The Catacombs

[Shyver]

The Catacombs

One of my favorite quest chains for the lower levels, and one of the least run by the population at large.

Why? Well I can think of a couple of reasons, but below are what I view as the biggest offenders.

1.) With the frequent need to talk to Dryden, it’s easy to get off chapter when running with a group. Since this is a quest chain, the Share Quest option isn’t available since the person won’t be “on the right chapter”.

2.) The need to talk to Dryden also leads to an excess of “downtime” running up and down the **** stairs. These two factors lead to a series of quests that take about 25 minutes of “dungeon time”, to stretch the experience into around a 45 minute trip. 45 minutes in a low level pug is highly likely to lose players to other quests, RL obligations, and other events.

So what to do about it?

1.) For starters break the quest chain into individual quests that can be run in any order.

2.) Change the “throne room” into a small library where the quest givers for the chain are “working on a solution” for Dryden while he oversees their work. Players could simply pick up all of the quests and do them out of order. This also opens up the share quest feature if it’s needed.

3.) Once all of the quests are run this opens up an option for the players to talk to Dryden for the last part. This would just move them to an empty instance of the “throne room”, much like the way the quest on Korthos works with the bar.

4.) Once the final battle is completed you collect your end reward and it resets the “flag” for that last battle, much like the Necropolis quests work later on. Still having to run all of the quests, but in any order you choose.

F2P vs. P2P

As it stands on its own, Catacombs isn’t worth purchasing for the F2P crowd. The end rewards are mildly useful and though the XP is decent, the replay value isn’t very high as it stands now. Much the same can be said of STK.

So what to do about it?

Well we could go two ways with this. Either move the Catacombs to the F2P quest list, or group it with the STK package at a price point somewhere between the cost of the two combined as of right now.. The two combined could be viewed as the “must have” lower level quest package and open up a mostly ignored group of quests to the general playing populous.

I think it’s important to note that the Catacombs exposes new players to the different DR’s of the undead and the importance of ghost touched for incorporeal targets. Though many vets cringe at the thought of running the Catacombs, it would be an excellent set of learning quests for new players and with the above changes it would be more player friendly with the quests broken apart.

Two other small changes I think should be made are.

1.) Move the Catacombs to the Harbor, or at least place a gate in the Harbor that would take you to the entrance of the Catacombs. It’s a series of level 3 quests and fits better in the Harbor than in the Marketplace as most, newer, players are level 4-5 when they move out of the Harbor.

2.) Change the Inquisitor Blades to metaline and ghost touched from the current silver and ghost touched that they are. This would hold especially well if the Catacombs were grouped with STK as it would give the melee a useful weapon to use as opposed to hoping for an adamantine random drop or the AH.

Whether or not the above changes would be hard to implement I don’t know. But I do know that they would help to get people into/purchasing a much disliked series of quests that are, in reality, pretty good.

In my opinion that is.

[moorewr]

I'm all for making our content easier to enter and enjoy. I like it.

I like having all the NPCs in the library with Dryden.. not least because they can be in the instance for endgame and die horribly, er, fight along side us as non-failure-condition-causing friendlies.

The endgame: dryden quest could easily be made a bit longer and more memorable without major changes.

[KoboldTrapper]

I see a couple of problems with your suggestions.

1) Favor.
If these quest packs were for the same group, which they are currently Silver Flame and The Coin Lords (or Free Merchants or whatever they are called).

2) Rewards.
You suggest merging 2 adventure packs, cutting rewards in half, while effectively doubling the time to run the quests for the 'rare' loot, like the FF ring of STK, for example.

3) Low Level.
The biggest reason people don't do these low level adventures is for that very reason. They are low level. Since they are low level, they have 'weak' loot/rewards, most of which are only selectively useful, like the "Spider Spike" (+1 vermin bane rapier), or the Battleworn Sword (+1 ghost touch greatsword even though this is chest loot).
None of the reward loot is as good as some of the rarer 'random' loot from chests, like bottle of air, ring of feathers, or the feather fall boots. If these packs gave better reward loot, they would be more popular, but then they would be a little unbalanced.

Why would the Silver Flame, a 'holy' order against all things undead/unnatural, give a weapon designed for anything BUT dealing with undead and evil outsiders? Just some food for thought.

On the positive side of your suggestions, however, I do like that you're trying to give suggestions toward improving the packs.

I feel that it would be best, in regards to the Catacombs, if the Bishop contacted you via magic. Making it similar to the Waterworks. A dungeon within a dungeon within a dungeon. lol. After all, isn't Eberron incredibly saturated with magic as compared to Greyhawk?

[Shyver]

I see a couple of problems with your suggestions.

1) Favor.
If these quest packs were for the same group, which they are currently Silver Flame and The Coin Lords (or Free Merchants or whatever they are called).

Really, other than flavor, I don't see a problem with mixing up the favors that are recieved from an adventure pack.

2) Rewards.
You suggest merging 2 adventure packs, cutting rewards in half, while effectively doubling the time to run the quests for the 'rare' loot, like the FF ring of STK, for example.

How would the rewards be cut in half and the quest time doubled? The quests would stay the same other than the catacombs broken into seperate quest givers. If anything, there would ba a chance for a few more end rewards as some of the quests in the chain don't currently give any end reward.

3) Low Level.
The biggest reason people don't do these low level adventures is for that very reason. They are low level. Since they are low level, they have 'weak' loot/rewards, most of which are only selectively useful, like the "Spider Spike" (+1 vermin bane rapier), or the Battleworn Sword (+1 ghost touch greatsword even though this is chest loot).
None of the reward loot is as good as some of the rarer 'random' loot from chests, like bottle of air, ring of feathers, or the feather fall boots. If these packs gave better reward loot, they would be more popular, but then they would be a little unbalanced.

What it would do is make the quests more accessable. So instead of running Waterworks till your eyes bleed, you'd see more groups taking on the catacombs since the xp is comparable. And really the items that you get are rather weak in comparison to the overpowered items that they started handing out on Korthos to the new players. As it is, the rewards from WW, STK, and the Catacombs should be brought up to par with that gotten from Korthos and the Sharn Syndicate quests.

Why would the Silver Flame, a 'holy' order against all things undead/unnatural, give a weapon designed for anything BUT dealing with undead and evil outsiders? Just some food for thought.

The change for the weapons was more in line with giving an incentive, other than xp, to run the quest chain. If people knew you could get a weapon that would be of benefit to your character against most golems and vampires from the quest then people are more likely to run the quest. As outsiders have a dr of either silver/good or cold iron/good, an argument could be made that the weapons would have a metaline function. (Although it still wouldn't bypass their DR since it lacks a holy or pure good aspect. But no giving away a devil beater in a lvl 3 quest chain. )

On the positive side of your suggestions, however, I do like that you're trying to give suggestions toward improving the packs.

I feel that it would be best, in regards to the Catacombs, if the Bishop contacted you via magic. Making it similar to the Waterworks. A dungeon within a dungeon within a dungeon. lol. After all, isn't Eberron incredibly saturated with magic as compared to Greyhawk?

Really the idea of merging the catacombs with STK was an afterthought to the overhaul in flagging and running the quests within the catacombs. Just trying to come up with a way to make it more accessable and worthwhile getting for the F2P player.

I'm a VIP so I'll always have access to the chain.

[tolana]

well i think you have some good points. this pack should be free to play because no vet is going to buy it unless they want the favor. but i like the stk run the way it is, in no way shape or form would i like to see this linked to the catacombs chain.

[Shyver]

well i think you have some good points. this pack should be free to play because no vet is going to buy it unless they want the favor. but i like the stk run the way it is, in no way shape or form would i like to see this linked to the catacombs chain.

Maybe I didn't word it correctly. There would be no link between the Catacombs and STK other than they came in the same adventure pack together for a slightly higher cost than what STK is now, but not as high as the two packs would be if you bought them at the same time seperate from one another.

The connection of the metalline weapons for use in STK was just a nice addition for low level charaters I thought.

The STK quests wouldn't change at all.

[KoboldTrapper]

I'm purely F2P, since I don't have disposable income. I used my hard earned points to buy both Catacombs and STK, they were both on sale when I got them, so I was fine with it. The difficulty or lack thereof doesn't bother me, nor am I concerned with the fact that I may be ridiculed for buying them. I'm here for the challenge/entertainment/story aspect of packs, nothing else.

I'd love to run STK more for the ring since that's all that will really appeal to me. Though, since I just changed servers, I'm gonna have to find where I got that bottle of air on khyber. lol.

[Shyver]

. Though, since I just changed servers, I'm gonna have to find where I got that bottle of air on khyber. lol.

Bottle of Air is found in Hiding in Plain Sight (lvl 10 quest, Titan quest pack), under the fan trap in the water. Not sure if it drops anywhere else.

[KoboldTrapper]

Except I never did that quest. I got my bottle of air at like, level 5.

[Letrii]

I say leave it alone, it is fine as it is.

[Atenhotep]

The Catacombs

1.) Move the Catacombs to the Harbor, or at least place a gate in the Harbor that would take you to the entrance of the Catacombs. It’s a series of level 3 quests and fits better in the Harbor than in the Marketplace as most, newer, players are level 4-5 when they move out of the Harbor.

I've thought they should move it for a long time. It makes no sense for the quest to be located in it's present spot given the level.

Another option, if it is to remain in the city, is to raise the level and difficulty of the whole thing.

[sirgog]

I've thought they should move it for a long time. It makes no sense for the quest to be located in it's present spot given the level.

Another option, if it is to remain in the city, is to raise the level and difficulty of the whole thing.

There are, however, already quite a lot of undead-themed quests a couple of levels higher (Catacombs is 2-4, Necro 1 is 5-6, Delara's main chain is 5-8, Delara's Graveyard also includes level 6, 8 and 9 quests, House J has undead-themed quests around level 6 as well.)

For that reason I wouldn't be a fan of pushing it up in level unless it's just by one level.


My biggest overall gripe with the Catacombs pack, however, is its slow pacing. There's more downtime than any other pack I can think of, lots of extremely easy fights, but a couple of fights/encounters that are far tougher. As a result, any player/group capable of beating the whole chain will find most of it dull. Raising the difficulty of the easier encounters, and improving the loot to Sharn Syndicate levels, would IMO make this a far better pack.