If I were to do this run - all of it, from level 1 to now - over again I would have let Undermountain wait, and levelled from 70 to 80 through the campaigns.
Admittedly doing so might not have made much difference. The gear that's given out at the opening of Undermountain added 5K to my item level right away, and that undoubtedly increased the speed at which I out-levelled the older campaigns, but even without that I'd still have been level 80 sooner rather than later, and that would have made a difference as well.
Still, it would have slowed things down somewhat, and given me more time to appreciate the campaigns that make up some of Neverwinter's best content.
Tyranny of Dragons
This is really two campaigns in one, as it kicks off during levelling as a stealth tutorial on daily repeatable content, before eventually moving on to Well of Dragons, a more conventional campaign zone. The daily task line-up - an instance, a couple of short quests and a group fight with a dragon, in one of 5 different zones - is nicely varied and takes just the right amount of time. I've almost never been in a situation where there weren't enough other players around to down the dragon, and at times the real challenge has been to get a hit in fast enough to get credit for it before the beast goes down under a swarm of players.
This campaign does get fairly easy fairly quickly. Even before Mod 16 characters were scaled down to bring them in line with the zone when they entered the questing area, but as always there's a significant difference in the power of a levelling character compared to that of a scaled down max level character.
The instances did make for a definite difficulty spike - particularly Ghost Stories in Neverdeath - when they opened up later on, but that's no longer the case, particularly as GS only goes up to level 60 now, so at level 80 it's one hit kills all the way.
Sharandar
This campaign is something of a relic, being designed for levels 60 to 69, at a time when presumably it took more than a few hours to go through them. As such there's no way to not out-level this place very quickly, even before Mod 16. That's a shame because it's very well made, with nicely detailed and atmospheric zones and an excellent array of fun enemies, and it really does deserve more than than to be raced through.
Elemental Evil
Similarities to Undermountain are not coincidental, seeing as this campaign was added to the game the first time the level cap was increased. Like Undermountain it's not really a campaign, being a strictly linear progression through each of the four zones, though here it's possible to do those zones in any order. Which I guess makes for another way in which Undermountain was a step backward.
I have mixed feelings about Elemental Evil. Two of the zones are reused from levelling, and though they've had some changes made to them they're still very linear and fairly grindy. It probably doesn't help that I didn't much like Blackdagger Ruins and Helm's Hold the first time around.
Of the others I do like Spinward Rise quite a lot. It has a good layout, excellent music throughout, and lots of kenku. Everything is better with kenku.
Like Sharandar this campaign has always been easy to out-level, since they share the same level range. The zones are all relatively quick to complete though, as it's a straightforward progression through quest hubs rather than being drawn out through daily quests.
Dread Ring
There's nothing subtle about Dread Ring. It's a big box full of bad guys and the daily quests mostly boil down to killing X number of them. Where this zone stands out though is in the design. Dread Ring is fantastically well laid out, and that's a big part of what elevates this to one of my favourite campaign zones.
This is Neverwinter at its fast paced, action packed best. Dread Ring is a terrific zone to ride through at speed from one objective to another, with multiple routes available that minimise the number of unecessary fights along the way. Each area is visually distinct - no small feat given the overall desolate rockiness of the place - and I rarely if ever have to look at the map to see where I'm going, which is always a sign of a well made location.
Dread Ring also has two good instances and one great one. Phantasmal Fortress is, simply put, a work of art - a fantastically realised environment reminiscent of the works of M.C. Escher, and full of clever incidental details. It's one of my favourite locations in any MMO.
Unfortunately this zone is perhaps the one that's hardest hit by the fact of being level 80 in a level 70 zone. Unlike the later campaign zones there's no Heroics in Dread Ring - other than for the Demonic Invasions - and that lack of group content means it didn't take long for me to be utterly overpowered for everything I go up against here. Of these first four campaigns it's losing out on the true experience of this one that stings the most.
Comments
Post a Comment