Post by drunkensolamnic on Nov 4, 2016 8:27:48 GMT -5
So we finally made it through the entire 45-55 section of this using a group of Khannon, Kitara, Emmanuel, Maximus, Carter, and partially EBA's character.
Kudos on the changes to the brood spiders and the spiders in this dungeon in general. The cold was an awesome touch hinted at by the drops of the spiders in the cave below Calidor. I thought it was particularly awesome that the broodlings/spines freezing people meant that the focus of the monsters kept shifting. It basically meant that no 1 person as getting completely obliterated by the spine spiders. I don't know if this was by intention or not, but it worked out pretty sweet. This made the encounters tough, terrifying (as getting froze could mean getting isolated), but manageable. These fights felt right as something experienced as a player.
The UmberHulk! - The entrance of this badboy was awesome, but he didn't do much after that. He auto attacked, and well it tickled. He definitely seemed less dangerous than a brood spider or a chimeric cave troll. I don't know if he was suppose to use special abilities, but he essentially got mobbed and chumped. My own suggestion is to tune him up a little bit but not far, and have more Hulks spawn on a delayed timer maybe +1 per 3 party members every 2 minutes until the appropriate total has spawned. This way that sweet entrance animation gets more use. - The Loot around this encounter seemed very under-level providing level 10-20 gear on all but 1 node which spawned level 40ish gear.
Frostilith - Seemed good. I was disappointed to find that my sonic reverbrator weapon wouldn't trigger on him because of the split DR/DamageImmunity. Its a specific request, but it seems like an crystalline monster should both be very prone to triggering that particular modification and very vulnerable to it. Maybe give it a flat DR vs bludgeoning without the %immunity? Or just its armor roll without additional resistance dependent on how it is actually set up?
Vortex - What did we do to offend you when you made this? I'm still not sure if the three we fought were awesome or if I need to have my rectal cavity swabbed for their DNA. You might want to make the AOE size a little smaller on their attack, or extend the cooldown slightly. Fighting these essentially became a game of monkey in the middle with us healing everyone as we could. I used the majority of my potions fighting these while actively being healed by 3 other party members and myself. I used something like 50-60 red potions in the hour long slodge we had through the 3 encounters. - The Loot on this layer in the dungeon was extremely disappointing, only 2 nodes and any one of the 4 encounters in here was on par with a boss fight elsewhere.
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The Thermal Valley - awesome area, though there is visible nudity with the random camera angles during the conversation. Said conversation cut-screens for the entire party as each person goes through the conversation. I'd have it award the quest to everyone in the area after 1 conversation, or make sure the cutscene doesn't go to the entire group.
The Thermal Valley itself needs to be set up with a rest/storage area. Its a bit too much to ask characters to haul supplies through the previous dungeon when the only exit from the valley goes to yet another dungeon. We need the spot to rest, restock, and such to press on.
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Quality of life Suggestion: The end of the Cave Troll section needs to have a dungeon exit that returns a player to the surface. This is a very long journey and unless people who don't have 4+ hours need to be left behind, there's no safe way for someone who runs low on time to safely exit. That said, the exit put in would have to be very clearly marked and make it clear that the player would be leaving the dungeon early without being able to return the same way.
The Thermal Valley as well could deal with a dungeon-exit route back to another safe area. Going through the 45-55 dungeon is a lengthy process and I see it being really hard to plan a group to go through the that dungeon when their only way out is to try to fight through the even higher level dungeon behind this area. Fortunately we all had our under construction free-respawns up otherwise the extremely long journey would have ended in lots of anger and rage as we died trying to get home with our modest amount of loot and a lack of supplies for the return trip and respawned encounters.
Kudos on the changes to the brood spiders and the spiders in this dungeon in general. The cold was an awesome touch hinted at by the drops of the spiders in the cave below Calidor. I thought it was particularly awesome that the broodlings/spines freezing people meant that the focus of the monsters kept shifting. It basically meant that no 1 person as getting completely obliterated by the spine spiders. I don't know if this was by intention or not, but it worked out pretty sweet. This made the encounters tough, terrifying (as getting froze could mean getting isolated), but manageable. These fights felt right as something experienced as a player.
The UmberHulk! - The entrance of this badboy was awesome, but he didn't do much after that. He auto attacked, and well it tickled. He definitely seemed less dangerous than a brood spider or a chimeric cave troll. I don't know if he was suppose to use special abilities, but he essentially got mobbed and chumped. My own suggestion is to tune him up a little bit but not far, and have more Hulks spawn on a delayed timer maybe +1 per 3 party members every 2 minutes until the appropriate total has spawned. This way that sweet entrance animation gets more use. - The Loot around this encounter seemed very under-level providing level 10-20 gear on all but 1 node which spawned level 40ish gear.
Frostilith - Seemed good. I was disappointed to find that my sonic reverbrator weapon wouldn't trigger on him because of the split DR/DamageImmunity. Its a specific request, but it seems like an crystalline monster should both be very prone to triggering that particular modification and very vulnerable to it. Maybe give it a flat DR vs bludgeoning without the %immunity? Or just its armor roll without additional resistance dependent on how it is actually set up?
Vortex - What did we do to offend you when you made this? I'm still not sure if the three we fought were awesome or if I need to have my rectal cavity swabbed for their DNA. You might want to make the AOE size a little smaller on their attack, or extend the cooldown slightly. Fighting these essentially became a game of monkey in the middle with us healing everyone as we could. I used the majority of my potions fighting these while actively being healed by 3 other party members and myself. I used something like 50-60 red potions in the hour long slodge we had through the 3 encounters. - The Loot on this layer in the dungeon was extremely disappointing, only 2 nodes and any one of the 4 encounters in here was on par with a boss fight elsewhere.
----------------------
The Thermal Valley - awesome area, though there is visible nudity with the random camera angles during the conversation. Said conversation cut-screens for the entire party as each person goes through the conversation. I'd have it award the quest to everyone in the area after 1 conversation, or make sure the cutscene doesn't go to the entire group.
The Thermal Valley itself needs to be set up with a rest/storage area. Its a bit too much to ask characters to haul supplies through the previous dungeon when the only exit from the valley goes to yet another dungeon. We need the spot to rest, restock, and such to press on.
---------------------
Quality of life Suggestion: The end of the Cave Troll section needs to have a dungeon exit that returns a player to the surface. This is a very long journey and unless people who don't have 4+ hours need to be left behind, there's no safe way for someone who runs low on time to safely exit. That said, the exit put in would have to be very clearly marked and make it clear that the player would be leaving the dungeon early without being able to return the same way.
The Thermal Valley as well could deal with a dungeon-exit route back to another safe area. Going through the 45-55 dungeon is a lengthy process and I see it being really hard to plan a group to go through the that dungeon when their only way out is to try to fight through the even higher level dungeon behind this area. Fortunately we all had our under construction free-respawns up otherwise the extremely long journey would have ended in lots of anger and rage as we died trying to get home with our modest amount of loot and a lack of supplies for the return trip and respawned encounters.