Fist de Yuma - November 9, 2004

Questing with a mule It all started out with a comment Punchy Smash made while we were talking. I was hunting in the 80+ Matron with Salvage Mule three at the time. We were talking about the name "Salvage Mule." I was explaining how he was a driver for my tradesman, while at the same time collecting salvage. The salvage mules are very focused on Olthoi, so there should be no worry that he was one of the "loot but don't hunt" type of player. Punchy Smash then said it would be a good idea for Cliff Bowman to go do the Font of Jojii quest. It was a great idea! The quest is a bit long, and requires a lot of running. Nevertheless, doing this quest would add 1 point to my armor skill, and 2 to my weapon skill. Given that we are talking about 60 million (1 point Armor) and 100 million (2 points Weapon), even a daylong quest would be worth doing. Of course, the problem is Cliff Bowman's lack of combat ability. I have long since sold off his bow skill. He does have UA, being Sho, but his coordination is not very high. The thought of wasting xp on building a skill, for a one-time quest, did not make sense. To his advantage, he does have Melee and Missile defense. This is just to activate items, but at least he has them. With a high Focus, he was not that off on Magic defense either. To feel ready for this quest, I had to spend about 10 million points. Those went into Quick, Magic Defense and Heal. The armor was no problem, as I had just finished tinking up a set. It took a bit to unload all the armor he was carrying, to get under burden, but the use of two computers made that easy. The main problem was finding room on the other mules. I was finally ready to try the quest. My idea was to just run through the dungeons, healing when I had a chance. With a moderate amount of Melee, Missile and Magic defense, I was hoping to keep out of trouble. Having max endurance, and having built it up a bit, give me confidence. The running was going to be a pain. Cliff Bowman has no magic skills whatsoever. This means he cannot use ties and recalls. Fortunately, I'm well versed with the portal system, and kept the long runs to a minimum. The first step is to go to Tou-Tou. You talk to a guy and go to a small outside temple. That leads you to Nanto. I took the portal to Lin and ran to Nanto. The next step was to get to Sawato. That was a bit of a run. I took a housing portal in Shoushi to shorten it. After hitting another outdoor temple, I was ready to try the first dungeon. It was also a bit of a run to the dungeon. I noted as I was running that I had forgotten to pick up some portal gems. The gems that get you to Tusker Island make great escape items. As my intent was to run in, grab the item, and use the gem to portal out, not having one was a problem. I figured that this was the easiest of the three dungeons. I could just run back to a portal. I should not have worried, as my defenses held up well. I just ran in, grabbed the note, and touched the object. I then ran back up the ramp and into the portal. Easy, simple and safe. One down. I tried to take the next one on the same buff. A few mistakes prevented that. First, I was in a hurry, and forget to touch the temple in Lin. I was halfway to the dungeon before I realized it. I did another allegiance hometown and started over. By the time I go to the dungeon, I only had seven minutes left. I tried to run to the end, but got lost in the maze. With 30 seconds left, I hit the portal gem. After a rebuff, I ran back. This time I was not as rushed, so I did not get lost. So far so good. I took a little damage but nothing that forced me to heal. The halls are wide enough that I did not get trapped. I had to wait for one monster to go into melee mode, to get around him, but that was it. I knew that the last dungeon was a bit harder, and there was a lot of running left. I rebuffed rather than take a chance of having to do the runs twice. As it turned out, I made it before the older buffs wore off. First I ran from Arwic to the subway, and took the Qbar portal. Then I ran to the housing portals and exited a few clicks from Kara. I ran there and talked to the guy. A short run got me to the last dungeon. I knew the drop was hot. I started running as soon as I was out of bubble. This dungeon I knew well, so getting lost would not be a problem. I ran down a hallway that curves around to a cut back, and into a set of rooms with gated doors. I got close to the rooms, but there was a Lich camped in the center of a narrow hall, right at the cut back. I could not run past him. If he were in melee mode, I might have been able to push him back, using the slow walk that Heideggar taught me. That would not work because it was using throw weapon, and they don't need room to attack. The trick Heideggar taught me takes advantage of a melee needing room to swing. You might note that at times you cannot swing when in a crowd of monsters. You will also see your player, or the monster, have to back up if you are to close to them at the start of combat. That also works for the monsters. If you walk up to a monster, using shift forward, you will press them. They have to back up to attack. This will allow you to push them back and make an escape route. That does not work with archers or throw weapons. I ran back up the hall, and circled around, and back to the problem spot. Most of the undead followed me, and left the passage clear. When I hit that same spot, that same Lich was blocking the hall. I did this several times, but was unable to get him out of my way. I was stuck. I would need help clearing a path. I logged off and logged on Fist de Mage. After a short buff, he ran to the dungeon. It took Fist de Mage little time to clear a path for Cliff Bowman. I kept logging each in turn, so Cliff Bowman just walked in and got the last part. From there I ran to Mayoi, and got a housing portal to the final part. I talked to the guy and got the water. I built up a Font and gave it to Qu', one of our buff bots. I still have a mule that can benefit from doing this quest. He is not as important a tradesman as Cliff Bowman, so I can wait for a group to go. He has little endurance, and, at last check, not many hit points. It will be a lot better for him to just hang back while some real fighters do the work. Instance death It is easy to fall into the leveling trap. This means only hunting in high xp places. When hunting for xp, I will generally try to find a place where I can get 15 to 30 million an hour. The problem with that is you stop hunting in places that were fun, because they only return 5 to 8 million an hour. It also restricts you to one type of player. When hunting Olthoi, I will take a melee. When hunting Tuskers, I can take a mage, but it is easer with a melee. This meant that my mages were getting neglected. I decided that I needed to forget about the xp and just hunt for fun. I loaded up Fist's Armorer and headed to the Plains. This a fun hunt, with average loot. I will generally pick up around 5 to 7 million an hour. Everything was going smooth. I had one string of strange loot finds. I picked up five sing keys in the first twenty minutes of hunting. Normal is one every few hours. Unfortunately, Fist's Armorer does not have Lock Pick, so I guess I'll just use them to get some blue healing kits. One of my goals was to pick up some Drudge amulets. I used to be able to find a lot of them on the plains. I am not hurting for them, but figured to stock up a bit anyway. Sadly, in the two hours I was there, I did not find a single one. After traversing the slot, I climbed up to the plains. I cleared several spawns, and I saw a monster I wanted to kill. It was in a large pod of mixed monsters. This is normal on the Plains. You will have to clear one type at a time generally. I saw some Shadows in there, and decided to take them out first. I got back just far enough to open up with a double attack. This is where you toss a normal war, immediately followed by an Arc spell. Except for a handful of monsters, this will let you get two spell attacks at once. Most monsters will die to that. This time my victim survived. What I had missed was a bunch of Grievvers just behind them. If I had seen the Grievvers, I would have attacked them first. Grievvers will defend Shadows, while Shadows will not defend Grievvers. I saw the four Shadows running up on me. The Grievvers were close behind. I noted that I was at low health, and then I was at 60. Before I could even think about healing, I was dead. All this happened in less than a second. As I stated in my last column, I treat death as if it means something. Fist's Armorer just made 126, and that was only his 23rd death. Scrolling back showed that two of the Shadows hit me with a level VI health drain. I was also hit by a hidden spell. If I had seen the war spells, I would have side stepped and avoided them. There is a small bug in AC. If you stand in front of someone that fires a war spell at a monster, you will not see the effect travel to the monster. This rarely happens with a monster attacking you, but it will happen, especially when working with a large pod of monsters, as I was. I did not see any war spells going my way, but the text showed I was hit by an Acid spell from a Grievver. I did not think two drains followed by a war spell would be enough to take out my over 300 hit points, but I might have had an acid vuln on. In any case, it was my first instance death since Martine took me out at Romside's wedding. Who is the moron who said this was easy? Jeff sent me an e-mail asking if I wanted to go on the 80+ Olthoi armor quest. He had several people lined up. Key was Lifedraynor, because he knows the route very well. I always get lost there. (g) I told Jeff that it was an easy quest, if a bit long. When the day arrived, we did not have everyone we needed. All we had were Jeff and I. I know I could solo it, with Fist, I was not so sure I could keep Jeff alive. Another problem is that Jeff's player, Kepi, is not self buffing yet. This quest generally takes a few hours, and that is not counting the getting lost time. While hanging at the mansion, people started volunteering to go with us. Also, some of the people who were slotted to go started to arrive. Jeff decided to use Mage Sailor Bane, as he can self buff, and it is nice to have mage support. As we started out, Lifedraynor logged on. We waited for him at the Bandit Castle. I decided to take Owanda. He is self-buffing, with a lot of fizzles, and Mace is the biggest Olthoi killer there is. So we set off with; Mage Sailor Bane (96lv Mage), Owanda (112lv Macer), D A C (114 lv UA), Dibbuk (93 lv), and Lifedraynor (80lv Mage). Our route was from Tou-Tou (via allegiance hometown), Arwic, Mountain short cut, Bandit Castle and a short run west to the dungeon. Lifedraynor did an outstanding job leading us through the maze. I still don't have it down, but I might be able to find Queens now. When I tried to find the Queens before, I ran into a lot of different sections. I even found some Brood Nobles. Wherever I was, it is far away from the proper route. I was surprised to find the dungeon very camped. It seemed like there was an attended macro around every corner. Macros are easy to spot, but they did talk to us. When we got to the first Matron, we found two hunters. They were not after the parts, so I just made sure we got the matron kill. One of the hunters commented that we worked well together. I would have taken pride in that comment, if it were not for our later results. I wanted to go hunt the second Matron, in order to speed things up a bit. This is where our teamwork started to fail. Lifedraynor led me to the next part, but everyone but D A C followed us. I saw the call for help from D A C, and quickly backtracked to give him a hand. We finally got organized in both spots, and each of us got the three parts we needed. Now it was on to the Queens. We went a short distance and got to the two Queens. There was a mage macroing in the center between the Queens. This created a small problem, as we had trouble getting back and forth between them. Most of the group was killing off the right side Queen. I headed over to the left one after a bit. I found out that Owanda needs a lot of time to take down a Queen. I did not count, but it seemed like I was only taking off 1% health per swing. Not taking healing into account, that is at least 100 full power swings. We were doing fine, killing and getting parts, when Jeff tried to go over to the right side Queen with D A C. The group around the macroing mage got Jeff trapped, and he died. Dibbuk recovered Jeff's stuff. I showed Dibbuk where the exit portal was. Lifedraynor recalled to help Jeff mule some stuff. That left me and D A C. My buffs were running out, so I drifted back up the passage and started to buff. D A C got his last part just before I started buffing. I warned D A C not to get into trouble, as I would not be there to help. He said he had it covered. I watched him get mobbed, stop to heal, and die shortly after. He said he failed to heal several times in a row. You can imagine my panic as the horde of Olthoi charged down the hall at me. It was a close thing, as I was under 50 hit points before I could get a weapon and shield on. I only needed one more part by this time, so I kept at it. The third Queen kill netted me my last part. Meanwhile, I could hear Lifedraynor, Jeff and Dibbuk talk as they worked their way back. In one nasty part, they seemed in a panic. I did not see Lifedraynor's death, I did see Dubbuk's, and heard Jeff say he had recalled. I decided we needed to have a little more power. After getting D A C's body, I recalled back to the mansion, give him his stuff, and loaded Fist. I was surprised to find that Fist did as well or better than Owanda on Olthoi. I've been disappointed with Fist's performance of late. Of course there is a big difference between Olthoi and VoD monsters. We found Lifedraynor's body a few steps away from Dibbuk's. We did not have any trouble after that. On the way through the Matrons, I had Fist grab two parts. At the Queens, we quickly got the finally parts for everyone, and they ported out. They were surprised that I did not follow them. My intent from there was to get the rest of the parts. While it took a few tries, Fist could land Imperil and a Bludgeoning Vuln on the Queen. I would still have to waste time keeping the guards down, but it only took a minute or two to defeat a Queen. I had to be sure that the Muts stayed off my back. They can hit me, and my armor is made for majors, and only averages around 250 AL. Few things can get past my melee defense, but Mut from the back are one of them. My big problem was trying to Buff. There is no safe spot in that dungeon, that I know of. There were a lot of things that could reach the hall I was buffing in. I would generally get about 10 spells in, before having to go back fighting. My plus 36% melee defense wand kept me from having any exciting points. After getting the six parts from the Queens, I backtracked and killed a few more Matrons, and got the last part. I'll keep that set of armor for quick quests, where I don't need my majors, and don't want to bother buffing the armor. 80+ Tusker dungeon The one place I have left the most bodies is the 80+ Tusker dungeon. Even the Plains cannot match the number of kills that place has caused my players. My last was with Death Mute. I figured I could fight at the start, even with a level VII de-buff. I had picked up the de-buff on the run there. I figured to save a dispel gem by fighting one at a time for a short while. I could not have been more wrong. I was dead with two blows. The first one took me to 60, and I died while reaching towards the healing elixir with the mouse. I've been meaning to swap his armor, as it is high value stuff. I made it before the lower value armor was put in, after using up all my pre armor. So I arrived at the LS naket. No excuse really, I have a lot of highly tinked DI's sitting on mules. I just never bothered to build his DI's up. So I had to let him use Fist de Mages armor for the recovery. I'll fix that up before I hunt with him again. The day before, I got a call from Jeff. It seemed Kepi and Lifedraynor tried to go to the 80+ Tusker, and met the typical fate of new 80 level players. I grabbed up Fist's Armorer to give them a hand. Mages are the best to take there when in a group. Solo I would prefer a sword or high melee Archer. I taught them the route, and helped them recover the bodies. This is a great dungeon. One of the best Turbine has ever made. There are few that can go there, and expect to be safe, while getting the top reward. I'm not sure how well this will stand up when the leveling cap is removed, but I'll expect to see a few mages die there, especially if they macroed their level. Throne of Destiny There is a lot of information and questions about the expansion. Turbine is doing its best to get the information out, and answer the questions. I have some reservations about some of what I heard. Rather than just listen to rumors, I took the time to see what Turbine has written. This will not be a complete list, but I'll touch on things that worried me. One of the ideas leaves a bad taste in my mouth. This is the augmentation gem. These are gems that cost you xp, 1 to 4 billion from the information I get. For must of us, a billion xp is a lot of time and effort, months of not years. I feel this will mainly benefit the cheaters. As it is, cheating is still a large part of AC. I know of many allegiances that use IRC programs to macro in complete safety. I cannot go into many dungeons without finding a macro. I run into them daily. When we saw 200+ players on the new server, within two or three months, I understood that Turbine has totally lost its ability to control the cheaters. Unless they are willing to take the steps necessary to stop it, AC will gain few recruits and many will be leaving for the newer games. Many of the things in the expansion are geared towards rewarding the cheaters, while leaving the fair players in the cold. If Turbine does not address this problem, in a big way, the expansion will be a bust. Many of these ideas are not set. They might go with them; they might go in a totally different direction. I can only hope that whomever they get to test these ideas are hard-core AC players, who despise cheaters, and are not EverQuest rejects. Q: If the level cap is removed, how will a level 200 join an allegiance? A: They are likely going to set a cap on swearing. The word I got was 100. After that level, whatever they decide on, anyone can swear to them. Not written in stone yet. Q: Since much of the expansion will cost massive xp to get, are they going to increase the amount of xp you get from hunting, or is this for the cheaters only? A: IBN has stated that we should not expect the xp per hour to be the same. Not a great answer, so we have to wait and see on this. Q: I have an inactive account that will get more than 4 billion of xp passup if I activate them. As they have removed the cap, can I get more than 4 billion? A: No, current storage is in a 32bit variable. They will get copied to a 64bit variable after you log in the first time, after you upgrade. After it is copied to the 64bit file, you can start gaining more xp. Q: We get lower experience for a kill, after passing the level of the monster. Will this lowering get worse after we can level past 126? A: They are still working on this. Their thinking is, make current monsters have a higher listed level. Change the system. Use gems. (Reward cheaters) Q: Will the number of death items go up as you pass 126 level? A: Maybe. They are talking about up to 29 items dropping. Other options are to lower drop rate and increase the death xp penalty or using gems to lower the amount dropped. (Reward cheaters) Q: Will I be able to use the percentage rewards, such as Tusks, after 126, when I get the expansion? A: Yes, but there might be some changes. Very high levels can walk through them without effort. That will be addressed later. Q: Can I sell back an augmentation if I don't like the results, or want something different later? A: Still being talked about, but likely no. Q: Is the expansion just for the hard working high levels and cheaters? A: There will be a lot added for new players. This will likely be focused on the new race. Where I see things lacking is the middle players. I see a lot about low-level stuff, and a lot about high-level stuff, but almost nothing about mid-level stuff. I'm hoping this is just because the issue has not come up yet. Srand did make a comment about mid-level stuff, so I expect there to be something for everyone. Q: Will we get a new slot so we can try the new race? A: Maybe later, but no plan for that now. I would hate to have to kill off a mule, but I likely will. Q: Will storage increase? A: They are thinking of a gem for this. Current thought is 4 billion xp cost. So all the cheaters will have it, but few non-cheating players will. Q: Will the spec'd cap get raised? (Limit on the total amount of spec'd skills you can have at one time, current is 64) A: No Q: What gems are they thinking of? A: These three were on the Turbine board. 5% increases in infuse ability, from 33% to 38%. Possibility repeatable. (This is one I'll try to get, with my allegiances help.) Cost, 2 billion xp. Lower death penalties; no loss of buffs, less dropped items etc. Cost, 4 billion. Add carrying ability. Will increase carrying ability of strength by 20% per strength point. Current is 135 BU per strength point. That would change to 162. If repeatable, 194, etc. Hard Ride Well, I got froggy and decided to give the Fortuna mine a try. I had done a few 20 mile street rides, and a hard 30 miller in the last month. Unfortunately, both Thursday's I had planned to do dirt rides had gotten rained out. It rarely rains in Yuma. Because of flooding and other problems, it is not wise to go riding in the desert when it is wet. Hard rock mountains will drain water very quickly. The results are called flash floods. While I had never seen one in Yuma, I had seen humongous rocks appear in the washes after a good rain. There is nothing like seeing a two-ton rock appearing out of the blue to give you respect for the power of a flash flood. So I had sort of lost the feel of how bad a mountain bike ride can be on the body. A smooth street ride, where you average 15 miles per hour, will not prepare you for a 22 mile dirt ride, over rocks with an average speed of 9 miles per hour. There was a slight wind. Unfortunately it was at my back for the beginning of the ride. Normally a tail wind is good, but in this case it made me hot. It was around 80 degrees. I was moving at about the same speed as the wind, so I was in dead air. My biggest problem was sweat in the eyes. It stung like hell. I was using a plastic sun filter. This holds fast to your face without the need for other support. It is a perfect item for sun protection under eyeglasses. Because of the dead air, the sweat was not drying, and starting to flow into my eyes. I had to remove the sun filter to help the drying. I was really feeling it during the climbs. This was another thing my street rides had not prepared me for. The hill a dreaded the most came near the end, about a half mile from a spot I call the Bowl. This climb is out of a wash. It was rocky and rutted. There were steep cuts in the slope, so you had to thread your way up it. There were spots where you had to shift from rocks, to hard pack, to gravel. I was dreading it as I approached. Much to my surprise, this was the only real change I saw in the road to the mine. Whereas there were only minor changes from years past in the road, this spot was completely different. It was changed to a hard packed gravel road, wide and easy to climb. I think things would have been fine if I had listened to my body. I got to a point where I was near to the mine, but the path was a steep downhill, over rocks. I call this the Bowl, because it curves around while dropping steeply. You are going in the opposite direction for a time, and then it cuts sharply back. I debated turning around then, but I was so darn close to it. Another mile and a half and I would have made my goal, six months early. One of the reasons I was hurting was because of the rain. It had not rained hard, just enough to wash the sand from between the rocks. So a minor rocky road became a major rocky road. Rather than listen to my body, I decided to finish the ride to the mine. If anything, the Bowl was a lot worse than I remembered it. The rocks were so bad that I could barely make headway, even though I was going down hill. At the mine itself, I sat on a concrete slab, sucked Gatorade, and eat a few Fig Newtons. I knew I was hurting, but at least I was starting back. I hoped the rest and food would restore me. Riding out of the Bowl was a nightmare. Low gear crawling over the rocks, when tired and sore, is not my idea of fun. At the top, in a slight dip, I came close to going over the handlebars when I hit a rock. The back wheel was up, but I was able to get my foot down and prevent a crash. I've crashed like that before, without injury, but I would rather not chance it. The rest of the ride was hell. I was so sore that it felt better to walk than ride. My hands felt it the worse. I still have marks in my palms from the ride, despite thick gloves. There are places in the desert where they have signal beacons. They are used to save illegal's when they get into trouble traveling across the desert. I was joking with a friend that if I came across one, I would have been tempted to use it. (g) The ride took over three hours to do. I was a bit sunburned when done. I was sure that I would be in bad shape the next day. To my surprise, I was not sore at all. So my fitness is getting there, I'm just not quite ready to be riding to the mine just yet.