Thread: Quests, are they Solo or Fellowship?

Lately I have wondered about how some quests are marked as either of these especially when last night I was offered Epic Volume 1, Book 2, Chapter 5 as either Fellowship or Solo. Looking back on some other quests, I do not understand why some of them were not done this way offering either option.

Examples:
- There is a Level 21 Fellowship (6 man because it is not marked as a Small Fellowship) quest in the Nen Harn area called By Axe and Fire where you have to defeat a mob named Tarbúrz. I first tried this with my Level 24 Captain asking for others and had a Level 29 Hunter and Level 52 Hunter join me. Tarbúrz went down after a few shots from the second Hunter, I noted Tarbúrz had 690 Morale, not much for going against the three of us. Curious I later tried this with my Level 21 Burglar Solo and won easily.

- Another would be Violet in Peril, a Level 11 Solo quest in the Shire. I tried this on level and lost, the main problem is the amount of Brigands in a small area and they respawn fast, I would say it is roughly similar to Sheep Theft (Level 13 Fellowship) and that one cannot be Soloed at Level 18, I know from trying.

- Last night I was doing A Polished Pendant (Level 22 Solo) and found others who were trying that or the alternate quest A Deal Gone Sour (Level 22 Solo) involving the same NPC to be protected. I do not know how anyone could do this solo given the pace at certain times, I wound up helping others and them me.

- I was doing Volume 1, Book 2, Chapter 3: War-master Uzorr with my Captain and ran across a Level 21 Lore-master who was also clearly doing it. I had just passed the gate and noted the layout of the area, small spaces with spots where a lone character could pull 3+ mobs without trying, personally I would consider that difficult for a lone character under level, I mention it as an example of how some players are trying quests above their level.

Further I have noticed that clearly the quests do not scale as I have read others post on. Tarbúrz’s Morale did not change as noted plus in A Polished Pendant/A Deal Gone Sour and Violet in Peril the number of mobs and their Morale did not change either, I have done the last one on level and higher with two different toons noting the stats remained the same every single time.

I know from reading other topics here there are players who are into the ‘Solo Everything’ bit and for legitimate reasons that they post but there are others who prefer groups, whether all the time, rarely or somewhere in between and I do not mean just for Skirmishes/Instances/Raids. I think some quests are marked incorrectly plus without scaling there is a clear need to adjust them. Note my highest toon is Level 26, I have not even gotten out of the Lone-lands so I am left to wonder about the other regions. Further having the option to do quests in Fellowship allows players to get used to how their class works in groups and using FMs.

I am considering doing something to ask Turbine to review the quests after RoR is out, either email, phone or petition and would like to hear what others have to say about it. I know this would be a lot of work but still incorrectly marked quests can lead to problems in my view.

Yes, some quests are mismarked. You should /bug the ones you find if you want to help.

Why would you expect landscape quests to scale just because your level is different?

It gets worse in some areas. In North Downs a Fellowship quest can mean both "Kill a named Normal Monster, who has just two Normal adds" (easily soloable on-level) and "Kill an Elite Master with Signature/Elite adds" (impossible to solo on-level). When you find a quest that is clearly mis-labeled, you may /bug it, they DO fix such things occasionally.

There's a sticky on this
http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.p...ecommendations
but, like most things, perceived difficulty often comes down to experience, class and group formation. I've met people who regularly solo 3 mans on level. I sometimes struggle with on level skirms. But bug this, by all means, if you feel it's really out of whack

There is a difference between the landscape quests and the book quests.

The landscape ones may be marked wrongly. Sometimes it happens after tuning the quest down, and something what required a group in past can be soloed easily, though it is still called a fellowship quest. As others told, /bug it.

The Epic Book quests are different, some of them required a full fellowship in the past. You mentioned Book 2 Chapter 5 (Retake the Weathertop) and that was a very challenging one on level. Couple of years ago all the Epic fellowship quests were adjusted for solo and the Books 1-2 were the first ones on the list. The Retake the Weathertop quest is still different as it requires you to choose between 1 and 6 man versions only. The quests in Book 3 and later will just tell:
'NOTE: This quest is meant for a fellowship. If you choose to undertake this quest solo you will receive an inspiration bonus, but the challenge will be great.'
In fact, you will be able to do those quests in a group of 2-5 players and your inspiration bonus will be scaled accordingly.

Originally Posted by Lunasa

The quests in Book 3 and later will just tell:
'NOTE: This quest is meant for a fellowship. If you choose to undertake this quest solo you will receive an inspiration bonus, but the challenge will be great.'

The final instance in Book I.2 (where you accompany Radagast) also uses IG, so that mechanism starts before I.3.

--W. H. Heydt

Old Used Programmer

Originally Posted by whheydt

The final instance in Book I.2 (where you accompany Radagast) also uses IG, so that mechanism starts before I.3.

--W. H. Heydt

Old Used Programmer

Unless it was changed recently, it shares the same design as Retake the Weathertop. Lotro-wiki also marks it as a solo/fellowship quest. I remember having an issue with that particular chapter because I wanted to duo it with a friend and it was not scaleable for two, while the solo version was waaaay too easy.
http://lotro-wiki.com/index.php/Ques...:_The_Red-pass

I will check it soon since one of my alts is almost there

Originally Posted by Glicyn

- Last night I was doing A Polished Pendant (Level 22 Solo) and found others who were trying that or the alternate quest A Deal Gone Sour (Level 22 Solo) involving the same NPC to be protected. I do not know how anyone could do this solo given the pace at certain times, I wound up helping others and them me.

I've done this one solo twice, once as a LM and once as a warden. It certainly is more challenging than most solo quests, but not at all impossible. Keep your healing potions going. Try to stun or otherwise incapacitate monsters when attacked by multiples. Heal the NPC you're escorting if possible. If you know where he's heading next, run there ahead of him so you can clear out monsters without endangering him.

There are some cases where part of a quest chain is a group quest and they label the quests leading up to it as group also, even though you don't need a group right away. But not always; they seem rather inconsistent in their labeling.

Well, now I have two more.

I went looking for people to do Great Barrow QUESTS both marked as 6-man, the one where you look for chalices and the one to kill wights.

First, seems anytime you mention GB on GLFF, people think Instance not Quest even though I type in 'QUEST (not Skirms)'. Then someone tells me to solo them.

Man, I understand the All Solo people but there is an advantage to learning how to Fellowship.

Originally Posted by Glicyn

I went looking for people to do Great Barrow QUESTS both marked as 6-man, the one where you look for chalices and the one to kill wights.

First, seems anytime you mention GB on GLFF, people think Instance not Quest even though I type in 'QUEST (not Skirms)'. Then someone tells me to solo them.

Both of those quests take place with Great Barrow instances.

Originally Posted by Malachi108

Both of those quests take place with Great Barrow instances.

So you cannot do them outside the GB Instances? Odd.
Well, thanks for clearing up that bit of confusion.

Originally Posted by Glicyn

So you cannot do them outside the GB Instances? Odd.

Yeah, you'll find more quests like that down the road.

One of the issues is that when the game was first designed, there was no such thing as the Small Fellowship quest designation. A quest that was marked Fellowship was designed for anywhere from 2-6 players. Some two-player quests got marked as Fellowship and some as Solo, while today they would have more likely been labeled as Small Fellowship. As you have noticed, there are still several quests whose designations have not since been updated.

I believe the troll in Axe and Fire was originally Elite, which earned it the Fellowship rating (or would earn a Small Fellowship rating today). They later downgraded the troll to make it soloable but apparently never downgraded the quest.

Violet in Peril and Polished Pendant shows you how escort quests are often underrated. It did not help that during the early days of the game, there were so many players in the low-level zones that they probably were soloable.

I have never had trouble with War-master Uzorr and I think the solo rating for that quest is fine. Yes, you need to be cautious but I have soloed it at level with several different classes.

Landscape quest mobs never scale. It is unlikely they ever will.

As for the Great Barrows quests, most dungeon instances have quest givers near the entrances that gives quests related to the instance. This used to be the primary source of quests for each instances. Before the days of the Instance Finder, you had to go to the entrance anyway, so you would find these quest givers. While the Great Barrows is now a scaled instance and generally reached through the Instance Finder, those old quests are still about. In other words, as Malachi108 noted, the chalice requires you to run The Great Barrows.

Instances can be scaled to solo or fellowship, landscape content cannot (in this game, others do it).

Escort quests are generally a nightmare to solo. Avoid them at all costs unless you're at least 2 levels above the mobs in the area or absolutely confident in your combat prowess.