Today saw the release of a Developer Diary concerning the new ability for players to bring Skirmish Soldiers out onto the Landscape. The Developer Diary was done in the form of an FAQ, so I’ll try to sum up the main points.
- Skirmish Soldiers are summoned (outside of Skirmishes) via Landscape Soldier Token.
- These tokens are purchased in-game either in two locations
- The “Currency Exchange” vendor in Skirmish Camps (Price dependent on your character level)
- In the LOTRO Store (100 TP)
- The Tokens can be used in “…most non-instanced locations in Middle-earth”, with the exception of some “major hubs”. (We’re assuming towns like Bree, Galtrev, etc.)
- There is a new Soldier UI for landscape use, which can be hidden if you don’t want to see it.
- If you want to stop “spending time” on your soldier, you will simply need to dismiss it.
- Soldiers will be auto-dismissed if you
- Enter an area they cannot be summoned
- When you teleport
- When you Fast-travel
- Skirmish items that can be used to enhance soldiers nor benefits granted by the soldier’s “personal” traits are not implemented outside of Skirmishes
- Soldiers will not be full pets; they will retain the limited commands used in Skirmishes.
- Tokens are not needed to summon Soldiers inside of Skirmishes.
Really, I’m still a bit disappointed in the way that Turbine handled announcing the use of Skirmish Soldiers. While I fully admit that their use is a nice addition I still feel that I, as a player, was a bit led on to believe that soldiers would be out all the time without any type of Token or time-limit. Maybe that was my own mistake, but I don’t recall anyone from Turbine rushing to correct myself or anyone else. Although I definitely understand that without limitations there might be some severe issues with lag and trivializing the content. So, I have to say that I personally cannot see myself using Skirmish Soldiers on landscape all that often unless I’m in a particularly tough area or I’m trying to powerlevel a character. How about you?
March 8, 2012 at 3:01 pm
Is the price of 1500 marks and 75 medallions set in stone?
March 8, 2012 at 4:27 pm
I would say that most Bullroarer prices are about 80% accurate. So while it might change there’s a really good chance these will be the prices.
March 8, 2012 at 3:01 pm
I thought there’d be a catch as, to me, it sounded too good to be true. I figured we’d have to use ‘special soldiers’ or earn new traits and stuff to use them on the landscape. Think I’d rather have had to earn new traits than this, though. Don’t think I’ll be using them much at all outside of skirms.
Oh, and the thought of taking the time to fish with my soldier out makes me want to smack someone, lol.
March 8, 2012 at 3:17 pm
Well, if you look closely, you’ll notice that’s the Bree-land homesteads. You can always summon your soldier there in the square in the center and they soldier stays with you until you enter a building or leave the homesteads. No time spent.
March 8, 2012 at 3:20 pm
That’s what the thousands of free Bullroarer TP is for
March 8, 2012 at 3:41 pm
I know and saw that it was in the Bree Homestead. Just found it funny given the cost on the landscape. Assumed it was a Turbine picture?
We used to have kin sparring fights in my front yard when I lived in the Bree homestead because you could summon your soldier there. They were awesome!
March 8, 2012 at 3:13 pm
I probably will never use a soldier on the landscape. Sounds awful.
March 8, 2012 at 3:26 pm
The word ‘non-instanced’ is what disappoints me the most. If I can’t have my stalwart Dwarf Bannerguard follow me into Carn Dum, then it just isn’t for me.
It’s not like you need the help for Evendim quests or that it’ll make grinding a Slayer Deed that much faster. With the strangeness of pet pathing, it’s liable to pull extra groups and get you killed on occasion anyway (I’m looking at you, my handsome Dwarf Herald). In my experience, it’s the riding from place to place, stopping to loot mobs you killed, and stopping to gather resources that takes most of my time. The actual fighting goes swiftly.
Best use I can see for them now is if you can summon them in the Ettenmoors. A couple of raids doubled in size with Skirmish Soldiers could look intimidating as they swarm over a group of Creeps, making Tab a nightmare, and generally getting anyone with a slow computer killed by the extra lag.
Second best use I can think of for them is to pad screenshots at the next Weatherstock with extra ‘people’!
March 8, 2012 at 3:32 pm
Will be able to do small fellowship quests solo. If you get stuck on a fight, summon soldier, kill enemy, then dismiss. Will be helpful, but not something to constantly use like a pet
March 8, 2012 at 3:34 pm
Let’s look at recent developments:
Development What I assume Turbine is thinking:
Selling Armor in store – I would like your money please.
“Premium” Barter Wallet – I would like even more of you money please.
Sturdy Lock Boxes with extremely rare key drop rate – Your money is ours…
Skirmish Soldier so expensive – Your money would be better in our hands.
Expansion Every Year w/ minimal content – We’ll force them to pay us if they want to keep playing this game… we used to have a really good F2P model but we’ve decided to investigate how we can best wring every dollar out of our victims…err players.
March 10, 2012 at 7:27 am
All the services you mentioned are completely optional and detract absolutely nothing from those who do decide not to use them. The skirmish soldier follows this line of thought. You can use it, but don’t really have to. Would come in handy in some situations (doing fellowship quests solo or with a friend as bob101910 pointed out).
The point of contention, as Merric rightly pointed out, is that the news was a bit misleading. But honestly I was concerned that they were going to upset the balance of PvE with this and I think this is a fair enough system. Would be nice if we could summon them soldiers in instances to make up for a missing party member though.
March 8, 2012 at 3:39 pm
and yet another pffft……losing my new hope for lotr rapidly
March 8, 2012 at 3:51 pm
I’m actually really happy about this. I don’t want to be *forced* to play with a soldier out, and to me it seemed that if summoning a soldier would be as easy as clicking a button it would affect future content development so that future quests would require a soldier (= be too difficult to complete without one). This system seems to be just what I hoped it would be: it allows you to bring out your soldier for particularly difficult quests and areas, but keeps it as an exception rather than a rule.
March 8, 2012 at 5:05 pm
Good points. I agree.
For some reason, I never cease to be surprised when you offer someone something they never had and they complain that it isn’t free. Boohoo!
March 9, 2012 at 3:39 am
mephet sums up my feelings pretty well.
I’ll buy a token when they go on sale, for emergency use only.
March 15, 2012 at 12:34 pm
/signed
March 8, 2012 at 4:48 pm
I’m not entirely opposed to having some limit on the ability to use landscape soldiers, however it’s looking like that limitation is excessive.
The tokens are too much skirmish marks, and the store price is too high. 100 TP for an hour! Come on.
*sigh* Not what I expected either, but it’s looking more and more like this is the new normal for LotRO.
March 8, 2012 at 4:54 pm
I think the only real issue here is about communication. Something turbine knows, a pity they’re not doing enough about it.
They let us speculate for months about something so i think it’s not surprising if we welcome the details about this and that with various outcries.
What if they had advertised it as a temporary token usable to help you with some tough quests (as it is, and I’m perfectly fine with it) and nothing more?
Who would complain? No, they had to let us speculate and believe we could have the soldiers out all of the time and this is the result.
Turbine reeeeally needs to improve its communication skills.
March 8, 2012 at 5:00 pm
To be fair, they charge 100 TP for Task Resets and Treasure Picks. Given their history this is probably the most fairly priced disposable item they put in the store so far.
I think the price in the camp should be cheaper, but this thing is optional. No content is being designed around it. Maybe it’ll help me with some random world small fellowship quests, but it’s hardly exciting. Some people were making it seem like it’d break the game and give us no reason to group up — but it’s more just a bonus at best. I don’t really care that it’s being sold in the store at all, it just doesn’t strike me as something to be annoyed about.
I’m more annoyed that they made this seem like some sort of important feature when it’s mostly just a novelty.
March 8, 2012 at 9:04 pm
thumbs up… this is one of those cheap and not needed item. This pricing is perfect and its use not necessary. 100 tp no issue. though that 1000 for “premium” wallet… is kind of like expensive wallet, holds a lot… but nothing can be switched from character to character… one thing I find most annoying is… gold is not server wide… and you literally have to click on wallet to see how much you have…
March 8, 2012 at 5:11 pm
As you said in the article the biggest mistake was the initial information given out about this by turbine while swtor and companions was fresh in peoples minds.
Not having any extra controls makes this even more of a specific use rather than pet type of thing, use it for a fight then dismiss before it can wander off and aggro more or just plain bug out on flat ground.
Given the lag at the last weatherstock from cloaks and floaty names soldiers out will likely give the server hamsters heart failure.
March 8, 2012 at 5:15 pm
Oh and question people need to ask themselves before thinking about buying the token would have to be “Have I ever felt the need of it up til now?”
If your answer is no then ignore the soldier and move on, its an option being given to us and nothing says we have to use it
March 8, 2012 at 5:38 pm
Have I ever felt the need of it? Only late at night when I am pretty much the only person in an area leveling an alt and I come across a shard dropper/named elite… those things can and will kick your on level tush no matter how cagey and experienced you are. But that is really the only reason I would have to pull a soldier out of my coin purse.
Remember too that no one under lvl 20 can use one.
March 8, 2012 at 5:44 pm
Alas, I had hoped that Turbine was giving us something like the mercenaries in Diablo 2, Guild Wars, Everquest, and Everquest 2: NPC comrades-in-arms we could bring with us whenever and wherever we want, for a reasonable in-game cost. It could also have been a wonderful way to increase the relevance of skirmishing to the rest of the game, since we’d need to skirmish to build up our NPC buddies to be the best they can be.
March 8, 2012 at 6:31 pm
Another reason I finally quit after being a subscriber since beta. The content is no longer new and exciting. Especially when they start over charging for things such as this. Next thing you know it will cost 1000 tp to summon your mount when ror launches. No thanks turbine
March 8, 2012 at 6:52 pm
I had felt that since all MMO’s are copying each others feature sets, that skirmish soldier would be no different than say SWTOR companion. That being said,the content is designed to have your companion out all of the time in SW. My only disapointment is that VIP have yet another thing to pay for on top of the sub along with this new barter wallet. I am really thinking of dropping my sub and only paying for what I use. Turbine keeps trying to suck extra money out of VIPs that were never supposed to happen when the game went F2P.
March 9, 2012 at 3:40 am
I think the amount of skirmish tokens is way too much! But the 100 TP is not too bad. Given, as someone said, the treasure hunter picks and task resets are also 100 TP.
I would potentially use it to do small fellowship quests on my own. I tend to solo a lot of time when levelling, and only do the groups when I get to level cap.
March 9, 2012 at 5:26 am
I doubt very much I would ever use this feature. Someone made comparison of the SWTOR companions. Let’s just say that the SWTOR companions have their own issues but they are probably still a bit smarter than the Skirmish pets. All I don’t need is some dim-witted Skirmish soldier running all over hullabalou drawing agro onto me when I don’t need it.
No thank you, I’ll be passing on this. Plus I don’t relish the idea of having yet another grind for currency to bring it out because I most certainly will not be wasting TP on it.
March 9, 2012 at 9:50 am
I got all excited about this when it was first announced and it made me plan to come back to LotRO. I thought I’d have a whole new gaming experience with a soldier, like SWTOR’s companions.
Then when they revealed the actual mechanics, I decided to play EQ2 instead. They did mercenaries right, in my opinion.
Sorry Turbine, your sloppy handling of this cost you a customer.
March 9, 2012 at 3:38 pm
The idea of another pud/pet to allow solo players to play is silly. If you are really so asocial and repulsive that you need to have in-game help to level, I suppose this is an aid. As to me, with my guardian, my warden, or my hunter I have never needed in game aid except against numbers. When that happens, call a kin mate or another of the many friendly players and boom: all done.
I don’t really understand the need.
March 9, 2012 at 8:32 pm
With charming invitations like that, I really question my decision to play solo. I can well imagine how kind and helpful you would be to a struggling new player just from your tone. /endsarcasm
This is my first MMO and I play solo because I find most groups very intimidating. The chat I hear, and comments like yours, make me very reluctant to join a group. My husband and I are looking for a kinship that might be more kind and tolerant for players wanting to get their feet wet in group play. Yours obviously is not the one to choose.
March 10, 2012 at 10:24 am
This makes me sad to read. The LOTRO community really is a great group of folks, and I think you’ll find most of us to be friendly and helpful. My kin on Nimrodel loves to bring new friends along to share in our misadventures, whether they have experience or not. So I wish you the best of luck in finding a great kinship–there are so many of them out there!
Now back on topic, I play in a duo anyway, so I don’t find the skirmish soldier idea terribly useful. But I can see how it might be helpful to some folks in some situations, if the price made it more accessible to people with limited marks/TP.
March 9, 2012 at 8:28 pm
Meh – I would agree that the skirmish point cost is pretty shocking once I do the math on how long it would take me to earn enough marks/medallions for one hour of soldier time.
Having a very limited income, this is pretty much my entertainment budget. So having to come up with TP for relic removal scrolls, delving scrolls to get my legendary up to 70, and feed my revival tome habit….well. Coming up with TP to pay for treasure hunt picks, sturdy keys, premiums wallet price, and soldier tokens becomes just too much. I paid for VIP back in better times, but am questioning the wisdom of trying to come up with the price when it expires in another couple of months.
Certainly nobody is “forcing” anyone to use the items from the store. But it does become a question of how much grinding one is willing to do to avoid it and the fun:grind ratio when calculating the entertainment value.
TL;DR – I have no problems with the mechanics at all, and no problem with charging, Turbine has bills to pay too! Just wish some of the prices were a bit more reasonable.
March 15, 2012 at 1:25 pm
Here’s a gameplay question:
Will skirmish soldiers be level-sensitive relative to the region in which they are currently activated, like captain and LM pets? Those class pets are always two levels behind their respective player and the environment is sensitive to that pet’s level. I have been in regions with my cappy where most of the mobs are just barely grey to him so he draws no aggro, but his herald – being 2 levels lower – draws aggro on many mobs, which are still essentially ‘green’ to him. Will this also be the case with skirmish soldiers?
Say someone has a level 50 character, but hasn’t skirmished since the 20′s, and therefore has not spent a single mark levelling their soldier since then, who currently sits at level 27 on all its skills. This player wants to grind Ancient Evil in Angmar for a deed and decides to summon their level-27-traited skirm soldier in the Morroval cave south of Aughaire, just to help out a little. Will that lowbie skirm soldier attract every mob in Ram Duath for 1000 meters, just like any player character would that tried to enter Angmar at level 27? And if not, what use would a pet with mid-20s skills be in a level 40 region? Probably won’t land a hit on anything. This obviously points out the need to level neglected skirm soldiers, but I’m also wondering if players who have not levelled their soldiers are in for a shock when they are summoned in regions that will be ‘red’ to them. Perhaps this question has been delved elsewhere, but just wondering out loud.