Tartarus?

Ah well I find Tartarus pretty grindy. Basically going back and forth between large waves that respawn, ad infinitum. In some cases using tactics to drag out the groups in a way that is manageable; but its just a case of learning what to do and doing it repeatedly. Imitation of ARPG style gameplay.

I've been doing it in groups of other players more battle-ready than me, and yea its relatively easy for them. Many can do it solo, but in groups its even easier, and I can tag along and help out. For as long as I go there, its a decent enough time waster, but I'm not sure I why I'd want to do that for hours repeatedly. Its just not that compelling gameplay for me. I don't want to play games just to waste time. Do it several times, and you just start getting bored, and there isn't much reason to go except for the hope of getting rewards. Rewards are okay, though the real hope is for artifacts to drop, and more players are being disappointed as the drop rate was lowered.

Like I said elsewhere, if you look at stats for active players like on Steam Charts, there was a big spike in players when Tartarus was OP, then when this was fixed, people dropped off. And soon, I think Tartarus is going to face an Upper Tears issue where people who are still going there are going to burn out.

Yea, if I went into Tartarus solo with my current build and gear it would be a different experience for me, but I'm not sure why I'd want to do that, either; and I'm not sure I really care enough to soup up my build/gear to the point that which this would be easy as it is for other players. Just feels pointless. In the mean time, I've happy to join parties just to hang out with other players and try to get the artifacts, but probably not for long.

Storytelling-wise, the dungeon is pretty undecipherable at the moment. The elves love to collect paintings of player avatars and seem to be a big fan of Shooter Jennings, and they have a map of some place nobody has ever seen before, and will never exist in the game. There are random bookshelves and crafting stations places for some reason, as well as artfully placed piles of dirt. Zombies and wisps are just chilling out together in rooms beneath the elves, and there are some crocs thrown in the mix. And some big named skeleton for some reason. And the dungeon seems like it would be impossible in most parts with RP-designed builds, like stealthing. But then again, there has been very little movement on making stealth-oriented gameplay viable generally speaking. Monsters can see in the dark, see behind stuff, know where you are; they don't have the same hindrances as players.

Instead, there's a lot of effort in producing content for grinding/farming-oriented gameplay. I don't know... its just not why I was ever into an Ultima game.

@Cora Cuz'avich Yea, I agree with you that content is targeting a certain level of player while leaving the rest behind. The other thing that bothers me is I think they're targeting people who like hours of grinding and then unfortunately the entire game gets designed around that, too. I mean, I hope people realize that if the pace of spawns were slower and the gameplay wasn't about non-stop farming of enemies for hours, that the devs could afford to raise the drop rate of things like artifacts. Because certain items are designed to be rare, so the more spawns are ratcheted up, the more uncommon they have to make the drops in order for them to be rare; and if the game wasn't non-stop farming, they could then make those items drop more commonly.

There's a tension here between farming vs. rewards. The more the game is grindy and designed for farming, the more the rewards have to be dropped. I would rather them put more focus on rewards, and less on grinding and farming content.

I am pretty supportive of them putting in "raid" type party-grouping mechanics, which I suspect Tartarus is a setup for; just not necessarily personally thrilled about this use.

 

Heh. Yeah, that's how I read it too. My bad as well.

 

Killing them one or two at a time is easier, but not rewarding, and therefore not worth the effort of doing so. There are plenty of places where you can kill lots of stuff easily, but it's not worth the effort. There are plenty of places where you can spend a long time killing one thing, which is also not worth the effort. What the game needs more of is places where either of those two scenarios are worth the effort for people of varying levels, not just people of certain levels.

And yes, to be more accurate, I should say I fear that it will become off limits to me. But based on past experience, if I can barely do something, and it gets made harder, it becomes off limits.

 

I was simply agreeing with what he said and that I find it annoying as well when Port does such things, but I can understand why it needs to happen most of the time.

 

I too am getting tired of more and more al 120+ areas. Completely understand the need and want for that. Not everyone is al 120+. Just hope the rest that aren’t high level people don’t finally get burned out and leave....