The quests that no one ever does.
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Personally kind of like the idea of a few longer slog quests being around. It might mean upping the reward or something, but the option for a two hour quest sounds awesome to me!
We also can track how long it takes the average party to do a quest, the average is 30 minutes. A quest that takes 2 hours should really yield quadrupedal the XP and loot (and I'm willing to make that happen too).
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@Khamal:
I have done each and every one of those quests multiple times over the years, including the discontinued ones.
I would never do Azer, Slums, Dead Luck, Fire Goblins or Cyric without a CB or Dobby team. Those quests are death traps for anyone else.
I never considered any of these to be especially hard either.
Hardest quest on the server is Alum-Ra though. And Haunted Painting is a cake walk with a certain class, and one of the hardest without it (or certain preperations). Slums tower can be tricky.
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Scrambled eggs:
Hardest one currently in my opinion because of the many many X-factors that can kill you. However, it has good gold and fantastic loot now, so the difficulty is well warranted. Last i knew the XP for it was awful. Difficulty: 9/10Fire goblins:
Great gold, good potions wise, terrible in terms of actual loot. A quest that takes a long time if you want to do it safely, which is good in my opinion. Xp was low if memory serves. Difficulty: 8/10Frost giants:
Decent gold, last time i knew it had awful loot compared to other high level quests and especially compared to the difficulty of the quest. Can turn real ugly real quick, all it takes is a crit to turn it ugly sometimes, which is good. Last time i knew the xp was decent. Difficulty: 7,5/10Hexing cows:
One of the more unforgiving quests around. Great gold, fantastic consumable wise, XP for lvl 7-9 is fantastic, barely existant at the higher levels, no actual loot though. Can turn real ugly real quick on certain points of this quest. I'd tie this one with Scrambled eggs if enemies could teleport in terms of difficulty. One of my favourites in terms of feel and difficulty. Difficulty: 8,5/10Slums tower:
One of those quests that can turn real ugly real quick. I haven't done it since loot update (if there's been one), but i remember some really good drops there. Gold is decent, i've never gotten any xp worth mentioning on this quest. If a party does not have the sense to rush this one, it's bound to get ugly. (i think it's even meant to be rushed, or designed that way). Difficulty: 7/10Aldeks bear claw:
Good gold compared to the difficulty and time that goes into this quest. If you have the sense to use minimal protections and prioritize your targets correctly , all but the boss fight is a piece of cake here. Boss can get real nasty though, which is good. The easiest of the lvl 7 min quests by far aside from the boss fight and ironically, one of the better ones in terms of xp, which might actually be the hardest one. Difficulty 5/10 (would've been 3 if not for the boss).Notebook:
One of the lengthier quests on the server. I really love it in terms of feel and difficulty. One of the few quests where you actually need to conserve your spells if you want to have any for the later part, making the first part seem harder than it truly is, which is nice. Decent gold at best considering the length, great loot if you're lucky and fantastic xp at the lower part of the quest (levels 4-7). Not very difficult overall though if you keep your senses about you. Difficulty: 6,5/10Dead Luck:
Rarely done because it can get real ugly fast if you're unlucky, the boss fight is one of the toughest ones on any quest because of its (in my opinion, poor) design. If you don't bring a lockpicker, this quest is a real downer in terms of gold and loot. Xp at the lower end (6-8) is just fantastic though. Difficulty level: 8/10 (only this high because of the boss fight)Swamp barbarians:
Good in terms of loot, xp and gold. There's only 1 real spot where you're in any real danger unless you play your cards wrong but i usually see someone die on that spot. I personally like this quest. Short, brutal and rewarding. Difficulty: 7,5/10Alumra:
Possibly tied with scrambled eggs and Hex cows in terms of difficulty now, which is fantastic. I love this quest and only downside is the extensive traveling time to it. Good loot unless you have very bad luck, fantastic xp, low on gold which is fine by me, if a quest has 2/3 in those, i think it's doing its job. The only thing i would change about this quest is the room with the juju zombies, i would make it so the exit can be clicked if you're swarmed, because if thing's go bad down there, you can't escape because of the small exit and swarming enemies. Diffculty: 8,5-9/10Ashby trilogy:
With updated loot and the level of gold, xp and loot these quests give, i would up the difficulty a lot to be honest. I'd add in elite goblin warriors and champions instead of bandits and bruisers, elite goblin mages instead of cyromancers. I'd replace the orc warriors on part 3 with elite orc champions and elite orc warriors, the truly old school dual wielding, 25ab elite orc champions. Black ravens serve as fantastic wild cards in terms of both damage and dispels, keep them about. Replace hobgoblin infiltrators with the hobgoblin champions from Hex Cows. Also, bosses of part 1 and 3 are casters, and casters who have dialogue tend to be very easy since they're usually already surrounded when fighting begins. If you could somehow teleport them acorss the room when they turn hostile and at the same time remove any traps (if there are any) from the bossroom, that would go a long way to make these bossfights more challenging. Gold is good on all parts, loot in fantastic and xp is good at lvl 9 at the least, cannot comment on higher levels than that. This questline would still be done a lot because it is very rewarding.
Difficulty:
Part 1: 7/10
Part 2: 7/10
Part 3: 8/10The Drow quest (can't remember the actual name):
I take it back about scrambled eggs being the toughest. This one was the toughest because of the sheer X-factors that can kill you here. Traps that can one shot you from hard hitting melee to spellcasters chugging out 8th level spells. The 2 times i've done this quest the rewards were horrible. 400 or so gold, barely any loot and xp was not even worth mentioning. The traps here are also lethal traps in the middle of actual fighting areas and can kill your entire frontline in one charge if you're not careful. I've been told the loot and gold is there, but if it's all in secret rooms, the locations of these -will- be metagamed to the extreme anyway because people want their money back when they do really challenging quests like these. I'd give Scrambled Eggs the edge in difficulty if it wasn't for one shotting traps in he middle of combat areas on this one. I never do this quest because it's never been even remotely worth it. Possibly we missed the secret areas, but the times i did it, it had 0/4 (XP, loot, gold, consumables). Difficulty: 9,5/10 (The insta gib traps make it tougher than scrambled eggs) -
@Khamal:
I have done each and every one of those quests multiple times over the years, including the discontinued ones.
I would never do Azer, Slums, Dead Luck, Fire Goblins or Cyric without a CB or Dobby team. Those quests are death traps for anyone else.
It is stupid comments like this that cause people to not do quests. Please stop saying things this ridiculous. The idea there is some magical quest god player who alone is competent to handle a quest is so pointless on so many levels. It actually upsets me as someone who works hard to specifically balance these quests so anyone can do them–but to publicly have someone who has 0 hand in balancing quests and who has made 0 effort to point out imbalance encourage people to just not do quests hurts the server.
So knock it off.
I've got to agree here. Aside from 2-3 quests, minimal buffs, barkskin and shield will see you safely through most quests unless you do something extremely stupid. :/
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Ashby part one is pretty balanced, and is the hardest of the three.
Part two is absurdly easy.
Part three is a little harder, but still fairly simple. -
Not sure how part 1 or 2 is more difficult than 3 for ashby. Black ravens are the most threatening thing about the trilogy and they don't even exist in part 1. Toughest quests are scrambled, alumra, and ashby part 3 followed by hex cows. Different quests can of course be more difficult with different party compositions. However I must throw out there that the loot on ashby at the moment in terms of difficulty is too powerful in comparison and perhaps even too powerful for the server. I'm not entirely convinced scrolls of mass heal or aura against alignment should be out there, especially for a quest that can be effectively 3 manned by an ideal party of level 8s.
Also kham, I'd like to echo a sentiment CB recently pointed out in IRC. He said he played a lot of tanky or mechanically competent PCs because he liked to be able to control what quests he did and when he did them at all times for his level range. Building strong PCs makes it a lot easier to include everyone on a tough quest where bringing them might usually make things a little complicated. If anything, it's more about knowing your party compositions and determining whether or not you should be able to handle the quest. One thing I can say though that will help a lot in this regard is having more support classes actually doing supporting. That's to say, if you're a wizard get your hands on some arcane healing wands and sit behind your frontline, ready to keep them healthy. The same goes for more reserved divine wands users. Also, if you can use divine wands and have a little bit of gold, its worth investing in stuff such as remove fear, remove paralysis, lesser restoration etc. Can't express how greatful people are and I am myself to see others running that sort of stuff. It will make for happy teammates and people that are eager to bring you along for fun stuff, even if you're not all that great at the combat aspect of NwN.
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Also CB out of the ones you mentioned I've never done fire gobs or drow quest, though its my understanding that drow quest can be done at times when there is a dire need for a reset, as the casters on it cast time stop and effectively break the server :p
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I definitely wouldnt rate swamp barbs more difficult than aldek and I would put pilgrims as the easiest 7-12 in the game, followed by aldek, and then probably slums tower. Slums is incredibly easy if you have a rogue, infact.
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Also, I like the idea of long quests as well. The castle assault quest is in all ways, an epic war. That said, even when you do find a party able to spend 2+ hours on a quest, there is very rarily 7 of them whom can all cooperate at the higher level range without murdering one another (this is the nature of player conflict) maybe lower it to 5 player minimum and scale it appropriately? Would also be nice if xp and loot rewards reflected the time put into such a lengthy quest. I believe I did it at level 8 or 9 and got only between 250-400 xp not including end turn in.
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Castle assault was always a loot quest. Gold and consumables were low for such a high player requirement. Then loot was removed and stopped dropping, ending in the quest offering little-nothing in terms of rewards. It is still very fun.
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Azer isn't even hard, it's just that not everyone knows there's a secret to doing it that makes it absolutely trivial.
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xp is supposed to taper off at upper levels btw. up to 6-7 is quick, above sposed to be SLOW
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I find xp doesn't really slow down much until the 10-12 level range. Might be worth scaling it back a level over 7 or 8.
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That is true KD but it depends on how well you use your consumables, your party and your class when you get above lvl 7-8 as the quests start to become more demanding there and that is also where you'll see a big difference in those players who know to go further because they got the right classes and mates to keep on questing with ease while some others will be struggling.
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Well yes, but for most in terms of consumables all you need is barkskin and shield, accompanied by whatever buffs can be provided by your party. Having competent and savvy casters is of course huge.
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That is true KD but it depends on how well you use your consumables, your party and your class when you get above lvl 7-8 as the quests start to become more demanding there and that is also where you'll see a big difference in those players who know to go further because they got the right classes and mates to keep on questing with ease while some others will be struggling.
They don't get that much more demanding unless you're traveling with minimal parties. Dobby has it right, most of these just require a handful of potions to get through, and you recoup them by the end of the quest in gold rewards.
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Yes, I think it's easily lost on people that questing is supposed to be profitable. It's generally a good idea to pop an improved barkskin for 132 g and 3-4 shield pots for 35g each and use 2-3 csw potions at roughly 70g each as opposed to trying to handle the quest with no buffs, going through 10+ csw potions and struggling to stay out of the fugue. I have even had this happen before and had to bail myself out with a 1200g heal pot thanks to my own stupidity, which is never ideal but better than losing xp and more than that in paying for a raise.
Anyway I guess my point is that in spending roughly 200g per quest on barkskin & shield on most 4-8 quests and beyond, you should actually be coming away from quests with a nice profit as opposed to dying constantly and spending the vast majority of your gold on healing.
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That is true KD but it depends on how well you use your consumables, your party and your class when you get above lvl 7-8 as the quests start to become more demanding there and that is also where you'll see a big difference in those players who know to go further because they got the right classes and mates to keep on questing with ease while some others will be struggling.
They don't get that much more demanding unless you're traveling with minimal parties. Dobby has it right, most of these just require a handful of potions to get through, and you recoup them by the end of the quest in gold rewards.
OMG Moloch, i like, totally said it before Dobby did. Stealing mah thunder!!!!
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I have updated the loot on Frost Giants, Drow, and Bresk. They were definitely underwhelming. Comprehensive feedback like the stuff CB posted is appreciated!
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Glad to hear frosties and bresk have been updated, though unless the casters were fixed on drow quest it's my understanding that they cast time stop (effectively reseting the server).