Thread: New Skirmish is H O R R I B L E

I was looking forward to the new skirmish... but no more. Rarely have I encountered such terrible game design as in this new this new skirmish. It is absolutely awful.

Rather it's your escort (whom you have no control over) running past the gates and aggroing the whole area or trying to fight the dragon boss who is stupidly placed on top of a haystack that blocks your camera view - this skirmish is aggravating with poor mechanics being the majority of its challenge.

Very low marks from me on this new skirmish.

When will Turbine design an instance with friendly NPCs that aren't a complete liability? The problems would have been obvious from the first time they tested it. Wait, they did test it before release, didn't they?...

As for the loot - we ran a L75 T3 6-man just to see what it was like and got nothing more than a bunch of relics. We've been there, seen it, and won't be going back - that's not the way to design an MMO.

Originally Posted by remellan

When will Turbine design an instance with friendly NPCs that aren't a complete liability? The problems would have been obvious from the first time they tested it. Wait, they did test it before release, didn't they?...

As for the loot - we ran a L75 T3 6-man just to see what it was like and got nothing more than a bunch of relics. We've been there, seen it, and won't be going back - that's not the way to design an MMO.

I agree. It's like they didn't even test the skirmish before they released it - and I doubt I ever go back either.

I love a good challenge, but that's not the same as dealing with malfunctioning mechanics. There is nothing fun about having suicidal NPCs you are suppose to protect else you lose and horrible camera views. To me that's not a "challenge" - just frustrating and poor game-design, and I got better things to do with my time than deal with that ####.

Loving Methedras skirmish. Love the setting, like being able to see Orthanc from the Mountain, love being able finally to kill that drag, love being able to avenge Andreg at long, love the fact that Saeradan is a Defender and Amlan isn't squishy either - compared to other skirmishes with Defenders, it makes fights a lot more manageable.

Originally Posted by Malachi108

Loving Methedras skirmish. Love the setting, like being able to see Orthanc from the Mountain, love being able finally to kill that drag, love being able to avenge Andreg at long, love the fact that Saeradan is a Defender and Amlan isn't squishy either - compared to other skirmishes with Defenders, it makes fights a lot more manageable.

Malachi, Saeradan may be many things... but "manageable" is NOT among them. He randomly decides to commit suicide by rushing through the gate and aggroing the entire area - instantly costing you the whole skirmish and wasting your time.

Just count yourself lucky you obviously have not encountered this fluke in the mechanics yet. Because if you had, you woudn't be singing such praise for him I can promise you.

Originally Posted by Jeremi

Malachi, Saeradan may be many things... but "manageable" is NOT among them. He randomly decides to commit suicide by rushing through the gate and aggroing the entire area - instantly costing you the whole skirmish and wasting your time.

Huh? He's a defender with 30k health and a healing ability - add Amlan and they can probably make it until last fight all by themselves.

Originally Posted by Malachi108

Huh? He's a defender with 30k health and a healing ability - add Amlan and they can probably make it until last fight all by themselves.

They can't. Not even in t1. :P

I don't mind the skirmish, it's more challenging than others, but I DON'T like autofail-you-get-nothing instances when squishy NPCs are stupid.

I found the NPC's pretty nice actually. It was always me who pulled more mobs past the gate just so i get help from the 2 NPC's to speed things up. Once the gate is cleared they don't help you anymore until you claim the next gate. I never had Saeradan die, Amlan did a few times but he just stands up after the next gate. I can even let Saeradan tank the final boss a bit so i can kill dragons.

Originally Posted by DutchEZmoder

I found the NPC's pretty nice actually. It was always me who pulled more mobs past the gate just so i get help from the 2 NPC's to speed things up. Once the gate is cleared they don't help you anymore until you claim the next gate. I never had Saeradan die, Amlan did a few times but he just stands up after the next gate. I can even let Saeradan tank the final boss a bit so i can kill dragons.

T3 u talking?

Originally Posted by Malachi108

Huh? He's a defender with 30k health and a healing ability - add Amlan and they can probably make it until last fight all by themselves.

In T3 I saw Saeradan get one-shotted by Caur (well, down from 25k -> dead in one hit, with no lag).

Originally Posted by Malachi108

Huh? He's a defender with 30k health and a healing ability - add Amlan and they can probably make it until last fight all by themselves.

lol no.

All I can think is maybe you are talking tier1 Malachi. Do it on tier3 and you will have a different experience. He gets his butt handed to him frequently due to his stupidity, and costs me the entire skirmish. It's pretty frustrating.

Originally Posted by Lothirieth

They can't. Not even in t1. :P

I don't mind the skirmish, it's more challenging than others, but I DON'T like autofail-you-get-nothing instances when squishy NPCs are stupid.

I agree with you I think. I like the challenge of it, and was really enjoying the skirmish at first because it was actually keeping me on my toes. But then the "autofail" as you described it kicked in when my idiotic NPC decided to murder himself and the lose the whole skirmish for me. It basically ruins the whole experience, and this skirmish just isn't worth soloing on tier3 IMHO because of it.

I don't mind losing because I screwed up. But when I lose due to stupid AI I can't control or prevent, that's a whole different can of beans. I also hate how they put the dragon on top of that hut that completely blocks your character from view when you try to melee it. That drive me nuts lol

It's an ok skirmish i think. Apart from the fact that you can bug it by dying while Gwyllion dies, or touvh the gates, or get locked into the air. And once you complete it, if you're lucky enough, you'll get a nice shiny t1 relic (gotten 1 t1 relic in 3 runs so far... ah yes, and every time it was the same three encounters, though that's technincally possible it's rather unlikely). SO apart from being buggier than a house that need antisimex need to clean and the fact that loot is rather rubbish, and that you can wipe due to NPC brilliance and poorly scripted and written instance... yes it's an awesome skirmish

Its one of these Skirmishes which are easier in a raid than solo ./facepalm

I didn't have a problem with my escort with this skirmish, my problem was that every time I did it (on level tier 1) the mobs dropped like flies, it was super easy, much easier than usual, up until the boss fight which was super hard compared to the rest of it.

Same for me as well. I was liking t2, as it provided a bit of a challenge but the difficulty level drastically changed at the end fight. So I tried t1 and I blazed through the all the waves and again the end didn't feel on balance with the rest.

Yet doing this skirmish with groups is a faceroll. :/ You'd think group skirmishes would be harder than solo ones.

Originally Posted by Fralin

It's an ok skirmish i think. Apart from the fact that you can bug it by dying while Gwyllion dies, or touvh the gates, or get locked into the air. And once you complete it, if you're lucky enough, you'll get a nice shiny t1 relic (gotten 1 t1 relic in 3 runs so far... ah yes, and every time it was the same three encounters, though that's technincally possible it's rather unlikely). SO apart from being buggier than a house that need antisimex need to clean and the fact that loot is rather rubbish, and that you can wipe due to NPC brilliance and poorly scripted and written instance... yes it's an awesome skirmish

I actually find this skirmish quite rewarding. If you kill the Old Woman, you get to loot her body in addition to the chest. I have often gottten three relics from a single boss fight. I can therefore only guess that you are have some rather bad luck when it comes to final loot (or else the drummers are dying on you, which means the Old Woman gets away and you only get the chest loot).

There is a very serious loot issue, though. Loot is not dropping below Level 75 in non-raid runs. I found the loot great at 75, but awful at lower levels. At level 74, you get nothing other than the standard silver in a non-raid setting. In a raid, loot seems to drop properly at all levels.

As for encounters, I have faced them all (and thus completed the deed and meta-deed) so I can only imagine that you are having some pretty bad luck in that department.

As for the NPCs, I think the real issue is that the patrols for the next area are too close to the gate where you fight off the counterattacks. Personally, I think they should move the flags back so that you and the Grey Company are unlikely to attract the attention of the next area even there are ranged mobs in the counterattack.

I love the new skirmish.
http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c3...mskirmish2.jpg
The loot is not for those who doesn't have kindred with Lime and Stangrad.
I love that the encounter comes with the group of counter-attacks and I enjoy it at t2 as well. Got a crystal but really mad at it...but that a whole diff story.

I did this for the first time today, on L75 T1. I was expecting something a little more special and new, so only on that basis I was disappointed. I did like the lore aspect, and the fact that it fit into the story. That was very nice, except it doesn't make sense on that basis to allow it at such low level. I found it very hard and almost died a few times, within 100 morale, once when lots of things pulled and again at the end battle. I was lucky to finish the end battle and have no desire to go back and do it again, much like Icy Crevasse.

There is little positive things about Storm in Maethedras skirmish, but lots of negative things.

Disclaimer: I have only done this T1 solo lvl 75, with all 9 classes and maybe 20-25 times total.

First the positive ones:
+ It's offensive one, you get to set the pace
+ It's relatively short one
+ You get to fight with rangers in skirmish
+ The story about Old Lady of the Mountain gets closure
+ Nice idea about drake crashing down the hut

Then the negative ones:
- Mob groups are stronger than they should be (you can get 5 hale mobs and 2 weak ones in one pull)
- Mob groups are packed too closely together (which means you might get 10 hale mobs and 4 weak ones to fight the same time if you are not careful with pulls, sometimes even being careful does not help)
- Mobs have too many debuffs and special skills (strong fear DOT's, evasion, going to unattackable state, roots etc)
- The drake does too much damage both ranged and melee (in melee you get fire aura, in ranged you get those strong fire blasts)
- You can't see anything when fighting the drake melee in the ruins of that hut, and so you can't even see which way the drake is
- The small drakelings spawn too fast after you kill them and they have too much health (for that respawn rate, they should be swarm (weak) mobs)
- Gwylion does insane damage. I got hit for 1300+1800+1800+2970 damage within 7 seconds or so, which killed my hunter quite easily. WAY too much for T1 solo boss
- Loot is bugged. One medallion for gwyllion and one medallion for the drake? Plus one T1 relic? Oooookay.
- All the above considered, this skirmish is WAY TOO HARD for solo T1 skirmish, especially for soloers who do not possess instance gear.

I was really waiting for new skirmish, since it has been long since we got new one. And when we got new skirmishes, they were hard (both Attack at Dawn and Icy Crevasse were hard compared to what we got already, especially Icy Crevasse), and now we got another very hard skirmish. Some of you people like the challenge, but that's what TIERS are for: Do them in T3 if you want challenge, I enjoy relaxed skirmishing which T1 skirmishes should be. It seems that devs have forgotten that.

Having done the new skirmish 40-60 times already solo and duo, t1-t3. Here are my concerns...

Loot is really bad and bugged. What good does the witch giving us scrolls at the end of the skirmish do? Loot did not improve measureably from t1 to t3, all that really happened was i saw more lts, who dropped nothing most of the time, and healthier mobs. The skirms and medallions do not go up to warrant a t3 skirmish.

I like the pace of the skirmish and i find as a hunter(Bosco) I am using more traps than i ever would have thought. But until the loot table gets fixed, its not worth the time. Lts of the witch dont even drop anything, kinda sad, the witch must not be treating them right.

I never had the ranger in jeapordy, you just have to be very conscious of your pulls. For a tip, at the gates let the mobs come to you finish their three waves, then go clean out the rest of the trash.

Oh and on a side note, in all those skirms, neither myself or my duo partner saw a single crystal....

Just my two coppers

Originally Posted by RaleyD

I actually find this skirmish quite rewarding. If you kill the Old Woman, you get to loot her body in addition to the chest. I have often gottten three relics from a single boss fight. I can therefore only guess that you are have some rather bad luck when it comes to final loot (or else the drummers are dying on you, which means the Old Woman gets away and you only get the chest loot).

There is a very serious loot issue, though. Loot is not dropping below Level 75 in non-raid runs. I found the loot great at 75, but awful at lower levels. At level 74, you get nothing other than the standard silver in a non-raid setting. In a raid, loot seems to drop properly at all levels.

As for encounters, I have faced them all (and thus completed the deed and meta-deed) so I can only imagine that you are having some pretty bad luck in that department.

As for the NPCs, I think the real issue is that the patrols for the next area are too close to the gate where you fight off the counterattacks. Personally, I think they should move the flags back so that you and the Grey Company are unlikely to attract the attention of the next area even there are ranged mobs in the counterattack.

You're right that it's more rewarding in the sense you get loot off the boss as well as the chest, which is not the case in a lot of other solo skirmishes. But that's only IF your NPC doesn't decide to commit suicide and kill you with it. And that's a big if. Note that I'm talking about the tier3 version only. In tier2 I was able to save the NPC when he got stupid.

I guess it all comes down to how lucky you are - and how often the idiot NPC decides to mass sucide the skirmish.

Either way, the skirmish has some serious problems. It's sloppy, bug-infested, and clearly wasn't ready to be released.

Originally Posted by Gilean-EU

-
You can't see anything when fighting the drake melee in the ruins of that hut, and so you can't even see which way the drake is
.

Just want to add my support to how annoying this is. Why such a frustrating and obvious flaw wasn't addressed BEFORE being released is absolutely beyond me. Do the devs even play their games before releasing them? Or do they just not care. It has to be one or the other.