Category Archives: Dungeons

Eurogamer: Let’s Play Underworld Ascendant

Via Eurogamer on Twitter, a gameplay video trying out Underworld Ascendant by Otherside Entertainment.

Spoken of here as a “spiritual successor” to the Ultima series–one I’ve heard of but have never played– it explores the apparently familiar environment of the Stygian Abyss. 

I’m no fan of first person play, with creepy hands sticking out of your screen that you’re supposed to imagine are yours.   Still, the game environment, a rather large dungeon, looks fun to explore.

It looks like you have lots of options for choosing skills as you wish for your character.  You can have any combination of Fighter, Mage or Stealth skills.

It appears there are plenty of treasures to be found as you explore, so suit, up, eh?

There’s more information at Eurogamer   https://www.eurogamer.net/games/underworld-ascendant
including a November 2018 release date for PC.

Sooper Secrit Dungeon Report

The clock is ticking, but I wanted to see the two dungeons for BFA I’ve never seen  The Underrot and The Temple of Sethraliss.  After an hour wait, I got into The Underrot.

Everybody died several times a foot or so away from the dungeon entrance.  Looking good!

Except! Ugliest dungeon I’ve ever seen.  We’re talking Ug-lee.   Don’t look at the picture below, it’s a spoiler, and it doesn’t do the Ug-lee justice.

And everyone kept dying.

Then…some guy in gold shows up and I found him mesmerizing, except, when he moved it looked like he had a diaper-load.  Yo.

Gonna love this one.

Needed to break from play in BFA after this.  They’re all right, at 120 you can’t fight a dead snake on the ground.  Luckily before my Live characters get to 120, they’ll have fixed all of that, I’m sure.

What Makes A "Good Player"

The ever brilliant Rohan of Blessing of Kings (my Paladin idol) has been comparing Final Fantasy and WOW dungeons and the skills of players in them. 

http://blessingofkings.blogspot.com/2017/08/high-skill-gameplay-versus-low-skill.html

SynCaine of Hardcore Casual speaks to another writer’s statement that “bad players are bad people.”

https://syncaine.com/2017/08/15/since-he-asked/

This made me think about what makes for a Good Player.   This is within the context of running dungeons, something I’ve been doing in World of Warcraft quite a bit lately, and though I finally recently earned the title “The Patient” I’d be surprised if most players have been in more PUGs than I have over the course of years. 

I’ve played every single role, some better than others.   That has helped me immensely while running dungeons, because I know what each class can do in their role, and I can get a sense if a player needs extra help from my characters, and I know where the points are in most dungeons where things can go south, and be hyper vigilant.

Here’s what makes a Good Player

Do the best you can in your current role.  Work on a good rotation of skills, know your stat and armor requirements, carry potions to get you through bad spots.

Provide support for the rest of the group.
 
Be attentive to everything going on, not just what you need to do, but be aware of where the other players are and what they’re doing to help or harm the group.

React quickly.

If you provide guidance to another player, do it in such a way that it is helpful to them, and it sticks.

Learn the dungeon/encounter.

As DPS, protect the Healer, assist the Tank.

Play all the roles so you know what is expected and possible.

Write To Me At www.ustinkasagamer.com

It’s been a bad week in games.  I did get my Paladin to level 100, but otherwise?

Little things, perhaps, but cumulatively, I’m feeling puny.
I inadvertently uninstalled Everquest 2.   Oh well, my hard drive was full, so I reinstalled on my laptop.  It looks and plays great on it, unlike most things.
Submerged, a game I read about in January, was on sale on Steam.  I can’t get it to go past the loading screen.  High hopes.
LA Noire, from a previous Steam sale requires you to sign up for a Social Club to play, and there was some statement about your gameplay appearing on their website. What?
My Galaxies Architect was loading up a factory run and put a crafting tool in the ingredients hopper, which was then “too far away” to get back out.
My very best Wow character went in her first beta dungeon and got booted. Truly no idea why, a word was never spoken by anyone in the whole dungeon.  Cone of shame.  Still sulking.
I asked about getting my LOTRO Loremaster in the guild my lower level character was in. No response. BO?
Still stuck in Beregost (?) in Baldur’s Gate and every single person there tells me to go south to help with the mining problem.  Ogres!!!    
Luckily I’m about the most resilient person ever, and I’m going to regroup and move onward to glory.  A new week beckons.

Good Dungeon/Bad Dungeon

Once again the prolific Syp of Biobreak has intriguing thoughts. Today, he talks about what makes a dungeon a good or bad experience for him.  He gloriously has been in dungeons in a wide variety of games.

Although I meant at one time to try out dungeons in many of the games I play, my experiences in Neverwinter and Rift sort of killed that idea.  All of my Pugging/Dungeoneering XP comes from World of Warcraft.  I’ve sent every single class through dungeons of all levels.  Even if I haven’t been playing a particular class for awhile, I can pretty quickly adapt and play through.  I’ve been through most dungeons dozens of times.

With my Wowish background in mind, here is what makes for a good or bad dungeon run.

A Good Run

Everyone plays their role to the best of their abilities.

The dungeon and its challenges are taken in stride, and at a reasonable pace.

People at least say hello.

The Tank stays with the group and tanks.

The Healer heals.

I get some good loot, and I welcome even junky loot I can sell.

Everyone is reasonable about Loot Rolls.

Everyone stays with the dungeon group for the entire run.

The tank is a Paladin!  My favorite tanks.  They never do anything wrong 🙂

A Bad Run

The Tank leaves right away.

The Tank runs ahead of everyone paying no attention to the fate of the rest of the group. 

A person who feels they are all big and bad and damage dealing posts DPS numbers.

Speaking of posting…the people whose add-ons post every move they’ve made and attack they’ve blocked….zzzz…..you’re killin’ me.

Hunters, Monks and Death Knights who grab aggro constantly.  These are the three classes that are guilty almost every time there’s a problem.

One or more people take the time to be ugly to their fellow human beings.  I don’t ever want to know what a vile, hate filled piece of scum anyone is.  I really don’t.

Everyone dies pretty early on because of one of the above and everyone leaves the dungeon.

95% percent of the time if you find you’re the fifth person in a group who belong to the same guild, something bad will happen to you.   When our own guild was running dungeons, I was so aware of this, and tried to make sure the person felt welcomed and that they weren’t going to have a bad experience.

Your Dungeon Group Is Ready

Healing in dungeons makes me incredibly tense and I can do it if I just keep rolling into the next dungeon.  If I have any downtime of a few days let alone weeks not going in and healing, I lose my confidence.

My method then is to go back in with a low level healer to get my mojo back.  I did this with a side character on a realm I really don’t play on.  Got scooped into a guild, which I usually ignore.  Made it through four dungeons with a bad tank and two good ones, so results varied. 

I always support my characters with other characters who provide bags and potions and armor.  I don’t have that there so we shall see.  If you think I’d ask the guild for assistance hahaha.  I may provide my guildies with everything they can imagine but I don’t take anything from strangers.  I guess I’ll see how an unsupported character can do.

In the Beta, I wanted to use my level 100 PVE test character for dungeons so I could be anonymously lousy if need be.  The realm was hinky though so I fell back to my real girl.  I ended up accepting an invitation there too.

I think I may be a little critical of other guild masters and guilds because when the guildmeister announced that anyone who didn’t log in for 24 hrs and check in somehow would be popped from the guild I thought that’s pretty cheesy!  Don’t ninja invite people if you’re soooo full.   We’ll see.  I play my own game and am not going to be sure I toe the line to stay in.  I just thought if I’m going to run dungeons mass rez would be a nice thing to have.

This is actually impractical because the dungeons are still absolute B-Busters and everyone is dead dead dead.

In Auchindoun,  we went through six tanks, two healers and four DPS before the third boss.  Then everyone gave up.

In Bloodmaul Slag Mines we were stuck and eternally dead at the first boss.  We should have gone left first not right.  At least we’d be dead in a new spot.

In Everbloom, I was greeted with “Oh, another Druid. I hope your DPS is better than the one that just left.”   They were at the last boss and knew the trick of taking him down so all was well.

I’m a jump in and read the instructions if things go wonky sort, but I think I finally have to look up the tips for these.  One of the reasons I hadn’t wanted to is because I didn’t want to spoil the plot/layout etc of the dungeon for myself.   However, I’ve been in a single group that made it all the way through a dungeon (The Grimrail Depot) in all my entries. 

I don’t mind that the dungeons are harder and you have to work together to go through, that is truly the fun of them.  I think there is a reliance on stuns, fears, and other character disabling moves in these that is pretty ridiculous.   The healer’s abilities have been really limited.  Character’s who had some self heal moves have had them removed or truncated so despite everyone’s efforts, everyone dies.

I do think tanks are still trying to go in and take the whole place down by themselves and that makes their dungeon stays short.

Note:  I looked at the videos for these three on Fatboss TV (new to me)  and all they could say was how easy these were, how disappointingly simple the boss mechanics…agh!  I am not seeing others who feel this way in game. 

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCxPdH3tv8zuGDBBKCEwruGQ

Dungeon Talk

I do love dungeons.  Even one you’ve been in dozens of times can be full of surprises depending on your group.  

Tonight that most innocuous of dungeons Utgarde Keep had disaster after disaster.  Loken?  The annoying dragon rider kept re-setting and people died.  Tsk.  At least everyone took it well.

Here’s a snippet from Hellfire Ramparts I think where things went bad (everyone died) but it was all mellow (click to enlarge):

More often it goes like this:

Guild Nite: Razorfen Kraul

For the first time we had all five dungeoneers in our run be guildies. What a different and fun experience. My Resto Druid did great (nobody died) despite a speedy run and tons of knock backs and stuns from bats and the pig like creatures in the fen.

Three of us do dungeons all the time and two play through in other ways. Everyone had a good time.

I made sure everyone had every bit of armor, potions, scrolls, glyphs, anything I can make to help things go more smoothly. Honestly it was the sort of preparation you do to have people over for dinner. Luckily it went well. Next week an all new dungeon.

Remember Your Failure At The Cave: Scarlet Halls

After going through this dungeon 10 times or so, I got this. Still, I managed to get killed in the opening archery court on my last try. Some wit in the group goes “What a Healing Pro! Dies in the fire!” A “pro” anything at level 30? Is he munching rotted Easter eggs or what? Happy Easter, by the way.

This and Scarlet Monastery is where my Priest and our Tank came to a huge brouhaha. Never fear, I can now go through this one in my sleep.

Don’t pick up a shield in the courtyard if you’re healer, this keeps you from healing. Who knew?

Ideally the three DPS grab them and run up on the bad guys because as soon as someone is up there, the flame arrows end and it’s a regular fight. I saw one tank just barrel on up and that worked too. Walking carefully up is not a good strategy.

The rest is fine except for the pictured guy below who has some weirdo tunnel of something that grabs you in a vortex and you’re helpless and dead then everyone is dead. I found that out at one point. Heal from above.

Scarlet Halls of Death