So I bought Feywild, Sharn, and Saltmarsh with Turbine Points because they were on sale and I had 6500 TP lying around from reincarnating over the years. I figured the loot from Feywild looked good, especially that crown of butterflies, and I also figured that more level 5-6 content can't hurt.
But holy shit, this might be the worst adventure pack in the game. I say might because Turbine has come out with some real stinkers over the past 10 years: Lost Gatekeepers, Keep on the Borderlands, Soul Splitter, Disciples of Rage, Tethyamar, Slave Lords, Devil's Gambit, Trial of the Archons, and especially ToEE. But I still think Fail-wild has a case for the worst of them all.
For one thing, WHAT THE FUCK HAPPENED TO QUICK TRAVEL? Ravenloft had instant teleports to dungeons... and that wilderness is actually somewhat enjoyable to explore. On the other hand, Feywild is one of the most boring wilderness areas in the game, being needlessly large with too many dead spots. Why did Turbine decide to nix the idea of quick travel? What a fucking slap in the face. Cocksuckers.
But that's only the beginning of my woes. Feywild is thoroughly horrendous. The quests themselves are unbelievably bad
Endless Revels: The premise of this quest doesn't even make any sense. Satyrs are having an endless party in Cascading Springs Cottage. Okay, so why can't we just kill them, like in any normal quest? There aren't that many - it's certainly fewer Satyrs infesting the place than monsters you actually DO kill - and you have to fight them as part of the endfight anyway. So what fucking gives? Why can't I kill them from the start? As another gripe, killing the Satyrs doesn't even end the fight, which makes no sense, given that driving away the Satyrs was the FUCKING GOAL OF THE QUEST. No, instead, you need to replace the sign, AND kill the Satyrs. What a load of bullshit. Oh yeah, and this is the first of many quest in the Fail-wild which is needlessly large
Witch Hunt: FUCK. THIS. QUEST. This has a strong case for worst quest in the game. It's another quest which is pointlessly large, taking place on a wide open expanse where you need to locate a specific item that could be located ANYWHERE. Killing the hag herself is a tedious chore because of her invincibility frames. And if she wanders away, your map doesn't even show her dot... even if it showed where she spawned to begin with. What a load of horseshit
Make Believe: Admittedly not that bad, but it's not very fun either. Way too much walking around and going from point A to point B. Very Tower of Frost-esque
Frosty Reception: Godawful. Fucking godawful. Why is it that every fucking quest in this godforsaken adventure pack has sprawling hallways with absolutely NOTHING going on in them? This quest took me 20 minutes of walking back and forth to complete, and my final kill count was something like 60. It's like Turbine intentionally designed the hallways and rooms in this quest to be as aggravating as possible. Fuck this quest.
Wake Me Up Inside: Hahahaha wow, so clever with a dumb Evanescence reference, amirite? No seriously, fuck this quest too. Just like Witch Hunt, it takes place in a wide open expanse. At least this one's objectives are in predetermined locations, but it's still a needlessly large map. And it looks like Turbine still hasn't gotten the memo that players don't enjoy having to wait around for dumb cutscenes to happen. On a related note, the voiceovers seem REALLY out of sync with what's actually happening on your screen. Voiceovers also persist after you recall. How annoying. The only positive thing I can say about this quest is that it doesn't require a lengthy walk through the boring ass Failwild wilderness area
Legend of the Lost Locket and Combatting Corruption: Unironically the best designed quests in this pack. It's simple hack-n-slash drudgery through uninspired scenery. Not exactly great quests, but it's far better from the festering dungheap that is the rest of this pack
Immortality Lessons: Another candidate for "worst quest in the game," which seemingly combines every problem that Failwild has. Pointlessly large hallways and rooms. RNG-dependence for the giant's table. Pointless mechanics (in this case, the fiddle - what is it even accomplishing besides making your quest take longer?). Too many monsters to kill. Unskippable cutscenes. An absurd power creep hat which remains BiS for all melee characters for the entire heroic game. As another thing, there's no indication that those vines are supposed to be climbable; I had to look up a YouTube video to see where to go, since I got lost even after exploring the entire dungeon 4 times.
Oh, and of course, all the OP loot in this pack has to be farmed from end chests. Because god forbid Turbine use a sensible loot mechanic like 3rd completion end rewards.
God, I'm not looking forward to finishing the rest of these, but I'm operating on the "sunk costs fallacy" at this point. This was not worth 2k TP, even on sale.
Fuck Fail-wild. This feels like one of those packs I'll farm out once for the loot and then never touch again, saga bonuses notwithstanding. It's hard to believe just how bad this pack is. I'm so glad I stopped spending money on DDO many years ago.
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