Quests & Challenges

i've started a necrolocke thread! i am spamming the fodder speedrun go brr button, so it's not exactly going to be super lore heavy unless something exciting happens, but i'm open to interaction if people are interested :)

in re: woodland path - i've only made it there once so far (rip) but yeah i got demolished in pretty short order, i didn't manage to make it to level 5 with my mirror guy before making the jump and a team of three janustraps killed him almost immediately. i'm definitely interested in puzzling out some strategy there!

I gotta watch yours, skimmersing :D I am also throwing some fodder through the grinder, which ironically wasn't my plan. But I got a few extra hibden slots open and figured why not. Of course, then this fodder idiot with absolutely 0 lore, a name I plucked outta the air and the wrong eye type to game the system actually got the first Necrolocke drop I've ever had. At high level 3. So that it could plow through the final trial while also getting healed by level-up after the second battle. I'm torn between rage and awe right now :D Now I gotta buy some Aberration necro genes... [center][url=https://i.imgur.com/Vixe5kW.png][img]https://i.imgur.com/JlO2AII.png[/img][/url][/center]

@skimmersing I've added Witness, Peregrine to the list of Necrolockes, best of luck to your trial takers!


@Dreadwing Oh god, I'm dying, of course, of course XD

@pinglist-12046 Hey all! So after some Woodland Path feedback I've been giving Necrolocke balance some thought. Originally I envisioned Necrolocke as primarily a lore generator in the vein of the original Pinkerlocke, and as a low key 'daily task' sort of challenge where the active part takes 1-2 mins a day and then more time could be spent on creative writing if desired. However, while some [i]really[/i] amazing lore has come out of Necrolocke, and continues to come out of Necrolocke, the driver seems to be more goal-oriented, with people really throwing themselves in head on. Given how hard it is to actually win Necrolocke, I can certainly see the grind being far more frustrating than fun. When I was originally testing out Necrolocke myself, my aim was to make it hard for a dragon team to survive a single round in Coli, but not impossible. Necrolocke was never really intended to encourage multiple rounds in Coli, however many play throughs suggest that to have even a small chance of passing the second trial, this is almost required. It also sounds like encountering three enemies off the bat in WP is almost a guaranteed KO, even with all three dragons at full health. I'm not a fan of foregone conclusions, however I'd still rather a Necrolocke 'day' be composed of 1, maybe 2, [i]maybe[/i] 3 coli rounds tops. Given all of that, I'm considering letting all three dragons - trial, faith, and determination dragons - be statted however a player wants. The trial dragon will still remain squishy, but if the faith and determination dragon can be made more robust it might increase the likelihood of surviving three enemy coli rounds. This also appeals to me because it would simplify the rules, and Plaguebringer knows the rules could stand to be a bit simpler. It's not a huge change, and Necrolocke should still remain.... around as difficult as intended, but I'm hoping the extra wiggle room and increased control will make gameplay slightly less of a grind and more of a trial and error challenge. I also remain hopeful that Necrolocke interaction might catch on, which would also give trial dragons more of a fighting chance. I'm going to sit on this for another day or two. Please let me know if you have thoughts, for or against [emoji=mirror happy size=1]

I'm very for that change!!

Added input if you aren't already sick of me :D - I will say my issue was not so much losing the F/D dragons, but the main trial dragon itself. Not that it's a bad idea to allow the stats to be set in however--QCK is absolutely required to get Defends in, for sure. So this may help. The issue is if you run into Flying Fawns, Basilisks, or any caster that targets your Trial dragon--they're all pretty much OHKO, especially if you're running Plague (those Scarlet-Crested Woodons are fire and they hit fast and hard).

To note: the low droprate of symbols also encourages a load of consecutive runs (trying to get a sign) at level 4-5 without ever leaving the battlefield.

So my recommendation personally is still that F/D dragons are allowed to attack after Training Fields, and that surviving long enough to gather 5 or 10 of any basic Plague mob drop should also count as a passage to the third Trial. The plague enemies are so few and far between as it is that it'd be enough to say "they survived long enough" imo.

Once I clear out some space for fodder later this month I might give a few more goes with the new rules & see if it's any better. The few I tried since you suggested giving it a shot didn't fare much better, but it's a low sample size for now!

I second dreadwing on all of his ideas, including the possible new win conditions

and yes I have never had the F/D dragons die it’s always the trial dragon that dies

A possible compromise between "stat all three however you want" (a great thing already) and "allow all three to attack" might be to let the defense dragons take Ward/Bolster regardless of eye type? It really does help survivability, and with being able to give them +QCK, might make the difference between insta-death and having a shot.

Absolutely understand the original intent of not grinding the Coli for hours a day, but yeah, the rarity of drops makes it more necessary than not.

Alternately, maybe "just" surviving all 23 trial days is also an auto-win? That would open up the option of a defensive/survival playstyle while keeping the challenge high and the drops still a great option to pass to Trial Three early. That + allowing the F/D dergs to all take Ward/Bolster would make a killer difference in the odds (without making it an easy challenge by any means)... and lore-wise it makes sense, I mean, Trial Two is called Survival for a reason, right?

I'm happy to do some speedruns for data-gathering if any of these seem like good ideas to explore! this isn't my current hyperfocus i don't know what you're talking about

[quote name="serpentscribe" date="2024-05-14 11:09:29" ] Alternately, maybe "just" surviving all 23 trial days is also an auto-win? That would open up the option of a defensive/survival playstyle while keeping the challenge high and the drops still a great option to pass to Trial Three early. That + allowing the F/D dergs to all take Ward/Bolster would make a killer difference in the odds (without making it an easy challenge by any means)... and lore-wise it makes sense, I mean, Trial Two is called Survival for a reason, right? [/quote] This struck me personally as a great lore-abiding point!

Thanks for the ongoing feedback! I'm digesting and mulling it all over for now. Feel free to continue sending it in. Overall I think Necrolocke is unbalanced in how we have way more Necromancers than Necroservi. This is partly the result of Beta and Beta rules, but the fact that Necroservi are still rare concerns me. A few initial responses: [LIST] [*]Increasing the amount of consecutive coli rounds you do slightly increases the odds of getting a Sign from Mother to drop but disproportionally increases the chances of failure. This is working as intended. [*]Signs from Mother are very rare, and getting one gives the equivalent feeling of getting an eliminate or an egg drop. This is working as intended. [*]"I have never had the F/D dragons die it’s always the trial dragon that dies," --> this was designed to be in line with Necro lore, where taking the trials is a grisly business and even emerging as a Ghoul is impressive on a small level. Hoping enemies target F/D dragons over your trial dragon is working as intended. [*]"let the defense dragons take Ward/Bolster regardless of eye type?" --> I'm considering this. [*]"Alternately, maybe "just" surviving all 23 trial days is also an auto-win?" --> This is already an auto-win for the Trial of Survival. Passing the third trial requires a special blessing from Plaguebringer and can't be passed through survival alone. Surviving is a baseline she expects from all her children ([emoji=mirror tongue size=1]) [*]In-universe, Necroservi are more common than Necromancers and Necrolocke would ideally hope to recreate that. Of course, in-universe what is most common of all is dying, which Necrolocke is currently doing a very good job at XD [*]It's hard to feel this way given the no-stakes way of gaining Necros in the larger subspecies, but I would like having a Necrolocke Servi to be viewed as a real accomplishment, and getting a Necromancer feeling like brilliant luck of some sort or another. Replace "luck" with "Plaguebringer's Favor" and I imagine this is what the in-universe attitude might be as well. [/LIST] Edit: I should add that Necrolocke was designed with the assumption that dragons would never get to the Scorched Forest. With consecutive coli rounds being more of a thing, and maybe being made slightly easier, I'll also have to try and build the coli venue in in terms of signs from mother and etc.

[quote name="3idolon" date="2024-05-14 13:30:47" ] "Alternately, maybe "just" surviving all 23 trial days is also an auto-win?" --> This is already an auto-win for the Trial of Survival. Passing the third trial requires a special blessing from Plaguebringer and can't be passed through survival alone. Surviving is a baseline she expects from all her children ([emoji=mirror tongue size=1]) [/quote] You are absolutely right, I misremembered that Grey Slime = death at the end of Trial Two. I admittedly don't consider getting ghoul'd to be a win condition, but that's on me! I was more thinking that automatically getting Servus as a result past 23 days of survival would be great, instead of having to get a White Slime from Baldwin. Or, heck, being an auto-Wraith with Grey Slime instead of ghoul'd--but that's again on my own preferences, since Wraiths are more likely to be, er, surviving characters long-term. Even that small of a change would make the attempt of pure survival feel more worthwhile to me, and then it'd be a sheer delight if I got a Plague drop in the middle of the run and got to get to Trial Three. (This post has been a draft for a couple hours so I'm posting it and I apologize for no good sign-off, I'm at work and multitasking but boy would I rather be dragoning--)