Arelith

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaa



A hard to get to dungeon(pirate cove) as is, for late teens-early epics with very deadly mobs becomes outright impossible to do when these mages walk in. They have auto-premonition/acid sheath/shadow shield, summon BBoD, spam meteor swarm, and other things. It destroys characters and summons without even dropping below uninjured. This is a late epic mob.

What's the reasoning behind this? This shuts down even more options for surfacers to go to, constantly pushed into the Underdark.

(And on that note, when I'm playing my Underdarker, I run into surfacers all the time.)

Cortex wrote:aaaaaaaaaaaaaaa


They have auto-premonition/acid sheath/shadow shield, summon BBoD, spam meteor swarm, and other things. It destroys characters and summons without even dropping below uninjured. This is a late epic mob.

What's the reasoning behind this? This shuts down even more options for surfacers to go to, constantly pushed into the Underdark.

(And on that note, when I'm playing my Underdarker, I run into surfacers all the time.)

Do you mean to tell me that trash mobs that sequence biteback and DR are extremely oppressively difficult to deal with? Surely, surely you're joking.

Do you mean to tell me that leveling on the surface without a boat is so terrible that characters have to risk getting the big PK for going into the underdark just because everything on the surface is full of this sort of thing? No way. You can't be serious.

Cortex wrote: (And on that note, when I'm playing my Underdarker, I run into surfacers all the time.)

This. I am so tired of running into surfacers who think they own the UD every time I try to get exp.

My decency wrote:

Cortex wrote: (And on that note, when I'm playing my Underdarker, I run into surfacers all the time.)

This. I am so tired of running into surfacers who think they own the UD every time I try to get exp.

This is an issue of there not being nearly enough good dungeons on Surface worth going to, compared to UD. The few that exist are either too difficult to be worth doing, or are for late Epics or other niche level ranges.

It's not a bad idea to add in a well-balanced caster mob to an area that is comprised entirely of physical attacks, so long as the new mob scales well with the dungeon's CR.

Dread Mages aren't that. They're a relic from an era where punishing adventurers with auto-sequence premo/sheath followed by an assortment of party-wiping spells was thought to be good dungeon design.

And yes, it is strange that surface dungeons are being targeted for difficulty hikes when it is widely known that the Underdark is far more rewarding in terms of experience and gold in relation to the difficulty of mobs. There's already far too many reasons for characters to bend their roleplay just to be where all the mechanical perks are.

Cortex wrote:This shuts down even more options for surfacers to go to, constantly pushed into the Underdark.)

I'm really tired of the Underdark having more dungeons, and all of them better than their scant few Surface level equivalents. It's really silly to be effectively penalised for not treating the Underdark as an underground XP farm.

As it stands, past a certain point (roughly upper/mid teen levels), the dungeon quantity on the Surface clamps - hard. Almost every spot worth the time and healing supplies to do requires you use a ship. If you're in the mood for some adventuring, you're at a certain level range and the Rose is taken, or you aren't lucky enough to be friends with someone who has access to a ship, you might as well log off, as there's very little you can do in terms of adventuring aside from oppressing lower level areas.

The Underdark does not have this problem. Dungeon variety is relatively even throughout levels, and what's more these dungeons are nearly all worth doing. I don't come out of Myconids, or the new Ruined City areas feeling a bit miffed that I've spent more coin on healing kits than I made, nor was I insta'd by a 1 roll versus a BBOD. Neither one of those examples really make for much fun to me. Both of them feel shitty, like I was cheated - cheated out of decent mechanical reward because I refuse to twist my RP and acknowledge the OOC fact that the Underdark is a more numbers-effective place to adventure.

I'm unsure the purpose of repeatedly neutering the experience and gold gain for Surface dungeons but letting it remain without check or balance in the Underdark. Not that I think the Underdark is too easy, or needs to be filled with BBOD summoning, sequence buffing, 9th level AOE damage spell spamming mobs either. I don't think that's particularly a fun design of monster to fight, and really I doubt you'll see very many people at this Pirate place anymore. Repeat visitors even less so, as they come to realise what a waste of time the place is now.

The discrepancy is confusing: why is the Underdark, a place described as "a realm of countless legends, where evil lurks behind every shadow," easier to level up and play the dungeon content in?

Not only is it easier, it's very markedly so, and the original poster's point about running into surfacers on his Underdarker rings true. I don't think fighting people over the rights to punch ghosts is really meaningful or particularly compelling roleplay, especially when I have to do it on what feels like a daily basis.

I think a lot of it, this example notwithstanding, comes from the fact that the Underdark has had a lot of attention from a very involved dev team (Irongron & Friends) for the past few years, whereas the surface hasn't received anywhere near as much attention.

More variety on the surface would be nice. At level 21, I can count the places on one hand that I can go to on the surface to get anything useful in terms of XP gains.

Kuma wrote:I think a lot of it, this example notwithstanding, comes from the fact that the Underdark has had a lot of attention from a very involved dev team (Irongron & Friends) for the past few years, whereas the surface hasn't received anywhere near as much attention.

This is exactly what I was thinking. We did add the Bullywug spot in the Swamps which was decent for XP... and then there were the Orclands... then that was nerfed... so basically more work needs to be done with regards to dungeons.

We also need changes to the enchantment basin, crafting, and other mechanical systems done as well as dungeons. There's also some pretty bad classes that still exist (looking at rogue and assassin especially). There is a lot to do...

Septire wrote:There is a lot to do...

Why nerf surface dungeons instead?

gilescorey wrote:Words.

So what you're saying is to nerf the underdark.

/s

Seriously, though, I don't want to have to twist my paladin's character concept into knots to try and justify her going to the Underdark because there is nothing to do in her level range. It's a weird, extremely frustrating conundrum that I have a horrible, sinking feeling is just going to culminate in the brutal nerfing of all the decent places to get xp in the underdark. Maybe I'm wrong and they'll instead finish the Lowerdark and then come in glory to give us sad-brained do-gooders places to get xp on the surface that aren't full of absurdly overpowered mobs.

Kuma wrote:I think a lot of it, this example notwithstanding, comes from the fact that the Underdark has had a lot of attention from a very involved dev team (Irongron & Friends) for the past few years, whereas the surface hasn't received anywhere near as much attention.

I mean, they paid enough attention to surface to remove orclands, which was basically the only thing to do post-FoD.

For a sort of demonstration of what the problem being alluded to by the above posters: Here's the dungeons that, off the top of my head, I can think of for surface, level 15 or higher, and specifically what's wrong with them.


Gnolls, Sibayad Desert : Both of these you can technically do at level 15, but the EXP is starting to fall off at that point to the 15ish EXP per head average. Sibayad's Desert has the ruin/cave bit if you can find it, I guess. Gnolls' boss is really, really difficult at level 15.

Mourn, Spire Barbs, Aurilites, Benwick: All of these will kill you at 15 on most characters. The Spire Barb cave is fairly difficult even up into epics, and both it and Benwick are rather short. Mourn requires a decently well composed party, a really good tank, and people to know what they're doing, and even then can kill you, and is high epic anyways. Aurilites are an epic-ish dungeon, difficulty changing depending on what your build is, but the boss is difficult before early-mid epics.

Forest of Despair/Malar Temple: Viable up until 18 or so. Worth noting that the Malar temple can be a pain, because the Boss is very hard, and the High Priests can kill you pretty easily if they spawn in numbers or get a Storm off before you KD-lock them.


Talassians, now Pirate Coves: The mages are a pain in the Snuggybear to deal with, can sometimes kill you on pure blind luck (BBOD 1's), and get to have sequencer/instabuffs when players don't.

Blackfin/Kohlingen: Both require a ship, so good luck there. Blackfin is fairly high level to go all the way through, and Kohlingen is soul-crushing after having been basically the only place to go to for like 4 years in this level range. Plus, it's a soul crushing 3 hour slog to get all the way through, and ends up being really tough towards the end too.

Surfacers just need to farm level 1 boars. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dAxZVZgpmI0

Red Dragon Isle / Azer temple loop: requires a ship for the first time at least. it can be quite difficult depending on the number or mages that decide to spawn, if you can kill abazuur, fair play, go back through the caves until you can use the portal down to the UD (so i guess the Azer temple counts as a UD temple, but it kinda links to RDI)

The Yuanti are the best XP on the surface from like level 11 through to 17, consistant high XP, that is if you have the right wards to stop them insta-paralysing you the moment you engage. the Yuanti (abomination) with planar ally summons are really nasty tho but its doable.

Minmir manor is kinda hit or miss i find.

Cortex wrote:

Septire wrote:There is a lot to do...

Why nerf surface dungeons instead?

I wasn't around at the time that was decided. No idea.

As someone that has played both sides very recently, my low level cleric instantly began high lvling off driders within a very short amount of time, yet had more trouble lvling on the surface. There is some balance issues to where you can level.

Seven Sons of Sin wrote:Surfacers just need to farm level 1 boars. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dAxZVZgpmI0

Every time I pass by Warftown during the day I am reminded of:
http://thenoobcomic.com/comic/283/
A joke :p
-------------
Surface: Sewer bandits->Swamps greenes->Warftown boys and girls->Sea Bandits->Malar doggies will take you until lvl ~16 fast enough.
But yes it was faster to lvl in the UD to a similar lvl. Easier? Hmm, not sure about it.

Some of the higher dungeons I seen are a bit party oriented which is a great thing. Imho.

I am UD biased. More content for the UD!

We got a pretty sweet update coming up soon for the UD as well. It's gonna be great!


That being said I agree the surface has been lacking for decent dungeons for certain level ranges. Once I am all done with UD stuff, for the time being, I'll look into adding a new dungeon for the surface.

What exact level range is the main issue here? Early Epics or Mid-teens?

Yep!

Early epics the best (that I have found please correct me if I am wrong) is the barbarian cave in the Brog mountains. The Talassan dumgein is ok as well but has definately tapered off, and the abyss is very random... some areas 3xp a kill some 20

ActionReplay wrote:I am UD biased. More content for the UD!

We got a pretty sweet update coming up soon for the UD as well. It's gonna be great!


That being said I agree the surface has been lacking for decent dungeons for certain level ranges. Once I am all done with UD stuff, for the time being, I'll look into adding a new dungeon for the surface.

What exact level range is the main issue here? Early Epics or Mid-teens?

23-30. You have nowhere to go on the surface for 23-30 at all, unless you have a breachbot for the badly-designed sequencer mage mobs.

Source: went from 6-22 in a week on a surfacer, now hard stuck at 23. The annoying thing is that the surface theoretically has areas for this, they're all just filled to the brim with overpowered mobs (manor of mourn), are very diffocilt to loop (RDI), or require you to have a boat and pray that it isn't being farmedd for artis (blackfin).

The Abyss is an absolute mess and needs a complete and utter overhaul as far as spawns go. And probably also the areas, tbh, they're literally over ten years old.

You can do Auril temple in the early epics. But you will probably need to turn back before the end. It is really bad after that level range.

The Brog barbarians are probably harder than Auril Temple, mostly due to the shamans.

You can likely retool the barbarians in the spires and the talassians so they are more friendly for late-teen dungeoning. After that, the surface does need a long, contiguous dungeon stretch in the manner of the UD ruins/beholders. I would suggest making an area for the abyss, some sort of fortress or some new fixed map area that you can lead into from Talassians. Difficulty somewhere in early epic-mid epics. Baator is also a decent suspect for that, although it has the Jangling Hilter area and the walk from Dis to there.

For barbarians- Shamans really need their constant AOE fear aura gone. The mages arsenal is too lethal and they have the problem mentioned from before, with the instant acid sheathing and all that.

Talassians- Similar, mages need to be toned down. The rest is not so bad at least in my experience.