Diamond Crusade Review

ChaosSlayer's magical realm..
Reiker
Posts: 28

Diamond Crusade Review

Post#1 » Thu Jan 28, 2010 8:38 am

So I was feeling bored last night and thought I'd check out the alternate progression. Quite simply, although its still a bit rough around the edges I thought it was done fantastically. It was some of the most fun I've had playing on an emu server. In a way I feel it was a waste, since probably less than 5% of THF will ever experience it. The fact that you can level much faster in Crushbone etc kinda spoils the whole thing, but hey, it's definitely a lot more fun. I didn't even mind the exp rate because I was just enjoying the dungeon crawl and completing the quests. I almost wish that once this was finished we scrapped the current method of leveling on THF, however it's basically too late for that. Oh well!

Now here's my laundry list of suggestions, keep in mind that I still thoroughly enjoyed my run through the Warrens, but this is just where I feel it could be improved a bit. I was playing a rogue with a paladin bot.

First of all, some of the tasks take a bit too long to complete. I was told the exp rate used to be slower, so this may be a result of that. I finished most of the tasks in my upper 20s, and at 31 the majority of the Warrens is green with a very few light blues. I still haven't completed Outfitting the Troops (only completed 3 kobold cloaks and 1 kobold mantle so far), Quenching the Thirst (Rat Blood Ales seem to very rare), Menkes Tabolet's quest (haven't seen a Perfect Batling Skull, Giant Tadpole Brains, or Razor Sharp Bat Claw), and Pollina's quest (haven't gotten the bronzewood earring yet... might just be my luck). I also haven't finished Artifacts of the Past but that's because of:

Muglwump is too difficult for melee characters. Making it immune to melee damage is an interesting idea in concept, however it totally closes off that loot / quest to melee characters. Yes there's ways around it, and I'll probably beat it eventually (I got it down to about 28% using the chain arms clicky dot and the choking proc weapon), but I feel this encounter is just way too difficult, especially with the mez. Normally I'd say alright, I'll find someone to group with to take it down, however this alternate progression path is sold as a "solo friendly" endeavor, and the only other person I saw in the Warrens was level 10 (and also a melee).

Next is itemization. First of all, I'd like to see the kobolds drop a bit of coin. With all the items you need to loot for tasks, that freebie backpack doesn't cut it. I had to sell the first cold iron weapon I got (which was a dagger, and an upgrade to me) just so I could buy some backpacks. I was really struggling for awhile affording the tradeskill components until I leveled up enough where a lot of the dungeon was green and I could just run around ganking anything holding a weapon. In the long run everything worked out, but I think it would be nice to ease the financial burden in the lower stages.

I feel like rogues generally get the shaft here. The very few rogue usable weapons are just weak. As far as I can tell, the highest damage piercer you can obtain is 7 damage, and that's the crafted one I've been continually failing on (still using the 6/18 cold iron dagger I got sub level 10). My paladin bot is always out-dpsing me, and it's not even close. I'm considering running through as a berserker just to see how much easier it is (I'm assuming a lot). The equivalent cold iron 2-handed weapon is a whopping 25/38, and I eventually fletched a 25/26 staff with killer stats. My bot just straight up destroys my rogue on DPS, solely because I can't use the 2-handers; his normal hits are harder than my backstabs. And of the available (weak) 1-handers, rogues can't use most of them. Not the spear, not the 1HSers, but we can use the staff... and the H2H knuckles, lol. Rogues seem forgotten on a lot of gear, especially the Cleave I stuff... of all of those types of items here, I think we can use 1 (the ring from King). Pelt of the Mighty Paw seems to have just about every class but Rogues: BER BST SHM DRU SHD RNG PAL CLR WAR.

I would upgrade the Trol's Head Mask. Once I completed the quest, I already had better sans clicky (Engraved Cold Steel Mask). The alternate reward seemed pretty nice if I was playing a caster, though. Also, the text Rungupp gives while exchanging items seriously made me lol irl.

I think the spawn rate of the trash should be doubled, there was certain areas that I could fight in and just continuously get mob respawns without a break, particularly in areas of high mob density.

Lots of grammatical errors.. Outfiting the Troops task is missing a T, Quenching the Thirst task mentions a Silvered Gridle, kobold sentiels are missing an n, rabid kobolts are just another species altogether, I'm not sure what a "Scull" of the Bat Lord is, and the entire Urchun Snowfang quest texts looks like it was written by someone who was severely drunk.

Anyways, that's my 2 cents... despite the criticism I still stand by saying alternate progression was very well designed, I like the idea of slower paced progression with lots of tasts / tradeskills to upgrade through along the way, it would be nice to see an entire server designed this way. I give it a 8/10, mostly due to some weak itemization here and there and length of some tasks.

Reiker
Posts: 28

Re: Diamond Crusade Review

Post#2 » Thu Jan 28, 2010 10:10 am

Gonna reply here with some questions/comments as they come to me:

a) Can you obtain any slot 2 augs besides the 1 from turning in the 4 named drops? Once again the caster one is good... others not so much. Maybe add some mod2s (shielding on regen aug, accuracy on atk aug)
b) What are the Elder Runes for?

Edit 1: Completed Menkes Tabolet's quest... not so bad when you're actually trying for it, those items are just from stuff I didn't normally kill. Pretty disappointing reward for a rogue, once again ;) any chance of adding in alternate rewards that you can turn the beads in for? Also... found some magic weapons... got my MR up high enough to resist the mez... Muglwump went down :) maybe not so bad, but I was 32, Mugl was light blue before I could barely kill it.

ChaosSlayer
Posts: 1693

Re: Diamond Crusade Review

Post#3 » Fri Jan 29, 2010 3:52 am

Thank you for your review! =)
I will come back to this in more detail later on, but atm I just want to address a few things:

Muglwump - yes he is ment to be hard =) And yes he is not suppose to be killable unless you get a magical weapon - which you SHOULD have befiore ever atempting him. I run a number of my chars through the warrens, and everytime I complited my crafted weapon long before I could touch Mugl or Mighty Paw (I played SK+Druid, Druid+warrior, Ranger+paly). But even wihout crafted weapon, the magical weaposn for all classes drop off the named kobolds. For rogue, for one, you can get a piercer off bat Lord which procs lifetap. Even before that- vendor in Paineel sells no rent magical sword which is all/all you can use as substitute.

Overall on weapons- the rogue related weapons were designed from perspective that rogue is light and fast blademaster, but dmg ratio wise, those low dmg dagger do match up with the heavier weapons for other classes, specialy after puting crafted damage augment into them. The Elder Runes are used to enchant your crafted weapon- to make it magical and adds a proc/click effect, depending on the weapon. On top of that Rogues can use short swords, and there are 2 whips that drop in warrens - I guess you found one, and another drops off Mugl himself, so guess that one is kind of final thing

The slot 2 augs - yes those are the only ones you can get - as melee your choice is praobly either +regen or +atk/ds. Don't forget (again) the crafted augment with stats for your armor, and dmg for your wepon.

as far as the play goes- the bots just etter than you are =) I compared a player controlled warrior vs bot warrior, and play/sk vs equal bot with equal weapons, gear etc- the diffirence in dps was more than 25% in bots favor =) So.. just accept that, you can't catch up - I tried =)

-requests and cash- no coin drops- again intentional - in the begining just sell a few things to make cash- for exmaple if you do not plan on crafting wooden weapon- you can safely sell raw wood drops. Same goes for runes that not used by your class or your bot.
Some quests dot ask for a lot of components and I may review them in the future. - the tailorign quest on other hand is rightly the hardest to complite and was allready made easier 3 times since the warrens have opened =) The original winners of the warrens contest managed to complite it within 2 days play time when drop rates on the component were 3 times as rare =) As far as collect the booze quest goes- its very very easy I usualy complite it twice before lev 20 - for myself and for bot- you just need to camp the cooks =)

RE - Trol's Head Mask - yes effect is rathly useless, and I meant to change it long time ago, but keep forgeting. It will be changed into something more combat related

also- the other rogue useable gear is the Tunnel Lurker items- they far from uber, but in the early game if you get lucky they can be decent substitutes

RE- the rings and earrings - camp named - any named- even leser low level named , like Smith or Chef, can drop them with a decent chance. By level 20 I ususualy gather 2 or 3 sets
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ChaosSlayer
Posts: 1693

Re: Diamond Crusade Review

Post#4 » Fri Jan 29, 2010 4:01 am

these are final (enchanted) weapons rogue can use

Dirk
http://www.thehiddenforest.org/item.php?id=49423

Gauch
http://www.thehiddenforest.org/item.php?id=49424

Short Sword
http://www.thehiddenforest.org/item.php?id=49427

I realise than the dirk is that best weapon you can actualy stab with, but stun procs on the other 2 can greatly reduce incoming dmg from the mob.

Mugl Tongue
http://www.thehiddenforest.org/item.php?id=49354

Bat Lord Fang
http://www.thehiddenforest.org/item.php?id=49357
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Reiker
Posts: 28

Re: Diamond Crusade Review

Post#5 » Fri Jan 29, 2010 4:46 am

Okay, I found the elder rune guy... forgot he had that besides telling you how to craft the weapon itself.

It's not just the clicky on the troll mask that's subpar (by the time you can obtain it you could probably take 20 kobolds at once anyways, however it would probably become more useful in the next tier zone if it's substantially harder), it's just very lacking in stats.

And yeah, I was unlucky when it came to magic weapons... STILL haven't been able to craft a weapon (lol tradeskill failures) but before your reply I did get that bat lord fang thing and killed Muglwump... if there's magic swords sold on a vendor then yeah, leave it as is and I guess I was just dumb for overlooking it.

It's not so much that bots are better (I'm sure they are), but the problem mostly stemmed from the fact that my paladin bot could use 2 handed weapons and I couldn't. Think I'm gonna run a berserker through soon and compare DPS to my rogue, I'm betting my rogue will lose hard. It's just depressing seeing my bot double hit for 80s and then getting a "good" backstab for 64.

I would estimate that I'm 35% through the tailoring quest... and basically nothing gives me exp anymore :p

Reiker
Posts: 28

Re: Diamond Crusade Review

Post#6 » Fri Jan 29, 2010 7:07 am

Cold Steel Battle Spear -> no mold, no recipe, I'm assuming this is intended?

ChaosSlayer
Posts: 1693

Re: Diamond Crusade Review

Post#7 » Fri Jan 29, 2010 6:11 pm

http://www.thehiddenforest.org/recipe.php?id=10189

=P

if you carefully read what the weaponsmith/fletcher are saying you will learn that half wooden weapons created using fletching rather than smithing.
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Reiker
Posts: 28

Re: Diamond Crusade Review

Post#8 » Sat Jan 30, 2010 9:24 am

Ah, figured searching "bronzewood" in the fletching kit and "cold steel" in the forge would cover all my bases... thanks :)

ChaosSlayer
Posts: 1693

Re: Diamond Crusade Review

Post#9 » Tue Feb 09, 2010 12:25 am

Troll`s Head Mask click effect changed to a evil Debuff. Change will take effect during next reset as usual.

http://www.thehiddenforest.org/item.php?id=49381
Image

Nemosan
Posts: 3

Re: Diamond Crusade Review

Post#10 » Fri May 13, 2011 10:13 pm

I'm currently working on the Outfitting the Troops quest and after getting tons of the Kobold Hides and doing the combines I made 3 Kobold Skin cloaks and not Kobold Hide Cloaks. The quest says I need 4 but in the quest window it still shows 0/4 cloaks completed. I have no recipe in my tailoring for Kobold Hide items at all. So I'm just wondering a about couple of things.
Should the quest window update as you get items required for the quest or does it update when you get all of the items for a stage?
And are there Kobold Hide cloaks and I'm missing something?

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