I have some time for the toolset and, prior to starting or finishing work on new content, would like to spend time on improving, tweaking, refining, and generally polishing existing content. It would be helpful for me if players would make suggestions on what needs some attention. For example:
- What quests are too rewarding or unrewarding?
- Which quests feel stale or are boring? Repetitive fights or boring loot?
- Which random/exploration area themes are too common or boring? [to clarify: is there a boring random that always seems to show up? a set of random types that just aren't very interesting?]
- Which wilderness or Dunwarren areas need some changes to feel more interesting?
This is a suggestion for area improvements, not class balance or scripting work.
When solo'd, the Malfunctioning lightstone machine quest in the House of Knowledge is too easy for combat PCs and too hard for non-combat PCs. Toning down the spawn rate, decreasing the spawn HP and damage would help a lot here.
Last I checked, the four doors on the upper tier of the House of Knowledge don't lead anywhere, when they used to go to a lightstone chamber, a theatre, a hall of music, and a hall of art.
The instance of the Garbage Pit where the hungry rats spawn is crazy hard. Hungry rats have in the neighborhood of 15 HP hit for d4-1, and spawn in really large numbers. They give no XP, and are much more dangerous than monsters you find at comparable levels.
Quote from: Kotenku;n640544When solo'd, the Malfunctioning lightstone machine quest in the House of Knowledge is too easy for combat PCs and too hard for non-combat PCs. Toning down the spawn rate, decreasing the spawn HP and damage would help a lot here.
Last I checked, the four doors on the upper tier of the House of Knowledge don't lead anywhere, when they used to go to a lightstone chamber, a theatre, a hall of music, and a hall of art.
The four doors in the House of Knowledge actually do lead to four places!
It's just a peculiar quirk of the hak I am afraid, you don't 'click' on the doors you just walk through into the areas, if you know what I mean. But I agree it does at first appear that you can't go into any other area.
Zurkhforest near Mur is kimda too open. The far hills near the windy canyons have good landscaping but might need a boost of some sort to encourage more people to go there. Maybe resource nodes? Feels like the narrow tunnels above Dunwarren should lead somewhere
. Dunwarren explorables are almost always a camp of moderately difficuot bandits who have no reward even in the form of explorable xp.
Sparklimg cave in far hills, hook horror quest in far reaches, twittering tunnels in the narrows rewards don't match risk. Necromancer quest in canal cojld use a reward boost given difficulty. Stingers quest at Magnatz doesn't scale well making it too easy for large groups, could use more spawns in general. Underwater quest risk matches reward but just running around underwater for 15 minutes is extremely boring. Would make it shorter and perhaps a little more intense throughout rather than one big battle at the end.
Some lower-based ideas:
Add ambient spawns to the tunnels beneath lower be it kobold bandits/etc, smugglers, NPC bandits, etc. The same could be said for more Goblins in the sewers or some Non-Rat-Non-Chosen NPCs like sewer bandits and the like. These areas have long had the same handful of spawns and PCs are always encouraged to run around down there so I think some NPC presence could go a long way. Ghaunaduran fanatics, sewer-town hold outs, scrapper NPCs heading out to Dunwarren, or the like. Just a few ideas of course but some more substance to those regions.
I'm not sure how much unique dialogue and stuff falls into this catagory but a lot of the NPCs in Lower are just "There". They don't offer any unique dialogue/etc. to the location and don't really spread any purpose or reason for existing aside from showing the ascension being present, etc. Some cycle some older rumors and the like but a lot of NPCs you click on give you no dialogue options and basically just feel like they're put there as an afterthought. I can compile a list of the NPC names/etc that fit this criteria if it's wanted.
Lastly with the Silverbrands gang gone I'd say move the Tyche worshiper back to the wishing well and move the female NPC and her bodyguard away from the Maimed Minotaur. This used to be a very commonly traveled seedy and dark alleyway where PCs would come and go for reaching the Volts quest or even the new low level quest there and it just screamed a place where a PC gang could set up shop and do some shake downs and tolls with multiple areas as potential exits and so on. With four static NPCs there the entire area becomes off limits and to me none of those PC bring overly much to the server's population. Making it back into a PvP free alleyway would polish the region a lot I'd hope.
Bloodtail cove is a 3-8 quest that roughly rewards 30 gp a person and doesn't drop anything worthwhile, just some s tuff you can give to Dort Weasenburry. Haven't done part 2
There is a quest in the narrows that is very rarely done due to both the difficulty and the reward. It's located a bit further into the narrows. Spawns are mites and "armored mites" or something to that effect. Could probably do with an overhaul or just removed all-together.
Only done the Mite/armored mite quest once and found out it wasn't at all worth it given how much damage and how numerous those bastards are. Maybe just up the gold reward.
Steam Vents rewards smaller groups better than bigger ones. If there is any possible way to encourage people to bring more people on this quest, like, a pile of gold for each person who comes or whatnot, it would be grand. Otherwise, bringing more than 3-4 people becomes pointless.
Seers dispel ghosts should just go and never come back. They're incredibly resilient and hard to kill, they act in really infuriating ways, and they're a recent addition that is just there to make the quest way harder for Mag's spellsword. They're concealed, they spam dispels on people, when confronted in melee they run to other groups of NPCs and you basically have to wait for them to come back because chasing after them is suicide. They turn what is already a difficult quest into a slow plodding nightmare. I think it would also be thematically appropriate for the quest to possibly make a 'Turn back while you still can' option before the boss that still rewards some quest EXP but less and allows you to turn back before confronting the final boss.
I'd take a look into the 'Strange Portal' quest in Lower. That thing was way hard when I last did it (which admittedly was a couple of PCs ago) it was rather painful and rewarded nothing of note.
I'm honestly unsure why Clowns was moved to the Inbetween and not Zif Uroti.
The Chosen variation of the Aux Sewer Quest makes me cry every time. Way too many Greater Chosen.
Just a few oddities around Sanctuary proper.
[Hide=Old NPC for a caster event. Up for Removal?](http://i.imgur.com/9KBdEh9.jpg)[/Hide]
[Hide=Door-transitions are mostly gone, but not all.](http://i.imgur.com/BGuaEwo.jpg)
(http://i.imgur.com/LvCDRkc.jpg)[/Hide]
[Hide=This Hatchway can be unlocked with ranks in the open lock skill. Inside an area can be accessed that can't be left](http://i.imgur.com/405hvkM.jpg)[/Hide]
[Hide=Old revolution propaganda. Seems outdated](http://i.imgur.com/cFXoT6Z.jpg)[/Hide]
[Hide=Old flavourful poster that seems inappropiate with the new Director Mouldercrest.](http://i.imgur.com/hfGZmMG.jpg)[/Hide]
[Hide=Hanging obelisk](http://i.imgur.com/HnJA4p7.jpg)[/Hide]
[Hide=EFU1 Transition that was forgotten. To be deleted?](http://i.imgur.com/d0aHICG.jpg)[/Hide]
[Hide= Leaving this bench leaves you stranded behind an impassable fence.](http://i.imgur.com/uRjGanr.jpg)[/hide]
I'll be the one to say it, then, The Lowerdark Crypts, specifically, the high-leveled one. There're a /lot/ of ways to die very quickly, and I believe that recently the difficulty was increased. While it's doable and, with the right group, can be rewarding, I'm heavily reluctant to take on the end boss, or depending on the characters in the "party", do the quest at all given how easy it is to suddenly die. That being said, it's possible to take on and win, but usually with a death or two, or occasionally repeated deaths, and I don't think the "rewards" reflect this given the addition(s?). My suggestion would be to either increase the variety of the /type/ of items found, as currently, it's unlikely that a Lawful or Good pc would find a large portion of the rewards as an option to use, for one reason or another. Maybe the end boss found artifacts of neutral or goodly alignment, and wanted to see if he could corrupt them, but never found the time? Regardless, without actually saying any spoilers, I don't think i could get much more specific, i'll jump on IRC and pm you if you want more information, but I do believe some revision could be done.
In addition to that, as I tend to quest a lot, I noted one thing that always got on my nerve when doing the Randomized Purple Crystal quest, the Nyth version. As a result of the fact that you have to fight 5-6 of them at once, and that they spam the exact same spell, it's a killer for any character that cannot render himself immune to that spell. The Rewards, occasionally, are good enough for the effort in light of a few additions to the loot table that i've seen, but if you can't make yourself immune, you have to run to the exit, through all of them, which can kill you very quickly, especially as a low level of any class. Perhaps moving the exit, or changing the area so that you don't have to fight them all at the same time?
That's what i could think of, thanks!
Seers (Lowerdark Crypts) is easily done by any group with even /modest/ preparations, the boss can be dangerous I suppose, but you guys are crazy saying its too hard. Even the addition of dispels was a fairly minor increase in difficulty. The only thing wrong with it is lado filled the loot table with his plot junk. :)
Would like to request that all dissipating potions be removed from the module, all they do is stimulate grinding by not only not providing real supplies, but giving you supplies you feel you NEED to use to go do more quests. They are also for me, a frequent cause of mild depression when I see them drop; I would rather see no potions drop over dissipating potions dropping and somehow they have been showing up even more often lately....
temple of vera needs gold reward at the end end boss
- The In Between could really use some flavor love. I'm not sure what it needs but it would be nice to see something more there (not NPCs which inhibit PVP).
- Maybe there should be some kind of neutral territory like the in Between, between the end point of the lift and the canal ward. It feels strange to me that you can travel so far across the module without ever leaving an NPC protected area that you need a DM to pvp in. To be more precise, you take the lift down, you travel through a wilderness cavernous area for a while to another lift and take it down. Prices adjusted as needed.
- Lower Dark could use some additional "spooky" aspects to make it feel more threatening....not necessarily mechanical threats. Rough examples of what I mean: "You hear someone casting spells nearby..." messages played occasionally, phantom images of terrifying monsters that when you get near they fade away with some message indicating they were a trick of the mind, transitions that are one way and force you to navigate your way forward to get out.
- There are probably too many ways to get from Point A to Point B in the current lay out of the underdark. When so many people travel stealthed/invisible this only makes it even harder to run into the few people out there. I would like to see a few of these alternate paths closed off via some terrain adjustments to the underdark. Take the crossroad caves as an example, too many ways to navigate through it or around it. There's maybe about 3 ways through the cave or you can just completely go around it in two opposite directions (possibly more branching off from there).
Please put Jubals back where it was, out of the random it is now in. There is a set item in it, and its hard enough to get set items when they DONT just drop in a quest that appears once every three weeks.
Please lower the quest limit on other quests that exist in randoms to min party 2. It's rare that I find a random with more than one other person with me, and unlocking it to find a quest that has min party 3 is a bummer.
Beholders was once min party 2, could it be so again? Reward on it also is horrible considering the danger.
Tbh, were it me I'd be rid of Umber Stalkers from the Crossroads. The Eyeless Spiders are danger enough, and there are lowbie quests all about the crossroads connected areas.
Remove the dumb elf ghosts from Seer, agreed. Sabra should not be the benchmark by which quest difficulty is gauged.
formian quest used to over reward not it's way under and not worth even the trip there, perhaps a middle ground could be had instead (talking about end gold)
Bone Pit in In Between could use some random spawn skeletons.
Since most of the quest suggestions I would offer have been mentioned already, I won't bother with that aspect.
-The wilderness of efur offers the opportunity to build vertically, which wasn't as easy to do in efua/m. Falling from the Windy Canyon into the Lowerdark is just one example- I don't think every spot in the LD needs to link to some middledark equivalent, but it would be cool to have more places that are only accessible by traveling to a specific point on a certain map. I don't think the greater variety of tilesets is why efua/m's wilderness appeals to me over the Underdark- it's because traveling from Sanctuary to Mur feels entirely too linear. There may be three paths to choose on the Crossroads but they all funnel to the same exit transition, depending on your destination. Compare this to your options of traveling from the Ziggurat to the Bogs and it's not really comparable.
-More hidden areas in the wild that require either shovels or a decent search score to discover would always be welcome.
-Efu has some sweet new underwater tilesets that aren't being shown off nearly enough. Prime places for a redesign, imo- waters of the Hidden Pond, Canal Ward and Scamander River.
-Zurkhwood Forest seems strangely sparse, aside from the couple of quests there. There's a campsite there but it's not possible to even rest in the area. It needs something: rare beast to hunt into overextinction/druid grove or herbalism site to contest/duergar miner spawns to protect their claim...something.
-It would be cool if there was a few layers to the Spire ala Misty Mountains. Perhaps one could go up via grappling hook, climbing into hidden alcoves and winding their way up, or open up a network of caves and tunnels that lead down. Wyverns have been seen in this area before, perhaps they could inhabit these new areas, or some other kind of danger native to the UD but rarely seen.
Sahuagin slave pits had dispel traps added that (apparently) strip all magic - Reverting that would be nice.
Alongside removing the Elven spirit dispel spammers on Seers, I think that adjusting the boss fight to be optional would be cool. In fact, I think it used to be.
I also must second Vlaid's idea of expanding the territory between lifts and safe zones. It is slightly infuriating to effectively watch groups of "upper" folk travel safely in npc areas to just about anywhere and not ever be able to engage them in certain time zones.
Adding some -variety- to the things that spawn in loot containers all around would be nice. Many types of potions simply never drop on quests in this setting, and the dissipating potions tend to make it even worse.
Although I understand this is totally plot related, something I miss from EFU:M is some well known major lurking dangers that were out and about like the Agony of the hunt, and then later Marçail treant, at any given time, the ground started to tremble and adventurers would pray it was not one of them. Also elusive creatures, such as the white stag.
- Waterworks. The place feels rather bland, just a circular area that has no point of interest nor any visual element to tell one corridor apart from the others.
- Lowerdark. I second Vlaid in this. The place is flavorful in that moving through it feels somewhat disorienting because of all the transitions that move you across the minimap. But other than that, there is very little else. It could use some help in perceiving its alien, terrifying nature.
*Temple of Hoar quest. Very dangerous mobs, reward virtually non-existent.
Alright, Another addition
The Koa-Toan underwater quest, specifically, the PRINCE. Some time in the past, a dm made it so that if you decided to fight him, it was to the death ( you can't leave until he's dead). This was likely to counter people walking in, looting the open chests, then leaving. The Result of this, is that almost no one fights him these days, typically meaning that the quest involves freeing the slaves, and /maybe/ fighting the priestess. I would like for this to be changed. Perhaps changing it so that, instead of it being impossible to leave until the prince is dead, you merely lock all the chests so that you don't get any loot /until/ he is dead? I think more people would be willing to risk it if it wasin't that, if /someone/ screwed up, everyone dies until the next reset or even permenently. Thanks!
With the collapse of the mines, Grazen Herbs (used in Naryldor's Quest for Herbs) have become unavailable. Please make these available in other mine-like areas (Like the quarry adjacent to the polluted stream) or remove the quest entirely.
Another way to increase the uncertain danger of the Lower Dark might be to use the name "Unknown Creature" for a variety of creatures that are very different mechanically.
I agree with the Lowerdark suggestions. To add to it, I'd love to see some more spawn variety down there. Right now it's basically all or nothing in terms of dangerous spawns. I don't necessarily mean everything has to be super hard but maybe some spawns that are larger groups of moderately difficult enemies, for example?
Otherwise I'd say that the areas above Sanctuary are rather useless. There's nothing there and it doesn't connect to anything.
Quote from: Vlaid;n640735Another way to increase the uncertain danger of the Lower Dark might be to use the name "Unknown Creature" for a variety of creatures that are very different mechanically.
Just be lenient with this, I'd say. It may make things scarier, but it's another thing entirely when a goblin, with no indication of it being wierd or dangerous, starts popping fingers of death or wail of the Banshee, or a Hook horror suddenly has 4 apr.
'The Arena' quest is pretty cool. It's a great way for a characters that are into duels or into challenging themselves to organize trips to a distant place, guide others, create a following, start little events with PCs. But the difficulty is dismal, the reward absolutely bloated and as a result there is a take limit that is very small. It could use some tweaking, if desired, maybe with the addition of the option to enter in groups, or just to be an onlooker.
Edwic Drape shop of bags and boxes: Healing Bag/Box, Potion Healing Bag/Box, Miscellaneous Bag, Trader's Bag, Utility Potion Bag, Trinket Healing Bag, Throwable Bag, Velvet Bag (lightened bag similar to ironwood box)
Quote from: TheShadow;n640746Just be lenient with this, I'd say. It may make things scarier, but it's another thing entirely when a goblin, with no indication of it being wierd or dangerous, starts popping fingers of death or wail of the Banshee, or a Hook horror suddenly has 4 apr.
The idea would not be to have random hook horrors with 4 APR but to encourage natural naming of creatures. Rather than seeing "Hook horror" over a creatures head, the variety of creature we now know as hook horror, had it not always had a name floating above it's head, might have come to be called "Red Terror" or something to that effect, had it been named Unknown Creature. Just adds a psychological element of unknown to creatures to not be certain if what you're looking at is what you believe it is OOCly or not....and some cool opportunity for RP in naming those varieties of "Unknown Creatures"
Lower dark spawns a lot of spiders. Maybe some ettercap herders to go with them? A particular variety of ettercap and spider comes to mind.
I have to say, with the dramatically increased necessity of hoarding things due to the new crafting system and the existence of set items, along with the destruction of a major source of player housing, I think the current policy on player storage needs to be re-examined. Faction storage was already pretty tight, but now it's impossible. I don't understand why EfU is the only game I play where inventory Tetris is still a thing. This is just a basic quality of life issue. Please, give us some place to put our stuff.
Playacharacter, there are TONS of places where you can store stuff, if you know where to look! Factions are not the only ones, there're at least two non-upper places for people to store stuff persistantly, and plenty more in upper. /perhaps/ one in the wilds? that would be useful for Wildsfolk, but then again, it's not fool-proof.
Reinforcing the Outpost - could use a serious reworking in both reward vs risk and quest area aesthetics and layout. It's easy for PCs to get stuck on placeables while in combat. Some of the mobs seem to just hang back on the edges. Shrinking the size of the quest area could help with this maybe.
Society Aberrant Hunting System: Greater reward for more powerful mobs. Some aberrant types are more difficult than others. Also maybe worth adding a favor reward as well?
Reinforcing the Outpost - could use a serious reworking in both reward vs risk and quest area aesthetics and layout. It's easy for PCs to get stuck on placeables while in combat. Some of the mobs seem to just hang back on the edges. Shrinking the size of the quest area could help with this maybe.
Society Aberrant Hunting System: Greater reward for more powerful mobs. Some aberrant types are more difficult than others. Also maybe worth adding a favor reward as well?
The "Eternal Lights" quest needs some looking at as well. The "boss" is certainly too strong for the level range, the difficulty is high for little if any tangible reward. Further note on it, not a single spawn gave XP when I was level 3.
I think the explorables that have loot chests and obvious boss monsters guarding them need to be locked. I've recently done a couple of pretty tough explorables with a group only to find the chest completely empty from someone just looting and leaving without facing any of the challenge. Frustrating to say the least.
Perhaps modeling after the demon explorable, where the boss drops a key?
If such happens, make a private bug report, letting us know what explorable with some key details of it, so appropriate people can take a look at it. Usually we've attempted to make certain precautions for this, but some may simply not work.
An Addition! The ,"Terrifying Cave" of the Lowerdark. I have it from many people that the End Reward is terrible for the difficulty, and I'll say this:
In several area's, due to the nature of the map, the Tunnels become literally filled with eyeballs. Combine this the fact that you have to, repeatedly, face beholders in addition to the eyeballs filling the passage ways to those very same beholders. Essentially, You literally have to be immune to Beholders Death / Petrification rays if you want a /chance/ at completing this quest due to that, and most pc's are unable to get that high on both saves. While yes, It's a Terrifying cave, it's also essentially Suicide, with, or without, magic.
My Suggestion would be two-fold: One, increase the End reward to make slogging through there, even if you're not immune to Beholder's gaze's, even potentially worth the risk, if played smart, rather than guarenteed a waste of resources, Ic or no. Two, widen the tunnels or change the Numbers and or locations where the smaller eyeballs spawn, Having ten or twelve in a tunnel where two people cannot walk side by side, spamming spells, is at the very best extremely irritating, at the worst, when combined with Beholders, suicide.
Other than that, The quest is fine in my experience, as deadly as it is.
I'll be brutally honest, most wilderness areas need a rework. What would be great is if the troll cave quest for instance was actually just a trans to a swamp area where trolls/quest were, instead of some bridge and three trolls that sometimes spawn.
The badlands could also use an extra area, maybe an actual mountain you climb to reach the three fang quest, and the area is full of orog. Maybe even add the possibility of under dark behemoth spawning around this area too. It's not as if it would be the hardest spawn there.
A wild camp or SOMETHING is needed in the shrooms talk forest and the hidden pond. They again just seem devoid of anything.
Explores should spawn more frequently, they are wacky and fun. Make the non combat ones more frequent if you are worried about supply bloat because some of those are awesome.
Maybe add fisher/trader boats that randomly appear in the dark lake area where blue mushroom was would be fun as well.
//weird, it did it twice. Sorry.