devtrackers.gg
So over the weekend I've been hopping around a number of streams and reddit threads and have seen a lot of the same question coming up regarding the design of the Forthos Dungeon. As such, I thought it would be interesting if I made a reddit post to address some of these questions.
What is the droprate of the Cudgel/Pet/Jar/Mask of Ranul?
- I'll make that public within the next couple of weeks, keep an eye on my twitter!
Why did you change Sarachnis to be a non-instanced boss, it said that it was going to be instanced in the poll blog?
The poll blog was amended before the poll went live that we will make Sarachnis non-instanced and I apologise if anyone voted for it without seeing that. The reason it was changed is that of all the feedback we received from the initial poll blog, the fact that we had another instanced boss was the biggest one.
When I reviewed this feedback, the more I thought about it, the more I realized that I would very much like for low-levels to fight this boss with their friends so, as I was on holiday, Maz re-worked the mechanics to scale up to handle a group.
I can't do the boss as high-levels are camping it with a scythe to get the pet! If the boss didn't have a pet then the high levels would go away
Without making the boss an instance or having multiple Sarachnis' rooms per world (which didn't make sense given she is the mother of the temple spiders), day 1 release was always going to be a problem, even more so considering that it was the 4th of July, a day that a lot of our American players will take off work.
The reason the boss has a pet is because it just honestly felt like she should have one, given the scale of the boss and that there are easier bosses to kill with a pet. Also, getting a pet is a genuinely enjoyable experience that I didn't want to deprive any mid-level player killing the boss of.
I also believe that the boss not having a pet would not fix the problem because the Collection Log exists. With the collection logs, players will still be farming this boss for the Jar/Cudgel in order to fill up the Sarachnis section.
Worlds are already quieter than they were last week, I was even able to get over 100 kills on my own Ironman over the weekend, despite me having to hop worlds to find a quiet room so give it a shot yourselves!
I'm a high level player and honestly the boss isn't even worth to do The drop-table is fairly underwhelming and I lose money using a scythe
- Quite honestly, this update is going to feel underwhelming to players who are used to farming at Zulrah, Vorkath, Cox and Tob for money and Sarachnis was never meant to compete with gold/hr rates for these bosses. If you're a high level player looking for exciting content, Song of the Elves is being released on the 25th!
Why can I use the altar next to Olbertus before interacting with him and then lose it if I try to kill him?
One of the themes I wanted to run with in this dungeon is the idea of consequence, that the player's choices mattered, by allowing the player to use the altar before trying to kill Olbertus then they will have truly lost something they once had and will have to walk the harder road to get it back. On the bright side, those who chose to kill him got to see a cool cutscene and unique NPC!
Another theme was to reward players for deciding to be helpful. For example, Aimeri will only warn a player not to pray at the cursed altar if the player has healed him!
I escaped the fight with the Shaeded Beast and gave Olbertus the dragonstones. Why is the altar still cursed?
- I decided to make it so that once a decision was made then the player could not go back on it to further cement the idea that the dialogue options you choose have meaning to them.
I am a pure, I used to be able to use the altar until I tried to kill Olbertus. Now I can't un-curse it without gaining prayer xp and ruining my account
- We will be fixing this on Thursday so that no prayer experience is gained from the bone burner while the altar is cursed.
Why does the Grubby Chest give me so many items? It makes it annoying to use
The idea behind the grubby chest was that it would re-stock player who were killing any creature within the dungeon including Sarachnis, if they were lucky enough to receive it.
However, after playing with the content myself over the weekend I have made a change so that the red dragonhide/dragon bones will come un-noted as this drop is annoying to receive unless the player is currently training crafting/prayer at red dragons.
Why is the Sun tome blue and the Moon tome red? Surely it would make sense for those colours to be switched?
- Those of you who have read the tomes will understand that the religion which follows the sun is all about being a strong/virtuous person whereas following the moon is about preparing a person for the inevitability of death. When designing the dungeon Mod West and I decided that of the existing runes in the game, the soul rune fit the sun followers and the blood rune fit the (now corrupted) moon followers. Hence, the colours for these runes have been used to depict the symbology for these followers.
Why do the tattered sun/moon/temple pages drop even after the miniquest has been completed? They aren't worth keeping since they are only worth 1k each
- Going back to themes of the dungeon, the biggest one was the idea that the player could self-sustain themselves from drops within the dungeon and stay there for a long period of time. As such, I decided to keep the pages once the miniquest was complete as while it may not be a lot of money, stacking pages worth 1k gold each will add up over a long period of time!
Egg potatoes?
- Egg Potatoes! I wanted the Grubby Chest to drop a 16 food healing item that made sense to come from the Hosidius area and I found this item as it makes more sense than monkfish.
Edit: Thanks to the person who gave me the gold! :o
External link →