Thread: Barrow Downs Survival Skirmish is currently broken

Some kinnies and myself decided it was time to give this skirm another shot to see how it would hold up now we were 75 (Champ, Mini, Cappie). We noticed some pretty big changes and I can’t imagine they were intentional.

1) Starting at around the 15 minute mark the mobs start moving FAST, by about 20 minutes they were moving at about a 300% run speed. So Kiting in now out of the question; this has effectively rendered the No LT Kill Deed impossible.

2) Also starting at around the 20 minute mark the Skeletons (not 100% sure if it was this mob) have a silence aura. So from this point on healing is pretty much done.

3) The fire Grims reflective damage seemed off. I’m not sure if it is scaled too high or maybe our mitigations were not working but the reflect damage was crazy high, especially at around the 30 minute mark.

4) Now probably the biggest problem… the deeds are no longer incrementing! We ran the instance twice to be sure (lasting to around 35 minutes before going down) and we can confirm that none of the deed are incrementing (Other than the mob and LT slaying deeds, but they’re not part of the Meta Deed anyway).

We bugged this but thought we’d pass this along so people don’t waste their time on it.

The last time I tried Survival (which was a long time ago) I noticed there were scripting changes the longer you stayed in the instance. It gets more and more difficult as the mobs get a power up. It seemed like the only solution is to keep the mobs beat down by killing them fast enough. Otherwise, bad things are going to happen.

We always used the tank and spank.

Survival Barrow Downs has been broken since RoI came out. I don't think it was intentional I just believe that when all the new changes to RoI came out they never thought to look at how it affected this Skirmish.

However, it has been many many months now since RoI has been released and there has been no fixes nor any mention of any fixes to make it possible to actually survive this skirmish. Turbine needs to put some resources into fixing this skirmish or refund anyone who used Turbine points to purchase it. Right now its simply impossible to survive.

Perhaps Turbine's intent was to make Survival Barrow Downs the new Kobayashi Maru for Lotro players.

All kidding aside, I agree with all of you. It is broken and Turbine needs to fix it or refund people who purchased it with Lotro points.

/signed

Please fix the skirmish Turbine.

I've run a couple of Barrows skirmishes since RoI and noticed 2 things:

1. mobs get a run-speed buff along with their normal time-based power-ups; this effectively renders kiting impossible
2. all mobs were hitting really, really hard: auras were mad, general damage was very heavy

A three-player team and a six-player team who had no problem completing 60mins before RoI wiped at around 40-45mins every attempt.

Change #1 looks deliberate, to avoid kiting. But if the intention is that we fight for the whole hour then change #2 makes it impossible. The mobs' damage has been over-tuned.

It would be really nice if one of the Devs acknowledged that the skirmish is indeed broken. Put in on the Known Issues List. Right now it seems like Turbine is just trying to sweep it under the table.

This sucks.
I don't think it was possible by killing everything in past anyway. I tried it with my old kins and friends (meaning no random hippies who don't have a clue) about two years ago and it was pretty much impossible to keep up with the amount of mobs.
If they made it even harder and impossible to kite through - jeez. Might as well remove the skirmish from the game.
I really wanted to eventually finish all those deeds there, but under these conditions I won't even think to try.

Originally Posted by gabrielthorn

It would be really nice if one of the Devs acknowledged that the skirmish is indeed broken. Put in on the Known Issues List. Right now it seems like Turbine is just trying to sweep it under the table.

You mean they would inform the public about their defunct product which is sold in Store? Not in a hundred years.

I don't believe that the developers originally intended players to last through the entire hour. It's not the type of scenario where you are expected to win. I thus think the changes were intended. If the best groups are lasting about 45 minutes, then I suspect the skirmish is now set just where the folks at Turbine want it.

I've also noticed the 3000% runspeed on mobs after 15-20 minutes, its just ridicilous. It also looks incredible ridicilous

Makes it completely impossible to even kite, use induction skills (heal, shoot arrows, use fire-runes) or see whats going on. Lets wait a year, then try playing it again.

Originally Posted by The-Walrus

This sucks.
I don't think it was possible by killing everything in past anyway. I tried it with my old kins and friends (meaning no random hippies who don't have a clue) about two years ago and it was pretty much impossible to keep up with the amount of mobs.
If they made it even harder and impossible to kite through - jeez. Might as well remove the skirmish from the game.
I really wanted to eventually finish all those deeds there, but under these conditions I won't even think to try.

Well I may be stating the obvious here but the entire skirmish is built like a race track, so I do believe the original developers intended kiting to be the strategy in this skirmish. Our kinship used to joke that it was the Indy 500 of skirmishes.

Originally Posted by gabrielthorn

It would be really nice if one of the Devs acknowledged that the skirmish is indeed broken. Put in on the Known Issues List. Right now it seems like Turbine is just trying to sweep it under the table.

/signed

Could a developer, designer or someone at Turbine please give the official word on this skirmish. Thanks in advance.

Originally Posted by Brandui

Well I may be stating the obvious here but the entire skirmish is built like a race track, so I do believe the original developers intended kiting to be the strategy in this skirmish. Our kinship used to joke that it was the Indy 500 of skirmishes.

I remember the 12man version was JUST barely doable with lots of LT luck (with the amount of mobs, specific LTs were guaranteed wipe at 30+mins point).

I really hope this would be confirmed and then fixed. It's still one of my favourite skirmishes (not too often though )

Originally Posted by The-Walrus

I remember the 12man version was JUST barely doable with lots of LT luck (with the amount of mobs, specific LTs were guaranteed wipe at 30+mins point).

I really hope this would be confirmed and then fixed. It's still one of my favourite skirmishes (not too often though )

Prior to Rise of Isengard our kinship had it down to the point where we could finish 95% of the time on the 12 man raid. We usually had a warden kiting with Lore-master giving stun protection to the warden and killing specific LTs and mobs while letting other mobs stay on the train behind the warden.

As of Update 7, this skirmish is still broken. Even if the super speed and super damage of the mobs in intentional the deeds ARE NOT updating (other then the mob and LT killing deeds). I bugged it again, but considering the number of times its been bugged already and lack of acknowledgement of the problems, I suspect its not a priority.

Originally Posted by phillbvi2

As of Update 7, this skirmish is still broken. Even if the super speed and super damage of the mobs in intentional the deeds ARE NOT updating (other then the mob and LT killing deeds). I bugged it again, but considering the number of times its been bugged already and lack of acknowledgement of the problems, I suspect its not a priority.

Such a shame too. As a completionist, this is the only deed left in my entire skirmish log. I only have killing 250 mobs in one small fellowship skirmish left....

As if it wasn't already hard enough. Kicking myself for not pushing for it long ago.

Thanks for the updates!

I ran my 75 Champ through this last night at level 45 (3 man) solo just to see what's what. And yes, it was ridiculous-- the increased speed, the rapidity with which mobs "levels" increase, and the reflect damage. I couldn't make it past 17 minutes, and the normal mobs that started at about 2K morale were up to 4K morale, and I'm sure their damage/mits/etc. scaled at a similar pace. The ridiculousness of this skirm does make many of the deeds impossible.

Originally Posted by phillbvi2

3) The fire Grims reflective damage seemed off. I’m not sure if it is scaled too high or maybe our mitigations were not working but the reflect damage was crazy high, especially at around the 30 minute mark.

One thought on reflect damage, by the way. I think it is the same reflect that it always has been, and is a straight percentage (25% reflect, I believe). Here's what has changed though: the amount of damage we do has increased WAY more than our morale/avoidance/mits etc. have increased. Put another way: from 65 to 75 (and with the caps on Might, Vit, etc. going away), my champ's morale maybe has increased from about 6K to 7-8K, depending on build. BUT my DPS has increased more than 2+ times, and crits/devs are huge compared to what they were at 65. So, with a percentage reflect (25% for the grims), each reflected damage does much more as a percentage of your maximum morale than at 65. And you go splat pretty quickly if you are not careful.

For instance, I was checking out the Moria revamp, and killing a few of the level 52 Dragonets in the Silvertine Lodes, which have a 25% reflect. Being careless because they were level 52, I almost died before I decided AOEing 4-5 of them at once was not a good idea with all the reflect damage!

I would love to see a dev to comment on this. This is my favourite encounter, despite being a bit repetitive.
Plus as a competionist, I am dying to finish as many of those deeds as possible.

Originally Posted by The-Walrus

I would love to see a dev to comment on this. This is my favourite encounter, despite being a bit repetitive.
Plus as a competionist, I am dying to finish as many of those deeds as possible.

Omg why are no of your ppl on my server im the only one who wanna do deeds

I just tried this in small fellowship version. We set it to lvl 70 and kept rolling. Wiped about 25mins into killing everything due to bad luck with LTs. Mobs seem to be running at normal speed.

but

THE DAMN DEEDS ARE NOT UPDATING AT ALL!!!!!!!!!!
I mean, still. Someone on the forums claimed it was fixed.

Completed:
Survival -- Barrow-downs Phase 5

And the only ones that unlocked for us were Assailant of the dead - small fellowship and Foe of the Dark Lord - small fellowship.


How many years will it take to fix this???
I am disgusted, even more after seeing the store-promoting dummies put in the game today. Resources can be allocated in much better way, but Turbine would have to care about anything else but milking the cow more and more.

Originally Posted by The-Walrus

I just tried this in small fellowship version. We set it to lvl 70 and kept rolling. Wiped about 25mins into killing everything due to bad luck with LTs. Mobs seem to be running at normal speed.

but

THE DAMN DEEDS ARE NOT UPDATING AT ALL!!!!!!!!!!
I mean, still. Someone on the forums claimed it was fixed.

Completed:
Survival -- Barrow-downs Phase 5

And the only ones that unlocked for us were Assailant of the dead - small fellowship and Foe of the Dark Lord - small fellowship.


How many years will it take to fix this???
I am disgusted, even more after seeing the store-promoting dummies put in the game today. Resources can be allocated in much better way, but Turbine would have to care about anything else but milking the cow more and more.

Oh, so the deeds not updating when running it at a lower level are not WAI? I just figured you had to run it at level 75 to get anything to increment. Hmmm, that would make working on the deeds much better/easier if it could be green mobs (level 67 I guess at the lowest).

I don't think it would update on lvl 75 at all either. I will try for a couple minutes just to be sure though.

Update: Deeds DO update on lvl 75. But does that work as intended considering you get encounter updates in other skirmishes for example? Only Turbine can answer that.
OR does anyone remember whether you could get the deeds to update if ran on lvl 60 or so?

Originally Posted by The-Walrus

Update: Deeds DO update on lvl 75. But does that work as intended considering you get encounter updates in other skirmishes for example? Only Turbine can answer that.
OR does anyone remember whether you could get the deeds to update if ran on lvl 60 or so?

I experimented with this today a bit.

Slayer deeds (kill denizens as well as kill LTs) update as long as the mobs are green to you. On my level 75 champ, I solo'd some 3-man BD skirms at level 67, and the slayer deeds were indeed incrementing.

All the other deeds (i.e "survive for 5 min" or "survive without an FM for 5 min" etc.) were NOT updating at that level. So I'm assuming you have to run the skirm on level for those to increment.

Also, as The Walrus pointed out, the mobs did not appear to be getting the run speed buffs over time; they did, however, increase in morale/power over time and I'm assuming also in damage dealt, etc.

One thing that the Devs may have done, though----> I think that they put in invisible walls around the perimeter that make it harder to outpace the mobs when kiting. Did they always have invisible walls? If so, did they used to be further out, allowing the kiting circle to be bigger? I think they moved them in....

Lastly, as I was kiting, a LT entered (a Troll Wound-Taker) and just started running around the outside in a big circle. I happened to be a few paces behind it, and even was trying to catch up to him, but he stayed safely out of aggro range for about 7 min! It was as if he was kiting me! And another LTcame in too (A Dourhand Keg-Master) after 5 min and again ran around in a circle, close to the troll and out of aggro range. I think finally my herbie stepped too far out of the center area and they aggro'd, but it was a LONG time that I was staring at the backside of a both a Troll and Dwarf! *shiver*

I sent a ticket asking whether the level was a bug or not, hopefully they will answer.
3man version is really hard with its limited char choices. Warden is really great tank here with his heals. The trouble is that if you want to kite, you should get a LM, but that's not the best dps out there.

Originally Posted by Rhino-Man

One thing that the Devs may have done, though----> I think that they put in invisible walls around the perimeter that make it harder to outpace the mobs when kiting. Did they always have invisible walls? If so, did they used to be further out, allowing the kiting circle to be bigger? I think they moved them in....

Yes. They made the area smaller. Formerly you could go all the way up to the rim. Now you can't.

I tried to get some info from Turbine regarding the deeds but it's hopeless. GMs are completely clueless as usual, and they completely ignored the support ticket I sent. Yay for customer service. In the end I filed a bug report thinking there's nothing to lose.

Did anyone do a full hour or even 30 min at lvl 75 in 3-man or 6-man since it got updated?
Seems to me like mobs after 15 min they hit for 2-3k and run at triple speeds or more so it is kinda hard to kill em.
BTW the defeating the deads deed where you have to kill 250 mob in one session does that update at lower lvls?.

Originally Posted by Rhino-Man

I experimented with this today a bit.

Slayer deeds (kill denizens as well as kill LTs) update as long as the mobs are green to you. On my level 75 champ, I solo'd some 3-man BD skirms at level 67, and the slayer deeds were indeed incrementing.

All the other deeds (i.e "survive for 5 min" or "survive without an FM for 5 min" etc.) were NOT updating at that level. So I'm assuming you have to run the skirm on level for those to increment.

Also, as The Walrus pointed out, the mobs did not appear to be getting the run speed buffs over time; they did, however, increase in morale/power over time and I'm assuming also in damage dealt, etc.

One thing that the Devs may have done, though----> I think that they put in invisible walls around the perimeter that make it harder to outpace the mobs when kiting. Did they always have invisible walls? If so, did they used to be further out, allowing the kiting circle to be bigger? I think they moved them in....

Lastly, as I was kiting, a LT entered (a Troll Wound-Taker) and just started running around the outside in a big circle. I happened to be a few paces behind it, and even was trying to catch up to him, but he stayed safely out of aggro range for about 7 min! It was as if he was kiting me! And another LTcame in too (A Dourhand Keg-Master) after 5 min and again ran around in a circle, close to the troll and out of aggro range. I think finally my herbie stepped too far out of the center area and they aggro'd, but it was a LONG time that I was staring at the backside of a both a Troll and Dwarf! *shiver*

I have not tried BDS since, well, I don't know - a long time. But I can verify a few things about how it used to be.

Deeds always incremented that way. Slayers for green mobs, the infamous *30 minute* ones on-level only....

I remember doing a lot of solo runs where I could "avoid" LTs by just out-pacing them by half a lap. They never aggro'd.

As I haven't done it in quite a while, I'm not sure what you mean by a wall. We should group up man and knock some slayers out while we're BA. LM is ridiculous right now. Maybe while we pop that golden egg

I just did a 5 minute 30 second stand still killing and not kiting or trying to survive.


Didn't seem too different; but I didn't exactly get far.


I did kill 20 mobs. I'm at 400/5000 mobs for BDS Small Fellowship. I don't think 20 a tick solo at perfect armour and 1st agers right before an expansion is very impressive.


These deeds are ridiculous...

/signed

Turbine please fix this skirmish

Originally Posted by Rhino-Man

..One thing that the Devs may have done, though----> I think that they put in invisible walls around the perimeter that make it harder to outpace the mobs when kiting. Did they always have invisible walls? If so, did they used to be further out, allowing the kiting circle to be bigger? I think they moved them in......

This is the item that brought me searching today & necroing a post. I haven't paid attention to the specific forums, and only after getting in here do I remember some references to items in here back then, but I tried running an underleveled BD Skirm on my 75 to get a few marks to upgrade an alt, and the invisible walls make previous strategy impossible (and I wasn't sure about some of the other observations I made that have shown up as complaints elsewhere in this thread, but there you go). I guess I'll chalk it up to no longer being a good way to earn a few marks solo. C'est la vie!

Has anyone tried BDS at 85 yet? If so, is it different from 75 version in any way?

I tried a small fellowship one by myself.


Still seems the same. The Mobs start running at 80 MPH. zoom!

At least it's not harder then :P
I'm sure it's still somewhat doable. I tried at 75 and we did last some time. Guess it gets half impossible past some 30 minutes mark though.