The current tower I am stuck at in Dragonspyre is called Edrik's Vault. The reason I guessed there were at least seven floors was that I happened to die on my best attempt at the seventh floor. So I now find out in this excellent post from the Wizard 101 Central forums (Great forums I highly recommend BTW to anyone wishing to learn more about this game) that there are indeed 7 floors to this particular tower.
So I died during the last floor.
I had lost all desire to try again after that attempt. But now that I know how close I was I'm probably going to try again to solo this monstrosity. Wish me luck.
Showing posts with label dragonspyre. Show all posts
Showing posts with label dragonspyre. Show all posts
Monday, February 9, 2009
Saturday, February 7, 2009
Tower Power
So it looks like the end of my soloing days in Wizard 101. I had a sneaking suspicion that Dragonspyre was meant to be tackled in groups in my previous post. This was confirmed when I came up against a tower instance that had at least 7 floors from what I had seen so far that would reset completely in the event of failure. 7 floors and 3 potions. I didn't like the math but was determined to try anyways. Even dinging during the middle of one attempt which acted like a fourth potion didn't help. There was no way I was doing this solo.
It got me to thinking more about the intended audience for Wizard 101. It's always amazed me and the more mature players I've grouped with how appealing this game is for adults. The difficulty level seemed way out of proportion for something you would expect a child to enjoy. I now think this wasn't by accident. The first world is easy enough but by the time the player reaches the second world, Krokotopia, the difficulty starts becoming too much for the average child. Who better to seek help from but your parents, then? So Wizard 101 wasn't really designed strictly for either kids or adults to enjoy. But for whole families. The revelation didn't exactly help my situation but it did soothe the rough feelings about it a bit.
I still want to fight that bastard Malistaire so if you have access to Dragonspyre and want to help or need help yourself, let me know. I won't promise to adopt you but I might say some nice things about you in this blog.
It got me to thinking more about the intended audience for Wizard 101. It's always amazed me and the more mature players I've grouped with how appealing this game is for adults. The difficulty level seemed way out of proportion for something you would expect a child to enjoy. I now think this wasn't by accident. The first world is easy enough but by the time the player reaches the second world, Krokotopia, the difficulty starts becoming too much for the average child. Who better to seek help from but your parents, then? So Wizard 101 wasn't really designed strictly for either kids or adults to enjoy. But for whole families. The revelation didn't exactly help my situation but it did soothe the rough feelings about it a bit.
I still want to fight that bastard Malistaire so if you have access to Dragonspyre and want to help or need help yourself, let me know. I won't promise to adopt you but I might say some nice things about you in this blog.
Monday, February 2, 2009
Dragonspyre Ratchets up the Difficulty
One of the first things I noticed after I got my first "kill some wandering street mobs" quest in Dragonspyre was the increased HP's of the average mob. In Mooshu, the typical trash mob would have maybe 675 HP. In Dragonspyre, they tend to have around 1200 HP. This would necessitate a change to my typical deck design which had revolved around abusing Immolate for fun and profit.
Immolate is a Fire spell available as a reward after completing Krokotopia so only primary Fire wizards have access to it. For four pips, it deals 600 fire damage to an enemy and deals 250 fire damage to yourself. I had accumulated enough spell power gear that I was able to knock out around 700 HP's in one successful shot even without any charms or traps to augment the Immolate spell. With my Mooshu sword, 4 pips were almost always available during the second turn and sometimes rarely on the first. So unless the mobs were Fire and thus resistant to Immolate damage, I would face them with a 40 card deck that had 6 copies of Immolate increasing the odds that I would always see one on the first or second turn. Add in Fire protection shields that reduced any Immolate damage by 80% and fire resistant gear for even more fun.
The increased toughness of the random Dragonspyre mobs meant a halt to the Immolate festivities. The damage I was doing to myself would mean that I was just doing the surviving mobs a favor in killing myself. So this relegated Immolate to a closing spell to do the final damage to the last mob and increased the importance of my big-hitters, the 5 and 6 pip spells, Stormzilla and Helephant. This also meant an increase in the time needed to kill the pairs of common street mobs you typically come across when soloing. 1200 HPx2 is nothing to sneeze at especially when both mobs are constantly throwing hexes to reduce your spell's power and shields to reduce your damage. Fizzles are absolutely magnified in Dragonspyre as they go from being momentary nuisances to major time sinks.
The increased HP's are not the only feature of the increased difficulty in Dragonspyre. Tower quests are back which have you running through a gauntlet of floors without any health wisps to top you off between fights. Bosses also have some annoying features like one that has two companions wisps that do nothing but cast every protection shield known to man on the boss mob until you manage to kill them. I'm sure the increased difficulty is there to put the brakes on ardent soloers like myself and to increase the importance of grouping up in the endgame. It's all good if it means I have more time to savor the last 5 levels to cap in this game.
Immolate is a Fire spell available as a reward after completing Krokotopia so only primary Fire wizards have access to it. For four pips, it deals 600 fire damage to an enemy and deals 250 fire damage to yourself. I had accumulated enough spell power gear that I was able to knock out around 700 HP's in one successful shot even without any charms or traps to augment the Immolate spell. With my Mooshu sword, 4 pips were almost always available during the second turn and sometimes rarely on the first. So unless the mobs were Fire and thus resistant to Immolate damage, I would face them with a 40 card deck that had 6 copies of Immolate increasing the odds that I would always see one on the first or second turn. Add in Fire protection shields that reduced any Immolate damage by 80% and fire resistant gear for even more fun.
The increased toughness of the random Dragonspyre mobs meant a halt to the Immolate festivities. The damage I was doing to myself would mean that I was just doing the surviving mobs a favor in killing myself. So this relegated Immolate to a closing spell to do the final damage to the last mob and increased the importance of my big-hitters, the 5 and 6 pip spells, Stormzilla and Helephant. This also meant an increase in the time needed to kill the pairs of common street mobs you typically come across when soloing. 1200 HPx2 is nothing to sneeze at especially when both mobs are constantly throwing hexes to reduce your spell's power and shields to reduce your damage. Fizzles are absolutely magnified in Dragonspyre as they go from being momentary nuisances to major time sinks.
The increased HP's are not the only feature of the increased difficulty in Dragonspyre. Tower quests are back which have you running through a gauntlet of floors without any health wisps to top you off between fights. Bosses also have some annoying features like one that has two companions wisps that do nothing but cast every protection shield known to man on the boss mob until you manage to kill them. I'm sure the increased difficulty is there to put the brakes on ardent soloers like myself and to increase the importance of grouping up in the endgame. It's all good if it means I have more time to savor the last 5 levels to cap in this game.
Saturday, January 31, 2009
Dragonspyre
Finished off Mooshu and got to Dragonspyre. I celebrated by going back to Sunken Temple and soloing that annoying instance. So good to finally get that entry out of my logbook. For an encore, I then went and dinged 45. A pretty productive day, I'd say.
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