Artorias wrote on Aug 4
th, 2021 at 7:50pm:
Tried 4 quests so far and I'm digging them. Every quest I tried was fairly long to be honest and there is even a new trick where you get the usual "you sense some hidden shit nearby" and when you search you can find an hidden lever or a key hidden in a bowl full of fruit, that was a nice touch.
I think the quests are good-ish (depending on tastes but I like what I played so far) only because SSG was forced to stick to the original module. I know it's old rhetoric but I trust nothing that comes up straight from those fools
The bad note comes from balance, I've been playing at level and in heroic. Now fucking way in hell those quests are balanced for level 5 content, one quest in particular had 150+ monsters in with casters that dealt 60+ damage in one hit. No problem for a multi TR like my toon but I wager first lifers are going to get slaughtered even on elite
So I'm trying to reconcile a couple of things...
Why did they build these as Level 3? We recently got Keep (all L1 from u44), Catacomb upgrade (mostly L3 from u45), Lost Gatekeeper (L3 from u46), and Fey (L5, U48).Â
I get Keep on the Boarderlands as a new starter set of quests. But there are now 36 L3 quests - more than any other level other than 32.
Balance is *way* off - most of the mobs I saw at Reaper 2 were CR8. L3 quests (that haven't been updated) are showing CR5-8 for most mobs. Catacombs are mostly CR4-CR8, Saltmarsh I'm seeing CR8 and 10's and a sh*t ton more mobs.
compare:
 waterworks:
https://ddowiki.com/page/The_Kobold%27s_Den:_Rescuing_Arlos#Monsters Saltmarsh:
https://ddowiki.com/page/The_Haunting_of_Saltmarsh#MonstersI'd say the Lost Gatekeeper stuff from U46 is the same way - higher CR's, more mobs. I don't run them since I can get the XP elsewhere.
Saltmarsh XP is pretty high - the few quests I've run are all in the 12-18% of level range (but compare WW at 18% average) but all in the +20minutes range for < 350 xp/min. (WW at 800-1200 xp/min).Â
I guess there's the saga bonus to this - 26K (31k w/%'s) at L3/L4 is pretty significant (31k is 45% of 64K for L4).
But I believe my L3/L4/L5 chain is still going to be Catacombs, WaterWorks, Zerg Depths, and then right to 3BC...