Undermountain Level 15 is now OPEN!!!!!!

[robertthebard]

I can't get in, again. Might be on my end, though, I'll shoot it again in a few minutes.

[robertthebard]

Ok, got in on the third try. Problem was probably on my end, since my PC had been on for three days with two servers running, plus all the toolset stuff I've been up to.

First thoughts:

Area Construction: Very nice area. It is huge, which may be a killer for lower end systems, with all the placeables around. The static ones won't mean much though, system wise. I won't go into any spoiler type info regarding traps and such, except to say, there are some.

Creatures: I thought some of them may have been a bit over the top. Personal opinion, and others may disagree, which is cool. It seems that the deeper we go, the harder the creatures get, which is cool to a point, but chars stop gaining levels at lvl 40, while the creatures seem to just keep gaining. I covered about 1/2 of the area before my sound card crapped out, and it took me almost 2 hours to do.

The wandering sentinel guy is doing waaay too much damage on a hit, and whether I was using my bow, which was largely ineffective, or my mace/shield, they hit too much. I never did kill one, I couldn't take but about three hits, and I was dead. Shielded ac was 86. The xorns were the same way, although they weren't doing 200 + damage a hit. Lowest damage from one of them, shielded or not, was 86, but they hit a lot for 100+.

Items: There are some nice items down there, but I never found any arrows, which is a killer for an archer. I took 4 bags with me, not sure where I ended up.

All in all, it's a nice area, if a bit unbalanced. Not that I took a really strong melee char in there, anyway. I'd like to hear some melee type assessments too. I got into a lot of melee situations, due to dmg resistance against my arrows, or just plain too low damage with them to do much good.

[Ziroc]

We always have to play balance the monsters.. yeah, I saw a few doing waaayyy too much damage. I'll turn them down for sure! [img]smile.gif[/img]

This level isn't meant to be harder. You can even run quests without killing hardly any monsters! [img]smile.gif[/img]

I'll tweak them tomorrow, and check out the doors.. maybe theres an issue with something.. or too many hammer animations maybe... we'll see.

[robertthebard]

The first group I ran into was neutral at first, but I got attacked by a Gelatinous cube, and it was on from there. The Keepers, I think, don't remember off the top of my head. The secret door on the Island of Fire didn't go anywhere. I just remembered that. It would open, but wouldn't do anything from that. Opened a few more times after I opened it, but still no effect.

[Ziroc]

Yeah, I have no clue why the secret doors are not working. See this new tileset has an issue other normal tilesets don't. You cannot move placeables up to the wall if you want to use them. If I moved a chest up flush with the wall, it wouldn't open. So.... I had to move the darn secret door out far, and it looked silly, so I compensated a few ways, but its still not triggering. (And you know I know how to make em, its simple)... grrrrr (Choc, come slice the tileset in half please)


SLASSSSSSSSSSSSSSSH! CHOMP! *burp*

Oh yeh.. Choc licked one of my Frito-lays BBQ chips today! LOL! I was too slow, and he licked the salty spices off.. lol! Weirdo cat. Good taste though!

[Unglaublich Verwustung]

We had some issues earlier so quick list of the most obvious.
1) friendlies kept changing their minds and going psycho on us e.g. Guss attacked Grey and myself when Rogue crashed out of the party, we had to kill Guss . Happened with the deep-dwarf guy as well, he came out of his room, took myself and Rogue out with a couple of hits each and then went back we were like 'what the hell...'
2) As with RTB, Patrolling Guardian is bad news; I have AC +83, AB +69 and couldn't hit him at all with him getting me in 3 hits each time.
3) Diamond Golems not much better, failed to hit them at all as they chased me all around the area.
4) Most of the others are need tweaking just a little downwards, I can handle the Cyric Commander (admittedly takes about 20 minutes to splat him) but get whupped on 15 by midget Gray Renders; surely that can't be quite right
5) Xorns, didn't have such an issue, don't think they are as big a problem for melee types.
6) no comment on the door as it is way to early US time for you to have looked at that since the last post from you

...and I'm sulking because the rust monsters ate my Valas Warhammer [again] - they don't grow on trees you know...

[toot033]

I went through last night and I really enjoyed it. Did not take enough time to find the quest triggers and was still trying to figure out what to do with the arm part I found on Fire Island. Also very few things would talk to me and Gus attacked the silvereens(?) by the forge right away so I did not know If they had had anything. I will agree the Xorns are way to to hard the only way I could even touch them was with wand of greater missiles. I did get stuck in one section though. I was on the right side of the Iron spire and could not walk backwards sideways etc. (I think a supreme being helped me and replaced me to section I could walk around on.)
P.S Did the other changes take place as well( I.E the change in Lester etc?)
Thanks for all the fun!!

[ 03-03-2007, 08:52 AM: Message edited by: toot033 ]

[Greything]

Big fun.

Three heavy duty characters had trouble when I logged on this morning.

Those guardians hurt!

[Unglaublich Verwustung]

and most of all - it's a ball!

Was on again a short while ago, seems almost manageable if we get the right party mix - AA, tank, magic users...Party on!!

[Greything]

I go along with what Robert and UV have said.

And to answer Robert's question, melee types don't do any better than the archers against the Patrolling Guardians as they're set up now. Plan B (run like hell) is the best tactic I could come up with there.

As it is set up now I doubt if anyone could go solo there and hope to stay alive. Not that that is a problem. We may just have to party up to tackle it.

That said, the one point where I do think there may be a problem is on entering the level. Hit anything that attacks you and some, but not all, of the keepers turn hostile. They are tough but the difficulty is that while you are dealing with one or two then others seem to go hostile at random. It makes getting into the level quite an effort.