Discussion thread - The Lords of Dust

**WruntJunior** · 01-27-2012, 03:53 PM

Originally Posted by Fefnir_2011

I'm seeing a lot of you say this is too easy on Epic. I'm reinstalling the Llamaland client still so I haven't run it, but I am curious... this is a free to play quest chain, right? That means this will be the first free to play epic, so shouldn't it be a little easier, as "baby's first epic" so to speak? Or, is it ridiculously easy? Once i'm done installing I'm going to port over my evoker favored soul and pale master and see if it's silly easy for myself, but i was wondering if you guys would rank it as either:

a great introductory epic for those new to level 20

or

there's level 18 quests on elite that are miles ahead harder than this?

Interested in the answer either way, as regardless I have some friends who are new to 20 and are varying levels of subscribed, and if it's easy enough for a moderately geared wizard to solo, then it will be awesome for introducing those kind of people to epics (more so than eSnitch or eParty, anyway).

Normal Sins of Attrition (level 19 on normal) is of comparable difficulty to this quest on epic. Any of the reaver's refuge quests on elite (level 17 quests on normal) are harder than the quest on epic. This quest is much easier than the only quest I've soloed on epic (last stand), which is to me currently one of, if not the, easiest epics in the game on live.

The quest is way too easy on epic.

The other three difficulties seem about right...not too hard for a prepared party on elite (doesn't require knowledge of the quest, just a competent group) at level, which is right for a f2p quest chain. Normal and hard are understandably easier.

**Jaxom_Faux** · 01-27-2012, 08:47 PM

burned through it on my lvl 20 cleric on elite. wasn't terribly hard and i only feared for my life once or twice (mostly because i was only aura healing but the second i'll bring up)

first i thought it was pretty good but definately unfinished, i'd like to see maybe a few side routes with optionals or some such. inquisitor + novice just standing there even if you finished the quest was jarring as was the realization they had a perma-locked door. maybe have it open when you get to where you "catch up" to them?

i enjoyed the switches behind the breakables, agree breaking down all the doors would aid the hurry up and zergy feel.

agree the traps needed to be more unpredictable for amusements sake but whatever works, i mean, there really are only a finite number of types of traps available but i keep hoping for a giant character mouse trap with a big kargon's tasty ham for bait one of these days.

was completely dissapointed by the death knights. you're supposed to think your going to die when you see one like i did. now maybe you don't need to give them all their 2nd edition glory but at least make them memorable to run into instead of "generic evil paladins meh" thought i will say they looked good. maybe some glowing eyes like pale masters wraith form

3 phase end fight wasn't bad though in my elite run the skele's were immune to turns and healed from my heal aura and healing bursts.

being dp'ed felt good but otherwise the rashasa wasn't bad, i just hid around corners.
would be nice if the bosses would jeer as you fight the skele's and if the drow would taunt the rakshasa as i kill him.

the dr"ow" wasn't very impressive except when he sundered me and suddenly started critting.

death taunt was nice

really like the giant broken glowing wall

and kyber? there's a portal to the forgotten realms floating in kyber guarded by silver flame zealots specifically to keep lloth out? sure why not, i'll wait till i get the full explanation before judging.

i also like it being a lvl 16 freebie quest.

**Vormaerin** · 01-28-2012, 02:46 AM

Originally Posted by joaofalcao

The fact Turbine turned Gnomon in a rakshasa just shows Turbine is really serious in business and will dumb down Eberron and whatever takes it, to get a bigger black and white audience in order to make more profit.

What? This makes no sense. Making Gnomon a Rakshasa is not going to change anything about Turbine's profit margin and it has nothing to do with dumbing down Eberron.

You do realize that Purge the Heretics isn't a Silver Flame quest, right? Its a Phiarlan house quest. Anyone who thought Gnomon wasn't some kind of spy/assassin/double dealer wasn't paying attention.

Also... you do realize that all of the Silver Flame quests in the game make the SF look like a bunch of jerks, don't you? "Bringing the Light" is all about intolerance. "Catacombs" is a massive story of church ickiness. The Necropolis has them working closely with the Hand of Vol, of all things. "Into the Demon's Den" at lvl 18 is the first quest where the Silver Flame guys don't look like nasty types.

Turbine is actively using all the special features of Eberron in its stories: draconic prophecy, undead elves, orcish druids, Quori, the unique set of planes and the conjunctions with the regular world, etc. It has all that and you think making one quest giver into a rakshasa (thus introducing the Lords of Dust) is somehow dumbing down the game world?

All I can say is "What the heck are you smoking?"

**Flavilandile** · 01-28-2012, 09:42 AM

I went again in the quest, I wanted to check something after the reports that Gnomon and his novice were left in a room for the whole time...

What I wanted to check has been proved.
It has been Bug Reported and it's Fight Club Material.

Note : I reached past the point expected to reach in my bug report.

**Havok.cry** · 01-28-2012, 02:32 PM

OK I finally got lamma loaded back:

Ran through some traps and had the word reflex next to the damage numbers: very nice

When the inquisitor first leaves you he goes into a dead end room, and just stops. Later you find his dead novice next to an unopenable door. When you DDoor back to beginning you find the still living apprentice and the inquisitor still standing there telling you to go on. I think adding in another unopeneable door to the first area, that the inquisitor and apprentice go through and disappear, would give a better feel to the adventure.

After clearing up to the hidden temple I entered it, then decided to DDoor back and break everything to make sure I wasn't missing something. When I did, all the alters I had broken had reappeared, but were untargetable/unactivatable

**RandomKeypress** · 01-28-2012, 03:01 PM

I've run this now about eight times with my lev 20 rogue, at all difficulties.

Generally, I like the quest. The traps are fun (nice to see the trap boxes past the traps - keeps things interesting). The trash mobs are lovely throw-away chew toys - you can have a lot of satisfaction blazing through them (although I agree with everyone else who has said that the quest is probably a bit too easy). Boss fights are noticeable for their ramp in difficulty (well, okay, there are more HP to chew through).

You really want a PC cleric / fvs / ranger / bard for this - the hold monster spells get a little old on higher difficulties. Some form of GH is useful against the fears.

On epic, there were a mountain of deaths with my PUG (my rogue had the second highest HP at 407, the sorc had 162 hp) but the FvS hireling did a reasonable job anyway. My rogue died once. The final boss hits like a freight train - does make things interesting, but he has no range attack worth speaking of, and no way of slowing down kiters. Not suggesting a nerf - it's nice to have an easy epic - but once everyone had cleared the skellies and Gnommon out of the way, it would have been quicker for my repeater rogue to solo kite him.

Overall, not the hardest quest by any stretch, but not too long and a bit fun. Didn't realise that divinely powered toons could purify the altars for an extra chest - that's a nice touch.

**Cetus** · 01-28-2012, 05:27 PM

My biggest problem with this quest is the xp. Its level 16 counterparts in the vale are granting wayyy more xp than this quest is. I'd like to incorporate some new quests into my TR grind at this level, and these quests are clearly not cutting it.

The optional xp should get a decent number attached to it, and the base xp with all elite bravery streaks on elite should give 20k+

**TiranBlade** · 01-28-2012, 08:19 PM

Warning Spoilers below:

I love the fact you have content that is altering the public areas after use, this makes it so that the game feels more alive, I'd love to see more stuff like this, also I'd love to see it that when a character is too low a level to take the quests for this new chain that none of the NPCs or the crack in the wall show until it's time, so the characters have the feel that the events are happening as they progress, not just as your adding them to the game, not just adding clutter but adding an evovling game as a character progresses.

**zorander6** · 01-28-2012, 10:16 PM

Ran this with my guild and it was a decent quest. The lack of a map made it a little difficult (mainly for my guildies) but beyond that really a pretty straight forward quest. Didn't try going back and seeing if gnomon was still there, we did manage to kill the skellies first. I do sometimes miss the old "find the map" portion of some games but not sure how well it'd work in DDO. Unless it was in a random chest or location it'd be found too fast to be worth bothering with.

**DANTEIL** · 01-28-2012, 10:51 PM

I'm a little concerned (for myself) that so many people are saying that this is too easy -- while it did seem to go mostly smoothly for me, at the very end (like many Turbine quests), the difficulty took a sharp increase.

I attempted this on Normal on a lvl 20 artificer that I had just leveled up, so part of my difficulties might come from being unfamiliar with that class. In addition to my pet I had a FvS hireling. Like I said, for the most part I found it straightforward -- the cultists do seem a bit weak, but I had particular difficulty with the rakshasha, and especially the rakshasha gnomon at the end, who ended up killing me (+pet/hireling). It was pretty much a one-shot deal, so perhaps that was a freak incident, but I felt pretty helpless.

I liked all the collectibles and the traps. I wasn't sure why 'cleaning the altars' or whatever was an optional. Without a map, it was still pretty easy to navigate; like several people have said, it is fairly linear. (that's not a complaint just an observation!). Until I died, I liked the quest, but it mostly seemed like set-up for the rest of the chain.

**zebidos** · 01-29-2012, 04:19 AM

I found the quest pretty straightforward, the character I was using was a 13 barbarian 2 rogue halfling and normal was a breeze.

I then did elite solo and everything went ok, other then the normal hireling cleric death in those lovely traps but thats normal.

I could not finish the end fight against the furry on elite by myself though as the rate of regeneration was too high, I was using a triple positive greensteel great axe so the damage I was dealing wasn't that bad but simply could not bring the furry dude down fast enough.

I then got four gold seal hirelings and had them join me in the fight, still not enough to bring the end furry dude down.

So I set myself to auto attack along with the hirelings on attack mode and got a cup of coffee, came back 5 mins later and he was still at 50% health.

Maybe that is the intention, and yes I was a bit underlevel but maybe change it a lil bit for halfling barbarians, just a lil.

Also the XP could use a boost, I know its a short quest and free to play but as more XP is needed at that level a boost may be called for.

**SisAmethyst** · 01-29-2012, 05:38 AM

I entered on epic with a guildy (mage+cleric) who instantly called me crazy to enter in unknown territory straight ahead on this difficulty

However after reading about the difficulty I was just curious how far we would make it.

Anyway the quest is indeed very straight forward and linear. While I think it is too linear my guildy got a bit confused about the looks and ran in the wrong direction after we cleared a side room, so mileages may vary. For an epic quest the mobs at the beginning are indeed easy to manage. However I have to admit that we didn't made any attempt to save mana as endless Trubine Points allow for endless resources.

Its a bit strange that Gnomon suddenly stop infront of the wall that neither have a secret door nor nothing and call me to go ahead.

For teh traps I guess most of them can be timed (except maybe the first which has a doable reflex save), so that even an Artificer is able to handle them. Interesting is the Sonic trap with the Rakshasa where you can notice the trap but the box is hidden till you defeat the enemy, which makes it likely to trigger this enemy before the trap is disarmed. The firetrap in the room before the shrine is as well a nice surprise for the first time.

The double box trap for the spike trap is also a nice small addition. In general I like the nice setup of traps and that you mostly have enough room and space do the traps without being disturbed by too much enemies in the same time.

One thing we notice close to the end was that the cleric could purify the altar while I only had the chance to destroy it. As we mixed both I am unsure if one or the other way would have a different outcome at the end, which would be nice!

The end fight indeed take a steep curve. The summoned skelletons are already a bit tougher as well as is Gollum ... aahhh I mean Gnomon ... but the Assassin then really hit lik a train with hits insta kill attack. After some unprepared deaths, we ended with kiting him through a setup of blade barriers, symbols and fire walls, as he luckily isn't fast enough to catch up with a constant hasted kiter. As non of us where a real fighter I am unsure how good you can block his special attacks.

In short:

Quest design
- nice combination of traps with reflex save
- make at least the spike trap more random on epic
- to linear for me and I would like to have some more side ways to go
- strange that you can go back and find the NPC still standing infront of a wall
- I like levers hidden behind obstacles

Enemies
- I like the look of the Rakshasas and Death Knights, but disappointed about the difficulty of the later
- the end boss seem to be a kiter boss, I would have liked if there are better options then kitting the boss on epic

XP
- the XP is way too low, especially when doing all optionals, killing all enemies and crashing all boxes

**RandomKeypress** · 01-29-2012, 12:29 PM

Did another run - tried to solo it on epic with my rogue and a lev 20 FvS hireling. Got as far as Gnommon - his regen, dots and that <censored> symbol of stunning did me in. Had him down to about 40% health, but the regen meant that I couldn't just chip him down.

Killing the skeleton cultists is really really really boring with a rogue - well, my repeater rogue anyway. The silver slingshot is a nice colour piece, but the damage isn't that great, particularly when I could barely hit the mobs. An undead bane added to the thing would make it nicer in those circumstances, hint, hint.

Took a little over 900 house D sturdy bolts to get up to Gnommon, with most of that against the skellies. I know from experience that I can kite and kill Karas, so if I could come up with a better strategy for the rakasha (and something to kill the skellies quicker) it should be fairly easy to solo. I think a PLIS might be all I need - it should protect against the dots long enough for me to bring him down. Dreaming dark here I come.

Lets face it - if a toon with no blue bar and isn't played by Shade can seriously think of soloing this thing on epic, it is far too easy.

**Hendrik** · 01-29-2012, 12:47 PM

Fun Quest and kudos to the Art Dept once again!

Feedback;

1. XP is a bit to low. Maybe add another 1.5-2k to it?

2. Albeit a very linear Quest, I am VERY disappointed I cannot open all the doors - even if nothing in the rooms. The inability to explore what is behind door number one, two, three really emphasizes the linear aspect of the Quest. IMO, allowing us to open doors would detract some from it's linear aspect.

3. It IS a bit to easy! At level and adequately equipped character will not have much of any challenge with this Quest. Increase the difficulty and that would justify the additional XP.

4. Lack of visual diversity in Cultists. Please, just add some different clothing or weapons to add some diversity.

Levers behind breakables: /hi5!

**Scraap** · 01-29-2012, 01:25 PM

For what it's worth:

I'll echo that 16 normal on a 20 fighter was a breeze. Even saw a hefty amount of misses with his old gear that caped at 63 AC.

Epic? Never made it past the first room. But then, well, fighter. And old gear at that.

Kind of a pity the transfer's still busted, got a 16 arty and an 18 wiz/rogue I'd love to throw in there and test at actual level-appropriateness.

**joaofalcao** · 01-29-2012, 05:36 PM