Dragonheir: Better than Before

[Part of the Cursed story line.] 

With the holy river restored its time to destroy the source of the corruption down here in the Underdark which leads through many team based fights that need much swapping of line ups and many attempts before I manage to get through to the corrupted boss, an big ugly drider mama (level 165) who enjoys summoning adds. Fortunately the trick with her is rather easy, just turn off auto combat and make sure to use the ultimates on the adds before they get too overwhelming! The winning team was Fire Main / Garius / Voresh / Heksandra / Sigrid. Yes, I finally got the blonde archer on my roster and she is a freaking powerhouse if paired with a debuffer like Voresh who debuffs everything as her ultimate hits ALL debuffed enemies, and prevents them from healing!

It turns out destroying this creature is the last step in restoring my memories - I am also a child of Tiamat! Aka The child of chaos who tried to kill her so long ago but failed so she ripped my soul into two pieces (and the reason why this belongs in my "Cursed" journal). Obviously the next step is to reclaim my other half from the death lands but he isn't very happy to see me. To my great surprise this level 170 boss is the FINAL one (you mean there's an end!? yep!) and his phase two is not easy at all since he has a move that captures one of your team mates and if you don't destroy the hand before time runs out its insta-kill time for that person!

It takes me a few goes before eventually finding the winning team (but that's ok because he has some pretty nice boss music) of Fire MC / Horrus / Heksandra / Sigrid / Journ, all fire based heroes to get the "inspirational" damage bonus which is required for this boss. In addition, Journ - the legendary gnome inflicted with crystal disease, also debuffs with his AoE flamethrower and ultimate mine field abilities. Upon completing myself (and the game really), I run into Tiamat who this time - lets me go to continue adventures since "I've changed". The end! I know there's a season two coming / available but I just felt this was such a decent and unexpected end to this story so I'm stopping here. Thumbs up Dragonheir! You turned out to be a much better game than I originally thought you'd be.

One last arena flex because I doubt I'll reach this rank again. Big step from 15+k!

Dragonheir: Season of Darkness

[Part of the Cursed story line.] 

A new "season" update has showered gifts on players with something like 100+ hero dice which net me a few more legendary ranked heroes who I immediately take my new superstars to the arena and... still get thrashed because obviously I'm not great at team composition LOL. Now also available to me is the "champion arena" which is more PvP that the other arenas where you just face preset teams of other players but don't really interact with them in any way. In the champion arena mode which opens only every few hours, you are head to head in picking your line up for battle. Again, I got thrashed there too. :P

For the new arena, you start at rank 15K+ but most of the opponents are just
NPC squads until around the 200 mark.

At least I make progress against the orc invasion, basically stopping it in its tracks and then defeating the obviously evil high mage who orchestrated everything and turns into a purple dragon (that's new to me)! He's a son of Tiamat so he's kinda strong and my lev 100 fire main actually has to tank while back row Garius (90) / Ripekas (90) / Zhar'loth (90) / and Voresh (90) clinch the win. With his defeat this boss has also turned into another available weekly challenge pinata.

The adventure then leads to what I suppose is the Underdark, where we find the isolated city of Terminus inhabited by rot stricken deep elves and one of their number offers to accompany us back to the main city (breaking quarantine) via the long route - the first section of which is most exciting as it involves an undying spider that continuously pursues you once you reach its territory. You can beat it up, but it gets up after 10 seconds and the chase is on again! Ironically we ultimately escape by sending the spider falling down a deep chasm, because spiders aren't good at falling or climbing? Erm...

Dragonheir: What the heck is this?

[Part of the Cursed story line.]

This D&D 'somewhat' idle gacha game (less idle than Idle champs though) starts off with a fight against Tiamat, and then you wake up in some death lands where your character is 5 times the size of the map POI's like villages and fortresses. I'm guessing this is because they designed the people at "combat size" and then just went - meh - and kept them that size for world exploration while everything else is shrunk down. It takes a bit of getting used to but you get used to it after awhile.

Combat is clearly the focus of this and while you start with Olaf the skeleton to support your Ice/Fire/Lightning Mage (you must be a mage) he'll soon be joined the dark elf Noteera, troll Gulal, dwarf Forbit and healer Heksandra. Again, its obvious that devs went "meh" at one point as Noteera and Gulal have mini-cutscenes when activating their ultimate abilities while everyone else does not. Outside of setting up your initial battle position there only thing you actively control in battle are those ultimate abilities, and these greatly vary between characters - which is where the "gacha" comes in. Earn dice to roll for heroes! And spoilers: a lot of them suck!

I guess someone makes weapons and armor of that size...?

Fortunately for this early bit that doesn't seem to matter as you'll be smashing through baddies with no problem. In fact it might get to the point where you just press that "auto" button during combat so that the AI handles your ultimate for you. You know it's going to get bad when they provide an "auto" button for combat...

Good Design: Nine Lives Stealer

Something to translate into MMORPGS.

The Waterdeep: The Dungeon of the Mad Mage board game is full of bad design ideas, perhaps that's what made this one item stand out for me. The Nine Lives Stealer is a powerful magic sword that you earn by beating the death knight who wields it (and boy does he wield it well). As a player item, it does above average and consistent damage on a hit, and on a roll of 20 on a 20 sided die it instantly kills whatever you hit, including bosses! Should that ever happen, the sword is then lost.

That would make a fantastic weapon in MMORPGs, which should translate to doing damage equal or a little better than the top tier weapon at every release. It is something people would want to grind for and want to have a supply of. Something pay to win people would buy from the auction house and/or the cash shop. Something that would always be in demand. Obviously you won't want to use it as your "main" weapon because I know a lot of people don't want to suddenly be fighting barehanded (obviously monks / martial arts don't exist or aren't effective in that world), and you definitely don't want to risk losing it against a minor add.

But as something that could potentially cut down the time in a dungeon and/or instakill bosses? Or even that annoying guy in PvP matches? Hell yes. Take that Tiamat! In your face Zariel! This is one reward I'd definitely like to see implemented.

Neverwinter Online: Tales of the Old - Dread Vault

Tales of the Old is an interesting event that revives some of the previously removed dungeons with some updated foes and challenges, all to earn tales currency to buy rewards. Unlike normal runs you are limited on time, unable to use consumables (no heal pots), and have a party wide total deaths limit for starters (because you can make it harder).

I don't have any problems with that, though death is annoying due to the run distance from the campfire but I think that mainly stems from dungeon design - and one of my main gripes about lengthy dungeons.

In Dread Vault your team must work your way down a lengthy cavern to ultimately fight an elder brain. Unfortunately the whole journey is just move forward, kill trash, repeat over and over for more than 10 minutes. Even without the enemies it will take a decent amount of time just to walk from point A to point B.

Prepare for more of the same thing!

While some players like Syncaine enjoy massive instances dungeons, I personally find them to be fucking boring. Sure you have mini bosses before the main villain but that makes what, 20% of the dungeon interesting? And then you are expected to run the entire dungeon over and over? That just reeks of dumb design and I'm starting to see why Cryptic removed it in the first place.

The only place massive dungeons have in MMOs is if they are not instanced at all, so that you are able to randomly encounter other players and not the automatons that are the NPCs. They did this right in the general Undermountain zones.

Meanwhile instanced content works best when it gets right to the point. Tiamat, Demogorgon, and Baphomet (my favorite) all drop you right into the boss fight itself. I'd much prefer a similar event centered on those, though obviously "Tales of the Old" wouldn't be a suitable title.

Better still, just hold a Boss Rush event with the option of soloing. There are enough bosses and mini-bosses in the game to pick from now to make that happen. Anyway, Tales of Old - thumbs up. Dread Vault - also thumbs up, but only for the boss fights. The rest of it is just a waste of time.

Today I Smiled: Storm King's Thunderbolt Fantasy

"Hey, you're one of the heroes who has beaten Baphomet, slain Orcus, and helped defeat Tiamat! Can you please go catch 200 fish for us?" -Lonelywood Moron

I'm now a few days into the Storm King's Thunder Module in Neverwinter Online, and while it's pretty cool thus far I do have to question the inclusion of that moronic fishing quest at Lonelywood, perhaps designed by a crazy who worships Slenderman. It does seem to be very grindy campaign wise too, but I'll wait till I'm further along before commenting more on that. A little disappointed that there are no living root bridges at Lonelywood too, almost as much as learning that AllSpice is not all spices put together.

In blog news, I'll be starting up my Dark Souls adventure log shortly so that there's more variety than just Skyrim all day, everyday. What really has me smiling though is this show Juris and I stumbled on last weekend called Thunderbolt Fantasy. If you like anime, then give it a try. If you don't like anime - STILL give it a try because holy heck, does it have a strong opening. Even my wife got sucked in right away. Not bad for a show using dolls / puppets huh? That's it for today - not leaving a usual music clip for you this time because the music in Thunderbolt Fantasy is awesome enough. Seriously though, watch it! :P

It's the best puppet show I know of!

MMO Agenda: Do you quit at max level?

[Part of my MMO Design folder.]

Simple question today, and one that most MMO devs assume the answer is "Yes" hence the hamster wheel for experience or items. I just want to see if they are correct. After working hard to level up your character to become the most powerful he or she can be, do you then quit the game or would having a god like character actually keep you playing?

"Absolute strength is boring."

Saitama (One Punch Man) art by Lee Woo-Chul

I don't know, I think absolute strength would be fricking amazing. At least I'd get my dailies done faster, and maybe I'd even try the other content I'd usually avoid due to it being too long or too annoying. If I had a character that can one hit Tiamat, I'd definitely play Neverwinter Online a lot more, not a lot less - especially if more updates kept coming in, without any more hamster wheels to run.

What about you? Do you end or reset the experience as soon as the game no longer poses a challenge?

Photo Story: Never Adventures (Part 7) - #IntPiPoMo2015

[Part of my photo story folder and part of IntPiPoMo2015!]

Of course there are many other dangers about.

Such as the Thayan invasion at the Dread Ring.

Which is home to my favorite looking dungeon: the Phantasmal fortress.

You can play with cute dragon pinatas!

Or go into Tiamat's Temple...

To fight the dragon goddess herself!

You can also face endless customized horrors from the foundry.

Or more familiar terrors...

Waiting within epic dungeons!

Or play the market where "heroes" sell refugees as slaves!?

Just don't complain when you get lousy loot...

Because I don't think anyone is going to hear you.

Current #IntPiPoMo2015 Count - 78 / 50

Newbie Blogger Initiative 2015! #NBI2015 #NBI2015Safari #HeroesorVillains

It's that time of year again for people who are thinking of starting up a blog, are currently blogging, or have lapsed in blogging to hop in to / continue to ride / or get back in the saddle and join the Newbie Blogger Initiative 2015! Despite the name it's actually open for all ranges of blog experience as one of its main purposes is to create a community for game bloggers / vloggers / podcasters / and the like to interact and support each other.

Personally speaking, it's also a great way to get an injection of traffic on your site plus you get to find many other blogs (new and old) to link to for reading purposes. To that end I'm lifting my usually strict cut-off point in my blogroll this month to welcome all the new blood, wayward sheep, or new found veterans to reinforce my current count of 59 links. This also means you can also expect out of the blue oddities like hashtags in the title apparently.

If you want to get involved simply do any or all of the following (which I totally stole from Syp @ Bio Break):

• Stay in touch with the official NBI Twitter account!
• Read the latest announcements on the NBI forum.
• If you’re a new or lapsed blogger, then you’ll want to register on the newbie blogger check-in. We use this forum to keep track and promote blogs, so having your link on it is incredibly important.
• Sponsors (veterans) have a sign-in as well, and if so desired they can put themselves out there to be a direct mentor.

One of the neat things I've always liked about the NBI are the events that the sponsor bloggers come up with, and Murf has wasted no time in getting the ball rolling with his #NBI2015Safari, a simple screenshot contest. Since this post is technically interrupting my Neverwinter Online Vigilance Quest tutorial I thought I'd get in early in the "Heroes or Villains" category with a pic from that game - featuring the only enemy that actually requires 25 players to work in synchronized tandem within a time limit to achieve victory.

Tiamat!

Lastly, I just realized that Contains Moderate Peril is offering a chance for up to four newbie bloggers to guest post on his site! For people new to the whole blogging thing believe me that's pretty good - try not to let that opportunity slip by! (For other sponsor blogs, please advertise this too).

MMO Design: Idle Hands

[Part of my MMO Design folder.]

I read this article on MMOFallOut where Bungie is going to start punishing people habitually "idle" in group content in Destiny. I've never played that game but I do wish more companies were looking into the same thing because idlers are damn annoying. Neverwinter Online's Tiamat battle (happens once per hour) is an instance that comes to mind. In it, 25 people have to beat all of Tiamat's heads (simultaneously or they regenerate) before time runs out. Each person that idles there lowers the DPS of the whole group, and can easily lead to the entire instance failing.

Ironically the worse a session is perceived to be going, the more idlers there are as they basically "give up" and don't wish to use any more resources to help the team, but stick around just in case the team still wins so that they get a better reward. I would LOVE to see a system that picks up if a player is idling and to punish said player for doing so. Sure, just with warnings and wrist slaps at the start but ultimately with account deletion at the end.

Why would people idle in instances that require immediate group participation?

I can only think of three general reasons.

A) They are leeches.
B) They fail to properly plan their gaming time.
C) Real life emergency.

If "C" happens more than once / twice in a day then it really classifies as "B" (see above). Seriously, why would you still be playing / still be at your computer if you know something is up?

Punish idlers? I say Yes! What do you think?

MMO Design: Gold Denial

[Part of my MMO Design Folder.]

You might recall me mentioning I'd do a post about "Gold Denial" (stop players from gaining gold) a short while back, which is an alternative to a "Gold Sink" (make players spend gold on x) but I was having trouble thinking up of a valid way to do this while still letting players feel they are "improving". Fortunately for me, Cryptic has already answered that question in Neverwinter Online with the introduction of Artifact Equipment. Let's go over the basics first for those who don't play.

In that game, killing enemies gives you items and a pretty small amount of coinage. Selling said items were what really brought in your gold, especially the higher tiered, rarer gear - the rarest of which actually is more profitable to be sold for other currencies on the player market. Like Diablo, some equipment has gem slots where you can enhance various traits or damage, depending on the gem. You can also enhance the gem quality by feeding it other gems to make it stronger and to make the progress meter break through to the next "level" you need special items that cost quite a bit and face an ever increasing chance of destroying them the higher the level is.

Since gems are just commonly dropped by bad guys though you could just be patient getting them and selling the excess gear for money. With Tiamat's arrival, players now have access to potentially powerful Artifact Equipment which doesn't eat gems to advance - it eats other equipment! Specifically it eats other "identified" equipment, since most things that drop are unidentified (and you sell them that way) this also diminishes the stacks and stacks of ID scrolls (another common drop) people are carrying.

This way players still get that feeling of improvement, yet at the same time have their gold income potentially cut down to almost zero. For awhile at least. A long while. Max rank for each artifact item is 60 which counts needs a total of 4,645,200 refinement points to reach. The most common gear gives around 100 points when consumed. Given that people can and will have multiple artifact items (cloak, belt, main hand, off-hand, etc) this acts as an awesome gold prevention method - which coupled by the gold sink that is Tiamat herself (on potions and injury kits) is good design, in my book anyway.

What do you think? Should this sort of system be introduced into more games?

Today I Smiled: Competition

One thing Tiamat has brought is a small re-kindling of my NWO foundry building and I'm glad to report that the Scribes' Enclave still stands! To try show my appreciation I've joined this months mini-contest which involves making the Best Winter Home. I've made these two for people to enjoy - temporarily anyway. I will be taking them down once the contest is done to give way to actual quests.

Please note: There are no quests, monsters or reward in either of these. Just a house! :P

A Humble Abode - (NW-DTCJS6NS2) 

A Winter Home - (NW-DCBNR2ABC)

Speaking of foundry stuff, this review by Tipa (aka Brenda Holloway) of Arroway Manor also made me smile! No, I didn't win. Far from it, but still got the green level companion reward. That hasn't stopped me from joining another foundry contest, one involving the North Docks District. That one isn't finished yet but I'll be sure to post up my work here when it is!

On to non-Neverwinter stuff... I'm sure most of you have seen the "This is EVE" video by now. I don't play that game but boy that almost, almost made me jump the fence to try it. Another one that I'm on the fence for is Black Desert. Just from the first picture on Steparu's Final Beta test. I first thought it was a shot of tabletop models. Then I have to remind myself its open-pvp so... probably not. :P

Also something that probably no one (in my usual blogging circle) has seen before... female Streetstyle Freestyle final battle: Two chicks showing fantastic control with a soccer ball. Yeah, stuff like that interests me. :P

I guess I should finish off with something more Christmas-sy since it -is- the season, so here's Peter Hollens with a jazzy acapella version of Holy Night. Hope you all have a wonderful day!

Vindictus: King of the Trolls

[This is part of my Vindictus tutorials.]

I started getting into real trouble when I reached the troll inhabited Hilder Forest Ruins. It's like an exam of every boss you have fought, just that they move faster, hit harder, and are way uglier. I quite disliked the very first boss, Meperdu who has a unique(?) ability of pinning you against the wall and forcing the whole rest of the fight to take place in judo range (ie. zero distance). I could still beat him, but the one that really sucked was the king of the Shady Forest - Klaus.

Ho ho ho!

I think next to GW2s Liadri he currently holds the most number of kills on me in any MMO. The difference is that while Liadri was a duel, Klaus is a raid boss, and given that I only beat him on my ninth attempt means he destroyed the first eight different parties I went in with! Even the Neverwinter's mighty Tiamat only won four times before I broke her winning streak. Unlike Tiamat though there is no strategy to Klaus. It's pure skill and luck and if you have enough of both, he can be soloed.

This did let me study him quite a bit, and as a ranged character, I found out why he is so damned tough - because he is a crafty bastard and all his hits take out a ton of HP.

Two moves in particular are what would always get me:

First is his charge. Yup, he runs in a straight line from point A to point B. Sounds easy to evade right? Wrong. Point B is JUST BEFORE his target. He then shifts direction (if the target moved) and continues charging to point C - through said target, and anyone else in the way.  I would always dodge too early. It really has to be at the last split second that you move aside or he hits you with that giant horned helm.

Second is that he waves his magic mace/staff in the air. This actually sends out hard to see, translucent orbs at all players (+1) that SEEK. Again, you have to dodge at the last second, too early and it will track and hit you. Getting hit by any of these drain all your stamina, meaning you cannot run or dodge and making you pretty vulnerable to his charge which he likes to use right after. He also shoots an extra one, meaning someone has to dodge two translucent spheres. That final one not only drains your stamina but actually roots you to the spot.

Neverwinter Online: Tiamat has arrived!

I wasn't going to do a boss write-up today but this one seems to be needed at the moment. Despite the new and, as expected, grindy zone of the Well of Dragons being out for awhile it was only a few days ago did Tiamat actually begin trying to emerge from her temple (on the live server anyway).

Currently, the only requirement is that you can access the Well of Dragons to reach the temple to fight her. Doors open for 5 minutes every top of the hour. You will then get put into a small antechamber with 24 random players. Less random if you go in at the exact same second - use the count down timer to help with that.

The flames of your hate burn hotter than any of my breath attacks!

After the 5 minutes prep time in which you really should decide as a group if you are sending 5 people a head or zerging half and half, you will have 20 minutes to win. First step is kill the summoner (of your color - Rath Modar is "red"), take the dragon soul orb (of your color) and put it in a quick slot. Alternatively you can kill summoners 2 and 4 then jump to 1, 3 (Rath), and 5 which is supposedly quicker.

Remember to use this soul orb wisely as it will protect you and your allies from the otherwise insta-kill breath weapon of each head (and only the head of the matching color). Then kill cult leader Severin. All of this should be smooth sailing so go hard and go fast, ala the Dragon Herald zerg circuit. You'll know what that is when you hang around the Well of Dragons long enough.

The next part involves rounds of defending 3 clerics (Linu in the middle has the hardest time here) from demonic forces as they complete their spell to push Tiamat back in her hole. As clerics take damage their already slow filling progress meter is reduced. Use your best judgement and keep an eye on the progress bars to see who needs help. Ideally fight far away from the clerics too. If you stand at the edges you can make enemies throw themselves off for insta-kills which is great since all the adds are level 65 here.

When the cleric spell fires you have 2 minutes to damage each of the five heads as fast and as much as you can. Afterwards it becomes the cleric phase again then heads phase again and so on until you run out of time (at which point Elminster has to reverse time to cover your retreat) or you win.

How do you win? ALL FIVE heads must die in the SAME 2 minute gap. If any heads die early, they will be regenerated to 25% on the next cycle meaning you have just lost this hour's round for everyone. Characters also get various boons depending on how much treasure was recovered in the hour leading up to the temple doors opening but that is even more out of your control than this boss fight (unless you and your allies are crazy prepared), so just prep to fight without any boons. Health potions and injury kits aplenty are a good idea. :P

Tiamat is also one of the rare bosses in this game where adds should be ignored when the heads are open for attack. Nice going Cryptic!

Tales of the Blight: Cult of the Dragon

[Part of my Dragon Age: Origins play through. Spoilers ahead!]

Our next stop is the small mountain village of Haven, following a lead to find some holy ashes to cure Arl Eamon. I decided to bring Alistair and Leliana for their chantry background and Morrigan for her spells on this mission. The villagers are outright weird and unfriendly and it isn't long before they turn to trying to murder us just like they've been doing to some others. I find one brother Genitivi a prisoner in their chantry and after learning that the ashes are close in a nearby ruin, I send the injured man back to Denerim for his own safety.

After purging the village of all life we do find more cultists and their pet dragon kin in the ruin and do the same. Turns out this cult worships dragons and believes one particularly powerful one to be a resurrected prophet. Sounds like a different group I've heard of before elsewhere...

Wonder if they are related?

Anyway, I end all of them which angers Morrigan a little bit, including their "worshipped" dragon. That turned out to be a pretty lengthy but fun optional boss fight. Alistair eventually slays the beast, leaving the way clear to reach the higher sanctum where the urn full of ashes are meant to be.

Slightly off topic: For those who play Neverwinter Online, now is a good time to remind you that the Cult of the Dragon are raising/summoning Tiamat on November 18th! :)