U48 Preview 2: New Dungeons and Landscape

[Cocomajobo]

Disclaimer

Everything seen on the preview server, Lamannia, is not final and is subject to change or removal before live release.

Fables of the Feywild is expected to contain, when released on live, the following 13 dungeons:

Fables of the Feywild Part 1 Quests

1. The Endless Revels Questgiver: Windsor Gruff
2. Witch Hunt Questgiver: Huntress Joranda
3. Make Believe Questgiver: Moscato
4. A Frosty Reception Questgiver: Lady Borealis
5. Wake Me Up Inside Questgiver: Sorghum

Fables of the Feywild Part 2 Quests

1. The Icemount Curse Questgiver: Windsor Gruff
2. The Thornwright Questgiver: Mulberry
3. Needle in a Fey Stack Questgiver: Farrunner BUG: Final Encounter is bugged in this preview. Can not be completed. Can, however, be played all the way up to the final encounter (Essentially the point from entering the cave forward can not be done).
4. Quid Pro Quo Questgiver: Madoc Silverlight
5. Immortality Lessons Questgiver: Sir Snowdrift

Fables of the Feywild Landscape Walkup Quests

• The Legend of the Lost Locket
• The Knight Who Cried Windmill
• Combatting Corruption BUG: The Entrance is currently inaccessible in the landscape making this unable to be accessed in Preview 2.

To access the Fables of the Feywild on the preview server, simply speak to Lord Poincelot in the center island of the Test Dojo to be granted preview server specific DDO points and then "purchase" any of the "Fables of the Feywild" Adventure Pack in the DDO Preview Store (you will likely need to use the search bar in the DDO Store).

The Feywild can be found by traveling to the Hut from Beyond in the Stormreach Harbor. From there you can enter the Feywild Wilderness Adventure Area. From the Feywild Wilderness Adventure Area you can find the Wynwood Hall public area which contains the questgivers for all of the Fables of the Feywild Part 1 and Fables of the Feywild Part 2 quests. There is currently no flagging on any of these quests.

Known Issues

• Combating Corruption entrance is physically blocked in the landscape making the quest inaccessible in this preview.
• The final encounter of Needle in a Fey Stack cannot be completed currently. Can, however, be played up till the final encounter (Essentially the point from entering the cave forward can not be done).
• Monsters
  
  • Fomorians do not look like Fomorians.
  • Hyrsam does not look (or sound) like Hyrsam.
  • The appearances for Pixies and Sprites are still being worked on.
  • Various other monsters need their appearances set.
• Music is mostly placeholder (there will be more new music in the final expansion.)
• DM voice for most of the dungeons is not yet in.
• Loading screens haven't been done yet.
• An XP pass has yet to be done.
  
• Hermia has some unfinished text when you first find them in the wilderness adventure area.
• It is possible to walk down to an area directly to the right of where you enter into the wilderness adventure area that should be out of bounds and there is no way to climb back out of.
• Immortality Lessons: The appearance of special "breakable" objects (you'll understand when you are in there) is currently placeholder.

[straytext]

Ok, haven't taken a step yet but initial impression of the wilderness area was an audible "aww, I like it."

[Edwinge]

Just got on Lam to check things out and I noticed that all 13 dungeons are listed on the adventure compendium as being heroic level 5. Is this intended?

I was expecting to see the dungeons split between a couple levels like how Ravenloft and Sharn are. Seeing that there are two chains, having chain 1 be level 5 and chain 2 be level 6 would make sense. The walk-ups could fall wherever. Moving some of the Feywild quests to level 6 would help alleviate the feeling that level 5 is overstuffed with quests when compared to other levels around it.

[Dabima]

Just got on Lam to check things out and I noticed that all 13 dungeons are listed on the adventure compendium as being heroic level 5. Is this intended?

I was expecting to see the dungeons split between a couple levels like how Ravenloft and Sharn are. Seeing that there are two chains, having chain 1 be level 5 and chain 2 be level 6 would make sense. The walk-ups could fall wherever. Moving some of the Feywild quests to level 6 would help alleviate the feeling that level 5 is overstuffed with quests when compared to other levels around it.

^

Lower levels don't require a lot of xp to pass. Now I know the xp values are not finalised, but it seems likely that a player may pass the level range for these before they finish all of the quests, which seems a little awkward. Having a slight level split between the two chains also gives a better feel for progression, like the enemies get slightly stronger the more into the plot you get. I know this requires more work on SSG's end, however, as enemies likely could not be recycled from chain 1, and would have to have 2nd sets of 1 higher CR versions used instead.

[PsychoBlonde]

Doing "The Knight who Cried Windmill" on Legendary Elite, and it won't let me talk to Dame Alonsa. I went up the hill to look at the windmill first.

Ah, okay, it did let me talk to her after I defeated the windmill.

[pawpaw2000]

Really nice to see the wilderness uses regular explorers! I'm probably the minority on this, but I'm glad to see the map isn't automatically filled too. I haven't done enough to know, but I'm hoping the rares are the original system too. I'm looking forward to exploring the wilderness more.

Speaking of the wilderness, it's missing heroic slayers.

The whole expansion is level 5 at heroic? That's a lot of quests for one level. I feel like making Chain 2 and one or two of the walkups level 6 would make for a better split.

[straytext]

Really nice to see the wilderness uses regular explorers! I'm probably the minority on this, but I'm glad to see the map isn't automatically filled too. I haven't done enough to know, but I'm hoping the rares are the original system too. I'm looking forward to exploring the wilderness more.

Speaking of the wilderness, it's missing heroic slayers.

The whole expansion is level 5 at heroic? That's a lot of quests for one level. I feel like making Chain 2 and one or two of the walkups level 6 would make for a better split.

Also missing Epic Slayers, but when I checked my journal for the explorer spots I missed I did have a Heroic Slayer in there. I'm assuming some magic tick box isn't being ticked.

By original system rares you mean a fixed location where they have a chance to spawn rather than hoping you stumble upon them? If so, I think that's a fair bet. The map isn't gargantuan enough to not have fixed locations. Feels much more like Borderlands than Ravenloft (which is fine by me).

I would like to see more than just a trader in the pixie village though. Doesn't have to be a hundred pixies floating around but, a few here and there would be nice.

[PsychoBlonde]

In Wake Me Up Inside, the part of the square that is a tavern in the public area version of the castle still grants tavern regeneration and lets you swap out your spells.

[Steelstar]

Doing "The Knight who Cried Windmill" on Legendary Elite, and it won't let me talk to Dame Alonsa. I went up the hill to look at the windmill first.

Ah, okay, it did let me talk to her after I defeated the windmill.

You can do the quest without talking to her first (as you did!), but she locks up during the fight if you do so.

Going to adjust placement so she's easier to find, and add action text if you try to talk to her in that state.

Sorry again for turning you pink. Fixing that too.

[GoldyGopher]

Landscape

Two locations are labeled as Bitterspine Palace
I think Dungeon Scaling is broken (too many mobs with less than 500 HP on Legendary)
Finding "the Offering" was a "pain in the [redacted]
No Slayer?
A number of tree branches by the drop to the swamp (and the spiral back up) are only black.
The path to Winter is not obvious at first and if you don't have a full map is a little difficult to find.

Below the entrance from Eberron it is possible to get behind the invisible wall and roam around off map, as it were. Not possible to get back that I found, short of a recall.

[straytext]

Landscape

Two locations are labeled as Bitterspine Palace
I think Dungeon Scaling is broken (too many mobs with less than 500 HP on Legendary)
Finding "the Offering" was a "pain in the [redacted]
No Slayer?
A number of tree branches by the drop to the swamp (and the spiral back up) are only black.
The path to Winter is not obvious at first and if you don't have a full map is a little difficult to find.

Below the entrance from Eberron it is possible to get behind the invisible wall and roam around off map, as it were. Not possible to get back that I found, short of a recall.

There's a few places where you can get off the map, or at least, into an area I'm pretty sure shouldn't be accessible with no way back. Which is why I packed Dimension Door.

Also, the second ladder to get back up the waterfall from the offering site is really difficult to get on. At least, I was unable to climb back up. I didn't use the ladder to get down as I just feather falled.

And, aside from the initial encounter I haven't found Hyrsam anywhere else in the map and I've been all over. Only missing two explorer locations (Parliament of Owls, and the Henge). Just not sure on the mechanic for encountering Hyrsam a second time.

[straytext]

This is what I get for playing on the test server and not on live. I waste all my loot luck on chests that don't matter. Just had an artifact drop from the Displacer rare encounter.

[straytext]

Any chance to get some collectables sprinkled around the landscape? Awful lot of deep water to go swimming in with nothing to be found at the bottom. I was hoping for some rubble or fungus here and there.

[Andu_Indorin]

... and the landscape look gorgeous. I can see myself spending a lot of time meditating in here ...

... after sating any bloodlust.

[Dabima]

Quid Pro Quo:
The free the prisoners optional is still bugged. Both the Open Lock and UMD options use Open Lock as the skill.
Having not been spotted by the sentries, I expected enemies in the rooms to become alert if spotting me, but they all just stand there (satyrs), or sleep (others), even if you literally jump up and down on them

Frosty Reception:
You added a marker for the nap couch, thank you!
Cadence is... looking a bit large. Night hags are about as tall as a human, but she's like 12 feet tall

Wilderness: Obviously unfinished, but coming along nicely! Polar bears seem quite small.

Needle in a Feystack:
Just north of the entrance is a group of deer that are the same CR as other enemies in the quest, instead of the usual CR 1 of passive deer, and they have no name, and just stand in place staring at you.
If you walk past Bewildered Bearserk, toward his chest, he will not follow you, just stands there staring at you.
Maybe it was lag, but the Satyr Schemers seemed to be a bit slow to react. The ones I encountered would stare at me for several seconds before taking a few steps back, staring at me for another 2-3 seconds, then start casting.
Perhaps have the mimics activate as soon as you drop them? There's no point in allowing skill checks to identify mimics, if you can just knock one down and then see if it has a CR.
You don't need to actually chase any of the 4 creatures that pop out of the real chest. Simply stand in place for a few seconds and they will come running back and simply stand beside you.
For the egg, why does having a good concentration skill allow you to cast flame strike on the egg? This doesn't really make any sense.

Witch Hunt:
If you put a DoT effect on the hag, you can kill her before she becomes corporeal and heals herself, thus making the battle very short.

Wake Me Up Inside (lol):
The Nightmarish Satyr Backstabbers don't have any attacks. They will occasionally play a bard song, but other than that they just walk up to you and stand beside you.
Some of the shadowy satyr npcs that are in lord arden's torment circles (or whatever you'd like to call them) are T-posing.
The ice-aura slimes in the end fight get hurt by each other's auras.

Immortality Lesson:
The Fomorian boss would not leave his room, and simply stood in there casting Evil over and over.
The objective to kill the gargoyle never completed, even after I finished the quest.

[PsychoBlonde]

3 of the times at least when I recalled out of quests no landscape window came up so I had to run my way out of the landscape.

[straytext]

Fun.

The difficulty is all over the place though. Until you fight the hag nothing is even remotely a challenge. As in, my HPs never dipped more than a percent if that. Then you fight the Hag and suddenly I'm trying to remember where I put cocoon on my hotbar.

Also, you can grab the Lute before you speak to the Viscount. It reappears on the table after the fight is over so, not quest breaking.

[Aelonwy]

I'm going to keep this short because I'm not feeling well and I'd like to get some sleep.

I ran around the Wilderness Zone and was incredibly pleased by the great variety in flora and fauna, the atmosphere and spectrum of color. I did see I think the entire gamut of Crayfish colors which was neat. Polar bears, cool. Blink Dogs, nifty, Cooshies, kind of cute. Occasional displacer beast, different. Red caps, nice... er or not. Pixies, perfect. Wild Nymphs? Okay I guess... they looked weird dressed in red. I think of nymphs as dressed in more natural greens and browns. Wood woads look dwarfed? Harpies good, good. Maybe some griffons really high up?

I would still like to see the Feywild Razorcats get a little recolor, or retexture. Feywild Shambling mounds and Twigblights could use some flowers on them. Please do something with the Feytouched Spiders, the generic Large Brown Spider look is just way too boring and mundane for Feywild.

I don't think I saw any Dryads, if not it could use some. I also didn't see a lot of natural non-aggressive wildlife except some birds, a fox or two and some frogs. Does the Feywild not have deer?

Why only 12 locations in such a vast and beautiful wilderness zone, seems like there could have easily been 20?

I reran The Endless Revels there are still two copies of Bertrand? the gardener inside the quest but each counts separately in the talk to all the servants optional so clearly a servant is also missing. This time there was no one in the music room. I liked that little optional.

I also had the opportunity to run Make Believe, loved it. If it could use anything at all... I would say a secret door somewhere with an extra chest or collectible. I was again on a rogue skilled character with nothing to do with my rogue skills here. But otherwise its a fun quest, with loads of story. I did notice the Mimic was named Chester Riddle on screen, but referred to himself as Riddlelock, I think. I don't know if that's a bug or if he had a nickname. Again, I loved this quest, very fairytale-like.

[straytext]

I'm going to keep this short because I'm not feeling well and I'd like to get some sleep.

I ran around the Wilderness Zone and was incredibly pleased by the great variety in flora and fauna, the atmosphere and spectrum of color. I did see I think the entire gamut of Crayfish colors which was neat. Polar bears, cool. Blink Dogs, nifty, Cooshies, kind of cute. Occasional displacer beast, different. Red caps, nice... er or not. Pixies, perfect. Wild Nymphs? Okay I guess... they looked weird dressed in red. I think of nymphs as dressed in more natural greens and browns. Wood woads look dwarfed? Harpies good, good. Maybe some griffons really high up?

I would still like to see the Feywild Razorcats get a little recolor, or retexture. Feywild Shambling mounds and Twigblights could use some flowers on them. Please do something with the Feytouched Spiders, the generic Large Brown Spider look is just way too boring and mundane for Feywild.

I don't think I saw any Dryads, if not it could use some. I also didn't see a lot of natural non-aggressive wildlife except some birds, a fox or two and some frogs. Does the Feywild not have deer?

Why only 12 locations in such a vast and beautiful wilderness zone, seems like there could have easily been 20?

I reran The Endless Revels there are still two copies of Bertrand? the gardener inside the quest but each counts separately in the talk to all the servants optional so clearly a servant is also missing. This time there was no one in the music room. I liked that little optional.

I also had the opportunity to run Make Believe, loved it. If it could use anything at all... I would say a secret door somewhere with an extra chest or collectible. I was again on a rogue skilled character with nothing to do with my rogue skills here. But otherwise its a fun quest, with loads of story. I did notice the Mimic was named Chester Riddle on screen, but referred to himself as Riddlelock, I think. I don't know if that's a bug or if he had a nickname. Again, I loved this quest, very fairytale-like.

Agree about the Razorcats, Twigs, and Shambles. They just looked copy-pasted from other places in the game. Spiders definitely need something. They're just common household spiders. I mean, if your house is anywhere in Eberron.

There are deer. I actually hit one in a fit of "where the heck is this explorer location!?". I felt bad for a second.

There are also Dryad. Specifically, there is one Dryad tied to a rare encounter having to do with an apple tree, akin to the one you encounter in Make Believe. She was, as all Dryad seem to be, not pleased to meet me. So I killed her, chopped down her tree, and then took all her stuff. That's just how we roll on the Prime Material.

[krzyysiek098]

My thoughts about epic wilderness zone:
1) Slayer for the wilderness is inactive for epic - we neither get credit for any kills nor it is listed in Quest Journal.
2) Displaced beasts are CR 6, eladrin warriors CR 1, winter wolves CR 5. Quite low for epic, isn't it?
3) Minor artifacts drop in wilderness zone chests. Is it intentional?
4) Fomorians and feywild sea lions don't attack until you get pretty close to them, it feels weird.
5) Satyr archers attack waaaay too slow.
6) Shrine in Pixie Village is inactive.
7) Pixie Village looks very nice but also feels dead - maybe add some pixie enemies there or friendly NPCs?
8) Redcaps, blink dogs and polar bears are so cool!
9) Twig blights (plants) in the snowy area (at the base of the castle) feel... out of place?
10) The castle in the snowy area (east side of the map) looks awesome! Please make a quest inside it in next update!
11) Treasure bags dropped by enemies are bugged - you can collect them, but receive nothing.
12) Currently no monsters killed in the wilderness count to Monster Manual, which is super-uncool. I know that devs perceive MM as a burden, but for me (and many others) this is one of the most favourite features of DDO.
13) Wynwood Hall looks impressive but also slows my computer down a lot. Reminds me of the ship in The Black Loch. I can live with that though.
14) There should be more shrines in this wilderness IMO.
15) I don't know if it was done for expansion or some time in the past, but the map of The Continent of Xen'drik looks very good.
16) Objectives (explorer, rare encounters) in quest Journal all have needless dots before colon (look like: "Find the folly.: done")
17) There is a stuck spot at (Standard): You are on server 22 at r4 lx522 ly1665 i5 ox49.55 oy30.40 oz792.38 h150.5. Game timestamp 59607.217.
18) There is no confirmation box when you leave the wilderness to Wynwood Hall.
19) Map in Wynwood Hall is non-funcional.
20) Hylp Hamswort (hireling vendor) sells only epic hireling contracts.