Feedback Thread: Creatures and Quests

[Ibn]

What do you think of the added content in Throne of Destiny? Let us know here.

[baybear57]

I found my penguins :D

Killed a few of the lower-level ones on the landscape, and then found the Penguin Cave Hatchery (90+) outside of the eastern outpost.

Adorable little things ... until they start swarming, and get behind you, and you realize that they hit with about the same ferocity as muties. And they fly!!!!! (unless I was just bleary-eyed from lack of sleep at that point).

Very cool! :D :D :D

[RareBreed]

OH ya...I found 1 of those new one eyed critters scared the heck out of me :eek: Those babies are fast.........It got to late to look for much more

[Bardo]

Errrr... I need to find some stuff to fight with. Kinda akward fighting without my rend weapons and an endless supply of Peerless kits.

I can't seem to figure out one of your quests though. You recieve trade proposals from someone in Sanamar to bring to 3 merchants in the 3 other starting towns... Every time I try to give them the trade proposal, I try to SELL it to them. I try to give it to them but it opens the vendor window. How are you supposed to do it? Is there a new way of handing things to vendors?


The Fiun look pretty neat, I have to admit =) Kind of nasty but neat. And the Rushk cast disspell spells at level 35 too =). vicious!


All these new things to learn how to spell, this is going to be tough =P.

[William the Bat]

I'm having a blast exploring. I just wish it didn't crash so much. Found the quest for a brewing bible, but after the first dungeon have no idea where to go next, despite the really cool note form the drudges about the "buk". Did the first quest for the Duke's side, and have no direction on where to go next there, either, but I figure I'll find out as I explore more.

If it didn't crash so much, I would be in hog heaven. (and yes, I submitted my bug report with all the relivant system information via the file planet bug report thing)

[thejackcat]

Bardo, you are giving the note to the wrong NPC. Read the names a little more carefully and you should figure it out. I did the same thing at first.

[Yoshitsune]

Maggie is right - you're in Holtburg right - there are 3 generations of the guy.
Nice starter quest - Is there someone I should give the apple to? I used the Moss Mana thing.

Oh, was I pleasantly surprised when I ran the Spec Temple and didn't have to cycle through the herbs not to mention skipping the 3 sets of golems. And not having a timer to worry about on each gem. Now, where to get 8 skill credits?

[Madaster]

Vitae and questing

I'm sure someone has looked into this and that it's already been dealt with, but I'll post my concerns anyway.

King 6 - the final portal gives you 20% vitae. There simply is no way to clear that much vitae given the monsters that exist there before you get to the king. Activating the eyes to get into the King 6 dungeon gives you a ton of vitae as well, previously it was no big deal, it cleared easily as you progressed, now though, it's going to be a huge deal. People are going to be much more reluctant to get this done.

All the kings - They cast a vitae spell, 5% isn't huge but then again, it isn't going to be as simple a matter to clear as it has been.

Don't get me wrong, I like the new "sting" of the vitae. It definitely makes you think about not dying as much. On the other hand you've employed vitae as part of quest dynamics, which results in a "sting" that is well beyond what you originally intended, is it not?

[Tsing]

Hmmm, Creatures and Quests...

Sorry, don't know anything about them. I have not been able to explore the new content (I guess because I hunt alone).

Of the approximate 24 hours I have spent on Destiny, about 16 hours have been Maintenance (learning spells, equiping, etc), and 8 hours dieing from normall critters (mostly Ayan - Level 100 char) then trying to recover bodies.

Lots of time messing with spells because must learn lower spells (to buff self) since you can't work off the EXCESSIVE Vitae xp requirements - way way too much xp needed to reduce vitae (specially since weaker and can't kill the higher critters)!

[mrbeepa]

Not sure where the right place for this comment is. This is closest forum topic I saw available. My comment concerns an issue that has existed in AC for as long as I remember and that is if you are not a mage or part magic user you can't survive the medium and higher lvls. I created an archer on Destiny, I lvl 100 I spec'd melee, magic def's and bow and fletching and I trained missle def. Putting as many pts in as I could and still have enough for my attributes and not puttin any into things like tinks or etc. I then went out in my lvl 80 bug armor to see how I faired without any kind of buffs. What my mage could kill at lvl 40 I could barely stand up against. Even with very high lvls, melee 305, magic 220, missle 250. The high def lvls does not compensate for not having buffs and this I would think should be the way it works so people building non magic toons could survive without having to have a source for buffs?? :( :mad:
And mixing the two: magic/archer only gimps you as an archer in the long run :mad:

[Madaster]

Okay, we went to see if King 6 had been adjusted by the devs. The answer is no. 15% vitae at the eyes, that even killing everything resulted in us still having vitae when we got to the sarcophagus room. Two complete kills of the rooms before the king only got us back to 20% vitae for those that did eyes.

In short this has to be adjusted. There is simply no way to effectively kill King 6 with a 20% reduction in skills and his debuff set. No high level is going to look forward to taking 20% vitae.

[Miss Stephanie]

I have done some of the new quests initiated by talking to Grand Mother. I really like the new quests. I'm stuck on the one where she asks for a jawbone from an Eater. I've killed at least 50 eaters and have not found this trophy.

I like the Finns and Penguins. I liked the graphics in the Heart of Madness and Lola's Den. I love the look of ice in Lola's Den. Haven't figured out if it is part of a quest or not. Seems like it would be.

I have found several trophies from creatures that I have not figured out what to do with. The eaters spit out body parts from different races and virindi. I got a couple of trophies from Lola's dungeon - ice shard and penguin beak.

I like theme of Grand Mother and Grand Father that you have to pick sides in the rebel war. Grand Father won't talk to me about quests now LOL

I love the new trees they look awesome. Overall I am excited about the new content. I like to explore new things.

As I said in another post, I don't care for the changes in the vitae system. My time is limited and I would rather spend my time exploring then work off vitae.

[Tsing]

I would prefer a vitae workoff something between the current Dark Majesty and Throne of Destiny.


ToD Preview
Level 100 UA Melee
5% Vitae
Matron Hive 60+ (Swarm Soldiers, Eviserators, etc.)

To reduce first First 1% of xp = ~188k xp
Second 1% = ~187k xp
Third 1% = ~175k xp
Fourth 1% = ~195k xp
Fifth 1% = ~219k xp

5% vitae total ~964k xp
Killed ~ 14 Olthoi to get rid of 5% XP

[Red Cobra]

I decided to explore the lowbie quests (as a true lowbie). All I can say is...


Well... YUMPIN' YIMMINEE!

It took me two hours to finally locate a safe approach to the Drudge cave containing Renald the Elder's mug... and THEN I made the error of casting a vuln, from the surface, on the two remaining drudges in the cave.

Umm... if anyone has ever played an old arcade game called "Missile Command", you'll understand when I say that the entire radar went yellow with approaching bogies. Not only Drudges... but every critter on the hillside... Tiofor Ursuins, Scavenger Ursuins, Drudges of all levels, Wasps... etc.... etc...

And then it was over... Alas, my poor lowbie avatar was, within seconds, submerged in a sea of snarling, spitting, slashing, clawing, clubbing and gnashing critters... rent from limb to limb... with the remnants of his corpse scattered between competing critters.

*sigh*

p.s.: I did, btw, finally figure out how to get that blasted mug... :p

[RareBreed]

Oh ya Red :eek: I did that with an Eater and before I knew it I was lunch. The critters came from everywhere :eek: ,,,,,,,Fun though :D

[srand]

We will be adjusting the vitae penalty inflicted on the Browerk (King 6) quest. That adjustment should be in by the launch of the expansion -- although note that I'm not promising, since something with higher priority could potentially come up.

[ayreon]

im loveing it . i love the new eater and viamontian badies. and shrooms rock. the new vitea system finnally seems right for the job it is suppossed to be doing.i.e. reminding us its not fun to die :) ) though after seeing the fuin npc in town i really wish we also had fuin as playable race theylook cool hehe :)

[teh-frozz]

I hate the new Viamontians. :|

They keep kickin' my rear.

Eaters are cool, though.

[RareBreed]

Well all I can say about the Viamontians and Eaters, is call a doctor have him bring plenty of bandades. I've lost around 4 bodies trying to kill those guys, I'm sure glad this is a preview and none of it counts....cause I've lost some good stuff. But I'm having a great time :D

[MaddyFF]

Wow, the path of blindness dungeon doesn't seem like a solo quest!

Hopefully a Leafculler with good equipment can test it out, seems like suicide in olthoi armor though. :)

[RareBreed]

Wow, the path of blindness dungeon doesn't seem like a solo quest!

Hopefully a Leafculler with good equipment can test it out, seems like suicide in olthoi armor though. :)

It is...I did.....I was lunch :D

[Sanddh]

well, I guess the augmentation gems count like a quest now too, seeing you have to kill a boss critter to get a blank gem.

For my normal playing toons, I like the idea, the fact you have to work hard & organize to get a gem.


But.. my poor tinkerers.. I thought the augmentation gems were a nice idea for them, and in the past few weeks, my clanmates and me worked hard to deliver the xp to them so they could buy the spec gems when ToD would go live.

Unfortunately, it now turns out the blank gems will be part of a quest that a tinkerer without any fighting skills simply can't survive. Unless the blank gems are made givable, or a frying pan will become a viable weapon (hrm, how would an Eater sound being smacked with a frying pan?), Dereth's crafters are again left out.

Turbine, please be nice to the non-agressive, wildlife-preserving community? Entitle us to a pacifist blank gem ;).

[GulSera Shemrin]

Quests:


This is my first time playing Asheron's call... so i first started off like a real n00bie and did everything from the start... unfortunately because of my curious nature i ended up way up north in Edysia's castle with a lvl 7 char...

In the mean while i did some quests though and they looked really nice.... Although the travelling confuses me a lot....


After my first char i created a second char which i lvled to 220...

I went back to kick those d*mn critters up north and complete the high lvl quests....

I went to the bandit's castle where i met with Jourgenson (asking for an item) i went to get it & completed that quest... Then i went to McDuggal and he gave me the follow-up quest...

The problem is that the entry to that quest should be around/under that castle, but after looking for about an hour i still haven't found it...

Hasn't that quest been put in yet or i'm i really blind or something?


Creatures:

Like i said i'm pretty new to this game, but liking it so far :D


The changing in power of the creatures from Shoushi eastwards are a bit too much though.

If you walk east out of Shoushi the critters are easibly doable with a lvl 7 (swordmaster) char... If you follow the path you'll get to a crossroad.... if you take the left path the creatures suddenly gain in power greatly....

Before the crossroad you see only fluffy rabbits and some low lvl creatures but after it you suddenly find higher lvls.


well that's my 2 cents for now :cool:

[olgraybeard]

SINCE I CAN NOT START A THREAD:

VITAE and The Lone Explorer

I like to hunt alone and be selfsufficient. I can no longer do this. In order to recover bodies on death by myself, requires I find a lower level place to fight and regain vitae so I might have a chance of recovering my body and stuff.

By the time I have done this with three toons I created, the bodies decayed. I deleted and started again from scratch, might as well, the final vitae made my toon a noob all over agian. The game is not much fun for the loner. Evidently, Turbine intends this game only for teams and social groupings.

I guess that leaves me out. If this system stays, I will have to cancel accounts.

I enjoy the time wandering and being able to do all for myself. All of the wepaons I have, I imbued them myself and tinked them myself. Almost all of the weapons I use, I found them or obtained them. It may take longer, but I was never in a hurry. This is evidently not to be an aspect of the game play anymore.

Now we have a system that is desinged to make people who explore alone go down in levels as punishemnt for being loners. Too bad.

[BrightYellow]

I find the rewards of high level creatures quite low... a puffball mushroom is worth less XP than an insatiable eater??!? :confused:

Same for the new big green grievvers (not the burrowed, the other ones, I can't remember exactly their name). Same for the naughty & wicked skeletons, the mummies, and to a lower extent the level 180 ruschk.

Overall, there are several camp-oriented creatures, that will yield insane amounts of XP for no danger, and many many many interesting creatures, that will never be visited because of the absolute lack of appropriate reward.

I can understand that you separate camp dungeons from quest dungeons (it's quite bad when quest dungeons are clean because of 24/7 fellows), but I think there could be a bit of tweaking.

Another subject: I tested missile defense against the new hollow lugians... it doesn't work at all. With maxed missile defense (skill and attributes maxed, full buff 7, 10 innate quickness / 100 innate coord), I evaded ONCE out of more than 15 shots (no log, sorry... but 1/15 is about right). I stood in a corner healing like mad, taking the blows from one sentinel. I almost didnt survive. For sure, with the extreme boost on the usefulness of melee defense, and the total ineffectiveness of missile defense, you have narrowed the future templates (add this to the fact that it's extremely easy to dodge... who will ever choose missile defense except for pk?).

[ShadowDancyr]

I have to say, I am LOVING this preview a LOT! I'm a native Leafcullian, so cheer up you "out o' towners". When ToD comes to your server, and you can head out wearing your tinked armor and swinging your rend weapons, you will enjoy.

I chose to create a new Viamontian character based in Holtburg. I grew up there long ago, so new the newbie quests...or thought I did. I discovered to my amazement, that I could buy lvl IV buffs at the healer, under Services. Focus, Self, End, Coord, Quick and Str. I wore only armor I found as I went, same for swords. When I had done the Holt quests, I took a trip to Sanamar.

I really enjoyed the trade letters quest. What a terrific way to tie the old and new together. I too tried to stick the note in every .... I could find, before I "read the directions". I especially like the way they each sent me off to do their favors, before considering the note I had given them. As a result, I leveled quickly and got to see a lot of new places.

My higher level char did the "freind of Sanamar" quest...my friends went rebel. I can't wait to see where this story line might lead, in subsequent patches. Raids?

Nice job guys and gals! It was well worth the wait.

[Madaster]

Well we went and did King 6 through the portal on our 260+ characters. The eyes to activate the first portal give you 5% vitae now instead of 15%. Initially I thought this was a good change, until with 4 and for part of the way only 3 of us killing everything to the sarcophagus room, I ended up with 3% vitae out of the original 5 I got activating the eye.

The portal into the final king room gives you 10% vitae now instead of the 20% it used to give. Again I want to point out that using vitae as a penalty or debuff is just plain wrong now with the vitae penalty now in place.

Vitae isn't just calculated off your level, but it encompasses your deaths as well. So those that pk, well sorry, your death totals are going to give you a lot more vitae to work off than those that don't. Even casual or not so casual, as I guess I would be classified, players are hurting with this calculation.

I absolutely have no problem with vitae scaling with level, but scaling it with deaths too is way beyond the pale. Explorers, those that take the arrows to learn how to do quests, are going to have much harsher penalties than those that follow in their footsteps as will those that partake in player killing.

Vitae on a quest needs to be able to be worked off as you do the quest. You should not have vitae when it is completed. There is simply no way to work off the amount of vitae doled out to high level players participating in this quest. And you can almost bet that if high level players don't lead it, the kings are not going to be done very often if at all.

The eyes should be a debuff, heck even the kings debuff of poison health is preferable to the vitae. The portal into the final room, it shouldn't be vitae or if it is to be vitae, the numbers to dispose of it need to be adjusted to a flat rate and not the variable rate we now have in TOD. It should be clearable at the most by 3 full fellows within three full spawns of the creatures on the first level and at the north ramp down. Anything more makes the quest just take way longer than it should, and we are going to lose people doing it because of the vitae hassle.

With the new vitae system, quests and vitae being incurred as a dynamic in the quest is just wrong. I understand the logic and the lore, but it doesn't match up in penalty exacted against the players.

We never went to the king. But I would assume that he remains unchanged. He also has a vitae spell. So if a high level player is truly unlucky, they are going to be stuck with 15% of vitae that is not going to be able to be worked off before the quest is completed.

I applaud the fact that you realized that it was too much of a penalty, but you need to review it again. It still is way too much of a penalty for high level players to want to participate in it.

I lead these quests nightly on Leafcull, every week we do a complete cycle. Given the vitae I will incur doing these quests, I have to question whether I'd be willing to run them as often as it currently stands.

[Flandamier]

The problem you have in general is that they are figuring in the total number of deaths in with your level.

Doing this King 6 quest with Mad and Sweet we discovered that Sweet at level 260 and 21 deaths only had 180k or so experience points per vitae point and me being level 164 with 494 deaths costed me 540k or so per vitae point. Total experience for her at her level 147 billion and for me its about 15 billion. Are they trying to tell me because I play more aggressively, pklite for fun, or have played for 4+ years that I should be penalized MORE than someone who has 10 times the experience I do? What are they thinking???

I agree that there should be more experience vitae to kill the higher level you are, I don't have a problem with that. The problem I have is the way they are calculating it. If they were to say something like at level 100 - 105 you get 5% vitae at X set amount experience per point and at level 106-110 you get 5% vitae at a higher set amount that would be the way to go and makes it more of an even playing field and does not penalize those who have been loyal to them over the years yet still accomplishes what they are trying to do, which is make it more costly for dying.

[BrightYellow]

I am not sure to understand... are you saying that a level 260 with 1000 deaths will have more vitae to work, than a level 260 with no death, when they both die? That would be a totally new dynamic, and I don't remember reading that anywhere. I think the previous poster meant that the vitae penalty increases when you die and still have not cleared your previous vitae.

Also, the vitae point for the first death at level 260 is over 2 millions. About 15 million were needed for me to clear the first death of my recently created level 260.

[Madaster]

Bright, see Fland's numbers. It didn't work that way for Sweet who had 4 deaths total and only had 180K to clear her vitae per point versus me with 460 some deaths that had 2.2 million. Honestly I have no problem with having to work harder to kill vitae if I die. But I'm not dying here, I'm questing and the quest is imposing a penalty that is not clearable by doing the quest.

[Sweet Destiny]

Yes, Vitae now takes into account how many deaths you have.


Is this acceptable?

[Hamfast]

Yes, Vitae now takes into account how many deaths you have.


Is this acceptable?

Did you think to report it as a Bug?

For the most part it's a dynamic that most of us that messed around in the preview would never notice, and something that most would think is broke...

[Madaster]

Honestly Ham, I thought that was what these boards were for. If not I apologize, but I thought this was to bring it to the attention of the Devs since they wanted feedback?

[MaddyFF]

For the most part it's a dynamic that most of us that messed around in the preview would never notice, and something that most would think is broke...

Could be a bug that was always there but with vitae being capped so low we may never have noticed.

[Yula_the_Mighty]

Yes, Vitae now takes into account how many deaths you have.

Is this acceptable?
Vitae penalties have always take into account the number of deaths. It certainly did back when I started in 1999 during Sudden Season. It quickly resulted in a - 'I got to quit dying in this game'. It is nothing new. Most of us forgot this part of the vitae system because of the cap.

As to whether Turbine change this part of the vitae system - no idea.

Yula the Mighty - HG

[Zero_Washu]

We will be adjusting the vitae penalty inflicted on the Browerk (King 6) quest. That adjustment should be in by the launch of the expansion -- although note that I'm not promising, since something with higher priority could potentially come up.


Why not reduce vitae by 1% for every hour the account is inactive?

[Hamfast]

Madaster,
I did not mean it as anything more then a question (no condemnation)... Sorry if I came across that way...

Maddy,
Yeah, very true... while I do die now and then, I try real hard not to (been my play-style for many years) and with the Vitea Cap, in our normal play, we pass the Vitea cap fast enough as to not notice... in the case of the old days, all vitea was bad...it took a long time to get rid of it, but I for one never noticed the death count mattered (granted, at the time, I had a death count under 10)

[Flynn]

Woah... hold up just a second. As far as I can tell, the only way to get an augmentation gem is to go through a very high level quest and kill a level 750 critter at the end. Are you telling me there's NO way for a non-combat character to get ANY augmentation gems? Personally, I have a HUGE problem with this, and I'm sure I'm not alone.

Is there another way?

[Garak]

Bring a friend or 2 to do the killing. The boss drops a good 10+ gems.