Writ Rewards - Need to find the bad ones!

[AstralUniverse]

I visited the Viper Temple for the first time since its rework (stealth kudos: both area and enemy design are awesome, love it!) in an attempt to wrap up my last pre-epic writ, The Viper's Bite. I have to say, I have trouble imagining any pre-epic party completing the place. I was level 21 with a ranger/monk build that typically punches above its level in melee combat, but every single spawn was requiring Maximum Effort, and I eventually retreated due to running low on supplies before even starting on the second objective.

I honestly think this one should just be removed as a writ, rather than dropping the difficulty.

That writ is indeed tough now. Oh boy it is very tough alright.

That said, I kinda like this new design of dungeons in general with smarter AI and trickier traps etc etc. I think all the new dungeons (Revears, skull crag orcs and the like) are simply harder for that reason, and I like it. It is definitely felt the most when we fight monks in a heavily trapped dungeon because that's where we really feel the improvement in the AI.

[Baron Saturday]

That said, I kinda like this new design of dungeons in general with smarter AI and trickier traps etc etc. I think all the new dungeons (Revears, skull crag orcs and the like) are simply harder for that reason, and I like it. It is definitely felt the most when we fight monks in a heavily trapped dungeon because that's where we really feel the improvement in the AI.

Can't say I experienced that. Mostly I entered and, due to the open layout of the first area, was immediately swarmed by three spawns. It would have been 4, but that spawn got stuck on one of the barred "walls" that sticks out into the room. This resulted in retreating outside and fighting 2-3 at a time on the stairs.

[Irongron]

I might extend this one to level 23. I'm happy to do that now I want to have writs extend to 25.

How does that sound?

As an aside I still plan on adjust writs to give XP only for the first successful completion once we have enough of them.

[AstralUniverse]

As an aside I still plan on adjust writs to give XP only for the first successful completion once we have enough of them.

This is a great idea and I think it is important to do that before we extend writs into epics in the current system (as opposed to the RH system, which I think is better in every way regardless).

[Baron Saturday]

I might extend this one to level 23. I'm happy to do that now I want to have writs extend to 25.

How does that sound?

As an aside I still plan on adjust writs to give XP only for the first successful completion once we have enough of them.

That definitely feels like a more reasonable level range.

[AstralUniverse]

So I've been playing a toon in Skal, again. Currently approaching mid-teens and soon to be done here.

Things From Below - this writ has a gold reward of 200 gold (actually, at completion). Probably a typo and should be 2000 for the long-arse double boss dungeon that it is?

I also wish to add that the overhaul to the writ rewards in Skal was really on point. Most writs are about equally worth going to and if before I had this urge to just level from 3 to 15 with a warhorse henchman in 3 days, I no longer have this urge to do that and I enjoy leveling slower more than before as a result of not receiving 3k exp for a writ. Thank you.

[Archnon]

Not sure if this has been posted yet but having just leveled up in the UD for the first time, I noticed a massive difference between the cull the derro and bonefield writs. Bonefield are notoriously easy and have that reputation.

However, the Derro writ i really love. It is somewhat complicated, there are traps, things are hard to find. It makes it a lot of fun. However, when you do the whole writ versus tougher enemies, come across not a single chest, and arrive at the bottom only to realize you have to either slog through the fungal maze or fight your way back out, it is a bit depressing to find that the reward matches the Bonefield reward. Especially given the challenges of the traps and other FOIG problems with those tunnels.

It would be nice to have a 1.) boosted reward 2.) a chest at the end 3.) maybe a portal to get you back to the top. I mean, it is a level 5-10 writ.

For the record, I would not change anything about the challenges of the writ! It is a lot of fun.

[AstralUniverse]

Not exactly about the writ reward directly but..

Lets talk about Kholingen.

Awesome, AWESOME dungeon over all. I love just about everything in it except really two things.

1. There are no altars (which function for raising PCs) the entire dungeon. And that's one of the biggest if not the biggest dungeons we have.

2. The Lich spams crowd controls which last good few minutes. I stood dazed for good 2 min at least before more CC came my way. After about 5-6 minutes of standing still, I died, with about 7-8 debuffs on me, while my party is simply unable to finish the lich. we were 3 + summons and all lvl 15-20. It's really the duration of these crowd controls that made it just impossible for us to do anything, and they're being spammed, along with dispels to get your clarity off. This boss needs a tweak.

[The Kriv]

Writ: (courier) Reports from the Trade Road

Objective 2: Deliver the documents to Khadgar Rockfist, in the Hall of Legends of Brogendenstein.


-- Khadgar Rockfist is not in the Hall of Legends. Khadgar Rockfist at the "administrative duty" desk of the "Pillars of Law" area.

[Party in the forest at midnight]

The Canyon of the Lost Kings writ is almost impossible to complete due to the high traffic in the area preventing respawn in the canyon itself. It calls for only killing 4 enemies, but, I've spent an hour popping in and out of the zone every 6 minutes, only to discover someone else entered the zone in that time, preventing respawn.

Otherwise, could the gold reward for boat writs be increased? Currently it's only 3000. Boats take a long time to use, it would be nice if there was more reward for choosing a writ that would take a longer time to complete.

[TooManyPotatoes]

Littoral Dangers: The Second Objective rarely will you be able to find 10 enemies to kill in one go. This is in part because xvart like to spawn on the islands in the middle which are inaccessable. I've had to come to this areas up to 3 times in the past. The area name is: Brogendenstein (Beneath The Mountain) Gurazia Urwa K'a Lur'rkazar.

Passing the Forest of Spores writ: The Area with the ettercaps north of the first area the earthkin portal takes you is also atrocious for this. Enemies spawning on inaccessible cliffs. I've had to run through here 4 times in the past. Getting only 1-3 enemies each go. I'm not on an earthkin atm so can't recall the area name.

[Papi J]

The One-Eyed Man is King - area being buggy and basically unplayable, the slimes that spawn with acid sheathe doing 35~ blowback are pretty bad. You have to wait the duration of the spell out, which isn't very fun.

[Xerah]

I'd say the Underdark egg spider (in the petrified forest writ) could be toned down. It's AC is insane and you have to sit there for 30 minutes and healkits waiting for 20s.

I was level 12 doing this writ and burned through 40 heal kits, hastes, potions, and 5 casts of Create Undead (2x tyrantfog zombies)

[Papi J]

Kohlingen writ and dungeon is great! ... Until you get to the abandoned city part, and find 4+ risen goliaths that have somewhere around 2000 health or MORE.. and then you find a gold spawn one, and it takes 15+ minutes to kill. I am typing this response as myself and my party members and my summon swing at it to try and kill it.

If the HP on these things could be cut down significantly, it would be amazing.

[Xerah]

Beyond the Ziggarat is super annoying because only like 5 things will spawn in the priests quarters when you need to kill 10

[ReverentBlade]

The Belfry Tower. 600 XP for killing that monster of a Slaad, and vampires?

[ReverentBlade]

Thief of Dreams. 1k XP and 2500 gold is weak tea for a phylactery lich boss, and a dungeon with dispelling, elemental shield, and horrid wilting mobs.

[msterswrdsmn]

I ran through the viper monks from start to finish. A few things stuck out.

The starting area is awful. The open room with multiple spawn points, combined with the spawns large detection range means as soon as you step in, you're going to be jumped by 3 spawns, or about 12 to 14 monks on average. Which leads to problem 2.

In anticipation of said triple spawn, i cranked my ac up to 68-70 with 50% concealment before wading in. This is an ac range suitable for epic areas. And I was still loosing the damage race. Badly. I was forced to retreat to the outdoor stairs to bottleneck the monks.

It wasn't necessarily and issue with the monks ab. It was more and issue with there being 14 monks, who each are making many many attacks per round with monk apr. Even if they needed a 20 to hit me, the sheer number of incoming attacks means I'm getting hit at least 4 to 5 times per round, if not more. Enough to where despite my high ac and reasonable damage output, I was still forced to flee.

Maybe lowering some of the spawns detection range, or breaking up their line of sight in the first entrance area may help.

I can't imagine there are many characters that can survive that. Especially at writ levels.

Tsang tsn and one for the miniboss masters (master jade maybe?) Are bosses that dont drop boss heads

[ReverentBlade]

+1 on the above assessment of viper monks. That room gave a three-man team of well-built, level appropriate PCs serious problems. I took this writ off my personal list.

[Ordo.Lupus]

The writ for 'Xvarts on the Loose' is rated as lvl 3-10 which isn't entirely fair

Objective 1: kill gang leader
Objective 2: 5 kills in mine
Objective 3: 10 kills in village
These three objectives are doable at lvl 4-5'ish. Even solo'ed.

Objective 4: kill the scourge queen.
This one is incredibly hard. Firstly she spawns with a group of Xvarts. But worse is probably her spells and that nasty whip. It hits for ~25 dmg and she has a good AB too.
It was first at level 8 with an animal companion that I was able to beat her. Prior to that I had to chug bulls strength, death armour, endurance as well as setting 2 average sonic trap in the doorway and aggro her through it. Or at least have some of her minions weakened.

Given her high dmg and AB I find it hard to believe that a group of lvl 3-5 would be able to take her down. She should either be nerfed a tiny bit or the writ should have its level range up'ed

[Hevihenkka]

Kholingen is amazing dungeon overall, but it needs a huge reward boost to make it worth it overall for so many reasons.

- You need a ship to get there. PC ships are hard to get. There are very few rental ships around and they are usually occupied or lost in the sea. Those Epic players owning ships are often busy doing something else than helping out a group with a writ... or simply not online.

- Sea travel is dangerous and unexperienced players may get lost and get killed in the seas. The writ is not giving a proper clue where it is located.

- The dungeon is very long and tough with barely any altars. This is one of the few dungeons where you actually need a group and is incredibly diffcult to solo as any character. With lots of RP involved this dungeon alone can take easily more than 4 hours.

[Xerah]

Kholingen is an annoying one for sure. I soloed it a few times with RH characters. Only takes about an hour or so.

The second time was with a rogue, which got to the end and had to deal with 2 bosses. Which was super annoying. I eventually died. The next time, I ran into two again, but a million wand charges later, I was able to beat one of them before lensing out.

[Mythic]

Reavers Keep & Border Reavers

The mobs in this dungeon are well designed, if a little sparse in certain areas and heavily populated in smaller corridoors.

On average I found the AB to be acceptable, as I was taking hits, but not an exorberant amount with 50 AC, so it seems most have around 33ish AB at tops.

The layout is great, and the treasure throughout is fantastic.

There's one issue however, and it throws the dungeon balance out of wack entirely.

The Jail Master, Has 48 AB, and hits for on average 30-33 Damage. He can also be hasted by the Kenku spawns. Which creates a horrific wall, as at-max at level 18, my Tanky-AC build has 50-54 AC. With Improved expertise up (Without a hope in heck of hitting the Jail Master)

His AB needs to be toned down, and likely the damage too, by a factor of about 10 each. Otherwise Mundane-fighter characters have no hope to beat him without posesssing 70ish AC (at level 16-20??)

The Final boss as well, apparently is not triggering the writ reward unless you kill her before she flees.

overall a good challenge writ, with good reward if you can handle it. But with a stonking great wall of AB and Damage in the middle, before you can enjoy the rest of a fantastic dungeon.

[AstralUniverse]

I like the rework to Glorag Mur's 'Dysfunctional Iron Golem' mobs. They now hostile everything and attack other mobs as well as spread their missile storm's to other mobs and not just PCs. It really adds a cool dynamic to the dungeon to play around, a lot like in Avernus, and I like it. However, it fails in practice, particularly in the deeper level of the dungeon, because you spawn most of the mobs in the screen from afar, through terrain, and you then arrive to find one injured dysfunctional golem and a bunch of corpses (some yellow *cries*) and sometimes you arrive late enough to find an injured golem and no corpses at all.

[Griefmaker]

I like the rework to Glorag Mur's 'Dysfunctional Iron Golem' mobs. They now hostile everything and attack other mobs as well as spread their missile storm's to other mobs and not just PCs. It really adds a cool dynamic to the dungeon to play around, a lot like in Avernus, and I like it. However, it fails in practice, particularly in the deeper level of the dungeon, because you spawn most of the mobs in the screen from afar, through terrain, and you then arrive to find one injured dysfunctional golem and a bunch of corpses (some yellow *cries*) and sometimes you arrive late enough to find an injured golem and no corpses at all.

I was wondering what was going on there! I thought the server was glitching. The idea behind it is totally cool, but we noticed that 1/2 - 2/3 of the enemies were indeed dead by the time we reached them (at least as AstraUniverse says, at the later spawn points in a map).