Rauk Fields

[noj]

An island you can find while sailing around some of the deeper waters is called the "Rauk Fields", on that island is a veritable swarm of massive treants that, as far as my crew and I could tell, basically have the troll characteristic of being unkillable as long as you don't have a specific element required to kill them.

That being said, please turn them back into regular treants. It's bad enough that you get swarmed by a dozen of them as soon as you get off the boat, and you HAVE to fight them or you can't go back to your ship. Treants do not have nor do they need the ability to only be killed by a certain element, and this whole encounter basically punished our crew for exploring a new area and not bringing a specific element to a fight we should have been more than prepared for were we fighting regularTreants.

Thanks.

[Richrd]

Wait, you are out there exploring and you do not have at least a +1 essence of fire with you?

That's like page 1 of an Adventuring Guide kinds of stuff because it sounds like if you had met actual trolls instead you'd have been just as screwed.

[Wethrinea]

The far reaches are very dangerous, and in my opinion should continue to be so. We got smacked around hard too when we visited that place, and the "oh shit, they are not normal treants!" realization was a thrilling experience.

10/10 would be chased off the island again.

[Good Character]

Commonly held opinion by Irongron is not to make every encounter somehow winnable when you're unprepared. You will die if you fail to account for things. It's what makes things thrilling and it's what makes things organic and natural for characters to react. Areas like this should actually be encouraged more.

I personally haven't done much sailing so I'm not sure on the lore of this place so maybe it needs to be fleshed out, but this seems like a solid danger. The island is not in your way and you have to purposely choose to dock on the island.

[Distant Relation]

Rauk Fields is only findable in what is fondly referred to as 'hellwaters', where a failed avoid encounter check will airdrop extremely tough boarding encounters on you as well. That's definitely a place where you're meant to go with a group, and well prepared for anything that could happen.

I think its 'fine', and believe it or not Rauk Fields is one of the easiest encounter zones there.

[Altair01]

If you're facing an invincible or overpowering enemy in PvE, you should usually be given a means to run away. This doesn't get to happen on islands even though the skiff is right there, because you need to enter a dialog to access it, and that can only be done outside of combat. You can't create a portal or use a lens either, because these require a dialog too. A way around this would be to have commands like "-ship board" and "-ship partyboard" that worked in combat as well, sending you or your party back to your ship when you're close to the skiff without needing a dialog.

Right now, on any island (even newbie ones), if you get chased by a mob and they pursue you all the way to the skiff, there is no way to retreat to the safety of your ship, unlike on the surface, where you can cower behind powerful militia. Unless exploring islands, even newbie ones, is meant to be purposefully very dangerous, this should be fixed.

[Distant Relation]

That's a fair point, but I don't know if its viable. Multiple ships can be docked in the same skiff, meaning you need a dialog box to select which ship you want to board onto. Tied into that is access rights (having the key, property ownership, or faction captain access), which need to be checked as well.

Its also an issue as old as time. You can dock in RDI straight into a spawn of giants and get completely trounced with no way of escape. Its just more visible now because more people are sailing + there's more islands to visit thus more opportunities for this to happen.

[Altair01]

Good point, but if the game records the last ship you've been on, this isn't a problem, as the commands can default to that ship.

[noj]

Wait, you are out there exploring and you do not have at least a +1 essence of fire with you?

That's like page 1 of an Adventuring Guide kinds of stuff because it sounds like if you had met actual trolls instead you'd have been just as screwed.

I had acid because that's what I carry in case I run into trolls, because that's the enemy that needs a specific element to kill but that is also well known and common knowledge at this point.

The far reaches are very dangerous, and in my opinion should continue to be so. We got smacked around hard too when we visited that place, and the "oh shit, they are not normal treants!" realization was a thrilling experience.

10/10 would be chased off the island again.

Except you can't be "chased off" the island, the boat back to your ship doesn't work when you're in combat and you're being swarmed by a dozen treants.

Rauk Fields is only findable in what is fondly referred to as 'hellwaters', where a failed avoid encounter check will airdrop extremely tough boarding encounters on you as well. That's definitely a place where you're meant to go with a group, and well prepared for anything that could happen.

I think its 'fine', and believe it or not Rauk Fields is one of the easiest encounter zones there.

We had a well prepared crew, the boarding parties were not a problem once we knew what we were expecting. The last line seems pretty irrelevant to the point at hand, even if it is an easier zone it's still a drastic change to treants that has no forewarning or indication that you need to be prepared for something out of the norm. It's just not great encounter design.

[Party in the forest at midnight]

Fire works on trolls too. And those trees are vulnerable to more than just fire. It's an area you definitely need to prepare for, but it's not unfair.

I do agree that it would be nice if people could back off of an area and be able to board their boat again if they discover they can't handle whatever content is on the island they land on.

[Rei_Jin]

Islands could have a spot in the water called “swim out” which allows you to, strangely enough, “swim out” to a small rowboat which then allows you to take a breather and either choose to re-engage, or to head back to your ship.

[Biolab00]

Wait, you are out there exploring and you do not have at least a +1 essence of fire with you?

That's like page 1 of an Adventuring Guide kinds of stuff because it sounds like if you had met actual trolls instead you'd have been just as screwed.

I had acid because that's what I carry in case I run into trolls, because that's the enemy that needs a specific element to kill but that is also well known and common knowledge at this point.

The far reaches are very dangerous, and in my opinion should continue to be so. We got smacked around hard too when we visited that place, and the "oh shit, they are not normal treants!" realization was a thrilling experience.

10/10 would be chased off the island again.

Except you can't be "chased off" the island, the boat back to your ship doesn't work when you're in combat and you're being swarmed by a dozen treants.

Rauk Fields is only findable in what is fondly referred to as 'hellwaters', where a failed avoid encounter check will airdrop extremely tough boarding encounters on you as well. That's definitely a place where you're meant to go with a group, and well prepared for anything that could happen.

I think its 'fine', and believe it or not Rauk Fields is one of the easiest encounter zones there.

We had a well prepared crew, the boarding parties were not a problem once we knew what we were expecting. The last line seems pretty irrelevant to the point at hand, even if it is an easier zone it's still a drastic change to treants that has no forewarning or indication that you need to be prepared for something out of the norm. It's just not great encounter design.

Honestly, I don't see anything wrong with the way as it is. It seems perfectly fine to me. Sailing is a dangerous venture. And making preparation before sailing is almost a Must. Given that and you're definitely with a sizable party, I find it difficult to understand why preparation made wasn't adequate enough.
Because it's unknown, it's dangerous. And because of that, it's fun. If you can always be safe, from any content, it's no longer fun anymore. I've died plenty in PVE and -sometimes- dying, makes me quite happy because there's a challenge rating. And often, frustration will pile up which will make me more careful, to avoid accumulating losses. It's part and parcel of experience.

Logically, if you're able to return to your Ship, it generally means that the Monsters can likely follow or sunk your raft. It's not logical that you can fight while retreat as if enemies won't give chase.

[-XXX-]

What's the big deal here?
So your character died because they did't have a fire essence... now you know and will bring some next time.
This seems like a non-issue to me.

[noj]

Fire works on trolls too. And those trees are vulnerable to more than just fire. It's an area you definitely need to prepare for, but it's not unfair.

I do agree that it would be nice if people could back off of an area and be able to board their boat again if they discover they can't handle whatever content is on the island they land on.

Well I have positive energy already on my hammer, I used an acid essence, and I have bludgeoning and slashing. None of those managed to kill it. The only thing that managed to take one down was a fire breath attack we had on hand, but if they're vulnerable to other things then I could've just missed it while trying to figure it out.

I do agree that having a way to get out of that situation would have made the experience feel a lot less rotten. Being swarmed immediately really sealed our fate.

Honestly, I don't see anything wrong with the way as it is. It seems perfectly fine to me. Sailing is a dangerous venture. And making preparation before sailing is almost a Must. Given that and you're definitely with a sizable party, I find it difficult to understand why preparation made wasn't adequate enough.
Because it's unknown, it's dangerous. And because of that, it's fun. If you can always be safe, from any content, it's no longer fun anymore. I've died plenty in PVE and -sometimes- dying, makes me quite happy because there's a challenge rating. And often, frustration will pile up which will make me more careful, to avoid accumulating losses. It's part and parcel of experience.

Logically, if you're able to return to your Ship, it generally means that the Monsters can likely follow or sunk your raft. It's not logical that you can fight while retreat as if enemies won't give chase.

To be fair, we had to fight off a dozen tree people on an island in the middle of nowhere after fighting off Gith boarding parties, not a lot of that is logical even in the world's context, I don't see why giving a party an out for a situation that turns sour from minute 1 is any less logical than anything else we deal with in game.

Your definition of fun is not objective. No one in our crew enjoyed that encounter, we would have been fine retreating in defeat when things went too far south and just not returning, going back home, and licking our wounds. That was not an option, which is one of the only two issues I have at this point.

Either there needed to be some kind of forewarning or we needed a way to bail out of the situation when it became clear we were outmatched. Getting locked into every encounter is not, in my opinion, fun.

[Tikin]

Two things in the same topic, so ...

1/ Difficulty and "warnings" about the difficulty of the encounter
I agree with what most have said, it's nice that some places are very hard, and as long as these places are uncharted, sounds logical to not have been warned. With time passing, charts are established and chances to get warned IC by others PC grow up.

2/ Impossibility to jump on boat once engaged in a fight.
I can hear that there are mechanical difficulties at hand, and I know our devs do the best they can.
But saying "it's perfect the way it is, no need for a change" sounds to me like a lack of experience with ships ... I'll explain why. On Red Island (example has been given), once you have defeated ennemies around, you'll get on your ship. Never has been any issue here, I agree. But most new content at sea, even in places where you're super easy (like the mobs are in no way a threat to you), and you've defeated everything in range, you're more often than not considered still fighting because there's a group of mob far away, out of reach, that prevent your group to go back to your ship for long periods ... So, ok, we find ways, it's not a pure dead end. But we're forced to use "tricks" that are very unrelated with the position we're in, but related only with the mechanical issue at hand to get out of the island or ship we've boarded. Neither fun, nor in any way immersive (those guys who jumped out of their ship and manage to be in our way because yeah, obviously these people dominate the situation ).

I like the idea of a simple transition spot where you get to the skiff, sounds simple and relatively elegant, and wouldn't be that different than places where you can transition out via a door or whatever else.
I guess that'd mean quite a bit of work, though, and probably won't solve the issue when boarding another ship. But one would have a chance to leave an island. That's something.
And if a dev believe a specific encounter should be able to keep you from leaving the place (I could understand that treants be considered one), I believe there are mechanical ways to give mobs abilities for that, as long as they're not very long range ways it won't result in weird situations.

[Biolab00]

Fire works on trolls too. And those trees are vulnerable to more than just fire. It's an area you definitely need to prepare for, but it's not unfair.

I do agree that it would be nice if people could back off of an area and be able to board their boat again if they discover they can't handle whatever content is on the island they land on.

Well I have positive energy already on my hammer, I used an acid essence, and I have bludgeoning and slashing. None of those managed to kill it. The only thing that managed to take one down was a fire breath attack we had on hand, but if they're vulnerable to other things then I could've just missed it while trying to figure it out.

I do agree that having a way to get out of that situation would have made the experience feel a lot less rotten. Being swarmed immediately really sealed our fate.

Honestly, I don't see anything wrong with the way as it is. It seems perfectly fine to me. Sailing is a dangerous venture. And making preparation before sailing is almost a Must. Given that and you're definitely with a sizable party, I find it difficult to understand why preparation made wasn't adequate enough.
Because it's unknown, it's dangerous. And because of that, it's fun. If you can always be safe, from any content, it's no longer fun anymore. I've died plenty in PVE and -sometimes- dying, makes me quite happy because there's a challenge rating. And often, frustration will pile up which will make me more careful, to avoid accumulating losses. It's part and parcel of experience.

Logically, if you're able to return to your Ship, it generally means that the Monsters can likely follow or sunk your raft. It's not logical that you can fight while retreat as if enemies won't give chase.

To be fair, we had to fight off a dozen tree people on an island in the middle of nowhere after fighting off Gith boarding parties, not a lot of that is logical even in the world's context, I don't see why giving a party an out for a situation that turns sour from minute 1 is any less logical than anything else we deal with in game.

Your definition of fun is not objective. No one in our crew enjoyed that encounter, we would have been fine retreating in defeat when things went too far south and just not returning, going back home, and licking our wounds. That was not an option, which is one of the only two issues I have at this point.

Either there needed to be some kind of forewarning or we needed a way to bail out of the situation when it became clear we were outmatched. Getting locked into every encounter is not, in my opinion, fun.

I'm not exactly certain where's the grievance still though. You're in a high level content area, and it's perfectly normal and in fact, it is should exactly be so, difficult. If you died from the encounter, you died. That's all, it's high level content zone.

If high level content zone can be easily brushed through without difficulty, I mean, are we even playing a dnd game? Probably, Rauk field isn't even considered a highest level content since there's actually many more difficult places. But if you're struggling in Rauk field, it means that you will still need to be more prepared. If you want to overcome all difficulties, make the effort to do so. Please do not keep asking for nerf when i've in fact, find some of these places quite lackluster from difficulty instead.