Just Finished HoT and...
Yes I agree I’m not done with everything yet and it makes me regretting buying this game so much right now… The maps are a chore to play and to navigate around. The story missions are boring and tedious, and the jumping puzzle ones (like prized possession) made me willing to throw my computer out through the window. After doing it I was really feeling like kittenslapping the guys who made and approved this for like an hour or two, it was that bad. I have sadly bought the new PoF expansion too and if it’s the same kind of content well that’ll be one less player, i’ll quit without any hesitation.
Stick with it. It will get better.
At least, that’s what I’ve been telling myself. But the road to there will be long and tedious. I am still doing HOT and LS3 maps, but I already know Tangled depths will have a special place in my memory for a long time. And it will not be a pleasant one.
The entire zone is basically a jumping puzzle. I imagine that hose that like them feel a pleasant tingling in their nether region when they enter the zone, while to those that don’t like jumping puzzles, it often represents a feeling of dread and misery at the thought of “having” to do anything in it.
Just yesterday I joined a HP run. It started great. I mean, we even had one player leading and dropping icons for others to follow. Well, by the time we reached the first HP, we already lost some players as it was unclear where all those glowing effects went. Three of us stopped to rezz a fellow player and by the time we were done, we lost the sight of the group. Luckily we were able to locate them quickly, as they were standing on a ledge not far away. We managed to figure out we need to use two updrafts and voila .. the group is already moving away while we are trying to get there and commune with the HP. By the time we were done, we lost the sight of the group, again. But this time, we weren’t able to see them. We could see dots on the map, but are they above us or under us? And HOW did they get to where they were? Did they use updraft, mushroom or Nuhoch wallow? Or maybe some combination of those?
Forget about using the map. It has four levels in a zone that has none. It shows a road ahead of you even if it is in another level, but it doesn’t show which level it is in.
I imagine there are some tricks to decipher those maps that I haven’t mastered yet, but to make map reading the most tedious thing to do in a game, is a bit off-putting.
I know I will eventually reach 100% map completion, but Tangled depths and maybe some other zone I have yet to discover, will make that experience a considerably less pleasurable experiance as it could (and should) have been.
Stick with it. It will get better.
At least, that’s what I’ve been telling myself. But the road to there will be long and tedious. I am still doing HOT and LS3 maps, but I already know Tangled depths will have a special place in my memory for a long time. And it will not be a pleasant one.
The map isn’t as useless as you think. You probably just aren’t used to needing to use the map markers the way you need to in TD.
For instance, take a closer look at the markers for cave entrances/exits and ramps. They have up or down arrows on them. These arrows indicate a shift in the map layer. Knowing this you can much more easily follow the pathways in TD by using the map.
Try it! Take a look at the cave marker south of Order of Whispers waypoint using the third map layer. It shows an up arrow indicating a transition point between the current layer you’re viewing and the one above it.
You will also notice that on the third layer the path from Order of Whispers waypoint is obscured by the path that connects the cave system containing the Troll champion hero challenge to the Order of Whispers outpost POI. However, when you view this same area in the top map layer you instead see a clear path from Order of Whispers waypoint to the cave entrance marker. The marker is telling you to switch from the third layer to the layer above it to view the correct path.
You will notice many such markers throughout the map with arrows indicating map transitions. These include ramps, stairs, caves, and even arrows all by themselves.
The other marker to pay close attention to are the Nuhoch Wallows. They have arrows corresponding to the wallow they connect to. For instance, look to the south of Order of Whispers waypoint. You will see a wallow marker pointing northeast to another wallow in the undergrowth connector. Just east of that wallow is another wallow that points to a wallow located right next to Teku Nuhoch waypoint.
You can tell which layer a wallow is on because it will appear transparent when you are viewing a different layer. In this way you can tell that the wallow east of where you teleported into the undergrowth connector is above you and you will know to take the upward path to reach it. This same trick applies to the marked roads themselves. When viewed on a different layer they appear transparent.
If you look at the positions of the various wallows you will notice something else that’s important to know. The wallows for each camp (ogre, teku nuhoch, rata novus, and scar) correspond to the “lanes” where the meta occurs, making it easy for players to waypoint to a camp and then wallow straight into the end of the lane they wish to join for the meta.
Knowing this makes it a lot easier to use the map to navigate TD. However, many objectives are still hidden off the marked pathways with no indication of how to reach them. That’s where the real exploration challenge comes in, and unfortunately there’s no other way than to simply explore.
It might help to keep an eye out for pathways that aren’t marked. Chances are that pathway leads to an objective of some sort. For instance, if you wander west from Teku Nuhoch you’ll see a cave with an HP marked on the map nearby. There’s no road leading to the HP, but if you just walk into that cave you’ll find it. Of course, other objectives will be a little trickier to find!
Stick with it. It will get better.
At least, that’s what I’ve been telling myself. But the road to there will be long and tedious. I am still doing HOT and LS3 maps, but I already know Tangled depths will have a special place in my memory for a long time. And it will not be a pleasant one.The map isn’t as useless as you think. You probably just aren’t used to needing to use the map markers the way you need to in TD.
For instance, take a closer look at the markers for cave entrances/exits and ramps. They have up or down arrows on them. These arrows indicate a shift in the map layer. Knowing this you can much more easily follow the pathways in TD by using the map.
Try it! Take a look at the cave marker south of Order of Whispers waypoint using the third map layer. It shows an up arrow indicating a transition point between the current layer you’re viewing and the one above it.
You will also notice that on the third layer the path from Order of Whispers waypoint is obscured by the path that connects the cave system containing the Troll champion hero challenge to the Order of Whispers outpost POI. However, when you view this same area in the top map layer you instead see a clear path from Order of Whispers waypoint to the cave entrance marker. The marker is telling you to switch from the third layer to the layer above it to view the correct path.
You will notice many such markers throughout the map with arrows indicating map transitions. These include ramps, stairs, caves, and even arrows all by themselves.
The other marker to pay close attention to are the Nuhoch Wallows. They have arrows corresponding to the wallow they connect to. For instance, look to the south of Order of Whispers waypoint. You will see a wallow marker pointing northeast to another wallow in the undergrowth connector. Just east of that wallow is another wallow that points to a wallow located right next to Teku Nuhoch waypoint.
You can tell which layer a wallow is on because it will appear transparent when you are viewing a different layer. In this way you can tell that the wallow east of where you teleported into the undergrowth connector is above you and you will know to take the upward path to reach it. This same trick applies to the marked roads themselves. When viewed on a different layer they appear transparent.
If you look at the positions of the various wallows you will notice something else that’s important to know. The wallows for each camp (ogre, teku nuhoch, rata novus, and scar) correspond to the “lanes” where the meta occurs, making it easy for players to waypoint to a camp and then wallow straight into the end of the lane they wish to join for the meta.
Knowing this makes it a lot easier to use the map to navigate TD. However, many objectives are still hidden off the marked pathways with no indication of how to reach them. That’s where the real exploration challenge comes in, and unfortunately there’s no other way than to simply explore.
It might help to keep an eye out for pathways that aren’t marked. Chances are that pathway leads to an objective of some sort. For instance, if you wander west from Teku Nuhoch you’ll see a cave with an HP marked on the map nearby. There’s no road leading to the HP, but if you just walk into that cave you’ll find it. Of course, other objectives will be a little trickier to find!
Thank you for your help.
I already assumed there were ways of reading the map which I haven’t mastered yet and you just helped me understand them a bit better. I will try and use your advice later today and hope this will shed some light on otherwise a gloomy situation.
Thank you for your help.
I already assumed there were ways of reading the map which I haven’t mastered yet and you just helped me understand them a bit better. I will try and use your advice later today and hope this will shed some light on otherwise a gloomy situation.
Sure thing! Just try to be patient with it. While knowing what those map markers mean will help you to better use the map to get around, learning all of the little secrets hidden in TD takes a lot of exploring. There are hidden paths that are not only not marked on the map in any way, but also camouflaged so that you won’t notice them in passing.
Just an example of this: When you use those updrafts above the canyon south of Order of Whispers waypoint, if you look toward the canyon wall just west of the HP high up on the ledge there you will see a small waterfall. There are some tropical birds sitting there in front of some heavy foliage. This actually marks a hidden entrance!
If you go through the vines you’ll enter the cave at the top of the deeproot sink area, right near the Spider Queen HP. From there you can either glide down to the vista and take the tunnel from there to Ogre Camp waypoint or, if you glide around to the south of the Spider HP you’ll see a ledge with some vampire beasts on it. Behind them is a vertical cavern containing a mastery point and below that you drop right down to Dragon’s Passage waypoint and the Nightthistle HP!
You can also use those updrafts south of Order of Whispers waypoint to get to the top of the Great Tree. The left path inside the tree leads to a flax farm and then drops you right down into Ogre camp waypoint. The right path heads down to the bottom of the tree which connects up with the bottom of the canyon where Order of Whispers outpost POI is located.
Anyway, I could go on and on but the point is there is just a lot to this map. There are multiple ways connecting various areas of the map, not all of which are obvious. You can get around using the map if you know how, but it will take time simply exploring to discover all of these secrets. So just try to be patient with it and enjoy exploring it. It really is an amazing map once you begin to understand it!