The Exile's Path

Day 8-9 (02-03.05.2016)

#4
Well, that disgusting final act is finally over. To put it briefly, as the more advanced members of the community confirm—this plot conclusion on the highest difficulty level, which was vomited out in one of the updates following players' pleas, showcases itself in the "best" possible light. I've already talked about the atmosphere and the development of the fourth act, so I won't repeat myself; I'll just say one thing—it's so half-baked, so unbalanced and uninteresting, that I have absolutely no desire to ever return to it. Fortunately, they added end-game content maps, but more on that later.


Best location: The Dried Lake

Definitely the only worthwhile location in this act (ha-ha, and the first in the quest chain and the most detailed, let's not even talk about the others!), where you can level up properly. It is populated by various monsters from previous acts, not counting the giant eagles. Overall, the enemies aren't the weakest, but at least here there is room to kite, you can use different tactics for fast clearing, and find an efficient path through. I think I'll be farming levels exactly here in the future, because there are basically no other options (aside from card dungeons).


Worst location: The Belly of the Beast

Oh, wait a minute, how could I have called the last act biological waste, ai-ai-ai, why am I complaining, let's instead sneak through the back door like spies into the intestines of some unknown ****** and travel around there. Well, this is just lol, I don't even know. Well, whatever. Living there are worms that one-shot the character from across the map, cute spiders, little worms, spermatozoa spitting something very interesting, slug-bugs—eh, fun times, dig in! And most importantly, there are no opportunities for any comfortable gameplay in this location; either way, you'll be digested sooner or later. And that's also where you have to fight the final boss, but that's a separate conversation.


***
The bosses in this act are a whole separate topic. At this difficulty, their health, power, and number of abilities have increased tenfold compared to the previous one. And, more sadly, while before you could develop a specific tactic for each, learn to avoid attacks, and change abilities and gear to win comfortably, here they are either initially designed for party completion (which would be fine, it's not even bad), or they are so overleveled with one-shotting abilities that defeating them normally seems impossible. As a result, as I've posted excerpts from the game chat before, there aren't that many tactics for them:
a) hit-portal to town-hit-portal to town (repeat for an hour);
b) gather a large party, activate bursts, and keep dying against the enemies until the end (preferably level up first so as not to be penalized too heavily on experience);
c) arrive at level 90+ and fight the boss comfortably as equals;
And while it previously seemed to me that such "fun" mechanics were intended by the engine, but the focus was mainly on player skill, here we have the opposite situation.
Well, as it turns out—as was explained to me—I was playing completely wrong and came to this act too early, because "normal" guys first farm decent gear and raise their level, and only then go to battle with the intestinal evil. And I, naive as I am, thought that the monster and hero levels should correspond to each other and honestly never once returned to completed locations, heh.
Either way, my build focused on Armageddons and fully upgraded offensive passives turned out to be quite useful here: despite random deaths from a monster sneezing nearby, I defeated all the bosses very quickly using the first tactic, simply launching a nuclear missile at them and running back to town. But the feeling was still mediocre.


Card Dungeons
Or that very end-game content. In general, it's set up quite simply: on the highest difficulty level, while clearing any locations, the character has a small chance to drop fragments (or even whole parts) of maps. By activating these in a special hidden location in the third act, you can gain access to randomly generated dungeons with different enemy levels and randomly created "obstacles" (for example, monsters deal additional fire damage/are protected from magic/always crit/aggro from across the map and call helpers), but the quantity and quality of dropped items are many times higher than in Campaign levels. Overall, the system is interesting (=copied from Diablo), and might even provide some fun without becoming tedious due to monotony, as well as add an element of excitement and interest, since the player has only eight attempts (eight permitted deaths) to complete the dungeon, although considering experience penalties, this is unacceptable anyway. Unfortunately, my little witch isn't ready for such mighty trials awaiting ahead, so I'll farm level 80 first, and then we'll see.
And so, my story journey has come to an end, and I also found out that the seasonal server closes on May 30th, so there's very little time left to reach level 100 and get into the top rankings!


Results: day 8-9
Playtime: ~5 hours (63h total)
Character level: 72
Experience gained: ~435.000.000
Number of deaths: ~10-15
Game modes: Merciless ✓