Thursday, May 10, 2012

Settling down

Okay, it's time to try something new here. The play-by-play style I've been using for posts thus far is not working: It's boring to write and, in most cases, boring to read. So instead I'm going to cut out the filler and do a condensed version of my recent adventures, stopping along the way to elaborate if necessary. I'm also going to post less often because, honestly, time spent on this blog is time not spent in AC. So, I'll be posting less often from here on out -- say, once a week or so -- but hopefully the posts will make better reading.

(I'm also going to put more effort into responding to comments than I have. Apologies, friends, but I have been reading and taking in your advice. I'll do better from here on out.)

So, here's what I did this week:

Green Mire Grave


I've gone through this dungeon on each of my previous stints in AC, and remember it being one of my favorites. After having gone through it this time, however, I'm not so enamored. The dungeon is overcomplicated: four paths branch off in cardinal directions from the starting room, each leaving to a different "wing" of the dungeon. Two of these paths are short and lead to keys that unlock doors later on. The other two are longer and lead the the main treasures, the Green Mire Yari (Spear) and Green Mire Yoroi (Curiass). There are also keys along each of these paths that you have to fetch, sometimes in chests or behind doors that also require keys. In all, there are five keys you need to open various doors or chests, plus a sixth red herring key that only opens a loot chest. The optimal route takes you into each wing only once, but if you don't know that route it can boil down to a lot of backtracking. (Alternatively, you can just say "screw that" and pick the locks like I did.) Rather frustrating design.

As far as the enemies go: lots of Mosswarts and the occasional Drudge group. The Yari and Yoroi rooms (Yes, they're kept in two separate rooms, which makes little sense to me except to pad out the dungeon) also have Wisps standing guard. My new flaming club does yeoman work, but the challenge level is pretty low. Turbine tries to juice the dungeon up with some cryptic notes scattered around, but none of them say anything interesting. The quest is worth it anyway, though, because both the Yari and Yoroi prove to be exceptionally good gear for this level. 

Hollow Lair


A few posts back, I related my failed attempts to get a housing writ by gathering Minor Atlan Stones. A commentator suggested that this quest would be an easy way to get one. He didn't actually use the word "easy", mind you, which is good for him because if he had I would be calling him out for being full of it. The dungeon is full of monsters way more powerful than anything I've encountered to this point. The Tuskers (one pictured above) are not too much of a problem, since they don't have any magic. The Drudge Lurkers do, however, and I get beaten back twice. The first time I die. The second time I almost die, but am saved at the last minute when I level up and get my Health and Stamina restored, allowing me to run away. Total Deus Ex Machina there.

Getting the message, I go back to town and stock up big time: 30 tinctures each health and stamina, plus  Lugian gems. I also look up the map on the wiki, and realize that the dungeon is actually very short. I've just been taking every path except the right one. On the third try, I'm able to reach the final room. After a tense battle with the boss's guards, I face the boss himself:


Hollow Minions are tricky foes, because their attacks are hollow. That means that they ignore any protective magics in place on you or your armor. I'm not sure if they also ignore magics on your weapons, but it sure felt like it with this guy. He dodged me constantly. Fortunately, he's not immune to damage over time from Bleeding Assault (midsection Dirty Fighting effect). With a stockpile of potions on my side, I'm able to wear him down until he keels over dead. I grab a Barely Legible Note from the ground, evidence of my victory, and then head back to the dungeon start, where the questgiver is hanging out. The note is babbling to some "master" about breaking the humans, etc.. Typical madman ramblings. He mentions that they have destroyed "six of the nine", presumably meaning the old starter town outposts, so I guess he was working for Martine. 

But blah, blah, blah, all of this is old lore anyway. I exchange the note for Nuhmudira's Token, exchange the token for a Writ of Refuge, and use that plus an MMD to buy myself a nice little cottage. An additional MMD plus a visit to a carpenter in Cragstone gets me some furnishings:


Nice, yes?

Hunter's Leap



The facility warden tells me to talk with a retired adventurer named Eldrista before running the dungeon. Eldrista is a bit talkative: the quest has been changed several times over the years, and she's apparently felt every upheaval. Meanwhile, Mara al-Luq is still receiving congrats for something that happened way back before release.

Anyway, Hunter's Leap is an annoying Super Mario dungeon where you have to use AC's incredibly imprecise jump controls to navigate a series of causeways. Miss a jump, and you get to curse at your monitor before taking a ground route back to an earlier point. Attempts at the dungeon on previous ventures have involved a lot of this, but today I'm lucky and only miss once. 


Hunter's Leap is also one of the few places on mainland Dereth where you fight human enemies, and the encounter reminds me why we're number one -- the bandits and cutthroats here hit pretty hard in melee, plus they seem to have their choice of elements. This is the point in the game where I learn how to really exploit Dirty Fighting, using the debuffs and damage over time to my advantage. Our target is a bow crafted by the legendary hunter Lilitha, whose tragic fate we may get to someday. Once found by me and repaired by Eldrista, it's a very good bow, pity that missile weapons are no use to me. I show it to the Warden, then sell it. Overall, this dungeon is an interesting change of pace, but could be very irritating depending on how good you are at jumping.

A Ruin


Trothyr's Rest is next up, but along the way I stumble across this unnamed dungeon and decide to check it out. It's a small one, populated by weak enemies. Probably intended as a grinding location for lowbies back in the early days, or maybe some level designer's first effort. Enemies and loot are both laughably pathetic by today's standards, and no interesting lore or quest items are to be found, either. The dungeon does still serve a minor purpose, though. The Facility Hub portal for Trothyr's Rest drops you off on a road roughly northwest of the dungeon. The entrance to this ruin is visible from the road, and Trothyr's Rest lies almost directly south, so it's a good landmark. Why such a long walk, you ask? Well...

Trothyr's Rest


You need a key (or Lockpicking) to access all of this dungeon. The portal conveniently drops you off by an NPC who will sell it to you, along with some lore indicating who exactly Trothyr is. The dungeon itself has interesting architecture -- it's essentially a series of underground towers -- but seems at first to be a breather level, with only pitifully weak Azure Gromnies around. That changes when you get down to the lower levels and the Liches come out. This guy is apparently the boss:


He's not overly hard if you can separate him from the other Liches and fight him alone. However, it was late and I was inattentive, so I die and rage quit. I have better luck the next day, and somewhat surprisingly my corpse is still there, though all it has on it is a nearly-worthless drop item. This isn't the end of the dungeon, though. I go further in, fighting more Liches, and eventually find the shield and hammer in a room that requires more jumping around. Neither item is really worth mentioning. Their base stats are good, but with no enchants they would have been worthless even in the old days. The real treasure here is the Altar of Asheron, which... is also fairly useless these days:


In an attempt to keep the dungeon relevant, the devs have put something else down here: an Enchanted Mnemosyne which is part of a high-level quest. Useless to me, though I make note of it for future reference.

And that's what I did this week. Finally, at a commentator's request: here's what my character sheet looks like right now:


4 comments:

  1. I actually prefer this format. Looks like you are making some really good progress; keep up the good work!

    P.S. Thanks for posting your stats, gives me a better idea of where you stand in relation to the mobs you are fighting.

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  2. Another fine article. I knew the writ dungeon would be a challenge but it is almost a rite of passage for a 20+ character. It used to actually be a good place to level in prior to the Olthoi dungeons on ML. The minion was always the tough one with low armor and some vulns from the Drudges.

    Good Hunting.

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  4. Rite of passage. Sure, dude. You couldn't have warned me to bring extra potions? ~_^

    Actually, even the minion isn't so bad compared to the Tusker Slave Turbine dropped in there to punk players who went the wrong way. Good thing a Finesse fighter has high quickness, yes?

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