Adjust the Troll-Quest in Ring 95

[Richørd]

Hello there.

I will be straight forward. This quest is sucky-sucky and no funny-funny.
If that is intended by the team then so be it, skip over this suggestion and forget about it. But if this quest wasn't intended to be a total, unfun chore? Then please, keep reading.

Reasons :
-1st. It is VERY HARD. I went there plenty of times and never have I had a run that went absolutely smooth. It did not matter how well organized and prepared our group was, there were always close calls or even characters going down. We even had attempts where our main frontliner (sadly me) went down within the first group of trolls that rushed us, immediately setting us back to the point where further attempts would just end up being a waste of good EXP. Trolls themselves are already special by requiring acid or fire damage to go down. Then there's the fact that they regenerate, that they have a hugely varrying set of different trolls ranging from Boulder Throwers to tough melees in the form of War Trolls all the way to dispelling Troll Witches and acid-damaging Spore-Infested Trolls.
-2nd. Unrewarding. The payment at the end is less than what an Arbiter pays you for clearing out a few fiends from a tear in reality that was opened by a stray wizard. The only good piece of loot I have seen there so far was spawned in by a DM. The quest gives you less experience for turning it in than the orcs of the Mongrelwoods. There are no supply crates at the end that anyone can take something from.
-3rd. It is absolutely, 100%, undoubtedly optional. It is not required to advance through Ring 95 and instead hinders the advance through 95 by taking up an explorable spawn slot that could've been one of the quests that you need to advance instead.
-4th. I have not met a single person on the server so far that straight-up said "I like this quest. =)".

So what do I suggest?
Fix at least one of the first three points on that list.
The trolls quest needs at least one factor going for it. I don't even know why I tortured myself with it so many times already. Both me and my character have reached the point where we say : Yo, screw this place.
By making it A) less difficult to cut through, B) properly rewarding for the amount of time, ressources and potential EXP one has to invest into it or C) by adjusting the amount of explorables in 95 and not making the troll-explorable take up a slot you could probably catapult this quest back into a spot where people would actually consider clearing it for other reasons than just RP "we've gotta cull that menace!"

[Pandip]

This quest suffers from the same problem lizardfolk did before it was tuned. It appears to be unchanged since being used as an endgame, high level quest for EFU:M. Going in with more than 3 people spawns a ton of war trolls and even with 3 people this is immensely hard. The reward at the end can actually be quite good but it probably feels sparse for the risk compared to similar quests in 95.

As it stands, this is a quest people try once (typically fail) and then refuse to do on subsequent characters.

[Bacon_Cheese_Burger]

I LOVE the looks of this quest. the visuals are so great. What is not to love about trolls in a swamp? But yes it is HARD and yes the loot can varry alot. All in all i like the quest as it is. But that being said i still avoide the quest more often than i do it. Så maybe looking at the spawnrate of the monsters is not such a bad idea? :)

[Howlando]

Thank you for the suggestion.

It is indeed an older quest of EFU, and doesn't balance or scale very well vs. large parties.

I am sorry you find it a "sucky-sucky" "chore." It has been successfully beat many, many times. Many players absolutely find it is a nice example of some of the more challenging content on the server. It is, as you said, optional - and plenty of PCs utterly crush it.

I will be happy to take another look at it at some point to try to address some of the issues with scaling, but please understand that it is usually better for DM time and attention to focus on adding new, fresh content rather than trying to perfectly tweak and balance old content.

Now if I may make a suggestion of my own.

I will be straight forward. This quest is sucky-sucky and no funny-funny.
If that is intended by the team then so be it, skip over this suggestion and forget about it. But if this quest wasn't intended to be a total, unfun chore? Then please, keep reading.

I do make allowances for the difficulty of expressing tone through text chat on the internet. And I certainly understand that dying in EFU can be frustrating.

However, I find your introductory sentence here really rude and I do not appreciate it. It does your suggestion no credit to start off with a tone that is so snarky, passive-aggressive, and flat out disrespectful.

Here is how I would re-write your suggestion to make me feel good about working hard to keep improving EFU:

"Hey!

I'd like to suggest that the Trolls quest be looked at in terms of balance. The experience of myself and other players is that it does not scale very well. There is currently a dearth of high level content and it would be great to be able to add this quest into the rotation of high-level questing with larger groups without being afraid of being obliterated by War Trolls.

The quest looks great and is very atmospheric, I just think a few tweaks to the frequency of war troll spawns would make it far more approachable without making it quite so crushing.

Thanks, DMS!

Keep up the good work!"

A slight difference in tone really makes a difference and would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you!

[Richørd]

Hello Howl,

you actually gave me quite the hearty laugh there. =P Thank you.

I thought the introductory line of "sucky-sucky and no funny-funny" would achieve the opposite and rather make it look more light-hearted instead of coming off as rude.
But I will take that feedback to the way I wrote it to mind and be more serious in the future with the way that I write my suggestions.

And I absolutely agree that new content would be better than rebalancing optional quest content that can be skipped over. It's just that, from my point of view, I had never a fun time in the trolls quest. It has less to do with dying but more with the points that I already listed above.

[Grix]

I am one of the few people that loves the troll quest as it is, I would run it every reset if only other people were willing. I would definitely suggest most people who I hear speak ill of the quest in general tell me the same thing. "It's not the difficulty, it's the reward." The quest it's self is not that hard if you use certain choke points and know how to fall back to them when big hoards come. The boss is fairly easy for a half-decent group. But I guess I would suggest if anything, maybe just adding a supply chest at the end similar to Orc or Morghoul? I think that alone would get a lot of people more willing to risk it for trolls. And in turn means people actually willing to run it with me! The vibe and layout of the quest is awesome though!

[Bearic]

I like this quest. =)


Aside, I love supply chests and potion bags, if only just for speeding up looting and even reward systems.

[Howlando]

I have adjusted the spawns and increased the per pc gp payout at the end.

[Richørd]

Will give it a try in the upcoming days then to give feedback. I'll edit this post once that's done.