Quest The Order Of The Grook's Classes

DISCLAIMER: I will not be talking about the quest as a whole, but specifically the 11 different classes in the quest. While I may mention the other parts of the quest in passing, the classes are the main part of the quest and I'd like to discuss them.

For the sake of not slamming this thread with walls of text that will make the scroll bar extend into the abyss, and just for the sake of organization, I have separated the classes into their respective categories.

Spoiler: Elements

Spoiler: Fire

The first of the five elemental classes is the fire class. You already are well aware of what I am going to say, I'd assume, so let's get this out of the way swiftly. The fire class sucks.

Dialogue wise, it's fine, establishing the basics of what the fire element is for in a professional manner. The actual objective follows the premise of "fire=bravery" or whatever you want to call it, deflecting fire balls that are hurled towards you. Normally, I do not judge a mechanic based solely on bugs unless it happens frequently enough to the point where it may as well be a mechanic. This applies to the fire class, and while it may not happen for everybody, it has happened to me every time I have chosen the class.

For those who don't know what bug I am referring to, the fire balls will often lag enough to either 1. collide into each other or 2. collide into the floor/ceiling. If either happens, it is an instant loss and the player must try again. Below is a visual example of the latter.



This is not mentioning that sometimes the fireballs just don't even register that you clicked on them, even phasing through you on occasion.

Fireballs in general tend to be laggy and buggy from my experience outside of Wynn anyways, so I can't say I'm exactly surprised that this exists. However, that is not to downplay that getting stuck in this class for up to 20 minutes, and possibly even more if you've had a worse experience than me, is a problem when it is out of the players control. I'm assuming you already have or attempted to fix this on your end and are just waiting for a map push, of course.

Bugs aside, it would be an alright class overall. Like I said, the dialogue isn't phenomenal but it's decent enough for what it needs to do, and the mechanic itself for deflecting fire balls is alright and even stressful in the final test. Too bad bugs need to exist, but it is what it is.

Spoiler: Water

Moving on, there is the water class. The dialogue is entertaining, since it is given a personality in the form of the teacher's constant nervous stuttering to replicate every time anybody with a "nerd" personality starts geeking out over something. But that aside, here is the full dialogue in the class, which I will be referencing.



The mechanic for this class is that it is a trivia, following the idea that the water element is the element "of knowledge". Let's begin with the first trivia question:



Simple enough. Your answer choices are four of the five skill points, one of which is intelligence. Even if the player somehow hasn't looked at the compass once in their life and seen that "intelligence=water", the teacher saying that water is tied to "knowledge" gives it away anyways.



Another simple question, and your answer choices are Grooks, Doguns, Avos, and Mermaids. Even if you don't know what the first three are, you hopefully know what a Mermaid is. Since the teacher also said "Most aquatic creatures are tied to water", it is another question that can be answered easily by just paying attention.



Now this is where the quest randomly takes a turn. Looking back at the dialogue, there is no mention of an element outside of water except for air, and air is mentioned as being associated with water and not opposite. That leaves Earth/Thunder/Fire as your options, and while water gear and such tends to have -thunder defense and thus makes thunder its opposite, one could also assume it would be fire due to the nature of, well, water putting out fires.



It then reels itself back to the norm already established, i.e the dialogue could be used even if you didn't have the outside knowledge to know this. Even if you don't know anything about the four options, being Multi-hit/Bomb Arrow/Ice Snake/Bash, the teacher stated that mobs in snowy/icy areas are often tied with water as well. And I mean...it's ice. The answer is obvious, and it's multi-hit because it has water conversion on the final hit (I'm joking, but that would be hysterical if it wasn't Ice Snake).



Alright, look. I understand that this is supposed to connect with the whole idea that "water=knowledge", and I am awful at remembering NPC names and thus I am heavily biased against this question, but come on. This has nothing to do with the class in the slightest, and since we only ever talk to Cidre once and she just tells how to buy our wands and such, it's not like I'm going to dedicate brain cells to remembering that specific character that left little to no impact on me.


Without even looking at the options, it's of course Theorick. My problem here is that it relies on outside knowledge rather than what is given in the dialogue.

Let's just assume that somehow a player has never looked into Nesaak's lore or just the Nesaak region in general. How would a player know the answer to this question? The answer is they wouldn't be able to without guess and check, as the dialogue offers no insight into Theorick or even Nesaak for that matter other than the mention of snowy and icy regions (which still doesn't answer the question). Sure, you could make the argument that it is the players fault for not playing through the games content, but I believe that everything in the trivia should be able to be inferred or directly taken from the dialogue.



Your choices here are Melee Damage/Mana Regen/Health Bonus/Reflection. While the majority of players would click on mana regen right away, this is a good question because it ties into the dialogue presented. Since water is the "default" for magic and it can also help increase your spell potential, as described by the teacher, the player can imply that it would be mana regen, since "mana" it is directly used by spells. While healing is mentioned, health bonus is not directly a source of healing (which would be health regeneration), and thus mana regen is still the better choice.

I'm aware that mana is technically outside knowledge, but seeing as how it is an integral part of the game, 99.9% of the player base will know what mana is and I will give this a pass. The other .1% is the people who haven't played the game or couldn't manage to get past the boulder in the tutorial.


Like #5, this is kind of a silly question and just ties into the idea of "water=knowledge", but at least this time it's obvious since you are literally doing a quest named "Order of the Grook". "The Teachers" sounds more menacing than it should, "The Magical Masters" somehow sounds more bland than the "The Teachers", and the "Order of the Gerts" sounds like a new parody you guys plan on making for Starwars with Gerts, though, so I can see a lot of people picking the other options.

In conclusion, I think the water class is amazing. Most of the questions present do tie in with the dialogue to a degree, whether that be directly stated or implied, and ignoring me just being incapable of remembering every NPC name in the game the only true questions I have a problem with are #3 and #6, but mostly #6. Seeing as how Theorick is kind of a big deal because of his ice magic, it wouldn't hurt to add even a sentence mentioning him in the dialogue for that question. I'm probably being overly picky in regards to #3, but it wouldn't hurt to mention the thunder element as well.

Spoiler: Earth

Next, there is the earth class. Ignoring that the teacher sounds like he would be capable and willing to break you in half if you got on his bad side, this is probably the most stressful of the elemental classes. Your task is to break all the dark spots of the stone, as they are the "weak points" and you will bend the earth to your will. Simple enough task, but it is made stressful since all three rocks you need to break have one continuous timer (1 minute and 45 seconds) and the rocks gradually become trickier to navigate and find the darker parts of the stone.



While the jump from 25->56 is quite the difficulty spike, it's mostly fair, as a decent portion of your timer will be dedicated to this stone anyways.

That being said, the tome (which you use to break the weak points) can easily be spammed and I feel needs a slightly longer delay. Quite honestly, you can just hold down the right click button and run around willy nilly and break all the weak points for each boulder more or less on accident until you get to the last few. As a result, it should have a longer delay in between each time you can use the tome, as that would make it much more methodical in going about finding the weak points carefully. A nerf to the timer may be necessary if that is to go through, especially since I have no clue how prominent lag is as a factor in this, but it would make this section overall better to me.

Aside from that though, this class is also great. I wouldn't say it's as good as the water class or other classes to come, but it is still an enjoyable experience regardless.

Spoiler: Air

The fourth elemental class is the air class. I don't find the teacher's personality in this case to be anything out of the ordinary, but I enjoy the references to both the Canyon Guides and Gale (I think? To be quite honest I keep forgetting Gale's lore but it's the only person I can assume is both a female and related to air magic and just decided to fly across the ocean once. Heyo Selvut feel free to kindly slam me into a brick wall now thank you).

Even if the former brings up some...

...traumatizing memories.

But I digress. Like the other elemental classes thus far, the air class establishes a premise, in this case focusing on "mobility", and carries through with that in probably one of most enjoyable ways possible:

an obstacle course.

I mean, an obstacle course is just a cooler way of saying "parkour" in this case, but at least the parkour is fun! The feather you use in the parkour boosts you up higher when you right click with it, but has no horizontal momentum. It does take a while to get used to the lack of horizontal momentum and needing to rely on jumping normally to be able to boost upwards to reach another platform, but if it did have horizontal momentum, the parkour would be largely trivialized.

That being said, it still can be trivialized since you still can use movement spells in the parkour. In all fairness though, I wouldn't say that movement spells need to be disabled in this section. I could definitely see it being a safety net for players with high ping as long as they're patient enough, as timing with the feather boost would be an absolute nightmare in that regard.

Since your goal is to get all three of the crystal balls in this as well, it isn't just a straight shot to the finish line like most other parkours in the game, and there is slight variation of how you can get to each ball depending on the route you take. This adds a small level of replayability that I can appreciate.

Again, this class is quite cool as well. I know I keep repeating that over and over again, but if I don't put a concluding thought at the end of each class I will have an aneurysm, so please bare with me.

Spoiler: Thunder

The fifth and final elemental class is the thunder class, and holy bovine I love this teacher's personality so much. Everything he says radiates sheer chaos, as to be expected from the thunder element. My man is probably willing to commit several war crimes if given the chance without a care in the world.


Mechanics wise though, I don't find this class to be that good. The goal is to move an electric current from one "Tesla Tower" on one side of the room to the other. In order to do this, you must move the two towers you are given along the marked pathways by clicking on a button to move them to the next location.

It is a bit confusing if it's your first time doing the class, but once you understand that this is what your supposed to do, it rather tame. I was expecting a more energetic and upbeat puzzle, as is usually associated with thunder and definitely would fit the teacher's personality better, but I guess this is an accurate representation of electromagic. I just find it a bit dull as a result, as I feel there was a lot more that could be done to capture the chaotic feeling that thunder encompasses. Maybe newer players find this puzzle cooler since its effectively their first introduction to electromagic, but I don't know.

Thus, the dialogue in this elemental class is the most enjoyable to me, but kind of meh mechanics wise and probably the worst of them besides the fire class bugging out.

Spoiler: Practical Magic

Spoiler: Magical Materials

The "Magical Materials" class is another class I consider amazing. The teacher's dialogue doesn't overstay it's welcome, because like he says, you'll be reading about what you need to know in due time anyways. He tells you the basics of what you need to know, and then the rest is left up to the player to figure out how to craft the amulet they need to pass the class.


There are a total of six chapters inside the area where you collect the materials you need, each explaining a different type of magical material in it. The first chapter, "A Primer", further elaborates on the teacher's explanation of "artifice", i.e creating magical materials. Most of this dialogue is irrelevant to the actual task at hand, but it's still interesting to read about its origins, especially in regards to the "artifacts" present in the Time Valley and Almuj. However, there are some bits of information that are integral to crafting the amulet.



While it is not directly stated in this, the string is the "strong magical binding" required in crafting the necklace. The player can figure this out since it says you "need" string, or just by looking at the string materials and noticing they have the word "binding" along with them. However, since it says we need a "strong magical binding", we'd want the strongest binding available, which is the Avo binding.

For some reason, the wheat binding also drops an Avo binding, so you'd still technically be correct even if you did grab that instead. I am assuming this is a bug, but hey, you never know.

The next chapter, "Magical Foci", described how there needs to be a "magical focus". This can be items like jewels, or even rarer materials like the runes. This leads the player into believing that they will need the crate of jewel foci for the "store a lot of energy" part of the crafting process.

However, this is then corrected in the form of the third chapter, "Quartz".

The most important piece of dialogue is the second line, as it establishes that Quartz can store energy phenomenally well. While it does go into detail that overloading Quartz is dangerous in the last couple lines, it is stated that we need a way to store a lot of energy, which Quartz seems to have the ability to do and thus the foci is unnecessary.

The next section describes "Magical Stabilizers", and this is somewhat of a gray area.

Quartz is specifically mentioned, and as such, it would appear to be a good idea to use a stabilizer when crafting. This actually isn't the case, and you don't need a stabilizer (in this case, lodestone) for it. I suppose it makes sense, since we are creating an "Amulet of Insanity" after all, but I couldn't blame you if you took the lodestone along with you.

The next section centers around elemental powders, something irrelevant to what you need entirely and you could reasonably assume that even if you didn't know what powders were. The amulet recipe never mentions elements at all, so the elemental powder, in this case air, you would know is useless. It's still interesting to read about it, but I wouldn't even notice if this section was removed entirely.

The sixth and final section is the "Cosmic Unknowns" section. In all fairness, you don't really have to read this section to know that you need the meteorite shard for the amulet recipe, as it literally is related to the "cosmics" just through its name, but there is at least a line of confirmation.


And thus, the three materials you need are the Avo Binding, Quartz, and White Meteorite Shard.


I think a big missed opportunity for this class was more options for what you can craft. Unless I've gotten unlucky and gotten the amulet of insanity every time I've done this class, it would've been cool if it was more randomized and thus gave you a chance to use more of the materials present.

Other than that though, I don't have many issues with this class at all. I can see the complaint of needing to read so much dialogue in order to find the solution "legitimately" a pain, but personally I am fine with needing to pay attention closely to the dialogue in order to find a solution, and I just enjoy reading in general even if I do forget something within five minutes of learning it.

P.S please fix the hitbox of the "Cosmic Unknowns" chapter. The amount of times I've tried to right click the first chapter and somehow hit that chapter is astounding.

Spoiler: Magical Effects

The "Magical Effects" class is probably the best definition of "ok" out of all the classes. There's nothing in particular that makes it good, but there's nothing in particular that makes it bad, either. The dialogue is just the teacher explaining how each of the samples (being a meteorite shard, quartz, and void) you will be experimenting with work in the driest manner possible. I will admit that this line is kind of funny, though,

since he just casually brushes off the danger of having a potentially lethal substance in his class.

Mechanics wise, you right click three times. Ok, you interact with each of the three samples I mentioned, but that's it. Other than seeing the effects of what each sample does, there is nothing you do in this class. Sure, it's kind of cool being able to just go up and touch things and see what happens, but most of it was described and/or implied by the teacher anyways. The meteorite shard gives you nausea, the quartz explodes in your face, and the void shard gives you levitation. Of course, I was already well aware of what these would do when I did the quest for the first time, so perhaps newer players are more impressed by it.

Like I said, this class isn't exactly good or bad and just falls onto the line of inoffensive, ok, bland, or whatever you want to call it. There's not much memorable about it, really.

Spoiler: Magical Creatures

Spoiler: Wybels

First off,

I love that you are taking accessibility into account, even if it's something as small as this. I have had friends who are color blind and gotten stuck on puzzles like that of the Heart of Llevigar color puzzle and even the lesser ones like that of the color based puzzle in the Maiden Tower, both of which I myself didn't even consider how a color blind person would handle them until they asked me for my assistance.

That aside, you can tell there was a field day when writing the dialogue for the Wybel teacher. The best part is that he tries to still provide information about wybels in a calm and collective manner,

before losing his mind and showing that he thinks wybels are the literal devil incarnate.

Can't blame him, really. I still have PTSD from fighting the Orange Wybel's son in law.

As for the puzzle itself, it's a standard memory game, where you must memorize the location of each different color of wybel and then rearrange them to the order they were before they changed. It's not the most inventive puzzle in the world, but they are still fun to do, even if I suck at them so much to the point where I have to say the colors out loud to remember them.

There's not much else to say, really. I just think the dialogue is hilarious and mechanic is fine and enjoyable.

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that I do not care if it is pronounced "wibble". I will keep pronouncing it "why bell" and you are going to be perfectly fine with that whether you like it or not because no one actually cares.

Spoiler: Species

The other "Magical Creatures" class is the "Species" class. I'm not even going to try and build this up: I believe that the "Species" class is the best class in the entire quest.

I have already discussed this puzzle with @ParkourTNT in a previous thread, but I believe it was in the Hero Beta feedback section and thus has been deleted. As a result, I will elaborate on the puzzle once more. The main goal is order all the species discussed from least to most magical.



The first line let's the reader know that Doguns have innate magical ability in the form of these two elements, and a it is quite potent due to the description of them being "highly adept" with it. The next line describes the Doguns as being "Able to quite literally move mountains", which implies that the Doguns "quite literally" have the power to move the earth and world around them to their will. This is further backed up by the "theorizing" the teacher describes in regards to the cave system in the Molten Heights.

However, the final line of dialogue specifically says they can only "assume their magical energy from Dwarven tales". Since "tales" are often associated with works of fiction or an exaggerated retelling of events, we can assume that while Doguns do have an innately strong connection with their respective elements, their power is played up for dramatic effect to at least some degree. This is useful to know for later if there will be a species to rival the power of the Doguns.


The Greenskins are directly stated to have "little magical potential". The player must also keep in mind that this is judged based on innate magical ability, which is reinforced by the teacher mentioning that "the only known way for them to utilize magic is through artifacts". As a result, Greenskins will probably be at the bottom of the list for the rest of the quest unless directly stated otherwise.

Current Ranking: Greenskins<Doguns

The next three species go hand and hand with one another, so I will be dissecting all three of them at once.


To begin, Villagers have "High magical potential, often unrealized out of laziness". I don't really need to elaborate on this, but Villagers just choose not to use their abilities. Humans are stated to not have as much magical potential as Villagers through the teacher saying "but this is untrue" in regards to people believing this is the case, and as such, Humans<Villagers.

The key to figuring out where Dwarves will be located is probably the hardest part of the quest, as there are many factors to consider for their power level vs. Humans and Villagers. By having a "similar level of magicality" to Humans, this places them below Villagers. It is then described that Dwarven magic is "lessening" over time because they "reject" their magical potential. This would mean that Dwarves are probably below Humans in terms of magical ability.

This is a bit contradictory, as Villagers aren't actively using their magical abilities either, but their abilities aren't described as "lessening" like that of the Dwarves. How that works is up to interpretation of how you "reject" your magical abilities aside from just not using them, but that is what a player can assume based on the dialogue alone.

Thus,
Dwarves<Humans<Villagers.

As for where these three fit in with the rest of the ranking, it isn't that difficult to realize they are the rough middle of the pack. While Villagers are described as having "high magical potential", Doguns are described as "highly adept", placing them above Villagers since they can utilize magical potential to a higher degree. Likewise, one could possibly believe that Dwarves have less magical potential than even Greenskins. It is highly unlikely this is the case, though, since Dwarves still retain a "similar" magical potential to Humans, even if it is "lessening" over time.

Current Ranking: Greenskins<Dwarves<Humans<Villagers<Doguns

Lastly, there are the Elves.

It is stated that they a "deep connection to their magicality", implying off the bat that they have high magical ability. There is one other word that is crucial in truly placing them at the correct power level, i.e "unfathomable". Unfathomable means we can't even begin to comprehend the sheer power of Elven magic due to their connection with "The Light". Even the Doguns were described as something we could imagine, and while moving mountains is a monumental feat on its own, Elves can apparently do even more than that. This is reinforced by the idea that the Dogun stories may have been exaggerated due to being tales from the Dwarves, whereas outcast Elves themselves acknowledged this "unfathomable" connection.

Thus, we come to the final conclusion:
Greenskins<Dwarves<Humans<Villagers<Doguns<Elves



Like I said, I believe that this is the best class in the entire quest. While all the other classes have their dialogue teach you about elements, effects, what have you, the majority of them do not use the dialogue outside of establishing a premise for the actual mechanics in the class. The "Species" class uses the dialogue as an integral part of getting through the class itself, almost as if you were studying for a legitimate quiz in a class. While both the "Magical Materials" and "Water" classes did this as well, the "Species" class mastered this, as everything said is vital to figuring out the answer, even down to single words being the difference.

I do recall ParkourTNT making the point that if English isn't exactly one of your strongest languages, you will definitely struggle in noticing all the points I have just made, and that is a valid point of criticism. There would be a lot more guess work involved if you aren't able to get down to even the most minute word choice. I'd assume most of the confusion would come from the placement of the Dwarves and Elves, seeing as how those two are probably the most difficult to figure out already, so maybe there could be some dialogue changes to make it a bit easier in that regard.

But regardless of that, I still consider it to be the best class you could choose. Of course, I have the solution memorized now and have had it memorized for a long time, but that doesn't change my opinion. Well done!

Spoiler: Types of Magic

Spoiler: Corruption

The Corruption class is alright. It's interesting to have the corruption be elaborated on more thoroughly, seeing as how it is one of the most prominent players in the war, but that's about it. The only mechanic in the class is killing, often being a one-two shot even at level, a corrupted enemy who manages to escape his confinement.

In his defense, I would be mad to if I was stuck in such a small cage for a while, and he expresses this frustration by walking around a bit. Of course, he frequently bugs through the bars before he even is done breaking them, killing the immersion entirely, but a bug is a bug.

There's nothing to talk about here, really. It simply exists. I wish I could say more, but it's just so bland of an experience that there's not much else I can say.

Spoiler: Nature Magic

The dialogue in the "Nature Magic" class is hysterical. Listening to a hippie teach me about the ways of nature is exactly what I needed in my life, and quite frankly, this is one of the funniest pieces of dialogue in the game.


But while the dialogue itself is enjoyable, the "puzzle" is not. If you read the dialogue, there is never a hint as to how many of the grooks need to be sacrificed in order to revive the cow. Sure, there is a mention that you will need a specific amount in the 10th line of dialogue,

but I have not been able to find any clear hints as to knowing the true amount you need, which is five. I feel like there is an obvious hint somewhere I'm missing, but aside from grasping at straws and saying that the dark green glass blocks indicate that you need to kill five,

(which only applies to two of three of these) I have yet to see any.

As a result, this is purely trial and error. You keep killing the grooks over and over again hoping you get the right amount with each try. Trial and error puzzles just aren't fun. Sure, there are some puzzles that have trial and error to a degree, but puzzles that solely rely on it offer nothing in terms of gameplay other than repetitive frustration for a player.

There needs to be at least some hint as to how many grooks you need to kill, or at least one that is more obvious. If there already is one and I'm just an idiot, then I'll take back what I said, but as far as I'm aware this is the worst class mechanically speaking aside from the Fire class as result. Again, I think the dialogue is great, but the gameplay just falls flat on its face.

tl;dr

Contender for my favorite puzzle in the game: Species
Amazing: Magical Materials/Water/Air
Great: Wybel/Earth
Good: Thunder/Fire (if the bug were to be fixed)
Ok/Inoffensive: Nature Magic (garbage gameplay wise but the dialogue makes up for it)/Corruption/Magical Effects
Bad: Fire (the bug)

Overall, I think that the Order of the Grook classes have a solid roster of entertainment value. There are few classes that I think need major improvements, and the majority of them I enjoy playing over and over again. Like I said, these are the main aspect of the quest and I wanted to focus on them in particular rather than the whole quest, because I think the rest of the quest is good and doesn't need much discussion (aside from the current reward system, but many people, including myself, have already expressed their thoughts on that).

In short, Order of the Grook is a pretty gamer quest.

Thank you CT for adding this to the game. I will certainly be looking forward to high quality quests like this in the future.

 

Well, glad that most of the dialogue seemed to hit its mark. That's basically what I did- I was the dialogue writer, rather than the "script" writer- had no control over who said their dialogue when and how that led into the next thing or anything like that, just what exactly the dialogue was.

 

Love this quest! The only flaw I find with it is the way that the rewards are given - some give lots of money, others give none. And it's based on nothing really :/ Other than that, really great :D

 

i thought it was because he was secretly Voldemort. In wynncraft terms it would probably be something stupid like Veldemart.

wait what
i could have sworn he said something about life force equations but when I checked the wiki there was nothing on it
when i did this class on my shaman i immediately got the right amount


my personal conclusion on this quest:
misadventure on the sea is still better but just barely because this quest is also fantastic

 

Good job with this, also cool that doguns are just earthbenders.

 

A 100% not Accurate rewiew of 'The Order Of the Grook' exept its just the classes

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btw will there be new videos once the update gets released? Miss you shots, your humor is great

 

I spent so long on this I had to enlist the help of another dude to do it...