Honest Review for Review

savaikun · June 2013

Hello folks of Neverwinter. I am willing to provide great, honest reviews in exchange for yours. All critics welcomed.
Simply search for 'The Descent' by @Savaikun, and provide me with a review and I will do the same for you.
Please just reply to this message with your foundry quest and I will provide you with a review immediately.
I will take my time and give you honest feedback, I assure you.

Name: The Descent
Author: @Savaikun
Difficulty: Moderate
Suggested Players: 1
Average Time: 15

Thank you for taking your time to review my quest. Please note that I will only provide reviews on quests that are within a 15-45 minute range.

Much Love,

Savai,

myrmecoleon · June 2013

Would be great to trade reviews - short code is in my sig and the duration should be no longer than 15 minutes. I'll also get to the Descent right away.

Edit:

I tried running through the quest, and I think I got to the last room (I saw the chest); but I couldn't complete it because I ran out of potions. I think it could use a bit of work - I frequently pulled more encounters than I intended to. I'm not sure whether this is due to triggers or patrols, but I had to pot twice in the second map and multiple times in the third map (60 Guardian Fighter with a 15 cleric companion). I'd say this warrants at least 2+ players. I set out a few additional points below.

- In the second map, one of the encounter creatures is labelled as an archer, but is actually a caster (among other mobs which are actually archers). It might be worth considering relabelling the caster to make it stand out - I think it's a Deathlock Wight encounter, and I usually like to kill those first because summoning Rotters makes the encounter quite a bit more difficult.

- In Kartega's first dialogue, "I have a a sprained ankle" should read "I have a sprained ankle". The use of capital letters in the second map interactions with the statues seem to be random - it might be worth standardising those.

- Quite a few of the costumes used look odd. Kartega's arms seem to be too small; the Djanlongas' necks are stretched, as is the fire giant in the third map (the giant looks really strange).

- One of the Gatekeeper/Fire archon spawn encounters in the second map is mislabelled, I think. The big archon is a non-elite, whilst one of the small archons is an elite or a brute.

- I don't know if this is intended, but the Hard Fire encounters in the third map are placed very close together and it's easy to pull them together. Since they're hard encounters, pulling two makes the room very difficult. I think I also had the boss spawn in the middle of fighting one of those encounters - the boss itself was fine (Deathlock Wight), but I had serious issues fighting the Hard Fire encounter simultaneously. I also had slight issues with the first encounter in the third map, due to the number of spawns - it was just about manageable with a lot of potion use.

Happy to run it again when I've restocked and if a few of the encounters are toned down a bit!

pavvo · June 2013

Wow..really hard encounters. Try not to stack more than one encounter. They're very closely spaced and I'll end up fighting 2-3 groups at any one time, especially the ones which summon more mobs. Lvl 60 Cleric here and I died almost 10 times. I suspect most 60s will quit after the first stacked mobs. I quit in the lava area. Not enough room to maneuver and the pools were bugged when I stepped in them, fell through the world and mobs followed. Which lead them to bug the spawn point where ALL remaining groups aggro when I spawn.
Lower your number of encounter groups at any one time, especially patrols which aggro other nearby mobs and you've got a hit.

Sorry, let me know when you've fixed it and I will rerun it. My quests in sig for your review.

savaikun · June 2013

pavvo wrote: »

Wow..really hard encounters. Try not to stack more than one encounter. They're very closely spaced and I'll end up fighting 2-3 groups at any one time, especially the ones which summon more mobs. Lvl 60 Cleric here and I died almost 10 times. I suspect most 60s will quit after the first stacked mobs. I quit in the lava area. Not enough room to maneuver and the pools were bugged when I stepped in them, fell through the world and mobs followed. Which lead them to bug the spawn point where ALL remaining groups aggro when I spawn.
Lower your number of encounter groups at any one time, especially patrols which aggro other nearby mobs and you've got a hit.

Sorry, let me know when you've fixed it and I will rerun it. My quests in sig for your review.

Thank you for your feedback. As requested, I've changed the style up - hoping it's fixed to the liking of which you spoke. You made some honest comments and I initially thought about everything you said already, but I didn't realize the difficulty for a cleric. I will check out your quests this evening. Thanks again,

Savai,

savaikun · June 2013

myrmecoleon wrote: »

Would be great to trade reviews - short code is in my sig and the duration should be no longer than 15 minutes. I'll also get to the Descent right away.

Edit:

I tried running through the quest, and I think I got to the last room (I saw the chest); but I couldn't complete it because I ran out of potions. I think it could use a bit of work - I frequently pulled more encounters than I intended to. I'm not sure whether this is due to triggers or patrols, but I had to pot twice in the second map and multiple times in the third map (60 Guardian Fighter with a 15 cleric companion). I'd say this warrants at least 2+ players. I set out a few additional points below.

- In the second map, one of the encounter creatures is labelled as an archer, but is actually a caster (among other mobs which are actually archers). It might be worth considering relabelling the caster to make it stand out - I think it's a Deathlock Wight encounter, and I usually like to kill those first because summoning Rotters makes the encounter quite a bit more difficult.

- In Kartega's first dialogue, "I have a a sprained ankle" should read "I have a sprained ankle". The use of capital letters in the second map interactions with the statues seem to be random - it might be worth standardising those.

- Quite a few of the costumes used look odd. Kartega's arms seem to be too small; the Djanlongas' necks are stretched, as is the fire giant in the third map (the giant looks really strange).

- One of the Gatekeeper/Fire archon spawn encounters in the second map is mislabelled, I think. The big archon is a non-elite, whilst one of the small archons is an elite or a brute.

- I don't know if this is intended, but the Hard Fire encounters in the third map are placed very close together and it's easy to pull them together. Since they're hard encounters, pulling two makes the room very difficult. I think I also had the boss spawn in the middle of fighting one of those encounters - the boss itself was fine (Deathlock Wight), but I had serious issues fighting the Hard Fire encounter simultaneously. I also had slight issues with the first encounter in the third map, due to the number of spawns - it was just about manageable with a lot of potion use.

Happy to run it again when I've restocked and if a few of the encounters are toned down a bit!

Reviewed:
Enjoyed the run. I thought the lighting for the hallways was about the only thing I felt needed changing - but perhaps that was your intention.

Savai,

mrthebozer · June 2013

Hey Savai,

Just ran the Descent and took a few notes. A good overall dungeon dive with some real otherworldly use of advanced sliders. Here's what I have (mild spoilers ahead - the rest of you better promise to look away):

- Kartega the Marauder's design is some real crazy stuff. While I like it, the scaling also causes some pretty severe clipping issues whenever Kartega moves. Consider toning it down little by little and testing until you reach a happy medium between bizarre and broken.

- Not sure how I feel about forced damage - there is a point where traps spawned after a quest object interaction, right where I needed to stand to complete that objective. The teleporter out of the same map was located at the top of a damage dealing lava 'ramp', and teleported me into more damage dealing lava. None of it is fatal, but some players may be annoyed with this game design choice and it can impact your review. Consider how important this is to you before making any changes either way, as it is ultimately a personal preference.

- The first Firey Mantis ambush was certain death for a Control Wizard. They hit hard and match teleport for teleport, in enough numbers to crush a squishier player character. Came back from the respawn point and was able to dispatch the ones I wasn't able to kill the first time with the use of a few assorted potions, including two health potions - but please consider changing this to an encounter that a non-front-liner can hope to evade.

That's what I've got - thanks for building! If you'd like to do a trade, my own is linked in the signature (and I have my own trade thread out there), and I'd really appreciate the review.

voivodak · June 2013

savaikun, i'll play your quest in a few minutes

My adventure is in my signature

check it

I just finished playing it. It was a nice dungeon crawl. I liked the idea of the raised grate, not immediately visible. The final encounters, especially the four waves of monsters before the final boss can be intractable to deal on high lvl and for classes with low defense. 4 stars

( the locked entrance near the grate has a misnomer )

Honest Review for Review

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