Beastlord Quest: Collective Minds

Discussion in 'Test Server Forum' started by Soresha, Dec 7, 2012.

  1. Soresha Member

    This is a new quest to unlock insect warders. For anyone wishing to test it:

    a) You need to be a level 40 beastlord. If you're got a toon on Beta or Test already, great. If not you're SOL because you can't currently copy to Beta.

    b) If you're mainly wanting to test out new insect warders, you can't (yet). The quest has a totally broken quest instance atm. No one's going to get through the quest to unlock the warders until it's fixed, which I guess will be next week. So don't get too excited. ;)

    c) The quest is from Verita N'miiel at the hidden camp in Ferrott - i.e. at the spire and portal to Ethernere.

    d) You only need to click the talisman once per zone to see the sigil pieces. Though finding them took me a long, long time, so I'd rather see how others fare and let them give feedback, before just giving out the locations.


    Findings

    1. No quest icon on Verita N'miiel to start with, so the quest is hidden.

    2. Typo in question description: "one of which seems" - should be "one of whom" referring to the beastlords.

    3. Step to hunt insects shows an ROI over the hidden camp - there's no insects there at all. In fact the patchy ROIs across the zone doesn't seem accurate at all. I ended up killing insects in a spot outside the ROIs.

    4. I wouldn't personally say the voice "may not be too far..." I was killing insects on the other side of Feerrott to where the POI is, when I progressed to that step and saw that text.

    5. No quest continuation icon over Nesivian.

    6. Nesivian is talking in capitals all through the dialogue. It makes sense when he/she/it? is shouting at you initially from a distance, but it's a bit much to always be in capitals. I did like the dialogue though. :)

    7. No map POI for returning to Elvann.

    8. Dialogue with Elvann says Shalih Mar is "visiting the druid rings" - being picky but it's only a single ring?

    9. I love this quest story and the background being given. The idea of the insect Truespirit being upset because they were forgotten! Poor insects hehe.

    10. The clickable region for the portal "Presence of Kaldrahir" is much lower than the visual graphic for the portal. This makes it hard to click on. The same thing happens with the exit portal to Return to Norrath.

    11. The graphics for the exit portal aren't assembled correctly. It has the central swirl animation at right angles to the glowing outer ring part. The portal going in to Kaldrahir isn't perfect either, the central part is slightly skewed.

    12. In the dialogue with Kaldrahir, you say "I was tapped for something". Might just be me but I'm not sure what this means.

    13. Later in the dialogue with Kaldrahir, he says "I will provide you with the means to see find and see them"

    14. The ROI for the sigil piece in Ferrott is so small it hides under the site POI marker in the default UI, Is it possible to make it bigger? I really thought the ROI was missing for ages.

    15. The quest implies you should get a message coming up when you're in the right area. But I'm not getting a message in the ROI in any of the three zones.

    16. There's no buff showing for using the talisman. You have no idea if it's active or not. There's no chat message feedback for using it either, that I can see.

    17. Started in Enchanted Lands. Looked for ages (with talisman used), but didn't know what I was looking for. Gave up and went to Steamfont. Took me a while to find the Steamfont sigil piece. Putting a sparkley on them would help! Otherwise people will just give up and go get the /loc from a fan site.

    18. I'd say the Steamfont ROI is an ok size. The Feerrott one is so small it makes it very easy (once you can see the ROI). Whereas the Enchanted Land ROI is way too big. It was getting frustrating, even the second time after I knew what the object looked like.

    19. There's a graphic glitch with the mouseover action on the Keystone of Thirr. I'm getting a green cuboid shape.

    [IMG]

    20. Portal for Prison of Thir'Slaa has the clicky area too low, like the other portals.

    21. Client is crashing repeatedly trying to zone into Prison of Thir'Slaa. Looks like it's happening at the "Adding character to zone" step.

    Found this in the alertlog.txt:

    build="SOEBuild=9462T" version="SOEVersionString=2012/12/6 17:53:22" build_type="USER OPTIMIZED" ls_address="none" zone="exp08_rgn_withered_lands_epic02" loc=" 50.67 23.37 65.84" performance="7" alert="G:\test\eq2\game\Client\src\EnvironmentManager.cpp(210): m_pBase is NULL the client will probably crash! Does: 'ClientVdl/ZoneSettings/exp08_rgn_withered_lands_epic02.xml' exist?"

    I'd say it's prediction was correct. ;)

    And there's no such exp08_rgn_withered_lands_epic02.vpk in my paks directory.

    22. When does the last page of the Codex get updated then? It's not changed on my fury's book on Test. Surely it can't be a requirement to have done the quest because a) I doubt the book contents can be selective like that, and b) not everyone with the book is a beastlord. So did this get missed or is it yet to come?

    23. Can I have a ghostly house plushie for Kaldrahir please? And maybe the insect? To go with my Ifanuel and Ravinus?
  2. Dyeana Active Member

    Norrath ..... Norrath ..... We have a problem .........

    Working on testing the quest Collective minds Friday evening, and Saturday morning after the patch for the Prison. As a 90 (almost 91) Freeblood Beastlord

    So far encountered:
    1. Quest giving was OK now.Had the feather, and the books as appropriate.

    2. Progressed OK till I got on the collect the collect the pieces in the 3 zones. Got no messages when entering the zone as to direction or when getting close to the pieces. Managed to eventually find the pieces. Used the maps. The shaded area for Enchanted Lands and Steamfont were rather large to search for an unknown looking piece without any message to guide you closer to the piece. But I finally found these pieces. For the Feerrott piece, I had to resort to the mini map to see any shading as no shading shows up on the large map. After finally finding some shading by scouring the zone, I located that piece. It is rather hard with no messages to guide you closer. Took me close to 4 hours through dinner to finally find the first piece in Steamfont to know what I was looking for, EL went faster after I knew what to look for the 3rd search. Could we get the shading more defined, or the messages? Also some sparkles or something radiating off the piece might be usefull to draw ones attention to the piece.

    3. Continued with the quest, after the turn in. Progressed up to the Prison. Liked the initial view of the rock and symbol, nice touch. Entered the first time and the game crashed. This was before the Patch last night. Waited for the patch.

    4. After the patch, entered the prison fine. Continued the quest with the truespirit. Books were OK. Got the discovery for the calming article OK.

    5. For the first part after the truespirit, had to strip off weapons, drop my current warder (poor Meat beast), and drop all buffs, and equip a level 20 weapon for a chance to not kill a level 40 bug in feerrott. Finally managed to complete the calming by attacking a group of the insects, kill the first, and calm the second while still engaged in combat. There has to be a better way to either just select and calm an insect in Feerrott, but the message says you must be engaged in combat to cast the calming. Open to suggestions here or just continue with my workaround.

    6. Re-entered the Prison and continued with the dialog. At this point, I screwed up. I was basically still stripped with no weapons but a single level 20 weapon, no buffs, no warder up, and no Merc either. After the dialog with the Truespirit, the Devourer spawned. It spawned at level 90 +, and the insect mobs I am to calm are level 90 also. Needless to say, I died before I could get any charmed to fight the devourer. Revived at the entrance but before I could recover, I had a swarm on me of level 90 insects. They hit pretty hard, and in their numbers have me in a death cycle at the entrance. They continue to spawn after you die, as you are in the zone, and can't zone out. I had to quit the game without saving to stop the death of my poor Fille. Need to stop the spawning on death to allow a player to recover at the entrance. And keep the mob from overwhelming the player at the entrance. Also, the spawns spawn too fast and currently have no limit on the number of spawns, might want to limit this number to something reasonable. Also leave the possibility of exiting the zone open to allow a player to exit, regroup and reset the encounter.

    7. Going to need some help to get my character Filli out of the zone till after the next patch. Please let me know.

    Dye
    Test Server
  3. Dyeana Active Member

    Quiting the game and coming back on got me exited from the Prison.

    One thought, If scaling the zone to your level, might want to re-do the quest rating from level 40 to allow it to float with you level.

    Dye
    Test Server
  4. Dyeana Active Member

    OK went in for Bear....... Got the devourer this time fast. And the Fabled [Tame Insect Warder] tome.

    Not a bad quest overall if know what to expect. Loved the dialog.

    Now to get an insect warder started on poor Fille. heheheeeeeeeee.... Weeeeeeeeeeeee !!!!!

    Dye
    Test Server
  5. Cyliena Well-Known Member

    Some of this may be repeated from others, just going through the notes I made during the quest.

    1. Going to Nisivian it has no book/feather icon over its head.
    2. The ROI region for the sigil stone in Feerrott should be larger. The other two were nice, I actually had to think and search for those, but this one is a complete "gimmie".
    3. Soresha mentioned that the Talisman gave no buff--I honestly thought it was doing nothing due to this. Kaldrahir mentions something about listening to the whispers when he gives you the Talisman and I saw nothing to denote any whispering when I was near the stones.
    4. A huge green area (much bigger for me than what Soresha saw) pops up when you hover over the keystone. I have no idea how large it was, it's cropped off to make my pic smaller plus it went beyond what I could see on screen.

    [IMG]

    5. While speaking to Thir'Slaa inside the prison for the first time there's a typo: "The cannot be lost, or you are not complete!" The word "The" should be "That" (or maybe "It"?).
    6. Will of Thir'Slaa states that target must be an insect or arachnid. You can use it on arachnids just fine, but you get an status text message that "you can only use this on an insect".
    7. I wasn't thinking and kept trying to use the Will of the Hive on The Devourer at first. When I did I got this message: "requires a designer to write a custom failure string"
    8. The background color for Tame Insect Warder is red instead of yellow.
    9. I had a lot of trouble with the Devourer fight (once I figured it out). I did this as a level 43 Beastlord with 89 AAs copied from live. My issue was that, due to the long cast time, it was far too easy to get overwhelmed and then I couldn't use the ability worth squat. I ended up having to clear the Hive mobs a few times before I finally would be able to cast it. Basically, they come too fast for the cast time of the ability, IMO.

    [IMG]

    Overall it is a nice quest, and it's cool that I actually had to work to earn one of my tame abilities. I'm guessing that this "The Devourer" has absolutely nothing to do with the ravasect "The Devourer"?
  6. Soresha Member

    Yep the prison zone is fixed now, so on we go! (This is where the ability to now edit my first post would help, heh.)

    24. I like the clicking insect noises Thir'Slaa makes. :)

    25 Typo in dialogue on Thir'Slaa: "The cannot be lost, or you are not complete"

    26. Graphics for the exit portal from the prison are messed up in the same way, the swirl is rotated from the plane of the outer ring. And again the clickable area is too low.

    27. I do like how the locations are close the druid rings, making it possible to have a quest coverinf a lot of Norrath without it being tedious to get between the zones.

    28. The quests says to use the Will of Thir'Slaa on insects. The bauble description says insects or arachnids. The forest creep mobs are flagged for the quest but as Cyliena says given an error message that they aren't insects.

    Aside from the discrepancies above, I'd point out that spiders are NOT insects and do not form hives or have hive minds. Obviously we all want to be able to tame spiders too, so we'll just turn a blind eye to that when it comes to actual warder mobs later. But for this quest it's all about the hive, i.e. proper insects.

    My suggestion would be to take the arachnids out of this quest completely. Just deal with 6-legged insects in the story since that makes sense. Then say outside of the lore context, "oh yeah, and it'll work on spiders too" *cough*. It would affect both this step and I think the early step to kill 10 insects was updating from the spiders too. Only problem would be if there aren't enough genuine insects mobs in Ferrott, but there seemed to be plenty around.

    29. No POI for returning to the prison and nothing in the text to say "at the druid ring in Zek". You know, for people who have to break off and return to it a week later and can't remember.

    30. Wow. I'm level 41 and I was dead after casting the Will of Hive on only two insects. There were four in the room. I didn't last anywhere near as long as Cyliena's toon. Those little insects do far too much damage. I was doing this solo, no merc. I suppose with a healer merc out I would survive, but shouldn't be necessary.

    I totally agree the Will of the Hive takes far too long to cast. The Will of Thir'Slaa was slow previously too, but here it's crippling because you can't keep up with the insects coming into the room. And they're not really entering that fast. I don't want the insects slowed down, that would be boring. I think it should be: Zap, Zap, Zap! quickly on each one as it enters. That would be fun.

    After dying, I waited instead of reviving. The insects I had turned still killed the Devourer for me.

    31. The step to "Speak with Thir'Slaa once more" has the Will of the Hive quest bauble against it in the quest tracking window, but it's only for the previous step.

    32. Quest summary says arachnids are members of the hive - again, that's just biologically wrong!

    33. Really liked the story, and the reasoning for the insect warders being added. However I'm left not knowing what the Devourer actually is. It's a creature somehow trapped with the hive? What creature? Where did it come from? I don't get it. It's not really explained. I thought from the dialogue it was perhaps the darker side of the hive mind, especially the way Thir'Slaa turns into it. But at the end, the quest summary clearly states it's a "creature". So yes, could use a bit more explanatory from Thir'Slaa when she tells you of the Devourer please.

    34. The "Tame Insect Warder" item is completely tradeable! Oh... looks more like it shouldn't be given as an item at all. Because completing the quest actually gives you the ability directly (which makes a lot more sense). So right now I have the ability myself and could trade it to another, <40 beastlord!



    Mechanics/Abilities

    1. The level requirement on the Tame Insect Warder ability is set as 10. Should be 40 for consistency since that's the quest requirement. This does matter, since it is still seen in the spell book and affects sorting by level.

    2. Stare Down does not work on the insect mobs when taming them.

    3. Tame Insect Warder requires below 25% health, rather than 50% like normal warders.

    4. Beastmaster's Sight is not reporting tamable insects around you.

    Is all this because insects are deemed equivalent to exotic warders, not normal ones?

    5. The description on the Tame Insect Warder ability should probably say "Allows the beastlord to tame insects and warders" to make it clear to people.
  7. Soresha Member

    The background on the normal Tame Warder ability is red too. Red is for offensive single target abilities, whereas yellow is for self buffs, so I think it's right as it is.
  8. Cyliena Well-Known Member

    My other warder tame abilities (Tame Aquatic Warder, etc) have a yellow background.
  9. Dyeana Active Member

    Was thinking on Soresha's comment for the quest level to be 10. I think at least 40 is appropriate since that would be the level to enter all 3 of the sigal zones. But still consider the higher number since the prison scales to your current level. If use a higher level, would need some link to the start of the quest to indicate need to be level 40 like a letter or mention by the other spirit guide that there is a guide in Feerrott having a problem to assist with or investigate.

    Liked Cyliena's picture with the runaway hive. I think mine was even worse by the time I quit to try to regroup. The returning a second time to restart the Prison sequence is fine, with some redialog with Thir'Slaa before the Devourer is re-spawned. On my second attempt, I just jumped on the first hive insect to spawn with Will of the Hive. My first insect killed the Devourer. Not sure if want just one, or want some number of insects turned to kill the Devourer. I think it would be nicer to tone down the actual hit power of the spawn and up the devourer HP to have maybe 4 to 6 spawns kill the devourer in the end. Would be nicer to see the Devourer actually have a mob of turned insects on him in the final sequence. Also as I went in the 2nd time with healer merc and warder, might want the merc and warders to only get the attention of the Devourer and not able to damage the Devourer. Leave the damage to the devourer by the turned spawned mobs only. Would have to try it again to see if that would make the instance too difficult.

    As far as the final Tamer being tradable, Since not open to non-beastlords to do the quest, maybe the no-trade status of the tome would be more appropriate.

    Dye
    Test Server
  10. Soresha Member

    I wasn't saying the quest level should be 10! I'm saying the ability should be level 40, to match the quest level. :)

    And the final Tamer Ability is given straight to your character by the quest. The item for it is unnecessary duplication.
  11. Soresha Member

    Sounds like you're talking about all the Summon abilities, Cy. Those are yellow self buffs, yes. But there's only one Tame Warder ability for the normal warders.
  12. Cyliena Well-Known Member

    Yes, that's it, the one to summon the insect. Whatever I scribed from the tome I was given. It didn't match my other warder ability colors.
  13. Dyeana Active Member

    The red background of the Tame Insect Warder seems to match the Tame Warder color. And the Summon Insect warder background of yellow seems to match the background of the other summon warder combat arts. Is there something I was missing?

    Tamed insects in Withered lands, got one comment for the summoned insects .... They could be a bit larger in size, closer to the insects we summoned would be nice. Right now, they seem rather small looking.

    Dye
    Test Server
  14. Cronyn Developer

    Hey all! Thanks for all the good feedback. I'll probably head into work tomorrow and address some of this, and see if I can't get some fixes in right away.

    Thanks again, everyone! I really do appreciate all the help.
  15. Annabea Member

    Since we're discussing this (again/finally =P)

    Would it be impossible to make it a defensive warder? We have tons of offensive ones already, and as a raider they are just useless (and the def ones looks are gettin old by now). Even with the new prestige hp buff, they still die to a fart on raids (lots of stuff cant be blocked) = unusable...

    Also a prolly more reasonable idea =) The primal goes into slot 2, that already has 3 primal options. Maybe change it to a less 'crowded' slot, even 5 or 6 maybe?
  16. Dyeana Active Member

    Finally finished running this on my Live Beastie - Lady.

    Noted once get the "Will of Thir'Slaa, the quest dialog states insects of Norrath, but the text of Thir'Slaa is still referencing insects of Feerrott ..... Search within Feerrott. The members of the hive there are plentiful and strong. Should change her text to align to the quest journal. ...."Search Norrath. There are many hives throughout Norrath that are plentiful and strong."

    Only other thing I noted, When using the Will of Thir'Slaa in Withered Lands, the will does not work on any of the Vidulids, only Teralids. If used on a Virulid, you get a message this is neither an insect nor arachnids. Is it possible to change the Virulids to an insect classification. Think this would also allow taming these. :D

    Loved the quest. Looking forward to more Beastie - Lady quests. :) Wish we could get more potion quests to upgrade the warders vice the Long grind of warder after warder. :rolleyes:

    Thanks on the great quest Cronyn !

    Dye
    Test Server