Nektropos Castle: Tribulation

[Glendral]

Greetings everyone,The zone entrance is found at -1661 123 -2070 along the outer cliffs around Nektropos Castle in Nektulos Forest. This isn't in the release notes because we want people to find it, so try not to share this info with other players who aren't on the test server.The zone is designed to be somewhat difficult so hopefully it will be. Hopefully the zone will feel fairly interactive as you go through it. Vhalen has also added in some Lore that further explains happening with the castle and the Everling family.I would suggest bringing at least one scout along but it isn't required, you'll see what I mean.If you have any feedback on mob difficulty, loot, or events please let me know so I can take a look at it and see if it needs any adjustments. I made a number of fixes for bugs I found today as well as improving some of the loot items, it probably won't make it in until Tuesday though.<div></div>

[goboy]

<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> Glendral wrote:<BR>Greetings everyone,<BR><BR>The zone entrance is found at -1661 123 -2070 along the outer cliffs around Nektropos Castle in Nektulos Forest. This isn't in the release notes because we want people to find it, so try not to share this info with other players who aren't on the test server.<BR><BR>The zone is designed to be somewhat difficult so hopefully it will be. Hopefully the zone will feel fairly interactive as you go through it. Vhalen has also added in some Lore that further explains happening with the castle and the Everling family.<BR><BR>I would suggest bringing at least one scout along but it isn't required, you'll see what I mean.<BR><BR>If you have any feedback on mob difficulty, loot, or events please let me know so I can take a look at it and see if it needs any adjustments. <BR><BR>I made a number of fixes for bugs I found today as well as improving some of the loot items, it probably won't make it in until Tuesday though. <BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE> <P><BR>Yep, I know a couple of groups have poked there head in.  Somewhat difficult might be an understatement.  What level of player is this zone designed for?  Being that I was only DPS, I would rather the tank and healer classes give their impression.  All I know is we got royally spanked.  Multiple ^^^ mobs at once is a bit much.</P> <P> </P>

[Wodo]

<div></div>According to the patch notes, the zone is designed for a "full group" of 70's.<div></div><p>Message Edited by Wodo on <span class=date_text>07-28-2006</span> <span class=time_text>10:47 PM</span>

[EtoilePirate]

Was in there for a few hours on Thurdsay night and liked what I saw -- even if I did have to spend a fair bit at the mender's afterwards.There are some of us hoping to take a serious full group in there Monday night, if we can.  (I was away this weekend, no EQ2 for me!)  I'm sure I'll be happy to leave plenty of comments.  *grin*My very first impression was this: for once, I actually <i>feel</i> like a scout.  <i>Not</i> all the mobs see stealth, and there are traps to disarm.  FUN!  So far it seems like a zone thta really requires you think about how you do it, and I like that very much.<div></div>

[Glendral]

Anyone able to get through the zone yet?<div></div>

[Kadurm]

I believe we have a run through tonight. Should be able to post something then. Sorry, but alot of us have been out of town lately it seems.

[EtoilePirate]

Okay.We built a really solid, handpicked group and went in there for a couple of hours tonight.  Composition as follows:70 Shadowknight (Pondscum)70 Inquisitor (Cimee)70 Warden (Hildy)70 Necromancer (Vyviel)70 Assassin x2 (Kylie, Kella)Everyone in the group is sporting a vast majority of Adept 3 level skills and spells, with 4 - 9 Master I books apiece.  Most gear is Legendary level, with 2-3 pieces of fabled on each member (with the exception of the Inquis, in virtually full fabled).Having a pair of assassins is not necessarily ideal group composition -- you don't really want two of anything, in a six person group -- but MAN does it pump out the DPS.  The other four spots were perfectly chosen, IMO.First, I have to give a shout-out: thanks for the scout lovin'!  It's phenomenal to be needed to *scout* the passageways and disarm traps.  Sure, as we get to be really comfortable with the zone it'll be less necessary, but it's a really nice feel to be sneaking through the warped corridors of a big old haunted castle.It's also nice that instead of the standard instance where mobs stand there or roam, this one seems empty until everything in it pounces out at you.  That alters the mood in a very good way.  I like it.Now, all that said: HOLY CRAP.  This is most assuredly an Epic x1 zone.  To say that we got *through* it would be a dirty, dirty lie.  Suffice it to say, we spent about three hours exploring.From the start, our healers were amazing.  Those encounters -- mostly 4 mobs each -- do tremendous spike damage, but we just sailed right through a bunch of them.The bottle poltergeists on the first floor gave us some trouble -- can't tell if they're Working As Intended (tm) or buggy.  When you pop them (yay stelath), there are 6 ^^^ mobs: three around one pillar, linked, and three around the other.  When we (a different group) went in on our first foray on Thursday night, we kept wiping there and couldn't figure out why.  Tonight we realized that when Pond pulled, we got five of the ^^^ mobs from the room, and that one lonely one stayed by itself around the right-side pillar, waiting for us.  That seems unlikely to have been by design.Afterwards, we wound our way up the stairs and progressed very well through another poltergiest, those spinning scythey things, and onto the next floor.Then we found a key in a fireplace.Feeling adventurous, and somewhat foolhardy, we did our damnedest to take down Coaltergiest -- a level 70 Epic x2 with two buddies (also x2).First: there's trouble with that room.  I love the 16-ton Wile E. Coyote weight trap outside the door -- fun sreenshots, hehe -- but it's OUTSIDE the door.  So it shouldn't randomly land on and squish people who are standing INSIDE the door.  As it did, multiple times.  (I wrote down loc -17.17, 13.50, -53.34.  Maybe that's where I got squishified?)  Also, those roaming Vengeful Spirits have some serious pathing problems.  They kept coming straight through walls at various members of our party -- then Fearing them into the Epic.  Oops.  What's worse, they were invisible to certain members of our party.  Like the tank.  He had to target through me or someone else in order to target the mob.  Not good.Those troubles aside... wow.  What an encounter.  We had Coaltergeist's two buddies dead, and him all the way down to 18%, before we eventually died.  The encounter is definitely doable.  We talked some strategy, then decided it wsa late and most of our party was below 30% armor so decided to take the key and apply it to the locked door instead of giving it another try afterwards.  We feel confident, however, that with the correct application of strategy, our group could take out that level 70 Epic x2.  Even if it is a bloody Fury mob that heals itself +4000 HP at a time every few seconds when you get it under 30% health.  Now that we know what it is, we can better apply power conservation strategies next time.(For what it's worth, we had some amazing moments in that fight.  Pond actually went unconscious mid-fight, from spike damage, but thanks to our healers and necro was revived and survived for *several more minutes* to grind it out.)So then we went to Melanie Everling and died again.  Those are MEAN dollies.  And they're scary looking.General recommendations are:-Debug traps, so that they don't hit you from where they shouldn't.  (Rusty spear in the first-floor room with the one chest also impaled me once from the opposite side of the doorway.)-Keep doors open slightly longer, even another 3-4 seconds.  They keep closing as soon as you've lined up the shot or the pull.  (This is something I've hated about every dungeon with doors in since the first time I walked into Cazic Thule.)  The bookcase doors up in the scythe-thing room close especially fast, it seems.-Maybe give traps another 3 seconds of being disarmed after you've disarmed them.  More than once the group moved through quite quickly but the last one (or the last one's pet) still got hit.-We didn't see much loot.  The angry librarian on the first floor dropped a wooden chest with some kind of tome, and there was one moonstone scrying stone, and that's it.  I know we didn't take down any nameds, so I'm not exactly concerned about it, but... yeah.-Convenient that it follows the regular Nek Castle zone map.  Means that you're not getting insanely lost on top of everything else.On the whole, this feels like a zone that very, very few groups will master on their first attempt, and that's a good thing.  I've been in on two very short reconaissance forays and one serious attempt now, and the content I've seen more than once dfeinitely gets easier each time.  I know the folks I grouped with tonight, and they're a solid group, used to grouping and raiding, and for competency and skill I'd put them up against any group from any Live guild any day.  We're planning to go back and take down Coaltergeist later this week, for testing *and* revenge.I think this is the best new zone to hit the game in a fair while.  (And people who grouped with me back in Kella's 30s and 40s can attest to how fond I *wasn't* of the original Nek.)<div></div>

[Ceruline]

<div></div>Add ons to Kella's report:In addition to some of the pathing being odd on the Vengeful spirits, when they aggroed us in Coaltergeist's room frequently they weren't visible (Meaning that it was very difficult to get it targeted to pull it off whoever it was beatign on)  I'm not sure exactly how, but if a Vengeful Spirit attacked us in his room, it often seemed to result in Coaltergeist adding (This was actually the cause of probably half or more of our wipes).  This may have been from a party member getting too close to Coal, but it didn't look as if that had happened to me (I could be wrong).Overall, great zone thus far.  I think that if we'd had a mana-regenner in group instead of one of the assassins, we'd have taken down Coal.(Are all of the nameds in here gonna be Epic x2?  That's going to be fun!)Lore suggestion:  Is there any way to put in something that might essentially act as a "Our story thus far..." section for those of us who haven't done Nek 1 or 2 - perhaps a harvestable book near the entrance?  Having context for all of the encounters and characters in the zone would make it much more immersive, and I think I may not be the only one who hasn't spent much time in Nek castle.<div></div>

[Glendral]

<div></div><div></div>Thanks for the feedback, I'll see what I can do about the traps, they should only go off when you're fairly close to them, but it's in percentage of meters so its a bit hard to tweak just right, Ill check that particular one out today.For the people having difficulty seeing the vengeful spirits, are your particle effects turned way down or off? These mobs are primarily particle effects and that may have been why you were having trouble seeing them. At what areas where they coming through walls to get to you?I actually just made Coaltergeist a heroic mob, it's what he was supposed to be, but adjusted his abilities slightly. So if you get back in let me know how that fight works out.I modified the loot drops slightly so you should be seeing some more loot. I also added some zone wide loot drops that have a rare chance to drop off any mob in the zone. These changes should be up either today or I hope tomorrow.By chance did any of you hear the girl laughing or crying? Also there is a trick to the doll event, I'm not going to tell you what it is but I doubt unless you are very, very good you can just kill all the dolls to complete it.<div></div><p>I wouldn't run into any rooms right off, if you pay attention to your surroundings you should be able to pull most stuff by its encounter. The Castle is very angry that people keep entering its domain and is ready to defend itself.</p><p>Message Edited by Glendral on <span class=date_text>08-02-2006</span> <span class=time_text>10:33 AM</span>

[EtoilePirate]

<blockquote><hr>Glendral wrote:<div></div><div></div>For the people having difficulty seeing the vengeful spirits, are your particle effects turned way down or off? These mobs are primarily particle effects and that may have been why you were having trouble seeing them. At what areas where they coming through walls to get to you?<hr></blockquote> I had trouble seeing one once, and I kept my particle effects moderately high exactly for that reason.  (Remembering well my first time into Palace of the Awakened, when I could see the repulsors, because my particle effects were on, and Pondscum couldn't, because his weren't.  In fact, there are many advantages to having two members of a group sitting in the same room, talking to each other while they try a new zone...)  Usually, though, I could spot them perfectly well. In Coaltergeist's room, we popped the encounter, then died, then came back to the room.  So imagine the encounter sitting in its place in front of the fireplace, and the group huddled into the two corners on either side of the door, far enough away formthe mob to avoid aggroing it.  In those corners, the vengeful spirits came through the walls to aggro people (usually healers or the necro.  or maybe the necro's pet -- not sure, you'd have to ask her). Also, standing at that same distance from the mob, in the doorway instead of in the corners, is where the 16 ton weight that wasn't actually there kept landing on, and flattening, members of the group.<div></div>

[Deila]

<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> EtoilePB wrote:<BR><BR>In Coaltergeist's room, we popped the encounter, then died, then came back to the room.  So imagine the encounter sitting in its place in front of the fireplace, and the group huddled into the two corners on either side of the door, far enough away formthe mob to avoid aggroing it.  In those corners, the vengeful spirits came through the walls to aggro people (usually healers or the necro.  or maybe the necro's pet -- not sure, you'd have to ask her).<BR> <BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE> <P><BR>They were aggroing me, not my pet, the times that I was the one attacked. I had my pet's 'defend me' option on at the time, so was leaping into the fray the second I was attacked, which may have looked like the pet was being aggroed. I didn't see any weirdness with mobs aggroing my pet directly (like happens in Solusek's Eye, for example), so that's all good. Just those hall spirits coming through the walls at us.</P> <P>With Coaltergeist going heroic instead of epic... sweet, vicious revenge....  <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></P> <P>Looking forward to another run in here as soon as we can get the team back together. Love to see some of that new loot that's being added, too.</P> <P> </P>

[Ceruline]

<div><blockquote><hr>Glendral wrote:<div></div><div></div>For the people having difficulty seeing the vengeful spirits, are your particle effects turned way down or off? These mobs are primarily particle effects and that may have been why you were having trouble seeing them. At what areas where they coming through walls to get to you?...By chance did any of you hear the girl laughing or crying? Also there is a trick to the doll event, I'm not going to tell you what it is but I doubt unless you are very, very good you can just kill all the dolls to complete it.<div></div></blockquote>My particle effects were on raid settings - ie. off.  However, I was able to see SOME of the vengeful spirits.  When we ran into them in the corridors, they were fine.  When they seemed to aggro through the walls/floor/something when we were in Coal's room, that's when they were invisible.  (Usually this seems to mean that their graphic is showing up somewhere else on the z axis - ie. one floor up or down.  Is there a wanderer that would pass immediately above or below Coal's room that could be causing the trouble?)I don't remember hearing a girl laughing or crying.  I'll keep an ear out for the next time through.</div>

[nat_lyte]

i was able to hear the crying in the jail room but that was it and i thought i was hearing it through the baby monitor(confused the crap outa me) all in all the zone is one of the best iv seen primarily in the way it puts you in the zone, (state of mind wise) we had the same problems with  the wall walking spirits, they were mostly coming up at us from the lower floors but not down frrom the uppers it seemed. the question mark traps, evil but great, i didnt have any of the trap issues afore mentioned, were working well and locationaly accurate  loot left somthing to be desired, i presumed the zone was not fully itemized yet, but the items so far were very nice, i also noticed the zone had no lockout atm only one major recomendation...ok 2, 1 being teach me to spell, the other grander of the 2 being MORE OF THIS type of design its awsome harder mobs isnt the key to a harder zone, make the usage of your brain requisite for success. the lore seemed a bit bouncy i dont have a clue what the thing is they are after him for is, but i coulda missed somthing. the addition of a complete collection being attainable upon one visit is great i like most HATE pages ya never find all of,  this mnakes it possible to complete a book the day ya find it, and the prize at the end is nice aswell PS: we figured out the doll trick(but lips are sealed) hate to ruin it for others but she didnt give a reward for it, no xp no nodda <div></div>

[Glendral]

For the doll event, after completing it, your quest journal and Melanie should have told you to take a toy from her toy chest. I think I know what may be causing the strange agro from the wisp models although it may not get fixed until next wednesday.Did you fight the jailor? How was that fight, difficulty wise?How did the final fight feel?<div></div>

[nat_lyte]

umm the jailor is interesting, the first time he pulled only myself into the cell, where i was subsequently killed, jail boy was hard for us, is it supposed to take whole group or just the first person he sees into the cell ? difficulty was on par with the rest of the zone, (brutal) but unique encounter and thats what i like to see , wonderful job on the zone i cant say it enough times, truly a leg above other dungeons imo after completeing the dolls she just said thank you and we went on our way no toy chest reference quest disapeared <div></div>

[EtoilePirate]

Took another group in today.  Nearly the same as before, but not quite.  Composition:70 SK70 Inquis70 Warden70 ASsassin70 Necro68 ConjurorWe took it very slowly, popping all the ?'s and !'s we found along the way; after about three hours we had to call it off for Real Life stuff.Consensus among the 4 of us who had been in before was that most of the encounters are now easier.  They seem to have less health and to go down with less fuss.Angry Potregeists in ground floor room seem to have been fixed, thank you.  We were able to pull them properly now.Alas, we got no Coaltergeist, heroic or otherwise.  This was a source of woe for those of us who wanted revenge.  Lamentation, complaining, waily waily waily etc.  A total bummer, in fact, not to have a named there.Speaking of which, we managed three hours of pretty thorough investigation without hitting a named.  This can be a very, very large zone.  (Next time, we're going to bypass most of the optional stuff.)So with the dolls -- we get to Melanie Everling's room.  We have one person (the one with the key) get the quest from her.  While we're contemplating the meaning of the quest text to think of the "trick," a group member in the zone for the first time unwittingly and accidentally aggroed one of the doll encounters.  After that, the quest was permanently broken for us on that run.  The timer simply expired.  Melanie's not rehailable, we couldn't delete it, there's no re-hail.  So we continued past the room without even getting really to try our best. <img src="/smilies/9d71f0541cff0a302a0309c5079e8dee.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />Some of those triggered mobs see-stealth now, eh?  Guess who wiped more than anyone else in tonight's run?  Yeah, that'd be the advance scout. <img src="/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />  Suppose I had it coming, hehe.I don't remember where it was, but there's a room that has /loc 65.68, 13.50, 0.94 in it, and there's a buggy mob in there.  It's a pillow on top of a canopy bed -- the rest are all poltergeists, but this one is targetable but blank.  No name, no level, not an enemy.  Just... blank.  Running over it and near it didn't turn it into anything, either (as the poltergeist mobs usually work).  I also had several blank lines on tracking -- I suspect maybe more of the same?We went as far as the big library, that spawns an ancient codex.  Some of the codices seem to be bugged.  I went into the room first, tripped a blue one, ran outside, and as a group we killed it.  Then Pond went in, to the corner, and had us follow him.  A yellow ancient codex popped, so we engaged it.  Suddenly there were about 8.  I watched carefully, and realized -- the location trigger seemed to keep popping mobs as long as anyone was on it.  So by standing in the corner where the mob popped, we kept enticing new ones to pop on top of us.  Or rather, underfoot.  Of course, by the time I figured this out we were wiping.So we wiped, and revived at the entrance.  Lo and behold, there was an ancient codex *at the entrance* with us.  Now, it's one thing if they evac with you, but it was a full group wipe: six dead members and all encounters broken.  For it to follow us was a bit... uncalled for.  <img src="/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /><div></div>