The dungeon we're training on today is a staple of MMOs. A desert. Together with the undead cave, this is often seen as the sign that a developer ran out of environment ideas at some point.
At least, this dungeon isn't full of cowboys, but does have some endemic species. There are sandworms, sphinxes, and huge prey birds.
Okay, maybe they did run out of ideas.
Anyway, that was not what we were focused on.
The main peculiarity of this dungeon is that it is more open than classic dungeons.
Of course, it is still linear, it is not a pure desert, and is set in a canyon, but it has several paths, and some pretty large open spaces.
From a level design perspective, there are also some interesting points to this dungeon. The emphasis it puts on verticality and scale is only second to the Giant Forests in the North of the map.
At the ground level, the huge open spaces host weak, but huge groups of monsters. These are essentially skeletons with a skin. Essentially, these are, from the lore, a mix of adventurers that died here and treasure seekers.
In the smaller paths, where the walls are at their closest, there are stronger creatures in minimal numbers, such as sphinxes and giant sandworms, that are used as bosses.
At some points during the dungeon run, the players are attacked by prey birds too. They don't have a high rate of attack, but they dive at a very high speed and deal an unbelievable amount of damages if not countered.
Meanwhile, at different heights on the side of the canyons, some desert bandits show up and attack you with magic and arrows, which are pretty bothersome to deal with depending on your party's composition, as you might require not only a great defense, to withstand many physical and magical projectiles, but also a good deal of DPS at range, to stop the potential accumulation of said attacks.
Because there are many natural platforms at different heights, as well as the walls of the canyon being an easy surface to climb on, there are many ways to go take the fights.
To avoid any obvious breaking of the dungeon, the distance of the mobs' senses is increased.
That means there's no way to skip fights, but that doesn't mean there's no way to make them way easier.
Right now, we're reviewing a particular section that gives us trouble. There is one shortcut we can take, through a small path above a part of the dungeon, but it requires us to keep a good footing during its entire duration.
This path goes from a platform bandits show up on to the Giant Sandworm Progenitor, a boss, and should in theory shave a good minute off the run. It isn't exactly a true path, and wasn't intentionally created, so it requires quite a few precise jumps, a bit of climbing, and an equal footing.
If we can knock the bandits and potentially go fast enough to ignore them, there are other troubles on the way. This path is within the range of one of the two Eagle attacks, and triggers it at the worst moment.
We can't outrun it and taking the blows can get you pushed down to the ground, in the middle of the bunch of enemies we're supposed to avoid. Even if we can block the Eagles' attacks, we still suffer part of the CC.
I wish we could just use Dartagnan's Keep to freeze our statuses, but sadly, short-term CC like these do not count as a status change, and thus change in things like velocity aren't canceled.
With that, we have no other choice other than to somehow deal with the eagles.
To be able to spend a lot of time on it, we cleared the bandits before the path and the mobs below it.
Killing the eagles would just have us lose the time we're trying to get, so we have to find an alternative. Which is, as the most opportunistic of the group, is what I'm trying out right now.
I climb up the platform, and jump to the first foothold of the way. Right as I do so, I hear an eagle's cry. This is the sole feedback the players get to inform them they triggered the event before being suddenly attacked.
I quickly chain the jumps, getting from footing to footing. One, two, three...
The next one is a bit higher, and I need to grab it. I jump towards it.
This isn't the first time I do this routine, so I know this is the moment the eagle will attack for the first time.
I grab the lump of rock that sticks out of the wall and use the grip strength given to me by my Strength stat to turn around it, converting my horizontal speed into torque.
The eagle, like most mobs, can only predict movements up to a certain complexity, if I suddenly go from a straight path to turning in place, there should be a big discrepancy between the prediction and reality. And indeed, the eagle hits the wall before me, before leaving, continuing its routine.
The eagle attacking and leaving only lasted a few fractions of a second. During this time, I complete my turn around my hand, and continue at the same speed, converting back my torque to horizontal speed. I land with my left foot on the next asperity, and continue my way.
This is about the time the second eagle attacks.
In my previous tries, I had already succeeded with my solution to the first attack several times, but I always got hit by the second. The truth is that there is nothing to use to change my trajectory.
But I maybe found a solution.
The attack is right between two platforms, which means that the previous platform is too early to stop or change direction, as the eagle will adapt its trajectory.
But maybe not all jump directions can be adjusted for fast enough. Right at the platform, I jump away from the wall, in the direction of the eagle that is coming to me at a fast pace.
Making full use of my Opportunism stat, I catch the eagle's talons in the air. This is an extremely precise timing. The eagle's attack already doesn't leave much time to react, and the eagle dives from pretty far away, so the speed is extremely high. But I caught it!
After catching it, I only have an instant to adjust my position, harden my muscles and get ready to not only get suddenly pulled by the eagle, but also meet the wall right after.
I let go almost right away, making use of the gained momentum to get back close enough from the wall to get a hold on the next foothold.
As I step on this, I basically won. There are three eagles in this event. It's meant to happen while we fight the last mobs below, and end when we get to the boss, so it'll reset when I get out of its range. The eagles have a low rate of attack, so they won't dive another time before I get to the boss.
Knowing that, I get down from the platform, and say to my team, who were watching from below, keeping a safe distance:
-Easy!
Darta & Pinky:
-Well done!
Soul:
-Now we have to do the same with all the party.
What a way to ruin the mood, soul...