Arelith

Cortex wrote:Write a list of dungeons you think need a looking at on the surface and why, and I promise to at least have a look.

Prestige wrote:@Cortex:
Manor of Mourn - I shouldn't even have to justify this one. Thralls, Autocast Biteback, unreasonable difficulty.
Aurilites - Completely dreadful XP post-21.
Barbarian caves (Spires) - Fear Aura SHAMAN, too short, can't be looped.
Kholingen - Too long, XP falls off hard at 22. If you made a passage back to the beginning at the halfway point, this would be assuaged.
Blackfin Rock - Good until 26, assuming you don't get smashed into paste by the boss (which is significantly harder than the rest of the dungeon, disproportionately so) and the arte is a nice bonus.
Minmir Ogres - XP falls off at 23 or so.
Talassians - Awful experience.
Jarl/Troll Caves - shamans make it completely impossible for any reasonable level range.
Morgurl's lair - Good xp, Mobs dispel too much, too short and can't be looped.
Xvarts - Good xp, but can't be looped.
Red Dragon Island - Autocast Biteback. Arte.

Cortex wrote:Barbarian Caves (Spires): Go have a look again!
Kholingen: I haven't been there in a while, though I recall the XP was fairly large for high teens low epics?
Minmir Ogres: I feel they're in a good place, but could have XP upped just slightly.
Talassians: What's wrong with it? Mages have since been reworked.
Jarl/Troll Caves: Casters also have been reworked.
Morghunn's Lair: Not a dungeon I've touched yet. I plan to have a look at it some day though.
Xvarts: Where is this?

Let's try to continue this as a productive conversation here. To be clear: I expect nothing in this thread regarding any hint of the "surface vs. UD" mentality. RP, and especially the RP of others, is not a consideration in this thread, only dungeon balance.

Cortex mentioned that the presence of artifacts in some of those dungeons is a reason to keep the exp lower. My main concern is with dungeons ranging from levels 12-20, so I think those are the ones that need to be looked at. In essence, there's a need to create XP incentives that are similar to those in the area between the Peninsula Caverns and Ice Roads, which are typically farmed by characters of that level range (we're talking about buffing XP in surface dungeons, so I bring up the Underdark only as a point of comparison). Maybe the solution simply lies in adding a few more dungeons. It also might be prudent to simply remove artifacts from some of the aforementioned dungeons and raise the XP yield instead.

I'm not sure what the issue is with some of the above dungeons; I only know that some of them are not visited that often. It may be because some of them don't circle back on themselves the way certain areas, or chains of areas, in the Underdark do.

Make the undead golem in Kholigen have a passage to the enterance where the lizards to make it loopable

No, making it loopable is not the answer. Kohlingen is already a fairly long and rewarding dungeon. Its key issue is access, not making it a more convenient grinding loop for those few who have a boat. Doing so will just encourage people to take the rental boat there and stay indefinitely, exacerbating the issue of boats already being hard to get a hold of.

I don't think he was being serious.

@Talassians: Good dungeon, awful experience/challenge ratio.
Was gonna write more. Realized it's a SURFACE dungeon thread.

Durvayas wrote:No, making it loopable is not the answer. Kohlingen is already a fairly long and rewarding dungeon. Its key issue is access, not making it a more convenient grinding loop for those few who have a boat. Doing so will just encourage people to take the rental boat there and stay indefinitely, exacerbating the issue of boats already being hard to get a hold of.

wow




it's like you have to join a faction to have access to a boat and not own a big fast boat yourself......................................








:thonk:

Can confirm that the Spires Barbarians is now appropriately challenging and rewarding for late teens and early epics, especially with a group that knows what it's doing.

This dungeon is in a great place tbh, with several chests, a silver and a mithril node, and a boss that is challenging but not ridiculous (like the previous boss that spammed Meteor Swarm). Also, the area is perfectly loopable if you're willing to do just a little bit of backtracking.

One criticism I have is that the female mobs with the frost greatswords do tend to hit just a little bit too hard in comparison to the other mobs there; they're kind of like minibosses in their own right, and if you're unfortunate enough to get a spawn with two or three of them, it's almost a guaranteed group wipe. Also, the barbarian king should not be immune to low-level spells.

Other than that though, whoever balanced the mobs in this area did a great job.

========

Other thoughts as they arrive:

One dungeon that could do with immediate revision is The Aurilite Temple. The mobs and traps there are WAY too strong for the experience gained; the mages spam IGMS and the frost traps are oddly placed in a way that being pushed around in a fight leads to instant death.

The Yuan-ti mound is sparse on spawns, and too many mobs have some form of biteback. For a dungeon where XP gain is maximized around levels 9-12, the cost of adventuring there (heal kits, lesser resto scrolls, clarity pots) is rather prohibitive.

The inner jungles aren't good for much. Lizardmen are probably among the least rewarding spawns on the entire server by the time you're of a level to venture that far out (though they do drop a considerable amount of gold and jewelry). Considering it takes longer to travel that far into the jungle than it does to go to, say, the coastal bandits, maybe take a look at the lizardmen?

XP gain in the Bendir Orc/Bloodmoon caves is just abysmal. A group of level 6s and 7s were getting like 10-14 XP a kill there. Not good at all.

I make no promises in regard to the following, but I've these areas in my sight for some reworks:

Aurilite Temple.
Manor of Mourn.
Baator(Avernus and Minauros).
Abyss.
Barbarian Cave(some more mobs and replacements in addition to the recent ones, possible rebalancing).
The Mound.

In regards to accessibility to Kohlingen (and any other place), it is not my area (as the work I do is monster exclusive, so to do anything else I'd likely need help and approval of others). It will be brought up, regardless.

On looping:

I used to be a hardcore fan of looping, and I still do it at times, but over the years I realized looping is poor design in every way. It achieves better results, but it's boring, immersion breaking, and just plain unfun. My ideal dungeon is one that is very rewarding, but difficult to loop, you can go back in, but it'd take a few areas travel, a good opportunity to take a short break or some RP, rather than going directly into more mindless quiet grind. Portals at the end should ideally be source portals, or at least not take people right outside the dungeon entrance.

On Barbarian Cave Frostblade:

Before I tweak the Frostblades, I want to change the floor mobs to be stronger and more up to par with the new mobs, so it's more fitting of a high teens/low epics dungeon all around, rather than having trash mobs with no reward mixing with elite mobs like Frostblades. If the Frostblades continue being too threatening in comparison to the rest of the dungeon after this, they're likely to get a nerf.

Yuan-Ti dungeon is one I've been meaning to rework for a while, I've been slacking off these last few weeks, but I'm catching up now with some new monsters that are soon going in (most of them to areas different from the above).

I started some minor work on low level orcs, maybe something happens to Bendir Orcs, maybe.

It is also not incorrect to say inner jungles monsters vary wildly in difficulty and EXP, the tiger boss is much harder than the lizard folk, the jaguar are also much more dangerous and rewarding than mere lizard folk. I'll see into it.

Don't expect immediate changes, I work at my own pace and often some changes require module modifications, but no feedback will go unnoticed!

Things that come to mind

The Mound
The biggest issue I remember with this area is that almost everything has either an onhit special attack, a disabling spell/ability, or a damage shield. That boss at the bottom has multiple castings of acid sheath (something like 6-12 rl minutes worth) which makes him a pain to deal with. Yuanti regular spawns with flame shield are a nightmare to deal with when playing a dex build or anything melee oriented that doesn't have a good hp growth. The difficulty of juggling between spawns with what you do/don't want to hit makes it just not worth it. Theres one ore deposit and what, 1 or 2 chests? Not worth the the effort getting to.

The Jungle
You mentioned it, but theres a massive jump in difficulty between critters. Things like say, he grigs or lizardmen are something you can deal with at level 5 or so without too much trouble. Doom Stirges, giant anacondas (which have posion, for some reason) and flame-shield yuan-ti with lobotomized warriors? Hah, yeah, no. Those'll eat your level 5 butt alive.

The Forest Spider Cave
The forest spiders 36-38 dc poison AoE special attacks. Spiders drop no loot. The area has some low level resources, but you'll have issues carrying anything out if you get hit with the STR poison over and over again. XP isn't good either for things with such troublesome abilities. I feel like this is supposed to be more of a shortcut and less of a dungeon, but its a hassle to get through.

Cortex wrote:it's boring

I actually like looping. Then again, I'm a pretty sick guy.

I completely agree with you, Cortex: I also hate looping, but what I hate more than looping is the fact that I took a break from circle-farming at mid-high epics and instead went to the Lowerdark. I did a slow exploration of the mind flayer dungeon (major kudos to whomever designed that dungeon, btw: best I've seen on the server and the most fun I've had exploring anything to date) and in doing so, I went from earning, conservatively, 6k xp/hour to earning maybe.. 2.5k? The strain on resources was much higher, and the rewards didn't justify the expense or cover the net marginal loss on invested time.

Dungeons, in short, are not a viable way to level up quickly or inexpensively. The current system needs to have areas that are basically just leveling areas that loop in on themselves so as to be effectively grinded between the fun bits of actual adventuring. It is a necessary evil with the current system if you want to level quickly and incurring minimal expenses. The overarching issue at present is that the surface has one (difficult to reach) dungeon that satisfies all of these criteria for mid to high epics.

tl;dr looping is indeed awful but leveling without it will take ridiculous amounts of time so we're stuck with it.

Regardless of the design route made, there will be a most optimal way to level the fastest. If dungeons are made harder to loop (by increasing the distance between the dungeon exit and entrance), but in turn the EXP reward is increased (not necessarily in that dungeon), I believe it'd lead to a balance where people who don't circlegrind can obtain a rewarding amount of EXP without resorting to hours of looping, while the more 'hardcore' people can still loop at a slower pace, but at a higher reward they get right now for most dungeons.

Cortex, You mention minauros needing changes, and I kinda disagree. Sure, the xp per kill is kinda low for a party able to handle the place, but there are a lot of spawns to make up for it.

The abyss is in far greater need of work. Currently, the only reason to head there is a resource run. It is an awful place to level.

The problem of Minauros is not one of balance, I think it's a great dungeon.

However, it doesn't match the danger and 'epicness' Hell should be, it shouldn't be something that every other adventurer talks about "lol killed some devils in hell". Ideally, Minauros and Avernus should both be supreme epic dungeons for ultimate rewards (like artefacts).

Regarding the Abyss, what I have in mind would involve much more than monsters, thus the 'no promises'.

What I wonder is whether the the abyss should have the "horde of angry fiends" feel, with tons of mobs and the feeling you're wading through endless heaps of expendable footsoldiers... Then give the hells fewer but tougher mobs.

It seems it would fit better both thematically, and with the fact the abyss has the randomised transitions, etc, while the hells are far more linear.

New player, just did The Mound.

Damage shields everywhere, enemies that auto-haste and are just significantly harder to defeat then everything else in the dungeon, and outside are very high AC epic dodging disease/poisoning snakes that likewise are difficult to kill and a very very high DC to animal emp.

Did not particularly enjoy this dungeon. Felt monster balance was all over the place and damage shields just make you sit and wait.

msterswrdsmn wrote:The Forest Spider Cave
The forest spiders 36-38 dc poison AoE special attacks. Spiders drop no loot. The area has some low level resources, but you'll have issues carrying anything out if you get hit with the STR poison over and over again. XP isn't good either for things with such troublesome abilities. I feel like this is supposed to be more of a shortcut and less of a dungeon, but its a hassle to get through.

My main issue is that the end room seems rather wasted. It's clearly intended to be used as a Talonite RP hub, but it is too complicated to reach to be practical for regular use. It would benefit from a portal I think. Make the final door into the final room one way only, so that to go through the dungeon itself you have to go from the front.

I'd like to see some work on the Ruins dungeon in the Lost Desert. The xp is good but the dungeon is so small that it isn't really worth going. Since getting there is already hard enough, the dungeon could be longer in order to be loopable and worth visiting.

The spriggan cave in the Skull Crags could also be longer, making it worth like the spriggans in UD.

Temple ontop of the Skull Craigs could use some love. As could the dungeon near it that is full of robots, but to a lesser degree.

Cerk Evermoore wrote:Temple ontop of the Skull Craigs could use some love. As could the dungeon near it that is full of robots, but to a lesser degree.

The Viper Temple has been on my sight for a long time now. I'm hoping for a little more than a creature overhaul. Maybe, just maybe...

Cortex wrote:Abyss

Please be gentle with this one. It's actually imo in a very good condition (exp sucks but the resources are awesome and I thought it's intentional) or push it to the end of your to-dungeon list.

Kholingen is already loopable. You just cycle the first three bosses back and forth.

Bloodmoon orcs upper layer needs redo. By the time most venture there (7-9) the xp is very low! Bendir orcs for that matter, too.

Not sure if it's still the case, but the end boss of the Bendir orcs, the cleric that spams dispel and casts Storm of Vengeance? It's a level 6-9 area. Inappropriate! EDIT: This area was updated literally 5 minutes after I posted this. xD

There's a sewer druid that spawns in the Cordor Sewers that is worth 1xp.

The undead barrow by Darrowdeep Castle is almost too good. It's always crowded.

The crypts of Myon (The ones in the Arelith forest) Does not really seem to have alot of mob spawns at the first level at all. Secondly, the risk vs reward is not nearly worth it to ever sneak into that place, and attempt to get some goodies.

I would recommend making the spawnrate higher, and adjusting the amount of treasure the creatures in there drop.