Earn Sir Patrick's Freedom quest

Hi,
I'm new to the game and having been doing all of my quests to help me level. I was assigned the mage class and although I like them and used to play them all the time, I've learned to avoid them now because the only thing they don't deal with well is the one thing every single NPC attacker does.. get right in your face and force you to spend all your mana healing and trying to keep alive! But being new I decided to be open minded and see if SOTA was any different or balanced that out in any way.

I've completed the base quests in in all the startup areas and earned my 3 banners.

When I hit level 28 Arabelle gave me the start to the Path of Love quest so off I went.
Got the first part done and they sent me to a Kobold camp. The quest warned that it might be too much for me and it was right. Everything was a couple teirs above me so I did the Mage two-step and got my little cloth butt outa there.

Arabelle had also offered the beginnings of the path of courage, so off I go again. After being told that the Kobold camp was Northwest when it was East, I finally found the camp and went in to talk to the leader to set Sir Patrick free. I walked in freely, no issues, no surprises and picked up the leaders challenge to fight in the ring.
The first yellow attacker I dispatched quickly but the second wave of 2 was too much and I was dying or running out of mana trying to stay alive (I had the food buffs and worship buffs). All notes about getting help said the quest bugs if your not solo and since the quest intended the "Avatar" to EARN the release, I saw attacking the cage guard as "Breaking him out" and opted to avoid that.

So I decided perhaps Arabelle was smoking something and these paths were meant for levels a little higher and I set about to raise my level. I raised my level to 36 and and off I go ready to take on that second wave of Kobolds today.

I walk into the same Kobold camp and not only has all of the NPCs been bumped up a couple teirs above me, but now I can't even get near the original quest giver. I get attacked the minute I get anywhere near the front gate.

So now something tells me Arabelle isn't the one smoking something. What gives? I'm spending more time running around trying to complete quests that are teirs above me then I am questing!

 

Magic using is the hardest at the early levels. But you should know that you can do whatever you want. Just because the Oracle said to go be a mage doesn't mean you have to. You can immediately switch and create the class of your dreams.

I recommend you do so now if you feel the desire. It's not going to hurt to pick up a sword or bow, most of your skills will still be useful. Train them up for a bit and your survivability should go up.

@DarkStarr @Lord British This appears to still be an issue. If there were some way to measure how many people are made happier by playing how they envisioned themselves vs. how many are happier by doing what they were told, I believe that the result would be "help players play what they want".

I get that it's a tradition, but I think it might be costing us.

We naturally want to go with a test like that rather than rebuff it. But the results of the test are in no way connected to ideal play style, at that point in time the absolute most important thing to match correctly to the player.

It's not an RNG class choice, but it might as well be.

 

For me the elephant in the room... is how is it that the NPCs were yellow to me when I went at level 29 to pick up the quest to Earn Sir Patricks Freedom and are now RED and Orange when I'm 7 levels higher, which to me indicates their a couple teirs above me.

I even went to a Demig's battle camp to test the Kobolds in that area where I had also fought them before. They were still yellow to me even though I was 7 levels higher and now instead of killing them quickly as before, a one on one fight took half my health even with me healing myself.

Its like they scaled when I hit level 30.

Anyway, having worked for a couple days trying to continue my quests and failed and having failed through means that were completely unpredictable and outside my control, I not only had no clue how to proceed but not a lot of will left either.

For the developers: Achievement IS the drug we play for. It's what keeps me coming back. I know there are biochemical components to this but I'm not going to pretend to have knowledge I'm not qualified to talk about. You've given me a path, and then not only made it very hard to achieve but when I took steps to overcome the issues, you cheated and destroyed my chance to achieve. Having put in a couple days of work only to fail in a manner that defys logic, is the anti drug!

 

Hmmmm I wonder if some math changed with the patch? That sounds weird.

 

1. You are not intended to waltz through each of the three paths with no leveling in between.

2. If only there was some other way to get the key. Some less courageous way than the (rather unfair) trial by combat, as you suspected.

3. It is possible to defeat them at level 45-50 or so. I have done it. But I was an experienced player on an alt account, leveled Taming sufficient to use a "level 29" pet wolf, and had to wear chest armor that was a bit better than cloth. And maybe benefited a bit of a "glitch" where the game's faction system caused an attack from the enemy I was fighting to aggro the "regular" kobolds around the circle.

Also, there are two different versions of that scene. There is the quest version, which is solo-only, and there is the regular version, where everything attacks you. I suspect you were in a party the second time, which caused you to enter the regular version of the scene.

 

How the Main Quest is structured is speaking to Arabella 3 times, leads you to the 3 Outskirts, of which you gain the 3 banners. After that, the rest of the quests (for the most part) are now all tier 5 areas.

At this point, you can then decide to level up more. Or, since this is a MMO, grab a group, and head off to where you need to go. Also a Guild would more than likely also help you with this. In Offline, you have the three companions.

In true Ultima fashion, you can however complete the remaining quests, if you know exactly what to do and where to go. There’s videos of this on YouTube. There’s several people here on the forum who have done them at low levels.

I still need to get my Shroud. I’ll probably just ask for some help. I’d just like to be done with Chapter 1.

 

Welcome @Manxis!

Thank you for your feedback!

What I can tell you is:
The path of courage is the hardest one, because of the fights, followed by love path.
To explain, how this may happen, consider:
The quest to free Sir Patrick is one of the last new quests.
It also isn't a quest you must do to go on on the path of courage.
You will find a few quests (on each path!) which seem very hard (like some for receiving the banner).
For example: In harvest you can do a quest with a house on the hills. It leads into a Tier 5 scene!
So it's important to know, that not all quests on each path are linear with your game progress!

I remember I did your mentioned quest to free Sir Patrick after I finished all paths - and it wasn't easy. And I think it needs a further revision ...

Until that: I recommend to go further on the path of truth and after that love - don't give up

 

Elwyn:
Thanks. To speak to your suspicion, I've never been in any group to do that. I'm only 5 days old in the game. I've hardly been in any group to do anything except move inventories. They started out all peaceful and now I can't get near them. (Tried again this morning).

As I mentioned in the initial post, I did read some experienced it bugging out when they went in as a group so I made sure I went in solo. I did suspect that perhaps I was in the wrong play mode so I did try Public, Party AND Solo with no change in effect. That was yesterday. As I said, I still can't get anywhere near them now.

Everyone keeps telling me how I can't expect everything to be easy. I'm not at all. I went away to level some more. The real question is, "How did they jump in level and aggression all of a sudden" after I level past where they were the last time I saw them. You helped explain the sudden change although I think there's still something wrong for them to have gone from all yellow to all Orange and red.

 

There are other areas that have side quests besides the Outskirts areas - look for more quests in Resolute, Aerie, Soltown, Ardoris and also the towns in Hidden Vale - Owl's Head, Kingsport and Braemar.

 

Ahh the heck with it. I'll just do the Youtube New user review of the game as is with the information and experience I have at hand.

Thank you so much for all your attempts to help!

 

Sorry things aren't working out for you Manxis.. good hunting! and good luck with your video productions!

 

It's a relief to see this thread. A relief because I'm not the only one to be dumbfounded by its challenge.

I also managed to kill the first mob to expectedly release Sir Patrick... only to find 1vs1 combat is apparently not a fair enough fight, so they then throw 2 more mobs at me which proceed to wipe the floor of me.

I think that's what annoyed me most about it, it doesn't seem fair. It's been a long time now since I read the dialogue for it, but I don't recall it saying there would be waves of mobs. After defeating the first one you'd think it would be a cause for celebration... but nooooope. I enjoy a challenge, but it feels like a cheap shot. "Defeat my strongest warrior... and then destroy my next two strongest warriors! Pray I don't have more strongest warriors!".

At any rate, I've been gaining a number of levels through regular play lately, and have a much better combat deck developed. I hope to return soon and reign hell on them, assuming they aren't ridiculous teirs above me... I suspect they could be, since I struggle to handle myself in a Tier 3 zone.

 

The level jump is because your accessing the normal version of the area, and not the special toned down quest area.. could either be you inadvertently did something to anger the kobalds, or some glitch caused you to lose your quest flag.. on the plus side the regular scene doesn't scale, so their levels won't change on you again

 

Saw the same thing yesterday when we entered the scene in a group, broke group and switched to private and the right version came up.

 

Yeah, it doesn't end there either.

 

These are the same kobolds who complain about humans running away, then their mages and archers do exactly that. Just because it doesn't seem fair doesn't mean that it was supposed to be fair.

 

What Online mode is this?

 

Regular scene can be accessed from any mode, if your not on the quest, or in a party.. if you are on the quest, might want to be in private mode, just to be sure (definitely not party mode . Though in theory shouldn't matter if your not in a party)

 

Idaniod: Thanks, I took 3 play through videos last night in addition to some of the others I had already taken. Fully narrated them and tossed them up on my gaming channel. I usually only do VR games and then its complete instructionals/solutions and programmer hacks so this is the first in my channel of non-VR and pure review-by-example. Was tempted to call it "Shroud of the loading screen" but that kinda comes through loud and clear in the play through on it's own. I showed having to BUY a new slot for a second character and what a brand new character has to go though and the guidance they get. Took over three hours to upload it. I'm only 5 days old in the game and all kinds of mistakes but that's how it appears to a 5 day old so that's perfect. Should be a real winner don't ya think.

I did mention how the community is pretty nice with the exception of the Quid-Pro-Quo philanthropists who seem to want to help the poor new guy only if they can park that new crafter right next to their crafting vendors. hehe they thought I didn't catch on...

Jaesun: I actually showed this whole scene in my play-through video to show one of the bugs. The scene is marked on the top as a green adventuring area but its marked as PRIVATE which is odd since I was in open play. I did try leaving the scene, switching to private and reentering with the thinking that the mode was out of sync but nothing changed. So for me the scene is in private and the mobs are Orange, Red and highly aggressive in a green adventuring area regardless of which mode I test in. Worked great as a bug in the video.

I'll put together some more. later. The first one had very little hitching in it but the second one was hitching like mad and I had already showed me network connection, machine specs out of the control panel itself and did a full network bandwidth test right on the video to show it wasn't the machine or the network.

As for questing ahead.. I'm 2 for 2 trying to do quests I was given that ended in bugged or crazy dead ends where I had done all kinds of work to be able to complete the quests only to fail anyway. In simple terms, everytime I try to move ahead, this game smashes me over the head with a 2x4 for being stupid and trying at all. So the Game is training me.

Anyway, nuff said about this quest problem. I would have closed the thread if I could have. Clearly I'm not going to be finishing it anytime soon and clearly there doesn't seem to be anything the company feel is wrong to fix or someone from the company would have spoken up. Many thanks for all of your responses and attempts to help. Its a really great community and I think fairly well balanced so keep up the great work!

P.S. I don't believe in using community forums to plug my Youtube activities. To me that's a misuse of the forums and an abuse of a captured audience.

 

Don't confuse your matchmaking mode preference with the actual instance mode. Many dungeon zones are forced party-only (you will never see another random player in a mine, only party members at most), and some quest areas are forced solo-only.

Also note that forced-solo areas have mob and resource spawning disabled. (It is a bug if they don't.) As long as you don't cause the scene to reload, they will stay dead. This is so that you have a chance to chip away at the local baddies, rather than having them relentlessly respawn faster than you can kill them.

The confusing part is that sometimes a forced-solo area shows a scene mode of "Solo", and sometimes it shows "Private". I'm not in them often enough to determine what the pattern is.