Temple of Elemental Evil?

More like Temple of Endless DA or Temple of the Needle in the Haystack.

It was on sale, so I decided to pick it up.  I remember when it was being developed before I quit* and I was looking forward to it back then.  I thought it was going to be something along the lines of Haunted Halls (which was amazing) and was looking forward to a classic module coming to life.

First impressions – I went in with a capped, epic toon** to check it out.  I’m obviously blasting through it and after about 40 minutes of wandering around pt 1, my first thought was “so, we’re not even expected to actually finish this, are we?  Just to collect as many ingredients as possible before we get bored, recall and go do something more interesting.”

So, let’s talk about size.  I know that was a major complaint (from what I’ve read on various sources) and a number of people thought it should have been chopped up into smaller parts.  Even with an epic toon, it takes about an hour to explore every nook and cranny in there.  My first instinct was that it was too long.

But really, that’s what the game is lacking.  Something epic.  Something that can’t be zerged in 5 to 20 minutes.  Something that takes a group effort and requires hours to push through it – that’s exactly what D&D was and what the people who played the table top version loved about it.

But this wasn’t it.

It’s monotonous, pointless, wandering, and boring.  Part one especially is an hour’s worth of corridors that are exactly the same – even the areas that are different are only slightly so where they might as well be exactly the same as the miles you’ve already traversed.

No puzzles.  No barriers to drop.  Nothing that requires you to work together.  Hell, not even any ramps to fight your way up.  Basically just 4 keys to collect and move on.  There’s not even any knobs to turn, just a shitload of doors to open.

The only reason to explore is for the rares…or Wil Wheaton’s little golden nuggets of insight – which just isn’t enough of a pay-off for the time it takes hacking through the mobs.

Random spawns suck – pt 2 is at least better designed, has more depth and creativity – and fucking sucks the worst.  I find the needle in the haystack approach to be just fucking horrible.  Having to go down every fucking corridor (if you’re not lucky enough to find it quickly) just to get the node is just stupid.  And not having more guaranteed bosses in set locations is even worse.  If you’re after the ingredients and you have to fight down a long hallway for 10 minutes, you should get a boss and a chest – not a chance at a boss and a chest.

I find it boring as hell with an epic toon having to search everywhere for a chest – but I’d find it absolutely infuriating if I were playing at level and put that much effort in on a bad instance where only one chest spawns in one of the elemental areas.  Make set bosses with guaranteed loot and random for the chance of extra loot – not everything random where you may or may not get something for hour’s worth of play.

Wil Wheaton – I get the hate, really.  My first reaction was the same – what does the dork who wasn’t even good enough for Star Trek have to do with D&D?

But really, it was a good move.  Getting anyone to endorse the product makes it look more like a viable investment than a dying nitch game.  Someone who’s actively involved with the table-top version even more so – especially if he promotes it and brings in new players (which, from what I can tell, he didn’t and he didn’t).  Like it or not, it was a good move (no matter how annoying his voice is…and his voice is pretty annoying).

I’m even mostly ok with the Wheaton reflections – they’re optional and you don’t have to click them.  In a fucked up way, I almost liked them.  While I don’t relate to his personal life experiences, I’m the same age and he’s talking about memories very close to when I first started playing.  Hearing anyone talk about the old box sets brings up a sense of nostalgia for me.

But they Turbined it.

The questions they asked kind of sucked.  They didn’t dig deep enough for stories about playing the actual game (over-looking the fact he doesn’t even remember playing the module he was DMing) and asked too many “barely related to the game” questions – which I guess is to be expected from people who obviously don’t play DDO and probably didn’t play D&D much either.

And what’s the fucking point putting a minute and a half sound bite 5 seconds away from a narration point geniuses?  Seriously?  Are you that fucking clueless?  If the DM narration (you fly light as a fucking feather) is going to override the soundbite, fucking get rid of the narration in that part or move the soundbite.  Would you think about what you’re designing for once?!

Difficulty – I can’t even imagine what it was like playing this before they “fixed” the DA.  It is way, way, way too easy to draw too many mobs just by stepping into certain areas and go right up to DA red.  It’s a hiccup if you’re playing an epic toon since you can destroy mobs in a single swing – but it’s a death sentence for even a high leveled heroic toon.

And how the fuck is an at level toon supposed to deal with the mobs of casters?  I tried to farm it with my level 16 farming toon and she’s been hit with as many as 14 negative levels within seconds of reaching some mobs.  There’s something wrong with a quest when the answer is to get killed and get rezed to deal with negative levels.

I get trying to make something challenging – but (as always) they Turbined it.  It probably wouldn’t be so bad with set spawns, but the amount of effort it requires to find what you’re looking for just isn’t fun or worth the time spent.

Drops rates – How the fuck are they still so low?  Yeah, I’ve heard people complain about it and say it’s not worth the time to farm an epic set, but that doesn’t prepare you for how bad they are.  I ran it once on EH (incidentally, the remnants drops are insanely fucking low too) and think I got like ten crappy mushrooms.  I quickly did the math – you need what?  400 to make a set?  400 divided by ten is…

Forever.

It would take for fucking ever to make a set.

Fuck that.  Seriously. 

Conclusion – it mostly sucks.

It could have been great, it could still be decent if they made some changes to spawns and drop rates but…fucking Turbine.  I’ll give it points over Slavers where I’d rather farm ToEE because you can at least cut out most of it (pt 1 at least) and you don’t have to run the whole fucking quest (like you do with Slavers) to get the named items – but Slavers has way better loot and a better crafting system.

I’m going to farm enough heroic ingredients with an epic toon to make a few items for specific classes (since it is easier to farm this way than to make GS), but after that, this pack is fucking dead to me.

Seriously, after I get the Ings I need, there’s really no reason to run this piece of crap again.  You’re sure as hell not going to do it for the fun of it.

* not so much quit as got bored waiting for Mabar and found better games to play
** Given the option, I usually prefer to push the easy button the first time with new content to know  what to expect

it's for the toee melee/ranged power set bonus. otherwise no one would ever play it. 20 mp/rp is just too good on any twf or thrower builds. the light armor has a mdb of 31, by far the highest light armor in the game. Though you would have to be a twf light armor build to make use of that.

somenewnoob wrote on Sep 27^th, 2017 at 12:28pm:

You forgot the variety: "Room, big pack of mobs standing in it".

Flav wrote on Sep 27^th, 2017 at 2:07pm:


I actually really enjoyed HH because of the variety.  Each area is diverse, has new challenges and plays completely different (except maybe the doppelgänger area.  Fuck that guy) than the others, as opposed to ToEE where it's just giant, OP mob after giant OP mob.  Most of the time I don't even care about completing the quest, just seeing how far I can solo it on different difficulty settings before I get killed.

Took me LITERALLY 3-4 months of farming to get the 20RP set on my thrower.

NEVER.FUCKING.AGAIN.

Also, DA and mobs swarming you from 1000 yards away was not originally there but was a result of an Aggro Downgrade ( which happens b/c one pack of mobs share aggro to another, even through the doors).

Also, also, the Temple Guards tripleshotting you for 150+ per arrow after 100PRR on EE was not original design either afair. People on lama feedback'd that Arrow damage was too low smth like 10+ per arrow, so Turbine'd listened and cranked it up to 11.

Also, also, also Random Node entrances and Random Node/Chest locations were also added due to feedback LOL, Supposedly it should have added replay value.
Spoiler alert: IT FUCKING DOESN'T!

The whole pack and the 2 quests inside is one big steaming pile of shit crammed into hallways with drop rates so fucking low that I can't even joke about it.

Flav wrote on Sep 27^th, 2017 at 2:07pm:


Quest Chains like Tangleroot and CO6 captured this PnP feel quite nicely of breaking a large module up.  ToEE Part 1 should be 6 quests.  1 to go in initially and realize you need to deal with Earth.  Deal with Earth.  Then one for each of the other elements.  Then a capstone to fight the main boss.  ToEE Part 2 should be 3 quests.  1 to delve deeper and find out what needs to be done.  Then one for the 4 nodes.   (Which you can still do as only 1 node or all 4 to advance.  Alternatively, do as 4 separate quests, but you can advance the chain with just running one)  Then the capstone.  The whole thing is 9-12 quests.  Slavers should be 5 quests.  Part 1 is fine.  Part 2 should be split in half ending before you go underground.  Part 3 should be 2.  Ending after you fight the illusionist, before you go to the vlllage.  You could break up part 1, but it doesn't seem to have as logical a break point.

Asheras wrote on Sep 28^th, 2017 at 9:00am:


There's other issues with Tangleroot and GMW/Co6... the level gap between the first quests and the lasat ones is huge, especially in Splinterskull.
But it was really more PnPish, as you dealt with one issue ( one quest ) then went to do other things ( other quests somewhere else in Stormreach ) and came back to deal with another issue ( another quest in the chain ) and off somewhere else....
It doesn't fit well with the current way of playing : get the chain done in one go.
it didn't fit well initially too, because if you had the bad luck to quit before finishing the chains ( especially GMW/Co6 ) it was hard to find a group to start from where you left... and usually you had to restart the whole circle to get it done. ( it was less the case with Splinterskull because of the huge level gap between the first quests and the last ones )

Asheras wrote on Sep 28^th, 2017 at 2:02pm:


This was something I liked about the Lords of Dust chain as well, especially the way it was broken up but "felt" seemless. Each exist lines up with each successive entrance.