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I just ran through these quests again, without the "oh hey this is new" feeling, and jesus fuck are they terrible. Here's a run down:
Quest One: Plants in the Hospital!
Remember how the hospital was full of werewolves, with a head werewolf? Now it's full of plants, with a head plant. Plant zombies, plant trolls, plant giants, reskinned plants everywhere. Plus wolves, and juiced up will o the wisps. Get used to these mobs, because you will be seeing a lot of them. So anyway, you clear one wing of the building, killing a bunch of stupid plants and a plant flesh golem. Guess what's next? Yup, you clear the other wing, because it was so much fun the first time. The optional is skill-based, so you either get a free chest for showing up with the right numbers, or you ignore it. The end fight is an easy beatdown where tons of trash spawns and casts spells at you. Guess how much of this description was foreshadowing for the next three quests?
Quest Two: Plants in Some Guy's House!
The head plant guy has a house in town, so we're off to check it out for clues. Oh shit, it's a building full of plants, again! Also, bear traps. In his house. Because apparently he hates people? Or maybe just to control his in-house wolf population. Anyway, despite being in a house, this quest is a single-track where you proceed linearly through the sequence of rooms. You kill some plant mobs so that you can open the next door/root wall, kill a bunch really fast to try to get the wood woad optional, then repeat both of those more times than is really necessary. There's a "mysterious bard" who runs ahead of you and really should provide the clues you need to advance this stupid plot, but doesn't. The end fight is a squeaky dryad who runs and hides in her tree, which you kill to finish the quest. Are you tired of having to clear every room to advance to the next one? Because that's really all you do in the next two quests.
Quest Three: Plants in the Woods!
The bard was looking for a nobleman. Why? Fuck if I know. He sends you to look for a druid out in the woods, because quests don't need reasons. You start out killing all the mobs so that you can break a root wall. Pay attention, because you will have to do that about a dozen more times this quest. The main room had two side passages and a giant root wall. You clear one side of about three room's worth of plant creatures, breaking an endless series of root walls and killing a druid and a corruption node at the end. That breaks the remaining root walls on that side, and suddenly bears! But they leash, so you can just run past them all. Once you've cleared one side, guess what you do next? If you guessed "the exact same thing on the other side" you get a gold star and a frontal lobotomy. Oh wait, that was the quest designer. Now that both corruption nodes are destroyed, and the giant root wall in the main room is gone, will something exciting happen? No. You get to clear another room full of plants so that you can break another goddamn root wall to get to the end fight, which is a giant bear and more plants. After that, speak to a dying druid for a clue! The clue is "you shouldn't have bought this pack, moron". It's actually "you must be a wolf, then a fish, then a bear." Oh wait, I was right the first time.
Quest Four: Plants in the Woods! Again!
We didn't find the druid last time, so let's go look for him in the woods! Again! Jesus. This dungeon uses trees and rocks to cleverly disguise the fact that it is basically one long, straight shot directly to the end. There are a couple of dead-end side passages, so that you can feel bad for deviating from the one true path laid out before you. Instead of doors, you have root walls. Once again, you will have to kill a whole bunch of plants each time you want to break a root wall. Because having fun in quests is bad. Then there's a long swimming segment, because apparently the quest needed to be less interesting. Drowning deals basically no damage, so you could /afk and make a sandwich and still not die, because epic characters have hit points. There's an underwater side passage with a couple of chests, in case you get lost. Then you have to swim back. I wonder how long the swim would have to be for players to give up the "free" chest. One minute? Five? Ten? People would probably swim through empty caves for an hour if there was a free chest at the end, and Turbine knows it. Anyway, now we're back to the magic root walls and the killing everything. At some point there's a small side area that's full of plants and can contain the red name that drops ivy wraps. And by "can contain" I really mean "will not contain" but feel free to check anyway and hate everything. There's also an area you can climb up to that's full of earth elementals and clay pots, in case you're one of those players who needs to hit ransack in every quest. At some point, you fight a ranger with a pet spider, which is at least a refreshing change from the endless parade of reskinned plants, wolves, bears, and will o the wisps. Finally, there's an end fight! You fight a druid! Again! After you get his hitpoints down a bit he turns into a wolf and a shit ton of trash spawns. To advance the fight, you need to kill every single fucking trash mob, so that he can turn into a bear, and you can do the exact same fucking thing, again. It's like the apotheosis of all the terrible quest design elements we've seen throughout the series. Then he up and dies, and the mysterious bard destroys the very important magic staff that we probably should have heard about before now. Oh well, it's not like we're here for any plot whatsoever. We're just here to kill a room full of monsters, so that we can advance to the next room full of monsters.
At this point your group will have pulled zero named items, because the drop rate is terrible and half of them are in optional chests that you either didn't or couldn't get. Good thing the chain reward list is...commendations! Because it's so hard to get five of those.
In conclusion, this pack is a shit sandwich.
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U15 worth it? (Read 9415 times)
