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 wizard 101. Show all posts
Showing posts with label wizard 101. 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.
Monday, January 26, 2009
I'm Not Dead Yet
Just haven't found anything interesting to write about apparently since I left WAR. I guess I could regale you all with tales of deck construction and synergy in Wizard 101 but I doubt that would excite many of you out there. Or how I fell in love again with the Phoenix Launcher and Gauss Rifle in Planetside. Yes, the Gauss Rifle. That much-maligned instrument of doom. Not as flashy as the Cycler or Pulsar but it gets the job done in the hands of a skilled user.
I had a very productive weekend on the Wizard 101 front. Dinged 35 and got to Mooshu with the help of some great friends, Suri Jadeshade and John Lifesinger. I know it's primarily a kid's game but soloing the instances you need to advance the storyline and move on to the next world is about as tough a challenge as any gaming achievement out there. Having them help me complete the last two instances I needed in Marleybone was a refreshing change of pace but the truth is I would've completed those instances solo if they weren't around and willing to lend a hand. I just wouldn't have blasted through them as fast as I did. Looking back at it, the gauntlet I had to run through would've been brutal to solo and any wrong decision on any single turn would easily have been fatal.
On the Planetside front, I hooked up with the RPS outfit and we went on our first major excursion as an outfit on Saturday. You can read about it here and I took a few screenshots of my own and placed them here. Dinged BR6 and got my first implant to be able to view the enemy's health finally. Juggling the certifications I needed for a viable skillset made me pine for my old BR20 CR5. So I put in a ticket to Sony thinking that they had deleted my old character but it turns out that the account I was using was not my old Planetside account. There are two accounts associated with an old email I was using at that time. Now I just need Sony to figure out which one of them has my old character in case I ever want to re-activate Planetside.
Speaking of which, SOE really needs a better pricing plan for PS. Bundling it up as part of a Station Access pass doesn't work for me as I'm not interested in any of their other games. And paying the normal $14.95 monthly fee for it alone doesn't work either. Sorry, but that's not a lot of value compared to what you can get elsewhere for the same amount. Judging from the player population the past week, Planetside is still a very popular niche game. I would imagine a more creative pricing plan would boost the paying population even more.
As for World of Warcraft, I have barely logged on since I bought the expansion. I just couldn't muster the minimum effort needed to even level my Paladin past 71. Not a good sign and one I took to heart as I cancelled my WoW account yet again. At least I'll have the expansion installed in case I ever decide to return to Azeroth.
I had a very productive weekend on the Wizard 101 front. Dinged 35 and got to Mooshu with the help of some great friends, Suri Jadeshade and John Lifesinger. I know it's primarily a kid's game but soloing the instances you need to advance the storyline and move on to the next world is about as tough a challenge as any gaming achievement out there. Having them help me complete the last two instances I needed in Marleybone was a refreshing change of pace but the truth is I would've completed those instances solo if they weren't around and willing to lend a hand. I just wouldn't have blasted through them as fast as I did. Looking back at it, the gauntlet I had to run through would've been brutal to solo and any wrong decision on any single turn would easily have been fatal.
On the Planetside front, I hooked up with the RPS outfit and we went on our first major excursion as an outfit on Saturday. You can read about it here and I took a few screenshots of my own and placed them here. Dinged BR6 and got my first implant to be able to view the enemy's health finally. Juggling the certifications I needed for a viable skillset made me pine for my old BR20 CR5. So I put in a ticket to Sony thinking that they had deleted my old character but it turns out that the account I was using was not my old Planetside account. There are two accounts associated with an old email I was using at that time. Now I just need Sony to figure out which one of them has my old character in case I ever want to re-activate Planetside.
Speaking of which, SOE really needs a better pricing plan for PS. Bundling it up as part of a Station Access pass doesn't work for me as I'm not interested in any of their other games. And paying the normal $14.95 monthly fee for it alone doesn't work either. Sorry, but that's not a lot of value compared to what you can get elsewhere for the same amount. Judging from the player population the past week, Planetside is still a very popular niche game. I would imagine a more creative pricing plan would boost the paying population even more.
As for World of Warcraft, I have barely logged on since I bought the expansion. I just couldn't muster the minimum effort needed to even level my Paladin past 71. Not a good sign and one I took to heart as I cancelled my WoW account yet again. At least I'll have the expansion installed in case I ever decide to return to Azeroth.
Monday, January 12, 2009
Wizard 101 First Impression
I kept saying to myself several times while I was playing Wizard 101 that I really should stop this and go do something else. But it was always just one more quest, one more boss and eventually I just gave in to just having fun in this game.
So this weekend was supposed to be where I'd get my White Lion to 20 and get the mount to make my leveling life a little easier. Instead, I decided to check off a couple more games on my to-do list and installed the free-to-play MMO's Atlantica Online and Wizard 101. Even without the updates on the game from Saylah and Tipa, I knew this was a title I would eventually check out on my own. Many moons ago, I had a voracious addiction to Magic: The Gathering and spent quite a bit of time playing the collectible card game. Also, while I've never read the Harry Potter books, I knew basically what the genre was about from the movies based on them.
Based on the little quiz that is given in the beginning, it turns out I was a Fire Mage. Since I had next to no clue what the different schools were about yet in the game, I just went with that result. As a secondary school, I picked Thunder thinking the best defense is a good offense. Now that I'm close to level 15, I'm thinking this build might not be all that suitable for soloing which I plan to do a lot of in this game. So I'll probably reroll as Thunder/Life before I get too much further in the game. Strange that in a game with such a young target audience, there isn't a respec system to redo bad decisions regarding your character class selection.
While the game is free to play, the amount of free content is pretty meager and it won't be long before you exhaust it all. I opted for the pay as you play option instead of a regular subscription but I knew in the first hour of playing that I'd eventually be plunking some money down to unlock the additional content.
Kudos the developers at KingIsle Entertainment for creating a game that appeals to both the young and young at heart. The graphics and animations are suitably bright and colorful yet look like they could run on almost any system. The world looks alive as you see tons of players run around. I must admit to feeling a little uneasy at the thought that most of these were really young children and I've found myself being more reticent than normal. The ability to jump in and help out in fights is fantastic and the cardgame mechanic is solid if a little elementary. I still need a guide to decipher all the card symbols and it won't be long before I pore over card lists and come up with the ultimate deck design. I can't wait.
So this weekend was supposed to be where I'd get my White Lion to 20 and get the mount to make my leveling life a little easier. Instead, I decided to check off a couple more games on my to-do list and installed the free-to-play MMO's Atlantica Online and Wizard 101. Even without the updates on the game from Saylah and Tipa, I knew this was a title I would eventually check out on my own. Many moons ago, I had a voracious addiction to Magic: The Gathering and spent quite a bit of time playing the collectible card game. Also, while I've never read the Harry Potter books, I knew basically what the genre was about from the movies based on them.
Based on the little quiz that is given in the beginning, it turns out I was a Fire Mage. Since I had next to no clue what the different schools were about yet in the game, I just went with that result. As a secondary school, I picked Thunder thinking the best defense is a good offense. Now that I'm close to level 15, I'm thinking this build might not be all that suitable for soloing which I plan to do a lot of in this game. So I'll probably reroll as Thunder/Life before I get too much further in the game. Strange that in a game with such a young target audience, there isn't a respec system to redo bad decisions regarding your character class selection.
While the game is free to play, the amount of free content is pretty meager and it won't be long before you exhaust it all. I opted for the pay as you play option instead of a regular subscription but I knew in the first hour of playing that I'd eventually be plunking some money down to unlock the additional content.
Kudos the developers at KingIsle Entertainment for creating a game that appeals to both the young and young at heart. The graphics and animations are suitably bright and colorful yet look like they could run on almost any system. The world looks alive as you see tons of players run around. I must admit to feeling a little uneasy at the thought that most of these were really young children and I've found myself being more reticent than normal. The ability to jump in and help out in fights is fantastic and the cardgame mechanic is solid if a little elementary. I still need a guide to decipher all the card symbols and it won't be long before I pore over card lists and come up with the ultimate deck design. I can't wait.
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