Perhaps the biggest change to come in Lord of the Rings Online Volume 3, Book 1 update will be that skirmishes can now be done with a 2-person party. It was the podcast by Casual Stroll to Mordor where the devs talk about the “need” for this and how they went about it. (I also learned a new meme, like how my mom just learned about the Google.)
The most interesting statistic was that 40% of players doing the 3-man skirmishes were using only 2/3 of their fellowship slots. This gave the devs the oompf they needed to get their turbines in gear. The way they made the extremely fine point between solo and 3-man was to use the 3-man mobs and apply a reverse Tier debuff to the 3-man mobs. So 2-man skirmishes are basically a 3-man minus a Tier of difficulty to the mobstats. Then the 2-man skirmish will use the solo mechanics instead of the 3-man mechanics such as how counterattacks or waves will work.
I want to posit that this will have good, unintended consequences because it further lowers the activation energy to group. Players can nearly always find one person. So there is a group for skirmishes right there. Add another person, and you have a three-man. This sequence of grouping is simply going to be smoother than the need to find two other people at the outset. If I had to bet, I would say that 3-man skirmish play will increase and solo skirmish will actually decrease due to the advent of the 2-man skirmish.
Now, back to our regularly scheduled rants on Legendary Items where it is apparent that Turbine never listens to us.
–Ravious
down by the schoolyard
Or, as people on the forums effectively phrase it, “Legendary rawr growl *foam at the mouth*”
I welcome this change gladly. I often duo with my GF, and while it’s neat to pick up a kin member to round it out, sometimes nobody else feels like doing yet another skirmish as we save up marks to buy the CD/Uru items for alts. De-leveling the skirmish still makes it harder than just doing two solo skirmishes, but without the fun of playing together.
Glad to see the change!
“This gave the devs the oompf they needed to get their turbines in gear.”
I don’t think this was the case; I think what it was is that it gave the devs enough to convince Management that it was worth spending time, money and manpower on.
I think you’re right about buddies, though. While the husband/wife or BF/GF duo is the one often cited on the boards, with the opportunity I think a lot of people are just gonna say to a kinmate, “Yo, wanna do a quick Amon Sul?”
I don’t know if 3-mans will increase a lot (the overall will probably drop since that 40% that’s duoing will be doing real duos from now on), but solo will probably drop. It’s just so easy to grab one other person, and the challenge level will be enough that you don’t have to have to know where to stand when the boss does this or that, you don’t need someone calling out when to mez this guy or pull that one off the minnie…
I’m a pretty die-hard soloist, but I’m excited to start hitting duos with just whoever’s around. Plus it’d be a good way to really get to know guys that are typically just pretty quiet, in the background during a full fellowship or something.
:3
Kaelin said “I don’t think this was the case; I think what it was is that it gave the devs enough to convince Management that it was worth spending time, money and manpower on.”
That’s what I meant, I was just trying to be clever about it. ;)
Really looking forward to this. It is so easy to pickup a kinmate who wants to skirmish, but for some reason finding a third is very hit-or-miss.