How to make progress?

Discussion in 'General Forum' started by FAALHAAS, Mar 5, 2022.

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  1. FAALHAAS

    FAALHAAS Board Analyst

    After a break I decided to try again. The DL update has changed too much for me to adjust, so as I did in the past with changes I always took a break;and this always worked.

    But no matter what I do this time. I just cant seem to find a way to progres at a decent pace. I grinded for last 3 days every evening for 5 hours mostly in desert at merc/blood. I tried solo and group, but in total of lets say 15hours:
    Dropped 9 runes. (which only one of m was green, rest white and 6 of m were wisdom runes) and i guess quite some gems, but only 2 sacreds a handfull radiant/flawless and the rest was low tier.
    At this rate I cant even upgrade a single rune even if i would play fulltime for a week :)

    Its really frustrating. i was able to solo inf3-4 quite easy and in this new drakensang im stuck in an endless desert grind, since thats the only place I can surivive. I cant do any of the Q's anymore. (except for the first map, but droprate crap aswell)
    I tried bloodchests, but I die in an instant...even tho i solo desert at bloodshed quite easy. I guess desert is just a bit easier. Looks like allot less of those golums on drugs are in desert map.

    And well it seems bloodchests are the only way of really farming up some gems/gold and i guess runes aswell. I tried finding a group for bloodchests, but all they ask for is superduperstrong toons that can solo it in 1minute.

    I guess im either doing something terribly wrong, or this game really ruined any chances of making a bit of progress to get into endgame again. Even events became impossible and more useless then they were, since the game expects me to be able to clear high modes, cus of my arch.points = progress needed for events. Also *** is up with mortis; took me almost 10minutes on painfull to beat him with blue essence. Crazy :D

    I dont feel my stats are that BAD, but maybe im wrong or maybe my skills are badly chosen....so here they are and maybe someone can point me into the right direction:

    [​IMG]
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    Any tips or whatever can point me into the right direction is apreciated.
     
    tozagol likes this.
  2. Javah

    Javah Forum Veteran

    The game after DL is heavily unbalanced on gems, runes and jewels: that's all you really need. Since then, the gear is mostly a useful stuff because it has slots to place gems, and the wisdom and skill settings are of little benefits as long as your gems and runes are low-level.

    Jewels are particularly difficult to obtain because the most reliable source is the rare and tedious events that drop you chests with random content. Also the chest after you kill bosses in parallel worlds may drop random jewels... once every 200-300 kills maybe...

    About gems and runes, you can drop them everywhere but they too are of little use as long as they are small in level. To max the runes it takes months of "normal" game, to max the gems much more, we are talking about years also because now the drop sucks, there are few players left around so you can't hope to find big help from them, and less and less there will be with each passing day.

    Unfortunately I don't know how to help you about the best gear and the various settings for your dwarf because I don't know anything about this class.
     
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  3. remei

    remei Junior Expert

    If your main problem is survivability, Id recommend using Mechanical Turret (you have good attack speed, so that should be healing you fast non stop as long as there are enemies around - could be even at skill level 0). Another idea would be to use Dwarf in the Box (again works with 0 skillpoints invested) for enemy distraction. Also, if you are comfortable with current killing speed, you could try to swap offensive off-hand for a shield with high base block - with recent game update, you can easily get to 25-30% block chance just with high base values and 4 block enchantments, without worrying too much about block gems or runes.

    As for where to get runes and gems, as mentioned above, that takes a lot of time now to farm enough of all. Best source for gems would be DtU event, but only if you have a powerful group that kills bosses fast on merc/blood. Soloing it on Painful is pretty much pointless, when it comes to gem dust gathering... As for runes, I have had pretty good drop luck on Temple Sector map, even on low difficulties, but yes, it probably wont be much better than your 9 runes in 15 hours there either. That said, Temple Sector with its long halls in straight directions should be a good map for dwarf's Automatic Turrets, so you should at least try it if you hate running Desert all the time.
     
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  4. FAALHAAS

    FAALHAAS Board Analyst

    Really sad that after so many years the game became so frustrating.
    It always was based on luck/rng, but now its ALL gems/runes. Not everything was bad about the DL update (like its allot easier to get plat lines.( which took me over a year to get 4 on my weapon) But still....
    I really feel im stuck between mid/end-game now. If i group up in desert, im mostly the strongest; then try other map than desert and i die from 1 hit. Basicly need to double my hp/dmg/crit in order to survive. Not sure if i got the patience for that :)



    Im using the turrets as you speak of, but sadly they get destroyed in 1 hit and at that point i run around like a headless chicken till i can place one again just to repeat the same circle most of the time. In desert i dont have this problem that much, but soon i try other maps; champions/leaders/gollums all seem to attack my turrets. I tried the blocking today aswell, took away quite some attack speed/crit and damage and didnt really feel it was helping much-> still died really fast :D
    I thought about dwarfbox before, but i dont know which slot i have to sacrifice for that...i really need the skills i have to put out some dmg. (tried switching between skillbars, but im too foolish for that....tried it for a while, but too many times screwing it up)

    I guess we'll see how long i stick around.



    Thanks anyway for the answers.
     
    tozagol likes this.
  5. Javah

    Javah Forum Veteran

    Indeed it is. And the reasons for the death of this game are soon said:

    • the transformation of the gameplay into a Chinese/Korean rambling style, started long ago and completed with the DL expansion: today it is a game more like an arcade shoot'em'up, in which the spaceships are human-looking characters, than a MMORPG matching European liking and tastes. And we are not Chinese, not yet at least.
    • the smashing-style of the Asian "fast farm", brought into such a tiny game with maps of ridiculous size when compared to those of any modern ARPG, make it frighteningly repetitive and deleterious to the brain of any able-minded player, proof of this is that in order to make the events last longer, the number of runs needed to complete them had to be increased a hundredfold
    • the absence of any evidence of attention on the production side, of commitment to develop it, of ideas to carry it forward by innovating and expanding it, all things absolutely indispensable to any product of this kind: because many people do not commit themselves to a product that is visibly abandoned to itself and that could shut down its servers at any time
    So don't be surprised if 99% of players quit once they reach the lev cap, and more and more even before, once they understand the trend.


    You welcome. Good luck.
     
    tozagol likes this.
  6. FAALHAAS

    FAALHAAS Board Analyst

    The fast farm always been in this game i think. It was always about clearing map/dungeon as fast as possible to get the drops you wanted..1000s of cot to identify that shiny unique and everything else that drops (or should drop...)

    Im really annoyed by the spaceships on my screen tho...its a mess when im in a group. And yea thats typical asian style. Sad this came into this game.

    And yes, I did read about new management and such, but cant find any info about it. And from what you say; there isnt any huh? :)

    xiè-xiè
     
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  7. Javah

    Javah Forum Veteran

    I had fun maybe last time when lev cap was 45 and "fast farm" was something really different than now: the real challenge was surviving, certainly not killing at the speed of light, simply because it was not necessary to accumulate currencies, gems and resources in disproportionate quantities, as is the case now.

    Sure the grinding has always been there because the game is based on that, but it was infinitely more fun to collect equipment and cross your fingers at the workbench, then cursing it in 99% of the cases, than repeating the same path thousand times in the same map (cause the maps worth of it are no more than 2 or 3 in total) to collect gems and runes to pulverize as it happens now.

    The big ruin started with materi farm and pve lb, in that moment I understood that a very bad trend had begun. And it only got worse until game death nowadays.

    It is perhaps the biggest question here: is there still someone behind the scenes?

    Here on the forum you can clearly see the content and frequency of the "official announcements". On discord there seems to be a Chinese developer (only one, but obviously he could have others to coordinate, even if it seems unlikely) who occasionally throws some "hope" about news and implementation https://board-en.drakensang.com/threads/discussion-related-to-dso-discord-channel.84714/ But even trivial things, such as the improvement of the drop from the mystic cubes - that's pure trash from so long time - which he foreshadowed at the end of December, has so far been unfulfilled.

    The latest release dates back to months ago but there are no movements that suggest that the next one (with the rework of a couple of events, including Dragan) is really upon us.
     
    tozagol likes this.
  8. FAALHAAS

    FAALHAAS Board Analyst

    I just skipped a bit though those topics and nothing has changes/updated. Ok...well thats really sad. Altough i can remember other promises years ago that never got into the game, so in a way nothing has changed :D
    I personly allready getting tired after couple days of playing, since i made zero progress in those hours i spend farming. Well not litterly zero, but pretty close to it. Managed to upgrade 2 runes for 1.3% crit each and seeing next tiers gonna cost allot more and ive got a crapload of other runes that need upgrades, is just not motivating me.

    I dont mind farming, but the droprate is too bad. 30+ hours on bloodshed and got 1 blue rune, which was the exp one lol, so worth about the same as a white dmg rune. If you farm bloodshed, every dropped rune should be green/blue (or atleast allot better droprate as it is now).


    Lets hope theyre all very busy behind the scenes, but i guess theyre just trying to milk the last bit of money players care to give....till like you say; everyone quits.
     
    tozagol likes this.
  9. doctormaz

    doctormaz Someday Author

    Correctly describe everything this game is: a continuous farm routine. It's the only way to keep this content-poor game alive. Progress is being made but very slowly I'm sorry.

    Only on one thing I have to contradict you with the new DL expansion few things have changed but just a few the right things to bring you back to zero and relaunch you in an annual farm.

    I'm sorry you are finding it wrong but like everything if you have already left once and you see that it is no longer necessary to have a bachelor humeral periarthritis attached to the PC to farm hours or a carpal tunnel you can simply abandon this game without staying there to be too useless questions and put up with useless explanations of players who still play it but having abused some advantages now no longer present (farming offline by spiders, pantolian room that dribbled gems and wisdoms and now no longer etc.)
     
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  10. RantNRave

    RantNRave Someday Author

    I find it hard to believe you spent 30 hours in bloodshed desert with only 1 rune. I average around 1-6 per hour in desert bloodshed.
    as doctormaz said, and I agree, don't expect fast progress. Took me months on merciless to get my runes and upgraded to blue/purple, and months later to finally finish legendary upgrades on the important ones.

    Your using 3 pieces of legendary, non unique, also a note that these cannot be fully unslotted for gems. using anything less than blue/unique with 4 lines of enchant needs to be replaced sooner or later.
    Unslotting gear/rune trinkets costs andermant, have fun making alt toons to farm andermant from quests, in excess of 70k for it all, not required but as you progress, a necessary evil or you lose out on 36+ gem slots which is huge end game.

    Your not using any 145 PW equipment, so that means at best 140 enchantment lines (still good). Are we trasnferring 100% x4 on these unique values and have base stats on said equipment better than 70%?

    As stated above by javah, gems. gems are so heavily influenced by equipment base% + enchant lines% + gem power. Id say gems make up almost 70-90% of character stats. The difference between 10 sacred (+540), 10 refined trap (+1450), exquisite imperial (+7000), compounded with 4 plat lines giving 45% damage x4 (maybe even an extra unique value too), and were talking the difference between a balor ring that offers 5k or 40k damage.

    Jewels are helpful but a pipedream, most can't even upgrade them past green due to lack there of having enough or enough dust.

    Getting your gear unslotted, level 130-145, plat lined, good base stats, runes done, gems capped with royal+ quality. Pretty decent average range character, and it takes a fair bit to achieve and is somewhat reasonable.

    After the above, is where this game hits a downward spiral, due to poor developement, lack of new content, bad design, and terrible balancing issues. If you thought the prior was fun (I did, this games base design is decent), just wait til all thats left is gem dust, wisdom and terrible drops on better equipment, or jewels. (my wisdom is 164, yours 200+ it must have been easy pre DL)
    Its not as bad at first, but progressing into high trap gems and you could spend all day to see no return. At best you might be able to run blood chests in a group, or if you were lucky, got the gem+ drop for bosses to ease the burden some. If this isn't the case, then the best course of action is to grab the bonus codes, and play good events only, skip the grind, its pointless with little to no return. (except cubes)

    The problem this game has with diminishing returns is due in fact to high gem dust costs, yet merciless/bloodshed offers too little. Top 3 gem rarity's have about a <1% chance, so expect an average player, to run about 30-60 mid grade gems an hour, or maybe 1-4k dust.
    When they start costing 8-20k per gem, its laughable to spend 5-10 hours for 300 attack.
     
    Last edited: Mar 13, 2022
    Alpaca likes this.
  11. FAALHAAS

    FAALHAAS Board Analyst

    Well, cant help what you believe or not. As I mentioned, it also took me a year to get 4 plat lines on my weapon....while someone i knew did it first try. RNG/Luck can be a pain in the arse in this game i guess. Have to add; i only found 1 BLUE, but i found a handfull of whites aswell. (and i think runes should all be green/blue on bloodshed)

    Well first of all; leg equipment does have 4 lines, so it shouldnt be that much worse and i havent replaced it since i didnt find something better. The equipment i got all have close to perfect base stats. And the leg ones are the only ones i didnt fully unlock. (might aswell do, since i got enough ander farmed last couple years)

    145pw equips? My friend....i cant even kill them bosses on infernal, let alone on bloodshed :D And this is one of the reasons I dont like this DL-update. To me it feels i got less content than before, since im unable to play any of the Q's...while i could solo them all on inf3-4.
    People told me all uniques can drop from any monster in first 2 maps aswell, but i only saw a couple ring drops. (and ive tried for some hours)
    So either the droprate for the ''good'' uniques are low as close to zero orr im just not very lucky.

    I play this game for many years, so i know how gems work (that didnt really change in the last update). And also exactly the problem here when it comes to leveling them up. The costs for the next levels are too high (runes and gems). To level up 1 takes me too much time and tbh i didnt really played last couple days. I estimated how long it will take to get to a certain point and to me, thats not doable as a solo player. The only decent way of farming is with bloodchests.....if you cant do them or dont have a group, well good luck wasting 100s of hours getting the same result bloodchests give you in a couple hours.

    I will keep checking in and maybe play an event here n there, but DL-update killed solo play for me. After my guild died in 2015 or something, I tried 1 guild....allot of drama there, so i left and became a lone warrior since :)
    Guess thats now kicking me in the balls. This playerbase is now: 10% strong players that have fixed groups/guilds and can farm anything they want in a blink of an eye and the other 90% are too weak and asking for help in chat all day long.

    State of game is just frustrating to me; Used to be toptier and able to help 100s of players getting their gears and stuff and now im a dummie stuck between mid and end-game with less content than before the update.
     
    tozagol likes this.
  12. RantNRave

    RantNRave Someday Author

    blue are piss poor drop rate <1%, green <2%, base whites still drop at roughly 2-4% off champions. These are the BS odds, they dont lie.

    A year for 4 plat lines, pre dark legacy sounds even worse.
    Enchantment transfer quest might take a day farming lvl18 heruder in DL, granted you have farmed a day or so in bloodshed for glyphs.
    transferring 140/145 gear plat lines to usable equipment now takes hours/days/weeks. Motivated enough, finishing most pieces in a day.
    Again, legendary (non unique) cannot be fully unslotted (slots max 8 iirc). Not sure why you claim this, ive made this bone headed move on 140 legendary rings, and lost 4k ander after realizing this. The same is true for rune trinkets and jewels holders below level 100.

    PW drops do in fact drop from regular monster + champions, bosses while lucrative, are not necessary for Q gears. (R246?)
    Yes certain Q drops are terrible, you will get the zones ring 5x more often, than the gear zone pieces, mixed with world uniques.
    On top of this, 4%/10% for merciless/bloodshed drop rates. Needs group play or to be a SW solo.
    I reference PW zones, because grabbing 5 key chests on bloodshed, +/- farming, gives plenty of chances of 145 gear with plat lines. Otherwise stick to what you can do and run laps around desert for 130/140 stuff.

    Theres more ways to progress than just blood chests. Players dont just up and solo bloodchests without first investing some ridiculous amount of time with character development, solo or in a group. The same is said for PW, or prior to this, higher difficulties.
     
    Last edited: Mar 13, 2022
  13. FAALHAAS

    FAALHAAS Board Analyst

    Yea thats one of the good things in DL-update....allot easier to get 4 plats.

    I never claimed that. You said yourself:
    And I only pointed out leg items have 4 lines aswell, but I now see how you meant that sentence. I know about the limited gem slots, but i didnt really care about it. I had farmed almost 500k ander prior to DL-update, so thats not keeping me awake ;)

    I just dont think i have the patience to farm like an idiot just to be able to play the old content again. I simply dont understand why they made PW so much harder. So hard a former inf4 solo player cant beat any of the bosses solo anymore. To me it didnt made sense dec 2020 and it still doesnt. Never seen an update like DL in my life where you had less content than before the update....its just plain stupid.

    Droprates need to be improved quite allot in order for me to think about playing this game more and getting the premium again. Or let cubes drop runes/jewels aswell. (but that prolly has been suggested allready)
     
    tozagol likes this.
  14. Talbor

    Talbor Active Author

    I just started back a few days ago as well & couldn't believe how much harder the maps are now. It feels like we got nerfed & the maps got boosted. I also noticed things I used to pay coins for now cost ander to buy. It almost feels like I'm started over at level 1 again even though I'm level 55. I'm going to give it a little time and see how it goes, but I feel much less likely to spend money on the monthly plsn than I did before.
     
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  15. FAALHAAS

    FAALHAAS Board Analyst

    All you can do is find groups that carry you in desert...seems to be quite normal from what ive seen.
    Not sure how much you farmed before DL update, but unless you farmed like a nolifer, youll be stuck in an endless farm for gems/runes :p
     
    tozagol likes this.
  16. Talbor

    Talbor Active Author

    Yeah, I'm getting the feeling you're correct, lol. Gems do seem to drop better now, but I've only got 2 common runes to drop so far & that's disappointing. I don't even want to think about jewels since I've yet to get one of those to drop. I've went back to some lower level maps & higher difficulty, but the difference feels huge compared to before.

    I've also noticed how empty towns like Kingshill are now compared to before, so I'm guessing a lot of players left which makes grouping a little harder. It's also making it crazy hard to even find 2 pvp matches to complete the daily challenge since I've waited hours & still don't get any, so I don't stress it & leave it. I don't like how the daily is now because I see a lot of the challenges at like Infernal or other impossible challenges now, so I won't waste Ander refreshing since there's no way of completing them all like I could before...not even close, lol. I'm definitely not inclined to spend money now like I did before.
     
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  17. FAALHAAS

    FAALHAAS Board Analyst

    PVP is not fun unless youre top tier or if you just want to complete ''play XX matches". If youre not premium/deluxe..then dont bother trying to shuffle through dailys for something doable. (rewards not that great either anyways)
    I still run some desert when im extremely bored, but ive set no goals whatsoever, since thats just frustrating knowing it takes a lifetime to farm it :)
     
    tozagol likes this.
  18. Talbor

    Talbor Active Author

    Well, I hit level 100 yesterday, but the amount of gem & rune dust, especially rune dust, I see I'll need is insane! I was lucky & got the 70k (I think) gem dust from the Dragan event, so I at least got to level up some gems to a decent level. The amounts from other events so far are pitiful in comparison.

    I'm mostly doing the same & not setting goals other than looking for better eq. I mainly like to play solo, but it feels as if they're trying to force players to group if you want to make real progress. I'm hoping I don't get so bored I stop playing again :)