It's two levels higher than anything out there but the Garl line and also arguably the easiest quest, and the xp/min is decent. I just don't get the aversion.
Why does "Proof is in the Poison" sometimes get mentioned in discussions about the worst dungeons?
- Thread starter WDS
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Spook
Ghostly Troll
Oh Wow, a Mr Cow Video. Haven't watched him in a decade.
Spellsinger
Well-known member
This is the right answer. During its inception it was horrid. Whole parties died before you got across the first bridge. Due to the way the game is today its pretty easy to solo but it was a serious question of "can we do this?" with a full group back in the day. Now I just skip it since there's other fun quests at this level.
kmoustakas
Scourge of Xaos
I love that quest and I don't know why.
It turned super simple for me when I realised hires/pets can light the pyres and you don't have to do it yourself
Personally I hate quests with spiral staircases, can't run up them smoothly, constantly have to alter position when navigating them, long ass boring and serve almost no purpose, a transitional elevator would be so much better, looking at Vecna Unleashed as an example, I hate those Spirals
Barovia ones can be annoying too, but bit wider, and more to do on them, can jump down them to get between floors too, still annoying though, especially the long ass one to the Hags the second time you go to the castle
Sharn Spirals: F*$%!
Feywild doesn't have many long ones fortunately, but I skip as much of the final quest there as I can cause they're still annoying, and the map in the prison is so badly broken all the time.
Coal Chamber: Not exactly spirals but still annoying, at least there are mobs to fight on the way up to break the monotony, have fun falling off when the game stutters or rubber bands you though...
Caverns of Koromar: Just feels way way to long for the exp...
Proof definitely needs another shrine, and the quest giver to recommend taking in the Shield or Nightshield spell, not that people will read it, but might help warn players
Barovia ones can be annoying too, but bit wider, and more to do on them, can jump down them to get between floors too, still annoying though, especially the long ass one to the Hags the second time you go to the castle
Sharn Spirals: F*$%!
Feywild doesn't have many long ones fortunately, but I skip as much of the final quest there as I can cause they're still annoying, and the map in the prison is so badly broken all the time.
Coal Chamber: Not exactly spirals but still annoying, at least there are mobs to fight on the way up to break the monotony, have fun falling off when the game stutters or rubber bands you though...
Caverns of Koromar: Just feels way way to long for the exp...
Proof definitely needs another shrine, and the quest giver to recommend taking in the Shield or Nightshield spell, not that people will read it, but might help warn players
Monicle le Blair
Well-known member
Length x reward make that quest horrible.
But other than that, ANY quest witth 'do that and you fail and have to start over' are garbage for me.
But other than that, ANY quest witth 'do that and you fail and have to start over' are garbage for me.
The mobs there only spawn if you step on the gravel. With a bit of care you can light the pyres outside the zone and never see a single skeleton.
I missed that one. That is a quest that also got broken with champions and reapers. They can 1hit the gate as well.
Hirelings at lvl are not sufficient.
zenman
Well-known member
Actually, PinP is a fairly easy quest once you understand the mechanics and are careful. But, it is one of the most unpopular quests during Hardcore. I would run it alone with summons' then announce on chat if anyone wanted to join just for the completion.
I play for the challenge and sadly there are not many. At least this one is not Super Mario jump fest, and i think poison resistance works now unlike years ago.
It is great quest to haze newbies if you are into that... "hey newb, go pull that lever", or the even funnier, "stand here on this bridge while i go down and pull the lever to open the door"
I play for the challenge and sadly there are not many. At least this one is not Super Mario jump fest, and i think poison resistance works now unlike years ago.
It is great quest to haze newbies if you are into that... "hey newb, go pull that lever", or the even funnier, "stand here on this bridge while i go down and pull the lever to open the door"
FaustianBargain
Well-known member
Protect the NPC quests are my candidates for worst and why I still almost never run Threnal absent when I want to make another The Master’s Gift. Even with the change in the last dungeon in part 2, Derpward and Coyle get one autofail escort quest and sometimes reaper/champion kills happen.
The worst of those might be Paetus - he doesn’t die often but when he does it’s at the end of a pretty long quest. At least Carthy Cave has some decent HP but reaper difficulty has caused some problems now and then - at least it’s at the beginning. I don’t think I’ve ever failed to protect Statler but I guess it’s possible. The change in Bookbinder to remove the fail condition was much appreciated.
Second vote is for the reuse dungeons (with a few small exceptions like Hazadill’s warehouse being coherent to revisit in the same arc, or Cartamon’s warehouse being used twice). But running through the main part of splinterskull a half dozen times doesn’t make sense. Same with most (but not all) of Sorrowdusk. I still run ‘em but it’s annoying.
Most of the previously mentioned quests I don’t mind - stromvauld is annoying if you miss an engineer and have to backtrack, but it’s not inherently flawed IMO. Proof is in the Poison just rewards slowing down a bit and being prepared. Etc.
The worst of those might be Paetus - he doesn’t die often but when he does it’s at the end of a pretty long quest. At least Carthy Cave has some decent HP but reaper difficulty has caused some problems now and then - at least it’s at the beginning. I don’t think I’ve ever failed to protect Statler but I guess it’s possible. The change in Bookbinder to remove the fail condition was much appreciated.
Second vote is for the reuse dungeons (with a few small exceptions like Hazadill’s warehouse being coherent to revisit in the same arc, or Cartamon’s warehouse being used twice). But running through the main part of splinterskull a half dozen times doesn’t make sense. Same with most (but not all) of Sorrowdusk. I still run ‘em but it’s annoying.
Most of the previously mentioned quests I don’t mind - stromvauld is annoying if you miss an engineer and have to backtrack, but it’s not inherently flawed IMO. Proof is in the Poison just rewards slowing down a bit and being prepared. Etc.
Yeah it's definitely a wake-up call, LOL. It's the quest that teaches you the importance of bringing a cleric hireling and properly issuing orders to it. But that's not bad. That's just hard. It's in a completely different boat from quests that force you to look up walkthroughs on the DDO Wiki.
Actually, I think I was playing a cleric, most likely multiclassing cleric/fighter, the very first time I ran Proof. My impression wasn't "wow, this is hard". My impression was "wow, this is LONG". Only when I re-ran it on a Fighter 4, Dark Hunter 2, specialized in dual-wielding longswords, did I think "this is harder than I remember it being..."
Stromvauld is annoying because you miss 2 engineers and have to backtrack, but they aren't back there, so you forward-track again, but they aren't there either, and 3 hours later you still haven't found the 2 engineers, so you go on the DDO wiki to find a walkthrough, but they don't have one, and then you remember why it's one of the worst quests in the game and you're never doing it again.
That IS an inherent flaw. Actually, it's MUCH WORSE than a"flaw". It's inexcusably bad design. If you're going to make everything brown and orange like you're having a flashback to Quake II in OpenGL rendering mode, then at least make the engineers sparkle or something.
FaustianBargain
Well-known member
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Eh, I’ve run it a lot and have never had an instance with an entirely missing engineer. Sometimes there was one on the floor right in the first big room before I was madly backspacing to find them, but they’ve always been there. I’d assume I’ve run it enough times to encounter that one if it was frequent. Agree they could be easier to spot but spamming your targeting key seems reliable. YMMV but compared to keeping a zergy NPC alive it seems more annoyance than major design flaw.
If for some reason a engineer doesnt spawn usually a log out and log in will fix that issue.
Finngon
10000+ Hour Veteran
Back in the old days when Cure Moderate Wounds and Scorch cost 15 SP to use and spell increasing items were tiered (Greater Devotion IV increased your fourth spell level or lower healing spells by 40%, iirc), it was one of the hardest quests to run at-level due to its length, and it only having one shrine far into the quest made spellcasters to very sparingly use their spells. I remember many party wipes happen around the acid floor room.
Their locations are randomized? Well, I guess that explains why there aren't any walkthroughs showing where all of the engineers are. Speaking of which, I started the Vault of Night chain yesterday and "Jungle of Khyber" is now on my "worst quests ever" list too. That one room with the 3 randomly placed runes can go straight to hell.
For that paladin chick who won't stop rushing headlong into hordes of bugbears, just invest some skill points into any of the 3 social skills she responds to.
Chief Engineer Dickwad can be told to stay put while you kill monsters a half-mile away. You don't even need skills.
Keeping Coyle awake is an optional objective. Who cares if you fail?
Stromvauld Mine and Jungle of Khyber are much worse than any of those.
Paladin Chick: Used to fail that quest if a Bugbear passed the gates, that was horrendous
I've had the Chief Engineer in Threnal die and quest fail with no mobs around if he gets left alone too long, not fun... Same with Escorting Coyle and crew down to the library...
Keeping Coyle Alive used to be required and was an immediate quest fail if he died, I'm sure many of us are still traumatized by that POS
Jungles of Khyber random Runes in the Beholder area is a small area to search and easy to find if you just spam 'Select Next Interactable' and while random, there's still only a few places they do appear, so really not hard to find once you've done the quests a few times
I look forward to your review of: The Restless Isles, Bring me the Head of Ghola-Fan and Slavers of the Shrieking Mines
Rusty_helmet
Teh_troll’s Fluffer
Tumideon
Founder
Lol finally someone else mentioned those. I have many, many horrible memories of Shrieking Mines. Not to mention it took several years IIRC (at least on some servers) for the Titan to even be beat.
That Wilderness has to be the worst one in the entire game next to MD, at least MD has a working map.