The Isle of Dread Landscape

[GoldyGopher]

Semi filled with Spoilers, be warned!

I entered the Isle of Dread wilderness adventure area from the gate on top of the south hill in the public instance of the Village of Tanaroa. After 10 minutes of running around I had three main thoughts.

1. Yes I read Steelstar post "The landscape has relatively few monsters in it. More are on the way (including more dinosaurs.)" but none is not few.
2. Holy Macaronni Batman, is this a ultra Tiny Landscape. I explored it in its entirety in 10 minutes.
3. What is with all the invisible walls in the weird spots in the landscape.

In the first ten minutes I did not come across a single mob. i finally cam across a lone Ankylosaurus and after admiring it for several minutes trying to get a good image, I triggered it and it attacked. It had, gulp 537 HP, and fell dead to a grazing attack. i am not sure if the activation box was working as I practically stood on its head for two minutes, but one step on the lower slope and whammo it charged me.

The invisible walls located throughout the landscape are a pain in the [redacted]. Really. I am on the cliff over looking "The destroyed ship" Can't jump down invisiable wall, run around the wall to the cut down to the water. Why have a wall there, why have any of the walls on the cliffs in the first place? The Invisible wall should be in the water a short ways out from the Island at the nearest point. If I jump/fall off the the cliffs I should have to find a way back up. Running headlong into an odd shaped wall or running around both sides of the wall is pointless: example end of the path on the Western Peninsula you can run all the way around it. Another one at the big tree at the end. These invisiable walls create a number of stuck spots, however the in-game bug reporting tool was not working for me.

Typo in the text by the destroyed ship (Find where you washed up on Shore). "Take you back to Eberron" should read "Take you back to Stormreach" Even if the island is on a different plane our characters would not know that at the moment when you get there.
The destroyed ship mast, sails, and rigging are in too good of shape. It's jarring to see the lack of damage to them compared to the rest of the damage.

There are the series of small islands off to the east of the western peninsula, it sure feels like you should be able to get to them, but cannot. They appear on the Map.

A number of the new trees with large roots are not completely stuck in the ground.

After grumbling about the size of the zone I went back into the Village of Tanaroa and was looking around and discovered a second entrance to the Northern Wilderness Area. Made me wonder why there isn't a path connecting or if I couldn't find a path, spent thirty minutes looking, twice.

Took me 45 minutes to run around the outside of the island, now that is an explorer zone. Very much a King Kong (1976 version) vibe going on.
The Sabertooth Tigers could use some art upgrades, awfully plain looking
Vixorshal had no hitpoints, it was under 2000.

I am a little confused on the activation of the mobs, some mobs like the Lizard Folk require you to cut down two or three of the group to activate while the Marauders on the other side of the zone suddenly activate and run halfway across the island to get to you. The Humans in general seem more active than the rest of the mobs, but the Lizard Folk were the worst offender.

I spent three hours in total exploring the Northern island, still missing 4 Explorers and half-a-dozen journals between the two sets.

For the most part I was astonished by the visuals of the two zones. The few items I mentioned really broke immersion for me. The Dinosaurs are spectacular, hopefully the Brontosaurus moves in the near future.

Same comments about all the invisible walls in the norther section. What is the point of the wall halfway up the trail in the north east corner? You can jump over it from the north, but can't get over it from the south. It is a wall not no transversal terrain.

[ahpook]

...What is with all the invisible walls in the weird spots in the landscape....

Thanks Goldy. If devs are reading I would like to point out that I really hate invisible walls. Really. Hate.

My take is that if a player notices an invisible wall it should be considered a fail for the map designer.

[GoldyGopher]

Thanks Goldy. If devs are reading I would like to point out that I really hate invisible walls. Really. Hate.

My take is that if a player notices an invisible wall it should be considered a fail for the map designer.

It really reminded of the Original Invisible Walls in the Devil's Battlefield which over time got cleaned up. Here the big problem is both consistency of location (some are 2 meters from a cliff edge some are on the downward slope, some seem to block a potential stuck spot others...) and the *** is that Invisible Wall doing there.

For me just put them ten meters out from the shore line and be done with it. If some yahoo like me falls down the cliff let the yahoo deal with it. Jokes about newbs dying in Korthos Island Wilderness aside, if you are not going to use the training walls on Korthos where a character with 20 HP can die than why use them here where characters should have 100+ HP at level 7.

[Oxarhamar]

I also find invisible walls to be annoying

Please fix this

Signed

[GoldyGopher]

Not sure this working as intended:
Level 20 character in on Legendary - (Advancement): Slay 1 hostile creatures on the Isle of Dread. : 6,395 XP awarded

[dunklezhan]

Thanks Goldy. If devs are reading I would like to point out that I really hate invisible walls. Really. Hate.

My take is that if a player notices an invisible wall it should be considered a fail for the map designer.

100% this (sorry devs but I agree - this isn't a 'less than ideal' design constraint from my perspective, its an awful wrench out of my immersion zone).

I can live with them out in the ocean, the water goes on forever etc... but you should have to do some work to hit that wall. Not see an enticing vista you can't get to for no apparent reason. Don't give me a view I can't explore without a visual clue as to why.

[PsychoBlonde]

Did you go out the South gate or the North gate? The landscape is HUGE, dude, it's just in two parts with the town in the middle:

[GoldyGopher]

From my original Note:

After grumbling about the size of the zone I went back into the Village of Tanaroa and was looking around and discovered a second entrance to the Northern Wilderness Area. Made me wonder why there isn't a path connecting or if I couldn't find a path, spent thirty minutes looking, twice.

Took me 45 minutes to run around the outside of the island, now that is an explorer zone. Very much a King Kong (1976 version) vibe going on.

Did you go out the South gate or the North gate? The landscape is HUGE, dude, it's just in two parts with the town in the middle:

[Arkat]

Not sure this working as intended:
Level 20 character in on Legendary - (Advancement): Slay 1 hostile creatures on the Isle of Dread. : 6,395 XP awarded

My wife and I got a kick out of that one, too!

[Alrik_Fassbauer]

I have a rather cosmetic suggestion :

If I have fulfilled all tasks of a wilderness - explorer, rares, slayer - then it would be nice if not only the numbers of these tasks would be coloured green, but also the location name of the wilderness.
Currently, it is in yellow as well, as if not all tasks had been fulfilled.

[Vooduspyce]

Did you go out the South gate or the North gate? The landscape is HUGE, dude, it's just in two parts with the town in the middle:

The brontosaurus is so big you can see it from space!!

[Baahb3]

In Saltmarsh explorer zone, I was very angry with the activation necessary of mobs. You practically had to run up and slap them before you could hard target them with tab target.

This made ranged characters a complete pain to run through there.

Is the new IoD zone like this or is it a normal one like the Vale or Orchard?

[GoldyGopher]

In Saltmarsh explorer zone, I was very angry with the activation necessary of mobs. You practically had to run up and slap them before you could hard target them with tab target.

This made ranged characters a complete pain to run through there.

Is the new IoD zone like this or is it a normal one like the Vale or Orchard?

It is a mixed bag at the moment.

The Human Mobs have a pretty large zone of activation, non-human mobs zone of activation is pretty small with some of them requiring you to smack several of the mobs in a single group to activate them.

[Baahb3]

It is a mixed bag at the moment.

The Human Mobs have a pretty large zone of activation, non-human mobs zone of activation is pretty small with some of them requiring you to smack several of the mobs in a single group to activate them.

Thanks. It will be a real shame if they use the same behavior from Saltmarsh.

[Nandos]

Thanks. It will be a real shame if they use the same behavior from Saltmarsh.

Negative. A lot of people loved the fact that you could ride to a quest and not create an instant red alert with half the zone chasing you. This probably helped on server lag too. I don't think they will or should change it back.

[Baahb3]

I don't think they will or should change it back.

Maybe they should just get rid of the idiocy of dungeon alert in wilderness zones.

[Driss]

I REALLY dislike invisible walls, they're very non-D&Dish. The only place they should exist is in the sea. I can't even jump off the bridge in the Harbor! Another annoyance are the mobs you need to hug before they activate, this is another immersion destroyer. Why are certain mobs coded like this?

[Seph1roth5]

Negative. A lot of people loved the fact that you could ride to a quest and not create an instant red alert with half the zone chasing you. This probably helped on server lag too. I don't think they will or should change it back.

That doesn't make sense. The problem with saltmarsh is that you COULDN'T target enemies until you were stupid close. In other wildernesses you actually have more control over skipping mobs. If there are enemies on the path you take to a quest, you're going to activate them either way...all this does is make it far more annoying for non-melees.

[ahpook]

In Saltmarsh explorer zone, I was very angry with the activation necessary of mobs. You practically had to run up and slap them before you could hard target them with tab target.

This made ranged characters a complete pain to run through there.

I did not mind saltmarsh on my ranger. You could not TAB target them but you could reticle target them and shoot them to kill them (or activate them if they lived). For some odd reason there were a handful of mobs that would not take damage until you approached them and that was irritating.

For me the biggest issue is the inconsistency where every zone seems to get different rules. It seems like the devs are just randomly trying different stuff without any plan or follow through. Irritating, but still not as bad as invisible walls. Remember, invisible walls are still the real evils in this game.