Thread: Reported Quest Difficulty Levels and Recommendations

The only problem with nearly all the 'solo' quests after level 25ish is that no minstrel can solo them. I'm thinking we need to have either a disclaimer added in at the very beginning or around lvl 30ish, or, although probably not possible, have different icons for different classes.

QUEST: Dourhand Plans
CATEGORY: North Downs
JOURNAL LEVEL: 29
JOURNAL ICON: Solo
ACTUAL LEVEL: 30
ACTUAL ICON: Small Fellowship
REASONS: The elites are left over from a failed chapter 4 attempt at Dori. They are a non-factor in the decision. As a champ I tried a couple times to do this, failing at the end when I had to face 3 birds and a dourhand at one time. Of course, as a burglar, I just snuck right up to it, grabbed it, and exited stage right. And there's no way a minstrel can solo it... duo with a champ or guard, sure.


QUEST: Adelard's Chapter
CATEGORY: Shire
JOURNAL LEVEL: 7
JOURNAL ICON: Solo
ACTUAL LEVEL: 9-10
ACTUAL ICON: solo
REASONS: Its a running joke that people suffer their first death (including me) in MD doing that quest where the bee hive falls, you fight bees, then before you can recover you fight bears... as a minstrel, forget it til you're 12 or so...

All of the listed quests were completed with a team of level 35+ players. Previous attempts with the listed level of players resulted in painful and expensive deaths.

Quest: Orcs of the Blood Mountain
Category: North Downs
Journal Level: 33
Journal Icon: fellowship
Actual Level: at least 36
Actual Icon: Fellowship or Raid
Reasons: Fast respawns, roaming patrols, and static spawns of at least 3 forces a group to take on 4-5 elites at any given time. My lvl 37 hunter can't solo one of these elites, so 4-5 of them hurt. After wiping 5 times in 6 hours, we finally finished. (the manslayers are waaaay in the back - hard to get to) Even when we teamed with two other groups, we all ended up wiping. Worse, the level required to complete the quest means the rewards are useless.

Quest: Weakening the Tide
Category: North Downs
Journal Level: 34
Journal Icon: fellowship
Actual Level: 37
Actual Icon: fellowship
Reasons: see above - same area, same respawns. Additionally, these guys only spawn in certain areas, and if another team is doing the same quest, this one takes for ever to complete. 20 bonespeakers takes minimum 2 hours, even doing with other quests. Quest rewards also need to match difficulty.

Quest: Seigecraft
Category: North Downs
Journal Level: 34
Journal Icon: fellowship
Actual Level: 37
Actual Icon: fellowship
Reasons: to complete this quest, you basically have to slaughter the whole camp (quickly to avoid respawns). A group of level 34s will wipe quickly up against a group of level 33-34 elites, and even if they manage to take the first group, the respawns will kill them on the second group. Quest rewards need to match the difficulty.

QUEST: Iron-jaws
CATEGORY: Lone-lands (Ost Guruth)
JOURNAL LEVEL: 22
JOURNAL ICON: Solo
ACTUAL LEVEL: 25
ACTUAL ICON: Solo
REASONS: The wargs in the area around Ost Cyrn are level 25-26. Pretty simple fix


QUEST: Raising the Wargs Ire
CATEGORY: Lone-lands (Forsaken Inn)
JOURNAL LEVEL: 25
JOURNAL ICON: Solo
ACTUAL LEVEL: 25
ACTUAL ICON: Solo
REASONS: Yeah, i didn't change anything... The only question I have here is why you have a lvl 25 kill warg quest coming out of the Forsaken Inn? Once the Iron-Jaw quest is fixed you will have two quests, the same level, to go kill wargs in the same area...

Originally Posted by joepfeifer

QUEST: Iron-jaws
CATEGORY: Lone-lands (Ost Guruth)
JOURNAL LEVEL: 22
JOURNAL ICON: Solo
ACTUAL LEVEL: 25
ACTUAL ICON: Solo
REASONS: The wargs in the area around Ost Cyrn are level 25-26. Pretty simple fix


QUEST: Raising the Wargs Ire
CATEGORY: Lone-lands (Forsaken Inn)
JOURNAL LEVEL: 25
JOURNAL ICON: Solo
ACTUAL LEVEL: 25
ACTUAL ICON: Solo
REASONS: Yeah, i didn't change anything... The only question I have here is why you have a lvl 25 kill warg quest coming out of the Forsaken Inn? Once the Iron-Jaw quest is fixed you will have two quests, the same level, to go kill wargs in the same area...

Maybe the levels of these two have been mixed up, As there are plenty of wargs around in Minas Eriol, and at Weatherfoot that are more than doable at Lvl22 (In fact usually Lvl25 wargs are doable at 22 as long as nothing else interferes. [for Guard/Hunt/LM anyway])

Virtually every Angmar Quest is FUBAR.

Solo quests have you fighting signature with escorts.

Solo quests have you questing in aggro range of elite mobs all across the eastern and north eastern parts of the map.

Quest descriptions are cryptic or just plain not helpful. The Orc quest for gathering tools and the Turtle Egg quest provide the same exact description of the Orc camp. Of course, the Egg quest means going much further north, to a completely different camp and one that has Orcs and Trolls. The fire itself isnt even a campfire but, yeah, people will figure that one out.

There are so few solo quests in Angmar you are better off going to Misty Mountains and farming goblins and dwarves. Oh yeah, drop rate in Angmar West is also abysmal.

Really, Angmar needs some really significant adjustment in mobs, quests, quest descriptions, you name it. As hard as groups are to come by until the very social people finally get into their 40's, the game is becoming a grind fest.

Lets not ruin the game with bad zones. It really is a good game. Making it mandatory to team just to level other than to grind puts us almost back to Dungeons and Dragons. Obvioiusly there was a need to have solo content there too huh? Not good. If the option is to grind, there is no real point in playing the game, grinding isn't content, it is mindless mashing of buttons.

QUEST: Mountain Raiders
CATEGORY: Trollshaws (Chain from A Better Sort of Giant)
JOURNAL LEVEL: 40
JOURNAL ICON: Full Fellowship
ACTUAL LEVEL: 40-44? (see below)
ACTUAL ICON: Full Fellowship
REASONS: There are level 44 elite drakes in the area, one of which guards the pass you need to use to get into the area. My group of 37-40s couldn't touch it, and at least 2 people died each time when we tried to run by. Please either remove this drake or update the quest accordingly.

QUEST: Reclaim the Lost Maiden (aka The Red Maid)
CATEGORY: Garth Agarwen
JOURNAL LEVEL: 35
JOURNAL ICON: fellowship
ACTUAL LEVEL: 37+
ACTUAL ICON: fellowship
REASONS: This quest is far too difficult for a level 35 group.

QUEST: Master of the Black Tide
CATEGORY: North Downs (Dol Dinen)
JOURNAL LEVEL: 35
JOURNAL ICON: fellowship
ACTUAL LEVEL: 37+
ACTUAL ICON: fellowship
REASONS: Even a level 37+ group will struggle with this, possibly wiping more than once. Far more difficult than level 35. As has been stated in other posts above, either the numbers, respawn times, or levels/elite status of the mobs need to be toned down or the quest level needs to be raised.

QUEST: The Forgotten Company
CATEGORY: Fornost
JOURNAL LEVEL: 36
JOURNAL ICON: fellowship
ACTUAL LEVEL: 36
ACTUAL ICON: fellowship
REASONS: The problem with this quest is not levels. The problem is the number of items required and the inability to share item locations. Each member of the fellowship needs 20 arrowheads from the skeleton piles. That means in a full fellowship, 120 skeleton piles are needed so that each member can finish the quest in the instance. That's ridiculous. Make the piles so that members can share looting them (like the redeemed wight quest in the same instance), or drastically reduce the number of arrowheads required.

Originally Posted by joepfeifer

QUEST: Iron-jaws
CATEGORY: Lone-lands (Ost Guruth)
JOURNAL LEVEL: 22
JOURNAL ICON: Solo
ACTUAL LEVEL: 25
ACTUAL ICON: Solo
REASONS: The wargs in the area around Ost Cyrn are level 25-26. Pretty simple fix


QUEST: Raising the Wargs Ire
CATEGORY: Lone-lands (Forsaken Inn)
JOURNAL LEVEL: 25
JOURNAL ICON: Solo
ACTUAL LEVEL: 25
ACTUAL ICON: Solo
REASONS: Yeah, i didn't change anything... The only question I have here is why you have a lvl 25 kill warg quest coming out of the Forsaken Inn? Once the Iron-Jaw quest is fixed you will have two quests, the same level, to go kill wargs in the same area...

Hunter lvl 22 can easily take down wargs that are Orange and Yellow. I don't know about a loremaster though.

I do agree that the quests seem to be opposite of what they should be. Something is wrong with the questing mechanism to me in that area. When I got Warg's Ire it was red to me, yet my hunter killed Wargs (if I could find any) and got the credit in my early 20-21 lvl. It took careful planning, but I did pull it off without getting killed by a warg.

Originally Posted by Slave_to_the_Wheek

Hunter lvl 22 can easily take down wargs that are Orange and Yellow. I don't know about a loremaster though.

I do agree that the quests seem to be opposite of what they should be. Something is wrong with the questing mechanism to me in that area. When I got Warg's Ire it was red to me, yet my hunter killed Wargs (if I could find any) and got the credit in my early 20-21 lvl. It took careful planning, but I did pull it off without getting killed by a warg.

Yeah, LRM can do it too. Every now and then if things are looking iffy (which happens!) you can Blinding Flash and withdraw for a bit. But I managed this with a Lvl22 LRM also with no visits to the white circle.

QUEST: Master of the Lash
CATEGORY: Lone Lands
JOURNAL LEVEL: 24
JOURNAL ICON: solo
ACTUAL LEVEL: 24
ACTUAL ICON: small fellowship
REASONS: Collecting the Orc-Swords is not a problem, but if you're the only person in the area, getting to and defeating the slaughterer is nigh on impossible for a lvl 24. He's surrounded by 3 other Lvl22 orcs, and the re-spawn rate for the other orcs nearby was insane. As a Lvl25 LRM, finding a Lvl23 GRD to group with made all the difference. It was still tough, but we did it.

QUEST: Counting the Clutch
CATEGORY: Angmar
JOURNAL LEVEL: 48
JOURNAL ICON: solo
ACTUAL LEVEL: 48
ACTUAL ICON: fellowship
REASONS: There are level 47/48 elite drakes in the area. I don't really see how it would be possible to solo this.

QUEST: Scales Menace
CATEGORY: Angmar
JOURNAL LEVEL: 48
JOURNAL ICON: solo
ACTUAL LEVEL: 48
ACTUAL ICON: fellowship
REASONS: These are 47/48 elite drakes... not quite soloable.

QUEST: Coat of Shadow
CATEGORY: North Downs
JOURNAL LEVEL: 31
JOURNAL ICON: Solo
ACTUAL LEVEL: 31
ACTUAL ICON: Solo
REASONS: See below.

Level and icon are fine. The quest is fine. The drop rates and spawn rates are horrid. The Dire Wargs are hard to find and they drop the quest hides rarely. The drop rate is the stupid part because they almost always drop a Sturdy Hide--I'd gladly give *that* to the Earth-kin if I could. And why only the Dire Wargs--why not let go north and kill some of the 33 Hunter Wargs if I choose to?

QUEST: Our Greatest Find
CATEGORY: One member of your Fellowship picks up a statue, and carries it to a guy standing on the cliff.
JOURNAL LEVEL: 22
JOURNAL ICON: Full Fellowship
ACTUAL LEVEL: 25 - 26
ACTUAL ICON: Full Fellowship
REASONS: This is a fun and difficult quest, but it's not a lvl 22 quest the goblins respawn fast, you are always fighting 2 - 4 Elite lvl 20 -22 Goblins, and one play needs to pick up a statue and stand there and do nothing, so you are already down 1 person in a fellowship. I completed this quest at lvl 27. The party was 24+

QUEST: Goblin Leader
CATEGORY: Fight your way through mobs, and mobs of Goblines and kill the leader.
JOURNAL LEVEL: 22
JOURNAL ICON: Full Fellowship
ACTUAL LEVEL: 25 - 26
RESONS: Goblins respawn extremly fast, always fighting 3 Goblins, these lvl 22 20 -22 Goblins are tough and your always fighting repop Goblins, and patroling Goblins.

QUEST: Worse than Death
CATEGORY: Angmar
JOURNAL LEVEL: 48
JOURNAL ICON: solo
ACTUAL LEVEL: 48
ACTUAL ICON: fellowship
REASONS: Tons of elite mobs around. Unless you're a burglar, I'm not too sure how this is supposed to be soloable.

QUEST: Spirits of Morgoth
CATEGORY: Angmar
JOURNAL LEVEL: 48
JOURNAL ICON: solo
ACTUAL LEVEL: 48
ACTUAL ICON: fellowship
REASONS: Same comment.

Originally Posted by Ulfbrandr

QUEST: The Forgotten Company
CATEGORY: Fornost
JOURNAL LEVEL: 36
JOURNAL ICON: fellowship
ACTUAL LEVEL: 36
ACTUAL ICON: fellowship
REASONS: The problem with this quest is not levels. The problem is the number of items required and the inability to share item locations. Each member of the fellowship needs 20 arrowheads from the skeleton piles. That means in a full fellowship, 120 skeleton piles are needed so that each member can finish the quest in the instance. That's ridiculous. Make the piles so that members can share looting them (like the redeemed wight quest in the same instance), or drastically reduce the number of arrowheads required.

I had a group with 3 people who needed those and all four of us were able to complete it. That's not the quest that really needs adjusting. The REAL broken quest like this one, does need fixing.


QUEST:Free the Fallen
CATEGORY: Fornost
JOURNAL LEVEL: 39
JOURNAL ICON: fellowship
ACTUAL LEVEL: None
ACTUAL ICON: None
REASONS: The problem with this quest is not levels. The problem is the number of items required and the inability to share item locations. Each member of the fellowship needs to free 30 spirits from the skeleton piles. That means in a full fellowship, 180 skeleton piles are needed so that each member can finish the quest in the instance. And having 180 spots doesn't give you 180 Freed Spirits. To top it off, the skeleton piles can EITHER OR spawn an elite non-siganture undead instead of the Freed Spirit version the quest requires.

In general, this quest needs to be scrapped or completely reworked as it's not worth the 34s for any but one person to complete at a time.

Same thing with the Dundhenain(?) Ruin-Pile quest in Agamuar. These piles need to be good for everyone in group and not 1/person. Granted you need 10 and not 20+, its just a hassle. Especially when theyve made this whole instance looong and something like 3 signatures within.

Originally Posted by BDKDini

Virtually every Angmar Quest is FUBAR.

Solo quests have you fighting signature with escorts.

Solo quests have you questing in aggro range of elite mobs all across the eastern and north eastern parts of the map.

Quest descriptions are cryptic or just plain not helpful. The Orc quest for gathering tools and the Turtle Egg quest provide the same exact description of the Orc camp. Of course, the Egg quest means going much further north, to a completely different camp and one that has Orcs and Trolls. The fire itself isnt even a campfire but, yeah, people will figure that one out.

Agreed. That turtle egg quest is Rampage, and is marked solo. How can a single player run around, avoid aggro, carrying an egg, and then run in past about 4-6 elite trolls ? I got to a campfire, but it apparently wasn't where it needed to be. Where do you even take this egg to ?

Another one was False Orders, where you insert false orders into 4 Strong Boxes. Besides pulling 2 mobs to get into the area, each camp has 3 mobs that all pull at the same time. Only way I could do it, is to not loot the corpses so they would take longer to respawn, kill 1 of 3, then run out the gate, heal up, then go back and take the other 2, without looting. The final box you have to get past 2 elites. I did manage to get somewhere and have them get confused and reset, but this really is more of a game quirk than a successful completion. There are way too many quests marked solo, that are nowhere near solo, or the descriptions of what you need to do are very vague. If you took the elites out of these non-instanced areas, it would make the entire zone 100% playable.

Fell Water is another one - Collect 4 samples from ponds, surrounded by multiple normal mobs and elites. Impossible without a full group.

The Level 45 quests that require you to collect Splintered Warg Claws tells you to look in the plains of Gorothlad for the claws. There are wargs there, but they do not drop them. Only wargs that drop them are the ones cleared around Ungoroth, or the ones in Nan Gurth, which of course are around several elites and multiple pulls.

I definitely agree about false order and rampage!

Speaking of Angmar - Book 7 chapter 6 shows as a solo quest, but when you start the instance, it turns into a fellowship quest. That's in the log. Both should be small fellowship actually.

QUEST:A Tenuous Thread
CATEGORY: Angmar
JOURNAL LEVEL: 50
JOURNAL ICON: solo
ACTUAL LEVEL: 50
ACTUAL ICON: fellowship
REASONS: This quest is in the instance, so absolutely not soloable.

QUEST:The Shadow Falls
CATEGORY: North Downs
JOURNAL LEVEL: 42
JOURNAL ICON: fellowship
ACTUAL LEVEL: 42*
ACTUAL ICON: fellowship*
REASONS: *This would be a fine estimation of level, if not for the last room before the last boss.

We did this last night with a group of level 38 to 40, plus a level 44 minstrel. The boss fight was hard, but we managed. The problem was the last room before going up to the boss. The first pull in that room brings 6 or more TOUGH shades and a flock of bats. We wiped 3 times in that room before we were able to whittle them down to a manageable population. All night, we did not wipe anywhere else, and we pretty much knocked out all the Fornost quests, fighting every boss in order. We had some other close calls, but nothing so devastating as this one room.

Also, this quest is very long and involved and takes up too much inventory with the 4 non-stacking hilts. It should be split up into multiple quests. Another problem is that the key needed to shortcut to the last boss only drops once, from the third boss. This is a major pain for such a big place where so many quest are done behind a locked door. Please make the keys drop from each boss, or at least make the third one drop multiple keys.

Originally Posted by DarkChyle

QUEST: Ivar the Blood Hand
CATEGORY: Lone Lands
JOURNAL LEVEL: 34
JOURNAL ICON: Fellowship
ACTUAL LEVEL: 38 if you like a BIG challenge 40 for a 50/50 chance with an unbalanced group.
ACTUAL ICON: Fellowship. Raid if you do it at 34
REASONS: ...

We failed it first time, then completed it. Fellowship need to have burglar no questions asked. Without conjunctions its a waste of time. Banner carriers need to be put down as soon as they respawn. Guardian can interrupt Ivar's concentration when he's trying to spawn add. It doesn't always work but most of the time Kick helps. Ivar has to be on the guardian at all times. Proper taunting is the key for minstrels survival. Minstrel, Burglar or Lore Master can "mez" one of the adds. Ivar is too tough for level 34. And he has inappropriately high defense for a "shaman" type of mob. I would say Ivar is more a mini raid mob than a single master elite.

Originally Posted by NezRe

QUEST: Our Greatest Find
CATEGORY: One member of your Fellowship picks up a statue, and carries it to a guy standing on the cliff.
JOURNAL LEVEL: 22
JOURNAL ICON: Full Fellowship
ACTUAL LEVEL: 25 - 26
ACTUAL ICON: Full Fellowship
REASONS: This is a fun and difficult quest, but it's not a lvl 22 quest the goblins respawn fast, you are always fighting 2 - 4 Elite lvl 20 -22 Goblins, and one play needs to pick up a statue and stand there and do nothing, so you are already down 1 person in a fellowship. I completed this quest at lvl 27. The party was 24+

QUEST: Goblin Leader
CATEGORY: Fight your way through mobs, and mobs of Goblines and kill the leader.
JOURNAL LEVEL: 22
JOURNAL ICON: Full Fellowship
ACTUAL LEVEL: 25 - 26
RESONS: Goblins respawn extremly fast, always fighting 3 Goblins, these lvl 22 20 -22 Goblins are tough and your always fighting repop Goblins, and patroling Goblins.

Agreed. We just did this last night with a full group of 25's and these were still a fun challenge. However, (not counting the time we just tried running with the statue) only two people were defeated while doing both quests, so I would maybe say it is closer to the 24-25 range.

Although, if you do change Our Greatest Find, you might want to make sure people can't just jump out and run around the perimeter of the ruins/castle.

Originally Posted by skadoink

QUEST: Master of the Lash
CATEGORY: Lone Lands
JOURNAL LEVEL: 24
JOURNAL ICON: solo
ACTUAL LEVEL: 24
ACTUAL ICON: small fellowship
REASONS: Collecting the Orc-Swords is not a problem, but if you're the only person in the area, getting to and defeating the slaughterer is nigh on impossible for a lvl 24. He's surrounded by 3 other Lvl22 orcs, and the re-spawn rate for the other orcs nearby was insane. As a Lvl25 LRM, finding a Lvl23 GRD to group with made all the difference. It was still tough, but we did it.

Agreed, no way that is a solo quest with having to defeat the Slaughterer. I think he had more then 3 minions surrounding him when I did it.

Quote:
Originally Posted by joepfeifer
QUEST: Iron-jaws
CATEGORY: Lone-lands (Ost Guruth)
JOURNAL LEVEL: 22
JOURNAL ICON: Solo
ACTUAL LEVEL: 25
ACTUAL ICON: Solo
REASONS: The wargs in the area around Ost Cyrn are level 25-26. Pretty simple fix


QUEST: Raising the Wargs Ire
CATEGORY: Lone-lands (Forsaken Inn)
JOURNAL LEVEL: 25
JOURNAL ICON: Solo
ACTUAL LEVEL: 25
ACTUAL ICON: Solo
REASONS: Yeah, i didn't change anything... The only question I have here is why you have a lvl 25 kill warg quest coming out of the Forsaken Inn? Once the Iron-Jaw quest is fixed you will have two quests, the same level, to go kill wargs in the same area...

Maybe the levels of these two have been mixed up, As there are plenty of wargs around in Minas Eriol, and at Weatherfoot that are more than doable at Lvl22.....

That sounds about right.

QUEST: The Stone Speaker
CATEGORY: Lone-Lands (Ost Guruth)
JOURNAL LEVEL: 27
JOURNAL ICON: Solo
ACTUAL LEVEL: 30
ACTUAL ICON: Small Fellowship
REASONS: The swamp area around the Stone Speaker is filled with level 30+ Wights, it is very difficult to get through the area at the designated quest level. It is very easy to get Add's on you when just trying to sneak from one point to another.

QUEST: Hidden by Fur and Snow
CATEGORY: Misty Mountains
JOURNAL LEVEL: 44
JOURNAL ICON: Solo
ACTUAL LEVEL: 44
ACTUAL ICON: Small Fellowship
REASONS:The bears near the High Crags are easy enough to find and kill, but the bears by the Giant Halls and near the Bruinen source are more problematic.

The Giant Halls area is very treacherous, being thickly populated by elite level 47+ giants. It is certainly possible to solo these bears, but it's far too easy to get into trouble alone.

The Bruinen source bears share a spawn cycle with elite Snowmantles leveled 38-40. As a well armed and armored captain at level 42, I could barely manage to solo the level 38 Snowmantle Matrons, but the Bulls were out of my league. This might be ok if there were quests to kill the Snowmantles and other fellowships went there to kill them, but there aren't any so the area just fills up with elite mobs that no one wants to fight.

Originally Posted by carlosjuero

QUEST: The Stone Speaker
CATEGORY: Lone-Lands (Ost Guruth)
JOURNAL LEVEL: 27
JOURNAL ICON: Solo
ACTUAL LEVEL: 30
ACTUAL ICON: Small Fellowship
REASONS: The swamp area around the Stone Speaker is filled with level 30+ Wights, it is very difficult to get through the area at the designated quest level. It is very easy to get Add's on you when just trying to sneak from one point to another.

Absolutely, except that I'd say solo at 30 is fine, though the directions should perhaps be improved. I fired up my browser to report this just now, but am glad to see someone beat me to the punch.

In fact, I seem to remember that most of the Ost Guruth quests are very badly mis-levelled, especially considering Ost Guruth itself is "guarded" by spiders and wargs in the upper 20's. I'd highly recommend the dev team take a hard look at all of them, not just the ones that have been reported in this thread thus far.

Originally Posted by SGWB

QUEST: Hidden by Fur and Snow
CATEGORY: Misty Mountains
JOURNAL LEVEL: 44
JOURNAL ICON: Solo
ACTUAL LEVEL: 44
ACTUAL ICON: Small Fellowship
REASONS:The bears near the High Crags are easy enough to find and kill, but the bears by the Giant Halls and near the Bruinen source are more problematic.

The Giant Halls area is very treacherous, being thickly populated by elite level 47+ giants. It is certainly possible to solo these bears, but it's far too easy to get into trouble alone.

The Bruinen source bears share a spawn cycle with elite Snowmantles leveled 38-40. As a well armed and armored captain at level 42, I could barely manage to solo the level 38 Snowmantle Matrons, but the Bulls were out of my league. This might be ok if there were quests to kill the Snowmantles and other fellowships went there to kill them, but there aren't any so the area just fills up with elite mobs that no one wants to fight.

I definitely second this. I was able to solo all the bears I needed in High Crags and Giant Halls (while dodging trolls and giants) at levels 39 and 40, however the real problem was the source bears. The bears in the other 2 areas are plentiful, but the source bears share spawns with lurkers (no big deal) and elite frost mantles (big deal)! This is the same problem that we have with the wargs in Kingsfell sharing with Aurochs. There's no way I can solo a frost-mantle. I think the quest should stay solo (we certainly need all the solo quests we can get at my level), but bears for a solo quest shouldn't share a spawn with elite mobs especially when they have no quests to kill them.

The servers are down for maintenance, so I'm going to be wrong about this stuff, but I know you'll know which quest I'm talking about

QUEST: Chalices in Great Barrows
CHANGES: The chalices currently are one use only, so when more than 2 people need them, we have to reset the instance multiple times.

QUEST: Snapper Soup
CHANGES: Reduce meat requirement to 5 and add 5 frog's legs to help balance the spawn. Current spawn rates are insufficient considering the majority of the lake's west coastline is spawnless.

QUEST: Killing Tarburz
CHANGES: He's a good fight for 5 L15 chars or a solo L20-L22, but he's not an interesting fellowship kill at L20, especially given the distance you have to go to get to him. You could give him a couple of buddies in the area to kill (maybe one on each of the islands), or have him spawn some friends.

Originally Posted by Tieros

QUEST: Killing Tarburz
CHANGES: He's a good fight for 5 L15 chars or a solo L20-L22, but he's not an interesting fellowship kill at L20, especially given the distance you have to go to get to him. You could give him a couple of buddies in the area to kill (maybe one on each of the islands), or have him spawn some friends.

It's a level 20 small fellowship quest. I think it's fine as it is, personally, although I agree that it being so out of the way is annoying.

QUEST: Sever The White Hand
CATEGORY: Lone Lands
JOURNAL LEVEL: 21
JOURNAL ICON: Full Fellowship
ACTUAL LEVEL: 18
ACTUAL ICON: Full Fellowship.


REASONS:we managed to pull this off with a semi well put together group in the OB with 5 level 15s and a level 13. While it was a stretch to do then it was by no means impossible and there should be no reason a medicore level 18 group should have alot difficulty with it. I remember going back after open beta when we had gain a few levels and it was a walk in the park. at level 21 all mobs including the end boss con blue to you.

Seeing as it is the end of a chain though don't know what effect it would have on the other quests before it.

*Edit*

apparently the level of the guards and the final boss were changed since OB to more fit the level of the quest, if so disregard as i really haven't been out there again to check.

Actually I would put sever the white hand as a small fellowship quest.

QUEST: Unpaid Debt
CATEGORY: Bree-Land
JOURNAL LEVEL: 6
JOURNAL ICON: Solo
ACTUAL LEVEL: 7
ACTUAL ICON: Small fellowship
REASONS:I really don't think a level 6 can take the 3 mobs that spawn in this camp alone.

QUEST: Finding Admir
CATEGORY: Epic - Prologue
JOURNAL LEVEL: 6
JOURNAL ICON: Solo
ACTUAL LEVEL: 7
ACTUAL ICON: Small fellowship
REASONS:Same camp, same reason, although I guess you could just click on the item and run away...

QUEST: The Lodger's Ledger
CATEGORY: Bree-Land
JOURNAL LEVEL: 7
JOURNAL ICON: Solo
ACTUAL LEVEL: 7
ACTUAL ICON: Small fellowship
REASONS: Same deal, three mobs is tough for a level 7.


Maybe I'm just biased because my 8 lore-master can't solo any of those...

AXE HEAD PATH QUESTS


Quest: Talk to Elladan
Category: Epic-Prologue
Journal Level: I believe it's 5
Journal Icon: Solo
Actual Level: 6 if LM or Minstrel, 5 for everyone else
Actual Icon: Small Fellowship
Reasons:
This is near the end of the Elven/Dwarven newbie area; you must speak with Elladan (I believe that is correct..either Elladan or Elrohir..one is in this quest, one is at Silverdeep Mines). The problem is that the NPC in question is in the bowels of a cavern system crawling with goblins, and it's full of dead ends (especially once you make the wrong turn), plus the path to him is full of goblins. Now, I don't mind fighting my way through, but this is in no way a soloable quest if you are not 1) a Dwarven anything or 2) Champ, Hunter or Guardian...the add-ons are just too many. (Burglar may be able to Sneak way around). Especially when you consider that most people are just learning their way around the game at this point. Then you must fight your way out once you've completed the quest.

QUEST: A Deadly Bloom
Category: Ered Luin
Journal Level: 4
Journal Icon: Solo
Actual Level: 4 or 5
Actual Icon: Small Fellowship
You are called upon to destroy 6 blossoms known as Skorgrim's Bloom in order to restore balance to the area.
See first description as to why.

I love Axe Head Path, but even with the low spawn rate (if you go in there alone), it's easy for a LM or Minstrel to get overpowered. IMO if you go up there with a squishy character, you need at least one other person with you. The cave demands a fellowship of at least 3. Not to be attempted with squishy characters under lvl 4...you just don't have the firepower.

I totally agree about the difficulty of the introduction for elves and dwarves, compared to the Archet one. Nowhere in Archet do you have to fight 2 or 3 mobs at once like in that cave. Yes, the brigand ruins can be tough, but with careful planning you can avoid adds. It's impossible in the cave, and I can't believe I didn't die with my lore-master there.

The Archet brigand runs are difficult but doable, solo or group. But they are optional (except for the one where you have to spy on them). You have no choice with Axe Head Path, it leads to your final instance. You can avoid the bloom quest, but you still have to go into those caves. I don't attempt it under lvl 6 with squishys; I did manage it with a lvl 5 dwarf solo.

I'm not saying make it easier..it's easy enough at the right level (and way easier than it was in Beta 1.0 ); just suggest the fellowship, that's all.

You know - I've not had much trouble with those Archet or Axe Head Path quests. Sure, there's plenty of pitfalls and you can get yourself into a right mess if you're not careful, but I found them all soloable by pretty much any class, inc Minstrel and LM.

And it was not always the case that there were plenty of other players around either. I'm not saying you can't die there, because you can - but I'd still say solo tbh.

QUEST:Dark Standards - collect 5 banners from the Hill Men camp NE of Aughair
CATEGORY: Angmar Quest
JOURNAL LEVEL: 43
JOURNAL ICON: Solo
ACTUAL LEVEL: 43
ACTUAL ICON: Full or Small Fellowship
REASONS: At first, I thought it was just me being a ****** hunter who can't handle a couple of blue mobs. But after I actually completed it with a lvl 45 Grd and lvl 45 Mins, and talking to them, we all agreed that short of a sneaky burg (and this still questionable), there's no way a solo lvl 43 can do this quest. Simply too many mobs around the 3 - 5th banners.

QUEST: The Blood-Price
CATEGORY: Angmar Quest
JOURNAL LEVEL: 44
JOURNAL ICON: Solo
ACTUAL LEVEL: 45
ACTUAL ICON: Small fellowship
REASONS: You have to fight through many mobs just to get to the boss, and clear mobs all around him. That part wasn't as hard for me being a burglar I was able to sneak through, but the boss himself is a signature level 45, which solo would be do-able, but he gets 2 lvl 45 adds, which makes it impossible at that stage. I was able to kill 1 add off before I had used my potions, heals, and all my stuns, and was at 300 morale.

EDIT: Looks like turbine fixed this in the evendim update .

QUEST: Scaled Menace
CATEGORY: Angmar
JOURNAL LEVEL: 49
JOURNAL ICON: SOLO
ACTUAL LEVEL: 49
ACTUAL ICON: FELLOWSHIP
REASONS: Why do you think the Actual Level or Actual Icon should be as you've recommended?

~ The quest requires you to kill 10 drakes which are "... far to the east of Gabilshathur."

~ The drakes "far to the east of Gabilshathur" are ELITE FIRE-DRAKES, level 45-plus with approximately 9,000-plus Morale.

~ I doubt these are actually intended to be soloed.