Skirmishes and Dungeons

crookedparadox

First off, I'd like to say that, although a little quirky in design, the option for private queuing for Skirmishes and Dungeons is a great addition to the game. My only qualm now is that there are minimum player count requirements.

A player should be able to privately queue up a dungeon or skirmish with as many players as they'd like on their team up to the player count limit. For example, if I want to queue up The Cloak Tower and play it solo, I should be able to do that. Instead I have to find two other people to drag along or be put in with randoms that I don't want to play with. Feel free to put in a disclaimer or warning stating that we're going in with less than the recommended amount of players, but don't prevent me from playing it because I want to run the activity with fewer players than it was designed for.

I realize there are design considerations involved with these decisions, but some of us like more of a challenge or to play easier content with less people. Soloing a low dungeon is a great way to practice survivability while still getting your daily diamonds and rewards. Honestly, the reality of the situation is there probably won't be a doorman saying you can't come in unless you have a couple chaperones. So, please consider this as a smaller adjustment to give us a bit more freedom in our gameplay. Thanks

mahburg

Yep Solo feature please, right now you have to persuade people to go into a private session then leave, simpler just to give us the ability directly, I guess they do this to conserve server bandwidth.

ecrana

Agree completely with this. Not to mention, why are some of the low-level skirmishes gone now? Ebon Downs & Pirate's skirmishes are no longer accessible through the skirmish giver or the queue system. Those were 2 very fast and easy skirms to get your daily AD when you didn't have time.

Oh wait, is that it? It was too easy to get quick AD so they had to be removed.

wdj40

I honestly thought we were going to have the option to solo the dungeons and I was really looking forward to it... gutted, hope they do let us have the option.

talynblade

I just posted a pretty big blurg about this in the general discussion area. I now realize I should have put it here. I completely agree with original poster and want to add a little bit more insight.

I just started playing this game with a few friends,(four of us total). There are usually 2-4 of us online at a time. We are totally enjoying the game and all its content. We like to take our time, read what the devs and creators took their time to create. We explore and literally dungeon CRAWL, through it. Since we are brand new and are still gathering our resources, we explore and look for all the class specific kits. We want to take our time and explore all aspects of the game, including dungeons and skirmishes. So when we queue, cause it forces us too, it pairs us with others. these others are 99% veteran players and are just burning/sprinting through it for the end loot. Completely ruining our experience in that instance skirmish/dungeon. We literally did not kill or even swing our weapons during the stormhold skirmish (19+) one. We even said this would have been amazing if we can do it with just us. Not only does it let us enjoy the game at our pace, but it would bring more of a challenge, running them with lower player amounts. Lets be honest, the game so far has been quite easy (all of us are under lvl 30). I am not knocking the sprinters, we just want to explore and take our time. this minimal queue requirement has prevented us from doing this 90% of the time. The few times we ran the 3 man dungeons with just us, was AMAZING, we want that same feeling with all content, be it 5 man dungeons or 5 man skirmishes.

So I 100 % agree with original poster, with added elements of just solo play!! get rid of the minimal requirements and let us experience this amazing game at our pace and our way.

crookedparadox

I'm glad to hear others feel the same way. I honestly can't think of a way where this would be game breaking either. Only thing I can think of is that we're being forced to interact with random players so they'll have someone to play with. I honestly don't think that's fair tho considering that many of us would like to play our own way.

A prime example of this is Destiny on Xbox and PS. Strikes are a regular activity in Destiny and we're forced to play with other players in them, with one exception. Their raids, however, are privately queued and must be arranged outside of game (a whole different nuisance). The nice part is that they don't force you to go into the raid with a full team of 6. It's harder, sure, but it still allows us to experience it on our terms. That's what we want, give us the opportunity to decide who we take with us.

destrowod

I think it is because the game expect you to carry lower level players and/or hope you can make new friends that way. While the intention is noble, most of us as OP said are just sprinting trough the whole thing to clear it as fast as possible.

I mean i took my time the first 1 or 2 times i did the old dungeons, most of them i either saw them once or never since when they where removed, i was not high enough to do them (karundax for exemple)

But after that... its like go go go, i just want my dragon kills, my seals and my 5k AD... So i may indeed ruin the experience of some but ... what can i say?

Also even tough i knew it, i am really wondering what is the point to block the pirate skyhold skirmish (and the ebon down one from what i heard) while you have let the tower districk uber easy one and that cavern of karundax gives you something like 6 dragon kills...

I mean if its to put a stop to easy skirmishes diamonds, you failed since many of them are still open, while if it was to slow down people on dragon kills for the achievement(to make them run cult dragons more or well dragons again) then its also a fail cause karundax nail as many kills in the same time as running 6 skyhold... more or less.

There is therefore no point in blocking some skirmishes... I would highly sugest you open all content to everybody.

For exemple i missed black lake districk on my main back then, i was knew and didn't knew about "skirmishes" , so because it was blocked (it was literally the only one that was blocked before the last mod) i could never get the in game challenge for it. Just by principle, i would like to have that title...

lithevalkerian

Not sure if it was mentioned, but you actually can go in to skirmishes and dungeons solo, with the exception of Epic. You just have to go talk to the respective skirmish NPC or dungeon entrance. I know it's a bit more work than simply using the menu, but it is a workaround none the less.