Game Design A Journey Beyond: Escort Is Impossible!

I just started questing through Dern yesterday, and reached the escort section of the first quest, A Journey Beyond. Up until this point, the gameplay has been engaging, fun and well balanced difficulty wise. But then I had to escort Aledar, and things took a turn for the worst.

The long waves of monsters I was matched against were durable, but could dish out damage. Just a few seconds after rejoining a wave, I was put at less than half health! The Endermen were especially annoying, darting around the place, avoiding my meteors and blinding me.

On my first run, I was somehow able to make it to the final wave. Sclera proved to be most formidable and obnoxious, with its wave attack that dealt a ton of damage and pushed me a ways back. But what made this fight just absolutely miserable was the fact that Sclera teleported everywhere! Over half of my meteors failed to find their mark because of this, and all to often I would find myself low on mana as I tried to juggle meteors and healing. Going down to my last bar of hearts was not uncommon in this fight.


However, I persisted and it became evident that Sclera's end was nigh. But all of a sudden, I was teleported back to the beginning. Poof! All of my progress gone, reduced to atoms. Confused, I tried again. The game teleported me back in, but the cart was nowhere in sight and I was not in the right place for the final encounter. Teleporting there revealed the Haggard Bats spawning, and moving towards where the cart should be. I kept receiving messages from Aledar asking for help, but I eventually gave up looking and let him perish so that I could restart.


Once I was teleported back to the beginning, I started the escort mission for the second time. Fortunately, I didn't start at the beginning. Unfortunately, I started at the wave with Endermen... Nevertheless, I powered through, but only after nearly dying a few more times and reached the final battle. I again got Sclera health bar down by quite a bit, when POOF! I got teleported back to the beginning again!! This time, I figured out what was going on. Right by Aledars cart is a handy ring of particles that says "Right click to restart wave!" I noticed during the fight that I had accidentally clicked in the general area while casting a spell, and a warning message popped up saying this: "Right click again if you want to restart!"


For the third time today, I tried to escort Aledar. This time, I was able to start at the final wave, which was nice. The fight was going well, and I had gotten Sclera down quite a bit (Ominous foreshadowing inserted here). I had accidentally clicked in the "Restart Zone", so I was trying my best to avoid that area, but that water wave just pushed me back and I'm- POOF! ..... Time to do something else for a while.
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Coming back for my fourth attempt, I find that I need to start from the beginning! Great. Apologies if I sound a bit salty, but this escort mission needs to be reworked. I don't mind a challenge, but when that challenge is at the end of a 20 minute grind that will often make you restart through no fault of your own, its a different story. The inane repetition is what makes difficult quests like these cross from "Fun," to "Burn it with fire!"

Simply moving the "Restart Zone" back and lessening the damage and/or defense of the monsters we encounter during this escort, and removing some encounters would solve everything. I urge Staff to reevaluate this escort and its encounters, with the goal of making it fun, even if you are forced to start over again!

 

That spell never does much damage though... I think something is wrong with your build

That's a fair complaint, I think that happened once to me too, it was annoying, the restart thing definitely should get reworked

 

Here is the current build I am using! I could be using a higher level wand, but my Ethereal gives 27% Spell Damage and 2/4 Mana Regen, and I need to save up some more emeralds to purchase a better wand.

 

Actually, I do agree the restart should be moved- I hit it twice myself a long while ago when I did the quest for the first time. I think the mobs have been nerfed since I did it, but are they really still that bad?

 

The teleporting boss is a pain, though I don't know that I've ever accidentally clicked the reset button. Part of your problem is likely that you're still using ethereal; while it actually once was capable of serving you until the endgame, it's been nerfed since then. I'd recommend switching to nepta floodbringer, as it's very similar, just higher leveled.

 

That is a reaaally bad build tbh. Meteor damage is roughly half the average for level 100, mana regen is way higher than what’s usually necessary, and spell costs are decent but not great. Not to mention HP is below average

the boss itself is a pain, sure, but I’d say that most of your problems stem more from your build than the boss itself

 

I had little problems with this on my mage. I was using a tier 4 powdered rainbow infused hive wand, wearing Adamantite, multiple shitty lower level accessories, a Nighthawk (literally just for its health) and some shitty health boots (i wasnt even using statue lmfao)

I didn't die at all and found this part easy. Aledar was hit ONCE throughout this part. It wasn't until I was level 70 on my shaman playthrough that I gave my mage a morph set meaning that my shitty health build did me well all the way through AHC and EO.

 

my issue was that every time i died i end up in freaking Lusco of all places, so every time i had to try again i had to run my way back to the area. Maybe i started the quest a little too early on, the escort was a nightmare, i kept dying, i cant even go against sickly toxin, maybe my items were just too underlevel to start the quest, all my items were lower than level 100, i didnt know that things would get this hard

 

This parto f the quest should be a multi-player fight. Like players who are near you when u start the part should be able to go with you so you can get help. BC rn this quest is really hard/impossible if your a weak class without a tank build.(my 20k assassin got facefucked on its first try)

 

your not meant to kill the monsters on the final fight, just the bats and endure.

this quest needs fixing, there's a lot of bugs (respawning is also annoying)

wait there's a restart button? wtf....

ngl the quest would be more fun if it was just like a dungeon or smth, a lot of the new quests they've added that are supposed to be "more interesting" just end up being a laggy, unplayable messs filled with bugs.

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