Arelith

I saw there was an update on this dungeon so I thought shoot, why not try it again? I liked the area but hated the experience the first time.

Just like before there's hours of running in circles before you eventually just give up and lens back with an uncompleted writ to abandon which usually doesn't feel very good.

I spent almost two hours on this running around full tilt (half an hour snoozing through the fungal maze) talking to all the npcs and looking at everything I found. Dropping all sorts of random garbage in the receptacle that presumably is the answer to the riddle. All to no avail.

I haven't investigated the dungeon OOC but my IC queries all lead to: "Yeah don't take that writ," or, "You need a very specific skill that many classes don't get, and fewer take."

The latter I don't know is actually true because that's mostly IC info I found.

The city itself is so cool and so well done (I like how their shops and stuff look just like Andunor's) and it kind of sucks that the area is universally regarded as a huge waste of time. I'm really glad I went through this solo. With a party I can only imagine the time spent on this.

In my opinion the fungal maze should just be deleted or made way more linear. It's pretty, for about ten minutes, but blurs together into one super frustrating grind of 1xp mobs and unmarked passages and endless hallways that all look the same. Oddly I want to return even less as a Ranger because the map being revealed would make it *more* difficult.

Whatever 'riddle' (I don't even know if it's a riddle or just a skill check I'm failing across multiple characters - that's how vague it is) is in the city itself should probably just be removed as well - or the hint, if there is one, made more clearly.

The "puzzle" does require a skill check. I do think this entire dungeon needs love. There's no great gain to entering the temple other than the completion of the writ and the smug sense of satisfaction that you spent skill points.

Having played my first underdarker since before the fall of Udos, I found this place last week. I thought it was really neat initially. Got lost in the maze for a while, and while frustrating, overall had a good time. I found myself back there a couple of times, sometimes by mistake. The place became less enjoyable with each visit, and more tedious.

Then yesterday, I saw the writ about the Derro Temple. I was like "Oh I know where that is" so my group and I went there. We spent two hours trying to figure it out, only to start asking OOCly for hints. We were told it was a skill challenge, and that we lacked the ranks in the skill. It felt like such a massive disappointment. Either the writ needs to go the way of a dodo (vanish) or the writ needs more than one way to complete it. Making a 'quest' where there is one possible solution which relies upon certain classes who have invested in a certain skill is not fun.

That is the perspective of someone encountering it literally yesterday for the first time.

The skill challenge should be moot now, I removed the temple door lock and you should have free access there. I'll take another look and see if I was silly and overlooked any other skill sections. I'm not looking to overhaul this entire dungeon but for now just disabling the puzzle elements.

EDIT: To clarify, the above were the changes already made, during the last recent update that was referenced in OP.

Thank you!

I think making the place accessible for the writs might dramatically lessen the frustration in the other concerns and in turn make an overhaul unnecessary.