Styx Dragon Area

[Svrtr]

While many have said, even some devs I know, that the styx dragon boss is an outdated area that needs some updating, from the dragon flying and landing at the top of the ramp such that you cannot actually hit it without jankily trying to sneak past it, there is one thing I've begun to notice when I do runs there.

There is a small area that can overlook the dragon on the southern area of the map, and not once, not twice, but three times now I have noticed the dragon was lured to that area and was still alive, the devils in the area still alive, but the chests all unlocked and fully looted. It appears people can lure the dragon up there, sneak past all the devils, and scot-free loot its little hoard because the dragon flies up to the area but is large enough that if you run away and stealth it won't follow. Likewise, this doesn't appear to be a case of someone having come before and the devils respawning as there was no duplicate boss spawn.

This likewise isn't really a bug as it is working as intended, if an abuse. But the fact of fighting through the whole hoard of devils only to see the boss was lured away and the chests full emptied is annoying to say the least.

[-XXX-]

The entire Styx run could probably use to be expanded by a couple more areas to really justify a runic shrine there. It's too close to the portal.

[The Rambling Midget]

It's short enough that I sometimes say, "Oh, hey... Why don't we hit the Styx Dragon on the way back. It'll only take ten minutes."

As far as the issue of an empty chest, that probably has much less to do with boss luring than with how quick and easy it is to clear the area. It sees a lot of traffic.

[Dr. B]

The idea of sneaking around a dragon's lair to steal its treasure dates at least as far back as the 1937 novel The Hobbit, by J. R. R. Tolkien. Like in the instance described above, the dragon is alerted to the thief's presence.

To me it doesn't seem like abuse. While you're making off with the contents of its chest, the dragon is looking for you in a rage, its attention diverted to your last known whereabouts.

[Svrtr]

The idea of sneaking around a dragon's lair to steal its treasure dates at least as far back as the 1937 novel The Hobbit, by J. R. R. Tolkien. Like in the instance described above, the dragon is alerted to the thief's presence.

To me it doesn't seem like abuse. While you're making off with the contents of its chest, the dragon is looking for you in a rage, its attention diverted to your last known whereabouts.

Perhaps, but the fact that it can be done so while someone is fighting against a dragon who has true sight to be able to spot people who would try to loot its chest without clearing the dungeon, while tracks show someone was there at the same time as your own tracks and remain unseen is an unpleasant feeling. Yes a report was made, but the fact this is possible at all for this specific area is unpleasant, and the area is immensely dated as is.

The area needs an update, and the fact someone can do this at all is a gross feeling.

[Definately Not A Mimic]

I thought at one point ruin chests were tied to their 'Boss' so they were empty if it wasn't killed to avoid this sort of thing. Is that not the case?

[ReverentBlade]

Styx (and formerly the Last Bastion. RIP Last Bastion, you didn't deserve to be turned into Arelith's water level.) are among my favorite dungeons. I would argue that the others are too long. When your full-time working spouse wants to get on and do a quick dungeon in the single hour they get in a day, its nice to have shorter options that still give decent reward and challenge.

The constant drive for new and flashy mechanics, harder and more tedious dungeons, an incessantly creeping skill ceiling with more complicated classes, and more and more elaborate, nested, annoying crafting recipes is actually becoming off-putting to older players. Not every single needs to be monkeyed with and made harder/longer for the sake of it.

Plenty of long dungeons exist if thats your jam, but, funny that, they aren't very popular...

[WanderingPoet]

Styx (and formerly the Last Bastion. RIP Last Bastion, you didn't deserve to be turned into Arelith's water level.) are among my favorite dungeons. I would argue that the others are too long. When your full-time working spouse wants to get on and do a quick dungeon in the single hour they get in a day, its nice to have shorter options that still give decent reward and challenge.

The constant drive for new and flashy mechanics, harder and more tedious dungeons, an incessantly creeping skill ceiling with more complicated classes, and more and more elaborate, nested, annoying crafting recipes is actually becoming off-putting to older players. Not every single needs to be monkeyed with and made harder/longer for the sake of it.

Plenty of long dungeons exist if thats your jam, but, funny that, they aren't very popular...

Part of the problem is that the long dungeons don't reward any more than the short dungeons. I had the pleasure of doing the Formian dungeon a few weeks ago and it took the 3-4RL hours to complete because it is -long-. Also full of jerk enemies with dispels and undisableable epic traps that slowed things down majorly.

But the reward was worse than a 20 minute run through Mourn or RDI. Not that I actually enjoy grinding dungeons enough to do this, but if I wanted to be optimal I could've easily done 8-10 dungeons with equivalent reward in the time it took to do Formians.

Now that said, I really enjoyed doing the dungeon, it was a fun -experience-, but the rewards were just sad.

So in short, I agree with you. It's nice to have some short dungeons that might give you a runic material or some adamantine/gold ores; as otherwise you have to buy them from the heavily inflated economy.

It's nice that there are some short places to go to that are actually worthwhile to visit - though it would reduce the frequency that people hit them if the long-epic-dungeons like Galerock, Formians and Auril had rewards worth the longer time to get through them.

[-XXX-]

Since runic chests are on a personal timer, this is less of a problem because grinding the same dungeon 3-4x instead of completing a longer one won't actually yield more runic loot.

But yeah, there's a handful of dungeons that are simply too short or easy (i.e. low effort) for them to be holding such treasure - why go through the tedium of grinding one's way through Wells or Baphomet when RDI or Styx are just one quick fast food pit stop away from the same reward?