Hilltop Feedback

[Planehopper]

Call me plain old bad at this game, but designating the hilltop throughfare as CR3 at the highest is a bit crazy.

We don't all want to play powerbuilds, and we cant all find a party - ESPECIALLY at low levels - to go through a dungeon.

This is what I think people mean when they think that our areas are balanced for powerbuilds.

And that's not touching on epic levels (since this thread is about the Hilltop specifically), but there you had better be eager to RP about snakes and giants. We are pigeonholing players to steeply, imo, and basically telling them from the very beginning to focus on mechanics.

[Darksol]

My two cents, I run hilltop to FAI and back 4 times, on a level 7 char, looting all chests. With the exception of the two chests of the giberling chief, not a single chest on any of the runs dropped anything but 25-35 go.

I do think the min and max allowed on lower levels should be fine tuned a bit. I enjoy mechanically strong builds and I know the server, but for a new player the progression becomes warped. He gets interesting loot on levels 1-5 doing graveyard-bandit caves-chiontar-hilltop, getting exp and some coin, and then suddenly at 6-7 the loot generator sees him as being too high. At that level, he should be getting anything between 35-45 exp per mob at giberling, while cloakwood and the mine should still be too hard.

When one can start running mines-orcs-gnolls, the process is ok again, at least until the late teens.

[Kitunenotsume]

Call me plain old bad at this game, but designating the hilltop throughfare as CR3 at the highest is a bit crazy.

I second this one. Outside my mechanics-heavy build, even with a team of three I have been wary about approaching this dungeon before level 4.

[Tanlaus]

Call me plain old bad at this game, but designating the hilltop throughfare as CR3 at the highest is a bit crazy.

We don't all want to play powerbuilds, and we cant all find a party - ESPECIALLY at low levels - to go through a dungeon.

This is what I think people mean when they think that our areas are balanced for powerbuilds.

And that's not touching on epic levels (since this thread is about the Hilltop specifically), but there you had better be eager to RP about snakes and giants. We are pigeonholing players to steeply, imo, and basically telling them from the very beginning to focus on mechanics.

I think hilltop level one is designed around a party about level 2 or 3. And I think the CR goes up as you go down.

It’s been a long time since I’ve been through there so the CR rating may be off a bit. I think there was some talk about adjusting some of the CR levels in a few places without empowering them. So you may be well right on the expected power curve of that place.

And again, AFAIK the post server split push is to essentially turn off the loot limiter for 10 and under.

I recently ran a UD toon from 1 - 30, no RCR no muled gear, specifically to experience the loot table. It was kind of worse in the UD as there are less areas, so when you hit that spot where loot dries up you’re kind of SoL until you just level past it. So I very much felt your particular pain.

[Tanlaus]

This is kinda the reason I wanted to go in and redo Hilltop Ruins from the ground up awhile back. It's the server's premier "Starter Dungeon" for new players and it really has...no consistency or theme.

You start off on floor one killing kobolds, very few use of traps and such, it's considered a CR1 or CR1.5 area, it's just a meat grinder full of Kobolds.

Second floor, Bladelings(?!?), Imps, and a Metallic Dragon(?!?), the second floor immediately goes off the rails thematically, and while you can make the argument that it's the dragon controlling them and making them do bad things it's still a metallic dragon, a young one at that. I'm pretty sure the CR doesn't go higher than 2 here.

Third floor goes off into it's own thing, a pirate subplot and some drow with your typical cave dwelling creatures like oozes, beetles, and bats. No real indication of why there are drow there beyond some purple lights and implication that they're hunting(?) but no real indication of where they came from. Pretty sure the CR stays the same as floor 2 at a firm CR 2.

And then the fourth floor is Gibberling City Central. The dungeon has 4 different themes that don't connect in one way or the other despite it being one long, flowing dungeon. The CR for Gibberling Cave is 3.5 I think, but the Gibberlings bring a lot more to the table than oozes and bats so it's a noticeable spike in difficulty.

And, to be honest, I was on board with the loot changes for a while but I'm seeing now that they're not doing as much good as I thought. The changes are further promoting the power-building culture that a lot of people already don't like. I don't want to be punished in both gameplay and loot for making a fun, RP focused build. I don't mind missing out on the huge endgame content parts unless I have a group, but people really shouldn't get gimped on loot because their level 10 build isn't as strong as another build.

I completely agree about the hilltop ruins being all over the place.

Personally the gem mines drive me a little nuts as well though I’m told it ties to server lore... was around during the devil wars and I still don’t buy it but that’s just me

And again, last I recall bantering with Ged I think the lower level loot restrictions are getting loosened up. It’s all a bit of a work in progress. But threads like this are helpful in running down the bumps in the proverbial road.