ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

Okay, this quest is hard! Well at least it was to my level 27 berserker. I'll share my experience here, and just so the touchy ones know, this is a spoiler. Hence, it is in the spoiler section. Just to spell it out really nicely and clearly. Kindly do not read on if you do not want to be spoiled, here in the spoiler forum

The crypt contains five Tol-Falas-like levels, and the crypt itself is on the bottom floor. The mobs that I encountered were elven corruptors, cultists and warriors. The warriors were pushovers. The cultists could be a pain because of the little-resisted blight damage as their prime damage source. Now the damn corruptors, those things are downright dangerous with their curses. I was perhaps burdened 150/177, and their curse of weakness was enough to make me Encumbered! Oh f*ck--so I had to drop 3 objects at one point so I could friggin move (my controlled phase rune was on cooldown) and I was brought from 900 HP to like 84. Watch out for that.

The crypt itself has four acolytes of that odd sect, and they were essentially 600ish HP mages with blight, manathrust and flame spells. Each of their attacks did around 100-200 damage. Right next to the staircase, there is a life-saving 2x2 stone column to LOS them, but here's the kicker: you have a 30-count before the screaming lady on a dark altar explodes into grisly bits. I spent maybe 15 turns LOSing two of the acolytes. Then because time was running out I controlled phased pretty close to the remaining two, which of course started to immediately shoot me with magical badness. I split their hides with HP around 60 left.

Finally, you have to escort the lady out of the dungeon, which entails heading east from the crypt in more tol-falas-like dungeon. At level 27, she had about 900 HP, and so could take a decent hit. Of course when I met up with a pack of those damn wretch-acid demons, I hit death dance, and took them out, and took Melinda (the girl) down to 31%. Oops. Well fortunately I made it to the staircase, and went back to Last Hope, where her father gives you Gwai's Burninator as a gift. Gee, thanks. Then you get to choose responses to Melinda, and there seems to be some implication that she's pregnant with...something. I ended up getting a quest titled "Melinda, lucky girl" but have no clue where or what to do to advance that quest. If I survive, I guess I'll find out (or not if it's not fully implemented.

So bottom line, come loaded for mammoth for this quest. Well, it is unfortunately a one-time random event, so you can't do that reliably--what I did was to head to the ancient elven ruins at level 18, and get to 27. That's why I was weighed down with stuff. I was on my way to Last Hope to get a load of cash when the event popped.

I was lucky...really lucky. I probably would go back in the mid-30s, and screw cash from loot in the ancient elven ruins until I'm done with the quest.

My unprepared Level 22 berserker was executed - not sure what else to call it, almost immediately, it's the combination of big hits and diseases and so many of them - you cure and heal, they hit you again right away and a 12-turn cooldown might as well be 1200. Next time managed to get a bit more levelling in, and once a foothold on a level was gained it was okay, but the first actions on each were very delicate. One level saw the stairs in a room with 10-12 bad guys, most of whom are going to launch stuff after counting to 'one'. Only just survived that, used normal action to get rid of as many as possible, then with 100 HP (lucky, could easily have been -100) and no pharmaceuticals left, made a last stand with Unstoppable. You can't lean on nipping back up the stairs to prepare for "Round 2", for an unexpected reason.

The final level for a melee character is on a knife-edge, miss a couple of turns to stay alive and it's over I guess. Rush (one down) then engaged the other of the nearer guys (two) - almost dead now from scoosh attacks - so Unstoppable and P/D in between (RNG willing) the other pair, pfft, pfft, pfft made it with about 1 or 2 on the clock. The door opened - yippee - and what came next was a real bummer ! .. may just be imagining it but she doesn't seem as pig-thick as the other escorts, though that's perhaps the layout at work - still didn't manage to keep her intact.

DG honestly, it's an abbatoir (oh heck, that'll just encourage) ... in the same way that a few gameplay warnings are given "be sure to loot such and such before leaving here" and "Danger" about the Es in town - maybe have a note at the yes-or-no stage to say it really does look a very forbidding place and isn't compulsory - unless it is, and she's got some kind of Sarah Connor role coming later [:)]

I'll probably put in a more fearsome entry text. BTW you can recall out of the place, unless you are on the last level.

Oh and yes her AI is better, I'm not *that* evil. Then she was abducted by cultists, held captive, tortured and probably worse, she is probably in a bit of a shock and will not fight anyway

I went in with a level 23 Fighter (b14), who could probably have handled Tol Falas. And died here.

What got me was, on the third level, the starting stairs were just a few steps away from a large rectangular room filled with blood mages and corruptors and what not. I took one step, and somehow one of them teleported me INTO the room, at which point it was just a countdown to my death by blight spells.

If I could've blocked that teleport somehow, I probably could have handled them out in the hallway, perhaps using the stairs to retreat for a breather.

But reading the first post about a time limit on the final level... yeah, my Fighter just wasn't built for dishing out full servings of damage on a tight schedule. She'd probably have died anyway.

Yeah, players meet corruptor's Dark Portal spell.
Corruptor's, meet your next meal.
:>

So, DG, you said you put a level limit on the thing. What *kind* of level limit?

As an alternate to the level limit, might I suggest limiting it to some random corner of the map (extreme northeast, say, in that little corner of ice), upping the likelihood of it triggering, and then giving a hint as to where to find it later? That would let people pick their time to a degree, but not just grind the place, and not have any stairs up to escape through.

Level 20

If it remains a grumble-point, one way to readjust between failing and dying would be to halve the number of enemies in the normal levels. That way there's less chance of a death Gary Kasparov couldn't plan his way out of, while finding out you're not in Bagshot Row any more. Then with the final level the way it is, fine - you have a choice between trying to complete the quest with serious hazard, or dealing carefully with the bad guys and letting her suffer.

Maybe there is, and I didn't spot it, but some explicit mention of the timeout might be good. You'd only need to move around a few turns to see what's where, before spotting the counter, and that would maybe put it beyond any reach.

Ooh, and perhaps a new achievement "Died in The Crypt"

Yay I rescued her with my archer; went in at lvl 23, left at 24. Those diseases are evil. With the wild infusion not working right, I had 2 digits of hp a few times. lvl 1 bone armor actually saved my life when I teleported to safety with my shield runes and my healing infusion on cooldown and the diseases were gonna get me. On the bottom floor, being ranged, I found it easy to beat the clock. Saving her, on the other hand, was not so easy. She kept dancing around me, throwing herself in the line of fire. I actually find the stupid escorts easier to deal with because they are more predictable. After the third guy, she was down to 4% first from a disease, then because she jumped in front of me right as I was firing off a steady shot. I got pretty lucky after that, using track and scatter shot to hit guys around corners.

It was basically a suicide mission, but the reward was well worth it... Bill's tree trunk!

Seriously though. It's a major dissapointment to get a trash artifact as a reward for such a hard quest. Maybe some tweaking of the ai/reward?

I second the AI tweak...

darkgod wrote:Oh and yes her AI is better, I'm not *that* evil. Then she was abducted by cultists, held captive, tortured and probably worse, she is probably in a bit of a shock and will not fight anyway

Mayhaps have her stay 2-3 steps behind the player, unless they get surrounded for some reason? I agree that she will not fight anyway, so stay safe and back. That way some Techniques that damage everything adjacent to the player don't hurt her as well...

Just lost a level 22 Anorithil running with some modified talents (including one that drops an aoe silence).

Place was still brutal and managed to kill me (twice, I cheated the first death because I wanted to see a bit more).

Cursed with antimagic has an easier time in there. I like the girls AI, if she loses LOS to you she will patiently wait for you to come back (probably curled up in a ball whimpering) which is great when you pop off to blindside corrupters on the other side of walls

My Lvl 20 Fighter has burned through his Blood of Life and 4/8 "easy" resurrects. Mostly from disease. I was intending to restart on Beta 17 soon anyway...

Managed to survive and get out. Ended up using all 8 of my "Easy" resurrects. I think the only thing which saved me was finding a Wild Infusion which included curing Disease.

Did not manage to save the girl, but I gutted the Demon which crawled out of her. :^\

Yeah my only one to make it through was a summoner in beta17. If they are getting wasted by a hydra/fire drake with you safely out of the way, it's only... not easy.