Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
Lord of the Rings Online: Update 6 - Soldiers on the Landscape
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
Turbine recently released Update 6 for LotRO on the Bullroarer test server which gives players a lot of new territory to explore in the Great River Region. We've got a preview of what players can expect. Read on!
Update 6 for LotRO is currently being advertised in e-mails and forum posts with everybody’s favorite release date: Coming soon. So sometime soon (meaning sometime between now and later) LotRO players will be able to explore the Great River Region- a part of the Upper Anduin, complete over 170 quests, complete new epic story content; receive an update for the Instance Finder, and with the introduction of the Soldier on Landscape system, use their skirmish soldiers on the landscape.
Read more of Dylan Grozdanich's Lord of the Rings Online: Update 6 - Soldiers on Landscape.
)
Comments
word
hopefully they will make the mobs that little bit harder..if they make it easier it will start to be a bit of a joke.i do like the idea of the soldiers out on the landscapes,but only if it is done right.thing is there are not many peeps levelling toons ,so the soldiers will help them lvl quicker for those that are creating them.either way it should be interesting.
i do get the feeling they will change things a little here and there once soldiers are in place.
Wasn't really expecting ya to go all analytical on this, with a list and all, but they are all very good points.
Thing is, I hope they don't go making the mobs much harder, or at least if they do, award more XP. I don't really want mob to mob killing to slow down. Taking longer to kill doesn't really equal greater challenge in most cases, lest ye manage to pull a half dozen mobs down on yourself.
But mostly, I don't want to HAVE to call my soldier to go everywhere. One of the big drawbacks to TOR is that that companion pretty much has to be there at your side most of the time. In some ways, it feels kinda like that PnP DM who would always put his pet character in your party whether you wanted them or not. Because of that, In some ways, it feels like you only get to create HALF a character in TOR..
But I am glad that they'll be around for support and squishy classes that seem to have it tougher getting quests done.
On advancement speed: Compared to most modern games, LotRO's levelling progress is actually fairly slow. I'm not a power-leveler, but where TOR took me about 4 weeks to max, and WoW maybe 3 weeks(as of Cata), LotRO still takes me a couple months, at least at my pace.
Thanks for the article!
Mobs are already hard enough so I hope they don't increase difficulty. The only problem I have with this is that the soldiers are horribly buggy and they only attack when they please. Also they tend to wander about the place and get stuck alot. I really hope they improve the AI on them before they let you summon them on landscape.
It's been a while since I skirmished, but yeah, they had(and probably have) some positioning issues that would do that... issues bad enough to where I switched from a tank to an herbalist for my hunter. The tank would somehow always position himself behind me, and so when I'd be picking mobs off at range, he'd just stand there, and the "order to attack X mob" button has a cooldown...
Now, if only they had "attack on sight" options like most pets have. Those low level kill deeds would go by SO much faster...
you also have to rent them from the Turbine store at 100tp/hour.
Huh? You obviously don't play the game at all. Soldiers cost you nothing.
The soldier system will certainly will help against elite mobs. Only thing about lotro that I don't really like is that the mob experience is low, especially for elites.
I just hope I don't have to use them. I hate skirmmishes. I only play Lotro for the awesome quest text. Seriously. It's the game I go to when I just want to chill and quest.
I do exactly what he talks about in this article. I alienate myself and I do it on purpose.
Everyone can do skirmishes at lvl 20 now this gives you the basic warrior soidler after that you can run skirmishes all day long to build up your soilder into many differant class types from healers to tanks but like someone said above they don't always listen to comands if they had a tool bar like the do for pets and captins flag bearers then it would make them better. As for the TP thing no soilder every cost TP unless you had to buy the expansion with them. But you dont anymore thisa shappend with the release of F2P you could do the basic skirmishes for free and could buy the others as needed. As for cost to play I have unlocked more then all the content on $70 and own all content in game by buying points when there where on sale I did already own Mines of Moria and theexpasion after that haven't bought the Isengaurd one yet cause I have no need for it right now. I am expecting the soilder thing to add more overland play to be easyier but Moria will still be tough, but so will be finding a grp for dungeons and raids.
Sherman's Gaming
Youtube Content creator for The Elder Scrolls Online
Channel:http://https//www.youtube.com/channel/UCrgYNgpFTRAl4XWz31o2emw
Looking nice, I just hope they will not lose there edge.
Best Pro v Con list I've ever seen from mmorpg.com
I'm more looking forward to it than not. I play a Captain so kind of used to this type of game play, and I always play the game in duo mode with my significant other. So knowing that there's a chance that the two of us could control 5 players in the game in duo mode (as in how we often do skirmishes and with a great deal of fun) and do their small group content is appealing. LotRO throws some pretty tough content at the players and I don't think enough people appreciate it. I think they'll balance it to where it's just another way to play rather than the law of the land.
I used to play MMOs like you, but then I took an arrow to the knee.
Interesting, may just bring me back to LOTRO to check out....
Always like LOTRO, simply a case of too many games out and not enought time. Ironic IMO that LOTRO would announce an expansion on the heels of the DDO update coming also.
Grouping never has been and I suspect never will be a problem in LOTRO. The reason is that unlike traditional MMOs where you form a group of 5/6 or a raid, LOTRO has far more grouping options so people don't have to spam /glff for hours. Skirmishes can be done solo or in groups of 2, 3, 6, 12, or 24, and there are plenty of dungeons designed as 3-mans instead of 6. Not to mention that there is a sort of "Lotro Effect" that draws people who actually want to group to the game and are just dying to help lower level players run through hard instances. That I can't explain. Skirmish soldiers on the landscape, therefore, will not kill grouping.
Plus, skirmish soldiers have been described as a temporary help by Turbine; they will not be able to replace grouping because I imagine they'll be a temporary summon on a long cooldown.
Ironically, I feel at a loss when I log in to LOTRO these days. I kinda sit there and stare at my character with his half-finished Legendary items, the Mirkwood faction that I wasn't able to max before the next area came out, the several dailies from Lorien that I haven't done in months...I'm like 5 levels below cap, skirmishes are sort of a mystery to me, as is all the math that goes into stats ( I still don't know what some of the damage types are, nor the mitigations)...
The same sort of thing happened to me in EQ...at some point, with all the xpacs and additions, the game started to feel as though it had gotten away from me.
I have unsubbed to LOTRO after four years being a loyal customer. The reason is something that I think also allays the reviewers concern about a new grind to trait your soldier.
The cash shop.
Yes, I regard it as inevitable that soldier traits will eventually be cash shopped. Turbine has gone Pay-To-Win and I see no reason this won't happen here.
It is also the reason I, a long time Tolkien lover, am done with LOTRO. The soul of that game has been carved out and served up in bite size chunks to make the game company a quick buck.
What I did was starting over fairly recently. Thing is though, I never had a high level character to begin with, so it was an easier choice from my part. LOTRO has by far the most atmospheric world than any MMORPG out there, hands down, even today.
Btw, I always subscribe to the games that give me an option, so I didn't bother delving into the cash shop that much.
Leave it to Turbine to continue dumbing-down their game until it's more useless than before. Even if the mechanic turns out decent, the last-century characters models are still outdated and in dire need of better modelers.
Can't argue with that. They're pretty good with the costumes (they make good money out of them so they have to be), but the characters all look like egghead or potatoe head people. You can't make a cute or fairly attractive woman in character creation, even if your life depended on it. They also walk/run kind of funny. The emotes though are pretty nice.
Oddly enough, I do have a few lower level characters that are way more fun to play than my highest level character. And it is because of the atmosphere that I continue to log in from time to time. I just wish the high end game played as nicely as the low level game.
lolz i told my ex lotro friends that lotro would make skirmish soldiers you could have outside of skirms to compete with swtor lmao. I knew they would do this but no one believed me hahaha
**Disclaimer** i am not trolling or baiting or bieng negative mmorpg staff this is my opinion
The Pros and Cons of the article are largely irrelevant, as this soldier on landscape feature will be used very sparringly. You see, to use this in the wild world, you will have to use a special token, which will permit the use of the soldier for 1 hour.
Cost of token:
100 turbine points
or
min 20/max 45 175 marks and 10 medallions
min 46/max 50 500 marks and 25 medallions
min 71/max 95! 1,500 marks and 75 medallions
If you want more info, you can check the LOTRO forums, look for the Bullroarer (public test server) section.
That was something I had not known about, but you are correct.
That is an interesting choice on Turbine's part, but it does mean that half of my concerns are really not relevant. Still I do wonder about these tokens and the hour they provide. I wonder if you can space it out.
This was possibly going to be something that lured me back to playing LOTRO until I saw that they will cost 100 tp an hour to use. Not even going to bother at this point. Still waiting until EQ goes FTP in about a week and half, there it just costs gold for upkeep on a merc.