Thread: Update 6: Developer Diary Feedback: Soldiers on Landscape

Life can get kind of lonely out on the range. Sometimes you’re out beating back Wargs to kill time until your Kinmates show up. Maybe you’re out and about trying to get that last Broken Hatchet to make a complete stack. If any event, if you need a partner to join you during your fight, you might wish to call your Skirmish Soldier! Read more in our latest Developer Diary and post your comments here!

Not big on this addition to the game. Having played pet class, I'm pretty busy with one additional guy to worry about.

I wish your soldiers were your alts, rather than some sort of weird generic NPC. Now that would give a far greater fellowship feel to the game, and benefits can be shared between characters.

Could we have a link to the diary? I don't see one in the post.

Here we go: http://www.lotro.com/gameinfo/devdia...s-on-landscape

Link is here: http://www.lotro.com/gameinfo/devdia...s-on-landscape

As far as this feature goes, I am okay with the implementation. Having them just being summonable permanently could have some rather severe consequences, this way people will use them only when they really need them.

That said, I do hope the pricing in the Skirmish Camp is adjusted somewhat.

Thanks. Didn't really tell me anything new, though. - as it is, I'm perfectly fine with this implementation.

The reasoning for doing it this way is understandable, this way changes to the game are minimal.

Although it doesn't mean the skirmish soldier AI and pathing issues are non existent. For the people who do choose to use soldiers in landscape, fixes are needed. Otherwise they'll have more trouble than before in some areas, with unwanted aggro or no response, etc.. Also the skirmish vendor barter amount is too high in my opinion.

Was excited when it was first announced. Not so much after having the cost sprung on us suddenly. I will not be using this feature, but that's fine because I was doing land quests just fine without a soldier.

The cost (both TP and SM) ensures that I will never be using this feature - which is something I'm perfectly fine with. However, if they become in any way necessary to complete content you are going to have a very annoyed customer.

I agree that the skirmish mark cost is too high. I think that they should change it so that when we complete the Skirmish tutorial at Level 20 (and perhaps again as a special reward later, at say around Level 45) we should be given a 30-minute skirmish soldier token. Because otherwise I don't think that I am ever going to use this feature.

The idea of being able to summon our skirmish soldiers to help us on landscape was great. The implementation (read: the cost) was not. Well, I guess this teaches us all not to have high hopes on any marketing speech anymore.

I am sorry to say but I am very disappointed. I thought I would be using this feature quite a lot for soloing, but since it's just us soloers who have the hardest time to get medallions and marks (and that few we get we have LOTS of other things to spend it on), and I will not be forced to pay TP, I just have to skip this feature.

At first I liked the idea of having a your soldier out and could even understand if it had say a usage of only an hour or two a day.With the way it is being released however,I'll never use it.the cost are just to high for a an hour usage.This seems like nothing more then another store gimmick.This update is one of the best ever with the exception of this.

Originally Posted by Gilean-EU

The idea of being able to summon our skirmish soldiers to help us on landscape was great. The implementation (read: the cost) was not. Well, I guess this teaches us all not to have high hopes on any marketing speech anymore.

I am sorry to say but I am very disappointed. I thought I would be using this feature quite a lot for soloing, but since it's just us soloers who have the hardest time to get medallions and marks (and that few we get we have LOTS of other things to spend it on), and I will not be forced to pay TP, I just have to skip this feature.

I started the disappoint with landscape soldiers thread in the Bullroarer; so, I won't repeat myself. This above is my concern too. I want to use an herbalists to make my solo play go by faster but I either have to spend money or do skirmishes just to use the soldier.

I've suggested that I'd be willing to permanently buy a soldier for my character. Additionally, nothing has to be changed as far as soloing on landscape goes. It's already simple enough that the soldier would only help get through content faster (and in Moria that would be a huge help)

I won’t use the feature personally, however I think it’s a in the gray area of advantage vs convienance. Let’s call it a convenient advantage…. Either way not a deal breaker for me personally, if it’s not necessary to get through a region I don’t see the harm.

I would like this feature better if they COULD be used in Instances in place of a group member.
At least then I could consistently find a healer to run the Isen 3 mans with Kinmembers.. or even "solo" ..

I'd willingly accept a 50% penalty to the Instance rewards if this were implemented .. at least as a soloer I could have a better way to earn Medallions at a higher rate than 7 per skirmish (if I'm lucky).

Soldiers in landscape ha ha ha! really...what genius came up with this gem? Is killing a few orcs really too much for us poor ickle weaklings? Good grief, there is hardly anything apart from instances/raids that is even remotely challenging anyway, why would anyone need a soldier in landscape and especially a hired mercenary at that?

A complete waste of dev time. Fix broken things or just work on new content instead of trying to sell us more we don't need from the store.

Originally Posted by Telaron70

Soldiers in landscape ha ha ha! really...what genius came up with this gem? Is killing a few orcs really too much for us poor ickle weaklings? Good grief, there is hardly anything apart from instances/raids that is even remotely challenging anyway, why would anyone need a soldier in landscape and especially a hired mercenary at that?

A complete waste of dev time. Fix broken things or just work on new content instead of trying to sell us more #### we don't need from the store.

Not everyone is as awesome as you. Some of us need help every now and then.

That said, it's way too expensive. Not only would it take me forever to accumulate the amount needed, but I can think of tons of better things to spend my marks on if I ever managed to get that much.

The way this is being implemented and the cost attached to it makes it totally worthless, the time put into developing this would have been much better spent on other things. I for one will not be using it, at all, ever. I have leveled six toons to max level just fine without this little mark/money sink and have no reason to start summoning up a soldier whose AI is a pathetic joke compared to companion AIs in other games.

Originally Posted by Telaron70

Soldiers in landscape ha ha ha! really...what genius came up with this gem? Is killing a few orcs really too much for us poor ickle weaklings? Good grief, there is hardly anything apart from instances/raids that is even remotely challenging anyway, why would anyone need a soldier in landscape and especially a hired mercenary at that?

A complete waste of dev time. Fix broken things or just work on new content instead of trying to sell us more #### we don't need from the store.

Hate posts like these, as they don't really contribute anything.

Just because you don't see a need for soldiers in the landscapes doesn't mean others don't. You can already see from this thread that there are people who would like it to make their solo play go faster. And, as for your second point, if the devs waited to fix everything before releasing anything new, we'd be stuck without new content for years. You can pretty much never remove bugs completely.

As for this idea, it seems an interesting choice should I ever need to speed up my leveling. I don't particularly see myself using this, as it's far easier just to get a friend to help out. As long as the content doesn't require it, I'm fine with this option existing.

meh

moar words

Only problem with this is skirmish soldier potency is awful now with the way DPS has been scaled on weapons and mob damage has scaled accordingly. You would have to be putting out some very weak DPS or have very poor defense in order for this to be noticeably helpful in landscape quests.

I'd like to ask that you guys look into providing a tweak to DNF (and other rezes) enabling the rez of a landscape soldier, in-combat, just like you would a normal fellowship member.

And reconsider the personal traits, after all, we're paying 'expensively' (either large amounts of in-game-currency or TP) for this short term buff.

Hmm, so many people say they won't ever bother with it. What to do, what to do...

Here's my solution: give everyone one token for free. Preferably through the epic quest, but other ways such as lootboxes, lotteries, free Store coupons, or right after the Skirmish intro also could work. This way people will try the feature, see the benefits of it and right after they get used to having a soldier ready to kill that nasty lite monster, their token expires. But once they saw the benefits, they should be tempted to buy a next one pretty soon.

100TP/h for this feature.

No, thank you.

I invited other readers to read the old threat

Soldiers on the landscape

And I knew since then they would charge money for this feature.

The soldier AI is so bad that summoning one on the landscape would be more of a hinderance than a help to my burglar main. Add the ridiculous mark cost and it's a no brainer for me. I will not be using this feature. I'm not even going to try it unless the costs are significantly reduced.

BTW, DEVS,Please spend some development time on improved AI or at least a couple of extra comands so I can keep my soldier from running 800 miles in front of me and aggroing everything in sight. The soldier AI is so terrible that I tend not to skirmish since my soldier just gets me killed. It's almost like you don't want burglars to skirmish.

Yahoo Skirmisher soldiers on Landscape to help you out, Yohoooooooo! (before I found out the horrible truth)
What? you have to barter for tokens to get them? what madness is that?
I really looked forward to having a soldier with me, but when you guys roll it like this its just a waste of a good idea..
All commercial nothing else. Big headlines, nothing to show :/
this was the feature I were most exited about, now I will never use it.
THANK YOU!!!

My SWTOR companion can sell my junk loot while I'm still out questing. If you are going to copy features, try and get the best parts please.

I think the implementation of this is silly. I have to rent my soldier...sweet. How about you let me spend some of the hundreds of gold that I've amassed to rent it? Wait using currency that is easy to get would be too easy and less grindy. This is all quite silly.

The only thing you got right was to un-summon them in designated zones. Beyond that the implementation is awful. Just my opinion. You can't even give VIPs a non TP or Medallion method for using this. I could see trying to gouge f2p and premium players but VIPs. I as a premium player will be bypassing the side grade zone and landscape soldier and barter wallet. I've been wanting a reason to justify going back to VIP, haven't found it yet.

I think this will be especially handy when fighting rare elites. I have had a little trouble with those on my squishier characters. It won't even cost that much time if you summon, kill, then dismiss.

I think we should stop calling this a feature. Let's be honest people... Its a STORE ITEM... They should advertise it as feature because very few people will be able spend that much skirmish mark/medallion... It's a store item.

If I log out with a half hour left do I still have my half hour when I log back in the next time?

I just keep wondering how much it is going to be to summon our war horse when RoR comes out.I wish I could say that im joking but sadly I think they will try to milk that for all its worth.I can see it now,Be able to summon your warhorse for an hour for the low cost of 200tp or 5000 marks!!!lulz

Will we still be able to summon our skirmish buddies for free in housing instances?

Seems I got really excited about our skirmishers making up the weakness of each class on the field.

Great idea, but unimpressed with implimentation.

I was expecting something along the lines of creatures would get stronger than usual so you'd need your skirmisher with you or freebie to VIP or permanant unlock at the store.

This temparary use will ensure that I never use it. I do fine as it is and if I need help I'll call a friend or kinnie.

I guess I'm just spoiled by playing SWTOR, but I find this "soldier on landscape" "feature" laughably inadequate. Comparing the price to what you get, I think it's going to take a very high money:brains ratio for this feature to get any use.

Honestly I think the price to utility ratio is exactly right for the health of the game. Its hhorrible for those who want to use the skirmish soldiers all the time or as a crutch to questing or levelling but for the health of the game as a whole its much better this way.

Consider the alternative, skirmish soldiers on landscape are cheap (maybe 1G/hr or 100 Marks/hr)...suddenly everyone is running with them constantly since its easy enough to do. Now you've got increased server load and noticeably faster progression through landscape mobs...what is the solution to that? Now Turbine has to beef up the difficulty for "solo" quests while small fellowship quests now need to be close to the difficulty of open world 6-mans. Eventually we would be looking at the point where the content HAS to be run with a skirmish soldier which means you HAVE to level yours as you progress...no more getting by with using just enough skirmishing to get through the II.5.5 skirmishes now you have to be constantly working on your skirmish soldier otherwise you won't be able to complete the end game quests.

Basically the only way to keep from requiring soldiers on the landscape is to price them to the point that they become a luxury item, something that helps and is useful but which you will not use on a regular basis or even a semi-regular basis. It has to be at the extremities of convenience in terms of price otherwise it becomes a necessity that you must pay for...and one which Premium players will have to pay even more for in terms of the rank gating and skirmish packs.

Put in simpler terms I think the advertising of this as a feature was poorly done but the implementation is the best that could be hoped for in order to ensure the overall health of the game.

Everything I've read about this feature either here or on the Bullroarer forum has been negative. Either posters do not want the feature at all or the posters that support the feature believe the cost is too high. I happen to believe that a cost or a time limit should not be a part of this feature at all. Keeping a soldier out of highly populated areas makes sense. Heck, that should be extended to all pets. The real point to me is that it appears that no one is happy with this addition/implimentation. The question is will WB/Turbine change the rules for the vocal few or continue the TP money grab and hope enough players in the wild will continue to fund this feature. Saddly, I also think the grab will continue.
The lions share of my kins online playing time has switched to SWTOR. I'm one piece of hardware away from having to make that choice. This has been a great game. As a lifer I continue to see more and more things that the WB/Turbine conglomo want me to spend money on in addition to new expansions. I can understand that. This is one I won't be supporting.

Count me as one of those who isn't interested in this feature, because I play in a duo already, and my sweetie is a much more competent and intelligent player than my skirm soldier. But for those who prefer to run solo and want to pay for the help, I don't see a problem with the feature existing.

My only concern is the potential for Turbine to begin deliberately designing content that requires the use of a purchased soldier. For example, solo instances that are impossible to complete alone but are designated solo only--and allow the use of a purchased soldier. The current system appears to not include this, but I worry that it's coming eventually. I'll keep my tinfoil hat in the drawer for now, but it's still whispering to me (is that a bad sign?). :P

Just one more store "carrot" and as always the tp provides the stick. It's an interesting business model you folks appear content to exploit well beyond a fault. Save it to say I'm not interested in renting my sweat equity developed soldiers hourly or annually for that matter.

I wonder at times if the many schools that teach game D & D offer a course now that might be titled something like this -
"How To Make Big Profits from Inferior Game Design"

Seems like a lot of work for something that's basically more of a novelty than anything else. I am guessing a lot of work was put into this, work that could have went towards, oh...I don't know, FIXING the AI of soldiers which is still abhorrent. Fixing the pathing of soldiers which will probably make moving them around on the general landscape a joke. Fixing their movements so they don't randomly run off and aggro half the map.

Still putting WAY too much emphasis on minor things that probably won't sell in the store and not enough on the game itself.

But, hey, whatever makes a buck, ey?

As a VUP paying a sub, it seems like there are more and more things being added to the game that I need to buy from the store!

Is there any benefit to being VUP nowadays or are they phasing it out?