Bael'Nef Isle

[MKaros]

So, I have some feedback for this spot.

While I understand what you're trying to do here, having almost every creature MS constantly is probably not going to allow for a great deal of progress being made in this area.

The typical formula currently for what's defined as "challenging" seems to be "Give everything an MS and a few thousand HP, make the respawn rates really fast, and be vague about the possible rewards to see who will bite."

At least with the Umbris Camp, we're aware of what we could potentially get by going in there. To put what was clearly a great deal of effort into an area only to walk in and find it crawling with MS bots that will 100-0 you with 500+ HP in a few swings is probably not too encouraging for the majority of the players on the server.

If the area concept is to basically have the (probably less than 10) players with extremely high-end gear group up every blue moon and try to make progress, then I can understand that.

But at the moment, that's probably what it's going to take. Additionally, when you DO make progress, things respawn so quickly that you barely have any room to move. You just end up constantly re-clearing the same critters over and over and over and over again.

I mean it's nice for gold farming, but in terms of being a dungeon-like progression instance, when things die, they need to stay dead for quite awhile. Then, I think, you could begin to slowly work your way through the area.

[Dj Sticky]

Oh no it's not that grim!

1 person can do fine with the right gear and tactics, you do need two to get inside the castle though.

[Gwendolyn]

You must be new here, welcome to excelsior.

We have socioeconomic activities on the left and amassing great sums of wealth on the right. you can of course attempt both at your leisure but its encouraged you pick one or the other.

GM events are scheduled sporadically with between one weeks and one hours notice, attendance is not mandatory nor limited.

Enjoy your stay and thanks for choosing Excelsior.

[+Veritas]

Mkaros,

I would suggest going with a group of your friends rather than going by yourself, if the area is too hard for you. My Umbris areas were designed mostly to give some challenge to the older players, and to well organized groups of players. Some monsters are designed to hit hard and often times are not crucial to the quests available on that island. An example would be the Umbris Juggernaut. He hits very hard and often kills with one hit, but he is slow moving and hold nothing related to any quest. You can bypass these guys. You can even run into buildings and use natural means to stop monster aggro on yourself (I will let you figure that out).

I sincerely suggest that if you cannot survive there with your current gear and tactics, go somewhere else and work your way up to a point where you can. The area will be there for a long time, if not forever.

...btw, your welcome for my taking time to create that area.

+V

[Gwendolyn]

Pro tip of the day:

A healer with 120 spirit speak employing the cleric spells can heal through Mortal Strike Effects.

[Larsa]

Thanks +V for making this Isle area.... now I do not have to do the peerless runs EVERYDAY... a new challenge is what is needed otherwise it just becomes a routine.

[MKaros]

It's really not the difficulty of the creatures (in groups or by themselves) that's the problem, it's the fact that they respawn so fast. The difficulty is obviously tuned either for groups or for people with excellent gear, but I still have to wonder how many groups are encouraged to go in here given the preference towards MS critters. I suppose, though, that the more people you have the less an MS matters, assuming everyone can cross-heal properly.

It seems to me that the respawn rates were slower tonight when I was in there, because before I've had a few situations where I had half the front area (near the two houses at the start) pop back to me after I had just finished clearing it, and I cleared everything in about 10 minutes. I don't have what I'd consider to be perfect gear, but it's close to the best I can get with the exception of stacking THs (of which I've got only 4). While I certainly do get myself killed in there, it's usually to something that's my own fault, with the most common error being poor positioning (like allowing MS critters to surround me).

Any of us who have been here for awhile and hunting Umbris can pretty much write a simple guide on "how to survive" in the Umbris areas, where positioning is critical, certain creatures are exceptional and need to be handled differently (like the juggernauts or the elites in the main camp), and using invis/stealth/SS is helpful. All it would take is a few minutes of sitting down and explaining the basic strategy, which once you understand it is not particularly difficult or complicated.

But, if the area concept is to be a progression through the buildings as you find clues to the lever puzzle, needing to re-clear the outside of the buildings each time you kill everything inside the buildings is the part I felt was off. I mean I certainly appreciate being able to rake in a few hundred thousand gold an hour in this area, since the gold drops are great, but the respawn rates seemed to encourage more "Here's a new spot to farm" and less "Here's a place with a goal, clear through the creatures to get there". But, maybe that's the intention.

I do appreciate the time that was put into crafting it, and I like it a lot more than the normal Umbris camp where WW/Bandage/SS macros are king. Also, I assumed it was intentional that you can't [claim things here on account of their significant gold drop rate, but maybe you can clear that up for us.

[Gwendolyn]

It's really not the difficulty of the creatures (in groups or by themselves) that's the problem, it's the fact that they respawn so fast. The difficulty is obviously tuned either for groups or for people with excellent gear, but I still have to wonder how many groups are encouraged to go in here given the preference towards MS critters. I suppose, though, that the more people you have the less an MS matters, assuming everyone can cross-heal properly.

It seems to me that the respawn rates were slower tonight when I was in there, because before I've had a few situations where I had half the front area (near the two houses at the start) pop back to me after I had just finished clearing it, and I cleared everything in about 10 minutes. I don't have what I'd consider to be perfect gear, but it's close to the best I can get with the exception of stacking THs (of which I've got only 4). While I certainly do get myself killed in there, it's usually to something that's my own fault, with the most common error being poor positioning (like allowing MS critters to surround me).

Any of us who have been here for awhile and hunting Umbris can pretty much write a simple guide on "how to survive" in the Umbris areas, where positioning is critical, certain creatures are exceptional and need to be handled differently (like the juggernauts or the elites in the main camp), and using invis/stealth/SS is helpful. All it would take is a few minutes of sitting down and explaining the basic strategy, which once you understand it is not particularly difficult or complicated.

But, if the area concept is to be a progression through the buildings as you find clues to the lever puzzle, needing to re-clear the outside of the buildings each time you kill everything inside the buildings is the part I felt was off. I mean I certainly appreciate being able to rake in a few hundred thousand gold an hour in this area, since the gold drops are great, but the respawn rates seemed to encourage more "Here's a new spot to farm" and less "Here's a place with a goal, clear through the creatures to get there". But, maybe that's the intention.

I do appreciate the time that was put into crafting it, and I like it a lot more than the normal Umbris camp where WW/Bandage/SS macros are king. Also, I assumed it was intentional that you can't [claim things here on account of their significant gold drop rate, but maybe you can clear that up for us.

tl;dr

-Fix respawn rates, they to high

-Y U NO ALLOW [CLAIM ?!

[MKaros]

Yep, that about sums it up.

Also, the juggernauts are sometimes getting stuck below the terrain in some areas and the archers at the front gate sometimes despawn for no apparent reason.

Is there not supposed to be anything in the building with all of the chests? Maybe I just didn't find what's there yet.

Edit: 5 minutes ago I was fighting an Umbris Juggernaut in one of the center houses, and it despawned.

[anarchy]

my 2cents

new area tactics:

juggernauts: use mirror image and melee it. get him down where he'll run away. don't kill him or he'll respawn.

all others: set up a hot key for divine fury so if you do get MS you can run; bandie on the move. go back kill.


i find going in a party is harder than going by myself. the reason: all i do is res people when i go in a party. remember the harry potter quest? same concept 1 tank all heal on the tank. Plus, the tank-er should use an AOE just to grab attention.

solo: 1 handed weapon and shield with Bushido at 120 and parry at 120. more damage you take the more damage you reflect. cast trial by fire a lot. cast sacred boon, cast vampiric embrace, and always be on the move. ignore the juggernaut unless you can get them to the point of running. (of course unless they changed this) after you get the juggies running then things should be a lot easier for your yourself/party.


personally i like umbris camp but not really a fan of this newer area. i can handle the new area, but i really don't like places/games where they force you to be in a party. that's the reason why i re layered so much so i didn't have to rely on others but myself. not really selfish is it? i guess i believe in the power of choice. an anti-pet area is a different thing it doesn't make areas non-accessible just harder. forcing parties should be left to world or warcraft or those new mmorpg.

the dragon quest: awesome!!!! made perfectly right imo. you don't need a party and you don't need to be super uber. it's made for low to medium ability people. like i said pretty fun. too bad you can't make it so there are more quests like theses and make them so you can do them over and over like 1 time a month. the reward is nice for low to medium players. 15 fort powder is an awesome (non rare, but uncommon) prize. it makes it worth it for lower classes but really not that important to re layer class. you can bring pets so it's very nice for the new player. this is a very simple quest (dont' know the scripting part), but it was done very well.

[Devlin]

I WENT TO SGAIL AND DIDNT GET FREE LOOT. PLEASE FIX THIS.

[+Veritas]

I will consider making all non-collector item mobs claimable and also will consider extending the spawn resetters to a longer interval (a mob train-away and trap off screen countermeasure). I can see where this would be annoying if half the island is cleared and they all come back, but it is a system i want kept in and the players will have to understand that there will still be a chance it will happen while they are there...but will not happen so frequently that it gets defeating to a player's progress there. Perhaps I can figure a way that it does this reset only at 2 specific times during the day...

+V

[MKaros]

For the respawn rate, I would think it would be ideal if some degree of farming were able to get done there while still allowing the more quest-oriented players to feel like they're making progress without things respawning right behind them as they make their way through the island.

I think (and I could be wrong here) that the current repop timer is like 15-20 minutes before things start respawning in each area that was cleared. If it were even twice this, it would make a big difference because you could search through a lot more ground in that time. The respawn doesn't need to be as long as twice a day, but I understand you might be working with some technical limitations we aren't aware of as players.

I appreciate the response though and I think making [claim useful on all of the critters would be a welcome change for everyone that goes there currently.

[Danilo Thann]

My two cents!

Seems to me that everything in this area is just fine.

But we need a check points here and there.

A door... that blocks a section in for say 30 min's - an hour. A lever, which decreases the number of re spawn's to 1 of each type --for a certain amount of time-- or an item that can make us immune to creatures in certain areas... which only lasts a certain amount of time. I know the last idea can be done... If you can make new players have a 72 hour pass; then i'm sure you can grant players the same versus a select creature range... this might involve adding certain name changes to sections of the area, but its doable...

Perhaps this area is lost to us (me)... but maybe in the further +V. you might think of new content in this way...

I want hard quests/areas ... and I say this we respect... keep your gold if that's all I'm ever going to get... I want the satisfaction of saying I went in solo/with a group & met the final challenge as was intended. Seems however i need to be perfect... or created like Anarchy... (Demi-god any one)

So, much of the new content is awesome, but it seems to take so much time/effort... or people (on an event like scale) that what's truly the point. In the end all those people complain about 1 great item they didn't get. ( or from what I've seen, the item isn't very useful to old or new players ) (points at the neck piece from the Fort, and all the deco found in Wrong dungeon) What we need are new items or deco's that can be found on both ends of the spectrum... either gained through a vast amount of time and collection, or items that can be found at random in an area (off a creature type) or through quest completion -- items that are useful... (points at all the Asian armor and weapons in the game that dont have an awesome artifact attached to them)

*** Progression = "the act or an instance of moving from one thing or unit in a sequence to the next..." or... "a passing successively from one member of a series to the next; succession; sequence." ***

To me, most of the new content = Chaos (with great possibilities & great intentions) which only breeds more chaos...

I love all of the people responsible for the large and small contributions to the EX shard, keep on the good fight... (guesses that was more then 2 cents)