U56 Lamannia 3 - Temple of Elemental Evil Content Updates Overview

[GoldyGopher]

I tried to run the Temple of Elemental Evil on Legendary last night. I say tried because I ran out of time after spend more than an hour on the "first part" after running it I still probably won't run the quests.

I don't run TOEE currently because it is too long and too much of a slog, uninteresting content and the XP is way to low. The idea of splitting it apart into smaller quests on the surface makes a lot of sense. After seeing the loot last preview I think it needs some adjustment but ...

Lets just start and say it is not the way I would have split up the quests. I guess I had visions of the exterior and interior of the base quests as 'wilderness adventure areas', with rares as optionals and explorers with the end sections of the nodes|quests as the new shorter quests. It made sense to me based upon how it was described before seeing it. Now instead of one super long quest, that an uninteresting slog with low XP, it appears we have multiple uninteresting slogs, I mean long quests with low XP.

[Mindos]

Have you even considered actually ASKING players why they're not running ToEE? What they like and dislike?
Or just made the assumption that splitting it into smaller pieces would somehow make it more bearable?

I wonder if the Player's Council feedback matches the general population sentiment.

[HailBlazR]

Have you even considered actually ASKING players why they're not running ToEE? What they like and dislike?
Or just made the assumption that splitting it into smaller pieces would somehow make it more bearable?

Of course they never ask us. And then when they DO get feedback about why the changes are terrible (like here), they just ignore them and proceed with their plans anyway. This has been their modus operandi for years now.

At this rate, I predict the ToEE rework will end up being even worse than the original launch from 2015. And i'd know from experience; I wrote extensively about this back when it was first launched.

[Aelonwy]

I know almost no one ever goes and tries new or revamped content on heroics so I thought I would transfer my rogue acrobat who is at level 8 and try the changes out on NORMAL and even with named item gear and True Seeing with a search and spot of 32 I CANNOT see the secret door that the DM narration hints at in the gargoyle room of the VERY FIRST quest, again on HEROIC NORMAL. I have no idea what DC you have this set for but this is a multi-life character with good gear. EVEN the Secret Door Detection wand from the store could NOT find this secret door which leads me to believe it doesn't exist anymore despite the DM narration which by the way is also triggered from the Shrine side. Wasted a lot of my time there expecting the north rune to be past that secret door. I did find the rune but I also found this incredibly annoying. Removing secret doors removes joy for rogues.

EDIT: I suggest you remove the secret door from shrine side and bring one back to the gargoyle room this will block off the shrine and northern halls but open up a small secret room north of the gargoyle room where you could place an extra locked and/or trapped chest, a spawn place with a higher than average chance for a rare, or even an elemental shrine. Furthermore not only is there still DM narration on gargoyle side but there are also footprints leading to a blank wall.

Overall my only other complaint is that on normal that ballista is still unusually deadly, I can't imagine taking a shot from it on a higher difficulty. It is the absolutely most dangerous thing I faced in there on normal. Not that I think you should bum rush the thing but the way it slows you if it clips you even once means you are likely to get hit multiple times trying to position yourself out of its line of sight.

[Recared]

The new augments (from this U56 and also from last U55) are very nice, but while I would prefer it very much to make them tradeable (not bta), could there be at least a system to exchange an amount of augments (from same pack, for example) for a desired one? It's a bit frustrating to get augments in loot but never the one you are looking for, and no way to have a guarantee to get it even if trying hard. Thank you very much for thinking about it!! Great work altogether, the game just keeps getting better and better!

[Epicsoul]

I will miss stepping into the court yard and opening the gold plated doors to Wheaton's narration. It would be cool if you had to complete the first quest, which then opened up the public area for the remaining quests.

[Dabima]

5. all the elemental barries (earth/air/fire/water barrier) are missing the visual fx. On lammania, it is just transparent - you run into an invisible wall. When you apply the key to the invisible barrier, the elemental color barrier flickers for an instant.

This has been bugged for at least 3-4 years now. I've reported it at least 5 times during that time, but maybe it'll finally get fixed now that they are redoing the quests

[grrowler]

This has been bugged for at least 3-4 years now. I've reported it at least 5 times during that time, but maybe it'll finally get fixed now that they are redoing the quests

is that really the case? I have run TOEE part 1 on live multiple time within the past year, and each elemental force barrier was visible as a color wall which disappeared when you unlock it with the appropriate elemental key.

It was only when I ran the updated lammania one that the barriers were invisible. Has this really been a visual bug on the live TOEE?


I was able tonight to run the earth node TOEE(2) quest on Lammania.
I am a bit disappointed that there was a dragon at the intersection for the final hall area

Optional Encounters!
There are a few tougher optionals in the new Temple, and that's where you will be able to locate the old named items you used to be able to find in the Temple's Random Encounter chests (Sapphire Sting, etc).

I am hoping that is not one of the "Optional Encounters!" that Steelstar mentioned. It did not feel "optional" because I had to get past it in order to get to the halls beyond.

It was the dragon, surrounded by something like 15 watcher constructs that were hitting me with arcane zaps.
ugh that was unpleasant. I do not know if this was considered an optional or if this was a required encounter.

Anyway, I agree with others that the xp rewards for the node quest seemed low for the time it took.



Since I never got to the final Zuggtmoy quest, I was wondering if anyone could describe to me how the fight has been updated to be more 'approachable'? is it the same mechanics as before?

[QuantumFX]

Someone broke the secret door at (Standard): You are on server 24 at r2 lx912 ly2024 i7 cInside ox20.00 oy303.70 oz-249.39 h4.2. Game timestamp 136525.404.

[Cordovan]

I wanted to follow up on the question of Favor when this goes live: For now we will be retaining the favor associated with the completion of the soon to be old Temple of Elemental Evil parts 1 and 2, so your favor total will not change when this goes live. This is being done in part to not impact the standings on the Hardcore leaderboards, but it's a general experience as well. Eventually, however, we will be removing these quests from the adventure compendium, and their favor will be reduced. When that happens, no favor tier already unlocked will be impacted.

[rabidfox]

I wanted to follow up on the question of Favor when this goes live: For now we will be retaining the favor associated with the completion of the soon to be old Temple of Elemental Evil parts 1 and 2, so your favor total will not change when this goes live. This is being done in part to not impact the standings on the Hardcore leaderboards, but it's a general experience as well. Eventually, however, we will be removing these quests from the adventure compendium, and their favor will be reduced. When that happens, no favor tier already unlocked will be impacted.

So those who've done ToEE prior to change will have an advantage of extra favor on HC that no one else can obtain after the update? That makes the HC favor leaderboards pretty unfair.

[dogsoldier]

What is happening with the ml7 and ml22 pet collars? These are a couple of the very few functional pet collars in the game. If the 22 one moves to 31 it goes from being useful for druid and arti epic leveling to being mostly useless.

[ahpook]

I wasn't going to comment on this change because I didn't care enough about ToEE. But as I completed another Epic TR this weekend, I realized that the reason I don't care about ToEE is not just because it is an overly bloated pair of quests but because it sits at level 30. There is already so much content in the legendary range that I don't know if you can make enough changes to make this content interesting compared to Ravenloft, Feywild, Sharn, Tethyamar, Saltmarsh, Disciples of Rage, Trial of Archons, Devils Gambit. That is a big list to compete with.

At level 30 there are 10 quests (and another 30 quests at level 31). This will increase that by another 5(?) meaning 45 quests between 30 and 31.

At level 25 there are 6. At level 26 there are 9. If ToEE had been worked to smaller quests in the 25 to 26 range that would have been far more interesting. It might have also solved the loot issue where you don't need to compete with all the Ravenloft, Sharn, Feywild gear slots that are giving required set bonuses. Honestly, has the feedback in the loot thread made you feel like you are pleasing the player base with what is on offer?

I doubt that you will change plans at this time but you really need to look at the quests available by range and quit jamming so much up in to the legendary where there is already so much content.

[SocratesBastardSon]

I wasn't going to comment on this change because I didn't care enough about ToEE. But as I completed another Epic TR this weekend, I realized that the reason I don't care about ToEE is not just because it is an overly bloated pair of quests but because it sits at level 30. There is already so much content in the legendary range that I don't know if you can make enough changes to make this content interesting compared to Ravenloft, Feywild, Sharn, Tethyamar, Saltmarsh, Disciples of Rage, Trial of Archons, Devils Gambit. That is a big list to compete with.

At level 30 there are 10 quests (and another 30 quests at level 31). This will increase that by another 5(?) meaning 45 quests between 30 and 31.

At level 25 there are 6. At level 26 there are 9. If ToEE had been worked to smaller quests in the 25 to 26 range that would have been far more interesting. It might have also solved the loot issue where you don't need to compete with all the Ravenloft, Sharn, Feywild gear slots that are giving required set bonuses. Honestly, has the feedback in the loot thread made you feel like you are pleasing the player base with what is on offer?

I second the motion. Moving ToEE epic quests down a few slots would be huge help and make epic leveling feel less, well, barren.

[Epicsoul]

I wanted to follow up on the question of Favor when this goes live: For now we will be retaining the favor associated with the completion of the soon to be old Temple of Elemental Evil parts 1 and 2, so your favor total will not change when this goes live. This is being done in part to not impact the standings on the Hardcore leaderboards, but it's a general experience as well. Eventually, however, we will be removing these quests from the adventure compendium, and their favor will be reduced. When that happens, no favor tier already unlocked will be impacted.

What? This is completely unfair to those who don't run it beforehand. Just don't introduce the new version of the quests on Hardcore or automatically grant players the favor from old Temple of Elemental Evil 1 & 2. Otherwise, you are essentially giving some players a 30 favor lead and that's equally bogus. Releasing these changes during HC is bad enough, let alone influencing the leader boards like this.

[rabidfox]

What? This is completely unfair to those who don't run it beforehand. Just don't introduce the new version of the quests on Hardcore or automatically grant players the favor from old Temple of Elemental Evil 1 & 2. Otherwise, you are essentially giving some players a 30 favor lead and that's equally bogus. Releasing these changes during HC is bad enough, let alone influencing the leader boards like this.

Yeah, it's no longer a fair ranked contest once people are locked from being able to obtain those 30 points. No matter how highly someone ranks, the results will be questionable since they may or may not have had that extra favor on the character to get their lead.

[Seph1roth5]

Is it really a ranked contest when there's absolutely no prize?

[Tanky]

I wanted to follow up on the question of Favor when this goes live: For now we will be retaining the favor associated with the completion of the soon to be old Temple of Elemental Evil parts 1 and 2, so your favor total will not change when this goes live. This is being done in part to not impact the standings on the Hardcore leaderboards, but it's a general experience as well. Eventually, however, we will be removing these quests from the adventure compendium, and their favor will be reduced. When that happens, no favor tier already unlocked will be impacted.

With this decision, you have done a great job of trashing the legitimacy of the favor rankings.

[Annex]

Have you considered bundling the 7 Temple quests into a saga? If 7 quests are not enough for a saga, have you considered bundling the 7 Temple and 3 Slave Lords quests together as a very long saga?

[droid327]

Eventually, however, we will be removing these quests from the adventure compendium, and their favor will be reduced.

Reduced?!?

They give 30 max favor for both as "long" quests...there's 7 now...so keeping with general design philosophy, that would work out to 4 max favor each, and 5 max favor for the two parts corresponding to the "end" of TOEE 1 and 2

Thats really low for individual quests at that level - which says something about how TOEE was always undervalued for its length (especially if you needed to run all 4 wings in ToEE 2, like you need to run all 4 pre-quests now as I understand it?)

I get you dont want to mess up HC (though I dont like that its forcing you to make Live accommodate HC like you said it wouldn't), but this chain should eventually have favor that reflects the actual time and effort it takes, relative to other quests at-level, and that means a substantial increase in total favor...Gatekeeper favor is not a bottleneck for anything anyway, really, since there's already 660 available.

I like the idea of Saga-fying it too - I'd probably pair it with WPM (not the "Other Stories" though, just the main quest at L8). Both are Gatekeepers, both are in Greyhawk, both have a similar feel of being a long wing quest with lots of different variety, and the quest length is comparable to 3BC saga (since WPM is also like 3 "short" quests in one). Or you could put Slavers in there too as a complete "Champion of Greyhawk" saga - but that'd be a LOT of questing, and the reward would have to really knock your socks off.