.g. more storage, more characters, more wardrobe, etc), and this is pretty obviously an "extra". It's not meant to be a staple of gameplay, and it would be unbalancing if it were.
Khafar
True but soldier on landscape is nothing like wallet space after all there is only so much space that could have been allowed (and its still a point of discussion about why turbine switched it to TP rather than game gold), and if you do buy more characters (which VIP allready have plenty more over free players) you dont rent the new character by the hour, if you get wardrobe it does not come with a countdown, and although a mount does cost around 1500 - 2000 tp its yours to keep after you pay for it.
I am sure players (even VIPs) would be all too happy to pay 2000TPs for a soldier on lanscape feature if they knew they would get to keep it.
I farmed 8 trees solo with no soldier last night after doing it grouped for a while (I wanted to fill up my task tradein items). No soldier needed for a well geared Captain, and I saw other classes soloing them as well...
The thing is there are a ton of players that are not "well geared" that having the soldiers will help them complete quests and deeds to become well geared. People who have an active kin and play a lot during prime time dont have as much problem getting things done as people who have strange work schedules or dont know a lot of people on the server. Being able to summon your soldier for 10 mins to help you finish a quest line so you can get the teal item at the end of it will make the game a lot more fun for those players.
The thing is there are a ton of players that are not "well geared" that having the soldiers will help them complete quests and deeds to become well geared. People who have an active kin and play a lot during prime time dont have as much problem getting things done as people who have strange work schedules or dont know a lot of people on the server. Being able to summon your soldier for 10 mins to help you finish a quest line so you can get the teal item at the end of it will make the game a lot more fun for those players.
I'm totally fine with soldier thing. Huorns aren't intended as solo material anyway, and I fully understand that some parts of some quest lines will cause people troubles, and the soldier will get them through.
My personal issue is the price seems too high for a consumable, but that is just me. I don't expect to *need* the soldier, so, well, won't be paying...
Is the game heading for the pay-to-win category of FTP games? I previously thought LOTRO didn't fit into that category but there have been some not so subtle changes of late.
I thought they were doing quite well out of the cosmetics and the like, they could have expanded on that level of their market. I like the concept of using soldiers for convenience but it kinda stink of 'hire a flunky' for cash.
Is the game heading for the pay-to-win category of FTP games?
I guess it depends on what you think "winning" means in an MMO. If it means "you can do stuff faster if you pay for certain items in the Store" or "you can get minor stat boosts far easier than you can in the game", then yes. Both have been true since F2P launched. Soldiers are basically pocket buffs you can pull out and use now and again if you pay for them with $$ -- or if you happen to have lots of SMs and pay for them that way. The pricing virtually guarantees that most people will just pay the buck instead of grinding skirmishes for hours if they want to use a Soldier out on the landscape. That's pretty obviously Working As Intended, just as stat tomes were/are.
If you listen to what Turbine says when talking to other developers (i.e. at GDC) and what they've said in a few interviews, you discover that what they mean by "advantage" is basically "endgame gear". They're not selling any of that in the Store, and I don't expect they will.
I guess it depends on what you think "winning" means in an MMO. If it means "you can do stuff faster if you pay for certain items in the Store" or "you can get minor stat boosts far easier than you can in the game", then yes. Both have been true since F2P launched. Soldiers are basically pocket buffs you can pull out and use now and again if you pay for them with $$ -- or if you happen to have lots of SMs and pay for them that way. The pricing virtually guarantees that most people will just pay the buck instead of grinding skirmishes for hours if they want to use a Soldier out on the landscape. That's pretty obviously Working As Intended, just as stat tomes were/are.
If you listen to what Turbine says when talking to other developers (i.e. at GDC) and what they've said in a few interviews, you discover that what they mean by "advantage" is basically "endgame gear". They're not selling any of that in the Store, and I don't expect they will.
Khafar
You know what I mean, what cosmetic clothing you had or the colour of your horse didn't really make an impact in the game. Since Turbine was bought out by WB that has changed, not sure if it is just internal profiteering or the thumb print on the forehead coming from higher up but they could have opted to expand the cosmetic side of the game without impacting gameplay. They could have taken the store to housing in way they probably could have tripled their revenue without impacting on in-game play.
I liked the concept of using soldiers outside of skirmishes because some classes are more limited at soloing harder things than others, or are situational, especially with harder elites, but to have this as some kind of a TP sink I think goes down a negative path.
It should have been a feature or several features which could have been unlocked for TP purchase and provided free for subscribers. They should really look to keep the store out of gameplay as much as possible. Unlocking access to things is fine, renting them is different. It is lazy development imo and if things continue down this path I would likely cease my interest in the game.
[QUOTE=Zvim666;6065912] Is the game heading for the pay-to-win category of FTP games? [QUOTE]
I have been wondering about that myself, though as khafar stated it has not yet come to that, as the soldier has proven of little worth as a game changer, and even those that, would or did, spent a few bucks for it are likely to get too little time and benefit (as some who have postes have mentioned, that soldier is not as usefull as they though it would) to make any real difference.
Hence at the current time the soldier on landscape feature alone has not turned LOTRO into a pay-to-win, but I can only wonder if this is a mere ripple of a coming storm.
We need not look too far into the future, as it is to wonder if the mounted combat feature will have benefits or in itself will be a benefit wich can only be acquired if players ( including those allready paying subscription) pay extra.
The difference, between the mounted combat feature and the soldier on landscape, is as players are stating it on posts (though it is possible that it may be mere rumor), the mounted combat will be usefull only in some areas, upon which it will be necessary for gameplay.
we can only hope that soldier on landscape cost is merely a bad excecutive decision, with no intention to transfer future and important gameplay features into the game store, in which case forcing players to pay more for better character performance.