[svn] Escorts possibly being missed?

[Sradac]

Was playing on SVN earlier and noticed now when you are too high level for the start areas it jumps you to the 3rd floor. This is cool and all, but how does this affect escorts? Since escorts are defined at birth, say I have 1 at kor'pul floor 1. But I skip kor'pul because im melee and dont want to be murdered by the shade, so I come back later and cant even touch floor 1. Is that escort lost forever?

[darkgod]

It only zaps you to 3 once, you can use the upstairs to check the other levels if you wish

[Zonk]

Slightly annoying though, what if it stopped you before 3 if there was an escort on the previous levels?

[wrobell]

What if the game asked you if you want to be taken straight to lvl 3 when you enter a dungeon?

[Sradac]

It only zaps you to 3 once, you can use the upstairs to check the other levels if you wish

Uh, when?? Whenever I used the stairs up it takes me straight back to the surface. I shouldnt have to go back in just to check. Maybe a message letting you know there was an escort higher up like "Moving through here quickly, you cant help but feel like you left someone behind" Or something. Just to let you know hey, theres an escort back there that needs your help.

[phantomglider]

You can take the stairs from level 3 to go back to level 2.

[supermini]

This is necroing the thread, but there aren't any advantages to skipping the first levels of dungeons. You lose out on both equipment and experience. The only thing that it will do is mislead new players who may not realize that the best thing to do is to go back.

My suggestion would be to lock the T1 dungeons to just your racial ones. However, improve the XP gain for those two dungeons and make T2 bosses drop 1 additional T1 artifact. You would still lose out on a lot of regular gear that drops, but you can always open a few shops earlier than usual if drops aren't going your way.

So what do you guys think?

[5k17]

My suggestion would be to lock the T1 dungeons to just your racial ones. However, improve the XP gain for those two dungeons and make T2 bosses drop 1 additional T1 artifact. You would still lose out on a lot of regular gear that drops, but you can always open a few shops earlier than usual if drops aren't going your way.

I like the idea; it would definitely make the early game less boring. Either the experience from the two starter dungeons would have to be about doubled to reach the same level as you get now when doing all of them (which would make the problem of Yeeks missing out on the arena more urgent), or it could stay unchanged while everyone would get slightly more experience generally (about 10%?), which I'd prefer, but then the level ranges of many zones would have to be adjusted.

[SageAcrin]

This is necroing the thread, but there aren't any advantages to skipping the first levels of dungeons. You lose out on both equipment and experience. The only thing that it will do is mislead new players who may not realize that the best thing to do is to go back.

The odds of long-term applicable equipment is negligable, after you've taken out three dungeons and are still able to take out the bosses.

The EXP is almost non-existant-you might net 50% of a level doing that, and you might do a Farportal to make that up far better later, if you wish.

The only real downside I can really imagine is if an artifact spawns in one of those earlier floors. I dunno if artifact spawns are determined on entering the dungeon or the floor, but I think it's on dungeon entry-if so, you might miss an artifact. It's the same thing as exploring Briagh's Lair-Not objectively worth it, but if you're grasping for every advantage, it's a waste of time.

I think this is a better answer to the issues of EXP/loot than holding people to two dungeons, though. Bosses drop most of the loot, and doubling (Though it'd be closer to triple to match the full dungeon spread) an early game boss' loot drop is pretty silly amounts of loot from one spot-it would be entirely too easy to scum for the "good earlygame artifacts" like Blood of Life that way, not to mention being just weird to see the earlygame bosses have the biggest loot drops in the game.

There's also the fact that some starter dungeons are simply badly designed for some classes. Maybe some day, down the line, you could get unique class starts as well, to combat this(So that, say, a Shalore Rogue isn't a dead duck the moment they start), but as of right now it isn't really a good fix, unless people enjoy lots and lots of deaths. (And even if they do, Yeek properly represents for people that enjoy that, currently.)

As it is, the game lets you either just do your first few dungeons, clean them all out, or clean some out, then take out the bosses for the rest. Time optimal, optimal gameplay, or a mixture. I don't see anything wrong with that.

If anything, it might be best to try to increase the lower end of scaling so that, say, a starting character can straight up skip their first dungeons reasonably. This seems like a better answer to some of the issues of slow starts than any amount of earlygame dungeon juggling. Maybe up the loot amounts if you enter a dungeon with the threatened warning, and grant a bigger than usual EXP bonus if enemy levels are enough higher than your level?

[supermini]

There's a lot more that can be missed. Vaults, rares (they drop something good, sometimes), artifacts (that may not be trivial in some cases - withering orbs for melee, summertide vial for sun palas, wintertide vial for undead, etc), chests. Loot missed may include teleport runes or movement infusions that could help you survive the early levels. It's not trivial, and skipping is not the best play.

As for Shalore starting dungeon, if characters of certain classes can't survive that, then the dungeon needs to be redesigned. If the smart play now is leave and come back later, then there's something wrong with the dungeon that is supposed to be for level 1 characters.

If we're talking about scumming starts, you can do that already with T1 dungeons, and this change has made it easier, but I don't think people will be doing that. You can have a perfect start in this game and get really lousy luck later, so scumming hardly pays off. You can easily add 1 T1 artifact for each of the T2 bosses and you'll still end up with less stuff than you get right now.

The best compromise right now would be to ask people if they want to skip or not.

[Tyren]

It would benefit everybody to make skipping optional. I would also suggest to update tier 1 dungeon quest when every level is visited and the boss is killed.

As for Shalore starting dungeon, if characters of certain classes can't survive that, then the dungeon needs to be redesigned.

With which class do you have that problem?

If the smart play now is leave and come back later, then there's something wrong with the dungeon that is supposed to be for level 1 characters.

It's suboptimal to leave without grabbing the loot from 1st level. The smart play is to avoid escorts since they can run into rares or bosses of elf and human starting dungeons. That's by no means scumming. Therefore limiting players to only 2 tier one dungeons sucks.

[SageAcrin]

Both the Scint Caves and the Rhaloren Camp are hell on pure melee characters.

Even with the change to Rush recently, it's very easy to get into a situation where your game-start mobility options are not up to the task of getting you to or away from the enemies, due to there being more there than you expected/enemies in places you didn't expect.

In order to change that, though, you'd literally have to gut Scintillating Caves. Rhaloren Camp may be salvagable, but the entire point of Scintillating Caves as a distinctive dungeon is that it has a whole lot of basic-elemental-spell using enemies and it fits the area thematically. Changing that to mostly wild animals with an occasional crystal mixed in would mean that the crystals would hinder the other enemies with their relatively slow moving spells, and it would end up essentially another Trollmire/Norgos' place, which we already have two of and don't need a third.

You'd have to just ditch the entire dungeon, which is a shame, as it's one of the more distinctive starter dungeons.

To a lesser degree, Heart of the Gloom can be quite dangerous to frailer characters, thanks to the stairwells down into large, open rooms. Even taken as the second dungeon, there is potential risk there for, say, a Paradox Mage, to get squashed. It's not as bad though.

[supermini]

In order to change that, though, you'd literally have to gut Scintillating Caves. Rhaloren Camp may be salvagable, but the entire point of Scintillating Caves as a distinctive dungeon is that it has a whole lot of basic-elemental-spell using enemies and it fits the area thematically. Changing that to mostly wild animals with an occasional crystal mixed in would mean that the crystals would hinder the other enemies with their relatively slow moving spells, and it would end up essentially another Trollmire/Norgos' place, which we already have two of and don't need a third.

I think you're complicating the issue too much. You could just give the crystals a -damage% modifier or give them a phase door that only moves them 2 spaces.

You'd have to just ditch the entire dungeon, which is a shame, as it's one of the more distinctive starter dungeons.

Distinctive, indeed. It doesn't work very well as a starter dungeon. Starter dungeons are supposed to teach you mechanics that you can use later (at least that's my view of it). Dodging balls is not a useful skill in the game, as almost all spells hit you instantly. Abashed expanse which has similar mechanics makes sense for archmages because it teaches you to phase door around and that avoiding getting hurt is your best chance for survival because you're squishy. I don't see any such logic in the Scintillating Caves.

[SageAcrin]

I think you're complicating the issue too much. You could just give the crystals a -damage% modifier or give them a phase door that only moves them 2 spaces.

So you make the entire dungeon very easy to those with ranged attacks, as the crystals can no longer get out of blast radius attacks/can't reliably get out of the way of projectiles and constantly get one-shotted, or fail to do threatening damage to them anymore.

Ranged classes which, in theory, are the Shalore target audience.

(Personally, I find the classes Shalore are good with to be a weird spread of durable mages and some strange classes of physical fighters, but in theory it's the mage race, at least thematically.)

I'm not sure that's a great idea either.

Dodging balls is not a useful skill in the game, as almost all spells hit you instantly. Abashed expanse which has similar mechanics makes sense for archmages because it teaches you to phase door around and that avoiding getting hurt is your best chance for survival because you're squishy. I don't see any such logic in the Scintillating Caves.

I can see saying that it's not a great starting dungeon, but I'm not entirely sure I agree with that logic. There are definitely later areas, including some of the nastiest dungeons in the game, where you don't get a massively high power Phase Door to deal with your multiple ranged enemies. Learning how to deal with large, open areas full of nasty spellcasters keeps you from splattering all across Dark Crypt/Spellblaze Scar/two of the Prides.

On the other hand, it works fine as a teaching dungeon for fighters that are, say, L12. It's just dangerously unstable to be able to clear at L7-8, say, for fighters... In other words, it works well...as long as there's more than two starting dungeons. I can see a use to it in the current system.

[supermini]

So you make the entire dungeon very easy to those with ranged attacks, as the crystals can no longer get out of blast radius attacks/can't reliably get out of the way of projectiles and constantly get one-shotted, or fail to do threatening damage to them anymore.

Ranged classes which, in theory, are the Shalore target audience.

In reality, no one is doing it when it's threatening anyway. People just leave and come back later, when crystals are no longer that threatening and they have rush or whatever.

I can see saying that it's not a great starting dungeon, but I'm not entirely sure I agree with that logic. There are definitely later areas, including some of the nastiest dungeons in the game, where you don't get a massively high power Phase Door to deal with your multiple ranged enemies. Learning how to deal with large, open areas full of nasty spellcasters keeps you from splattering all across Dark Crypt/Spellblaze Scar/two of the Prides.

You don't learn anything of the sort in either Sc. Caves or the Abashed Expanse. You don't have 10% of the abilities or the utilities that you will use in those dungeons to handle multiple spellcasters. You don't have any resistances, which are the most efficient way of nullifying threat from spellcasters. The only thing you can do is dodge, and that's of no use in either Dark Crypt or the Prides because of the high concentration of enemies in a relatively small space.

On the other hand, it works fine as a teaching dungeon for fighters that are, say, L12. It's just dangerously unstable to be able to clear at L7-8, say, for fighters... In other words, it works well...as long as there's more than two starting dungeons. I can see a use to it in the current system.

Rhaloren camp does that. The caves, not so much, imo.