By now I imagine many of you have tried out the new Skirmish system. I purposely avoided a lot of the more detailed information on Skirmishes and was able to go in pretty fresh. My general thought? They’re awesome.
In a lot of ways many of them feel almost like a Tower Defense game. You have areas to protect, while random groups of enemies and leaders make their way in to push you back. It’s quite action packed and I think it finally gives PvE players a sense of being in an actual war. Plus, it’s just awesome to see familiar areas in different situations. Bree covered in tons of snow and being invaded by brigands is not something you’re used to seeing.
I especially like the amount of control you’re given over the system. Once you complete the entry quest (which is relatively simple, but kind of a downer) and the tutorial, you can join a skirmish at pretty much any point. These can be adjusted by area, level, difficulty (there’s three tiers of this). The way it’s designed, there’s almost no real way to get tired of it aside from overexposure. Considering there are some additional skirmishes that were in the beta but are still being worked on (as noted at CStM), I think we’ll have a good amount to do for a while.
The Skirmish Marks you receive during these battles are barter tokens. You’re given a soldier to help you out and these tokens can give them new abilities. You can trade for all sorts of items for your characters as well, including class quest items. There’s some unique items as well, some of which I’ve got my eye on. Even so, I’d certainly recommend making your soldier as strong as possible early on. The stronger the soldier is, the easier it’ll be to amass those marks.
Casual Stroll to Mordor also has an excellent post with answers to common Skirmish questions. I really suggest you check it out if you find yourself confused.
How has everyone else’s experience with this been so far?
I’m really enjoying the Skirmish system, too. I think I might take one of my alts and just run skirmishes with him. Last night just going through the tutorials and two Skirmishes (Gondammon and Amon Sul) took me halfway through Level 35, which was pretty awesome. However, since the next one doesn’t become available until level 40, that might get too tiresome. I’m anxious to try them both again to see how well they replay.
There’s a great post on the fourms which outlines a lot of the Skirmish info that’s out there:
http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.php?t=304965
I wish Turbine would frontload the Lorebook with this information, but it’s great that players put it all together once we get access to it.
Not only is this amazing experience with rested experience and dailies, but some of the gear rewards can be really great. It is perfect if you have an old item that you haven’t found the right replacement for. A quick and easy fix!
44 Champion — Brandywine