TOPIC: Reviews and feedback

Flight of the Zephyr

Room 1 (door puzzle): I really like this type of puzzle. It is one that can involve the entire group interacting with both it and the puzzle. It took awhile to solve but didn't seem impossible.

Room 2 (The Charging room): I was disppointed with room but not because of the puzzle but piece of paper that covered the third set of clues. It was a piece of paper taped over the third set looked tacky. When we did it on hardcore there was no reason for us to believe we needed to do all three. We ran out of time, but had we known we could have had half the group working on 3 while the other half worked on 2. The DM told us we failed the room because we did not get the secret clue. Under a taped piece paper is not a secret clue.

Room 3 (Living tornado): Combat, nothing special about the room. The board with the circles did make it different but not interesting.

Room 4 Puzzle (Navigation orb): This room was neat but I admit someone gave us a hint to count the number of shapes (12) and then we figured out it was a clock and solved it quick.

Room 4 Combat (Navigation orb): I was surprised by the number of people that didn't read the clue and thus didn't know to attack the force fields. The ball coming out to 'attack' someone was a neat little additional, but apparently it didn't work on our first run because we never saw it.

Room 5 Puzzle (One million Switches): When we got to this room we were told which lights just didn't light up so we were able to get all the working lights lit up in a short amount of time by going slowly and rememering which switches activated someone's light.

Room 5 Combat (Golem): Combat. Monster was good. I never figure out what was reducing damage when we fought it so I am not certain how to beat it beside just accepting the damage reduction (we tried different times of weapons and that didn't seem to be it).

Room 6 (Yet more pipes): My groups solved this one about half the time. However it wasn't until the last run as I am sitting on the floor that it dawns on me that the air is alternating between two different paths. That is why I think so many had trouble with it.

Room 7 (Flying the ship): The very first time I did this I am standing at the shields and the assistant DM walks over and turns it off without telling me anything. There was no hey you will need to memorize these. Not my favorite way to enter a room. Beyond that I thought the room was an interesting mix of puzzle and combat.


Into the Viper’s Pit


Room 1 (Word Obelisk): I saw many of the groups I was on struggle with test puzzle but I didn't feel it was that difficult.

Room 2 (Snake combat): The last group I was on did not want to step onto the rubber mat to bow because they felt it was trapped. Lucky the DM started combat when they decided to start casting spells to detect poison or we might have been in the room without combat for a full 12 minutes. Beyond that I felt the room to be unmemorable.

Room 3 (Green eggs room): This is the type of puzzle that I really dislike because it is really driven by one person. I felt the Rogue's clue gave away the solution when it was already veiled nicely in the clue. I had no groups have difficulty with it.

Room 4 Combat (Skeleton): When I finally got up to the board and saw the sarcophagus I knew that we needed to attack it. I didn't catch that we needed to range it though. The only 1 slider at a time was an interesting twist to also make things more difficult.

Room 4 Puzzle (Floor puzzle): I play tested this room with the build crew and when we spent at least 20 minutes in the room and had to call in several other people just to get us started on it. I pity anyone that had to it on Thursday. By the time we did it on Friday night there were clues to let you know where to start. I think that was all that was needed (which we didn't have on Wednesday during play testing), but they proceeded to give us the start of each of the letters which I felt made it too easy. I think we only would have needed the first one.

Room 5 (Sand Room): Everyone I played with really like this room. Again it is a puzzle everyone can interact with to some degree (digging in the sand). The effect was cool and we are all kids at heart that just wants to play in a sandbox again.

Room 6 (Medusa): Score 9/10: I was disappoint the first time through when us using mirrors didn't seem to help us deal with the Gorgon. On our NORMAL sealed run we opened no Scrolls of Stone to Flesh so when we lost a couple players to being turned to stone it sucked. I feel bad for any new players that may have been in the same boat. If there was any other way to save a player after turned to stone I missed it. I expect that on a Hardcore or Nightmare run, but on a Normal before the last room I don't expect to fail a save room that will make it so I don't continue the adventure. Death would have been different as heals can hopefully prevent death.

Room 7 Puzzle (The portal): We remembered the symbols and put them into place the first time without difficulty. It did take us some time to get the snake together though. My last group into the room took time at trying to find out the symbols as the group before did a really good job hiding them.

Room 7 Combat (The Snake god): The first time into this room on Hardcore we had only 4 left alive but I admit 4 of our players were not equipped for Hardcore and I warned against it Hardcore, but we tried anyway. So I guess we were on the right difficulty, though it could be argued that Normal was right so no one would have died. Second time through was with my sealed group. I lobbied for Normal knowing it would be impossible on Normal from sealed packs. I don't know what was happening in the room but the we were down to 4 players before the snake popped up. I think the DM was not doing Normal for us or something. An AoE spell that does 10 damage every round and the caster gets to attack twice and isn't the final boss didn't feel right to me. The DM never checked to see if everyone was done before moving to the next round and our cleric got skipped at least twice. I and the entire group was down right pissed after that. A TPK on Normal in well under 12 minutes didn't sit right with us. We didn't have the greatest gear being sealed and all, but we had all had red weapons by that point. I was so scared of the room for the last run I did I convinced my veteran well equipped group we should only do it on normal. We smashed everything until we got to medusa and then defeated her in a couple rounds with everyone making their saves. We were able to defeat the final boss in just a few rounds. That makes me more convinced the previous DM was not running us on Normal.

I would echo most of the experiences that people had. I missed out on Viper puzzle due to poor planning, but it sounds like it had a puzzle almost as tough as the annoying 'switches' puzzle on the Zephyr side.

I will echo jedibcg's experience, as I was in that sealed run with him. Quite a few veterans were concerned we were not seeing Normal level combat when more than half our party was gone at the end of round two. When losing two party members to being Stoned in the previous room, then losing initiative in room 7 we were at a severe disadvantage. I expect room 7 to be tough, but getting one action and I am out seems extreme on Normal level.

My friend and I did each dungeon on puzzle only.

Zephyr Favorites:
We both liked the first two puzzles. It was a little frustrating to take 2 dmg every so often as we worked the door puzzle, but the puzzle itself was good. We also liked charging the ship by running the balls through tubes and columns. We only had two sets of balls to do (went through Friday afternoon) and we arrived at the solution pretty quickly for both. Good teamwork to keep the pipe path together and work the balls through when they got stuck.

Zephyr Downsides:
The device with all the switches seemed random to us and the DM ended up letting us pass because he said parts of it didn't seem to be working. Frustrating to have what was basically a blank room. Last room was neat, but the Wyverns rolled well apparently and did a lot of damage early. Then on their second attack, our shield person did not have the shields up and the Wyverns critted. Disappointing to go down in flames so fast when I'd only made a couple of slides.

Viper's Pit Favorites:
Blood room was neat, although we failed because we just got started too slowly and apparently we were doing our symbols too large. Was surprised when the horn sounded as I didn't realized it'd gone so long. Medusa was a fun reprise from my first TD run 7 (?) years ago. Final puzzle was fun too.

Viper's Pit Downsides:
Still have no idea what we needed to be doing on the floor puzzle. We were standing on certain shapes and passing the rope around between us. New shapes glowed and this continued until we ran out of time. Also disappointed in the last room to look through the portal the drow retreated through and see the top of an awesome looking animatronic snake god. I like solving puzzles, but I hate missing really cool special effects. Part of the reason I kind of hope next year does go ahead and remove the puzzle/combat distinctions.

-Scot

Did anyone pass the rope hall puzzle in Viper's Pit?

Yes. You spelled out the letters 'Speak'.

Things that were awesome:
Our 7th room DM on Zephyr Puzzle on Saturday was fabulous. I really wish I had gotten his name, because he had that on lockdown.
True Grind! Even though more than half of us died due to the doppleganger, we all had a great time.
Vipron. Holy giant snake man, batman! Way cool.

Things that I felt could have gone better:
Waivers/writstbands. Our group purchased all of our tickets for one run, but one of our people was a volunteer and her replacement turned up late. By the time she got there, the front desk had already resold her ticket (even though we told them that she was definitely coming). They wouldn't allow us to pick up the wristband to avoid this (we had the physical ticket with us to give to her when she got off her shift). I understand that the waivers are important, but there may be a better way to handle this to avoid a similar situation in the future (I heard of others who had the same problem). On the plus side, our 11th person was great.


As for all the people who loved the Sunday morning combat Hawk-kin, I think that was my roommate.... and yeah, she's awesome.

Deni Valetutto wrote: Things that were awesome:
Our 7th room DM on Zephyr Puzzle on Saturday was fabulous. I really wish I had gotten his name, because he had that on lockdown.
True Grind! Even though more than half of us died due to the doppleganger, we all had a great time.
Vipron. Holy giant snake man, batman! Way cool.

Things that I felt could have gone better:
Waivers/writstbands. Our group purchased all of our tickets for one run, but one of our people was a volunteer and her replacement turned up late. By the time she got there, the front desk had already resold her ticket (even though we told them that she was definitely coming). They wouldn't allow us to pick up the wristband to avoid this (we had the physical ticket with us to give to her when she got off her shift). I understand that the waivers are important, but there may be a better way to handle this to avoid a similar situation in the future (I heard of others who had the same problem). On the plus side, our 11th person was great.


As for all the people who loved the Sunday morning combat Hawk-kin, I think that was my roommate.... and yeah, she's awesome.

OK this is bullshit. You have the ticket in hand, you have the person coming. Money has been collected and you have a guarantee they will NOT be missing the event there should NEVER be a case where their ticket is sold with the ticket holder IN ATTENDANCE. NEVER, NONE, ABSOLUTELY ZERO

Yep it was annoying but at least our 11th was actually pretty cool and I think we make him an uber fan.

I'll be proposing some changes to prevent this from ever occuring again.

Deni Valetutto wrote: Things that were awesome:
Our 7th room DM on Zephyr Puzzle on Saturday was fabulous. I really wish I had gotten his name, because he had that on lockdown.

I was DM until 530, and the Roarry took over for the rest of the night.

Arcanist Kolixela wrote:

Deni Valetutto wrote: Things that were awesome:
Our 7th room DM on Zephyr Puzzle on Saturday was fabulous. I really wish I had gotten his name, because he had that on lockdown.
True Grind! Even though more than half of us died due to the doppleganger, we all had a great time.
Vipron. Holy giant snake man, batman! Way cool.

Things that I felt could have gone better:
Waivers/writstbands. Our group purchased all of our tickets for one run, but one of our people was a volunteer and her replacement turned up late. By the time she got there, the front desk had already resold her ticket (even though we told them that she was definitely coming). They wouldn't allow us to pick up the wristband to avoid this (we had the physical ticket with us to give to her when she got off her shift). I understand that the waivers are important, but there may be a better way to handle this to avoid a similar situation in the future (I heard of others who had the same problem). On the plus side, our 11th person was great.


As for all the people who loved the Sunday morning combat Hawk-kin, I think that was my roommate.... and yeah, she's awesome.

OK this is bullshit. You have the ticket in hand, you have the person coming. Money has been collected and you have a guarantee they will NOT be missing the event there should NEVER be a case where their ticket is sold with the ticket holder IN ATTENDANCE. NEVER, NONE, ABSOLUTELY ZERO

This is the second instance I've heard this year of volunteers or long term TDers having tickets given away that were in hand and shown to the hostess.

I have had this happen to me a few times in the past. This year, when they wouldn't give me the wristbands, I emphatically told the hostess *not* to give our tickets away. I also repeated myself a few times. Even though I didn't yell or cuss, apparently I upset the hostess, and I wish I had known that at the time. My intent wasn't to upset her, and I would have apologized to her on the spot. It was just that I had 4 tickets and $200 at stake, and I would rather spend a few minutes making a case about not giving away the tickets that I have in hand than lose a lot of money or take extra people into the dungeon.

I really hope this is something TD can fix in the future and someone finds a good way to do this. I'm planning on requiring people to get their tickets early so that they are responsible for losing $50 and not me if they are late arriving. It would take some stress away from a time when preparing for the dungeon is already stressful - as preparing for the dungeon should be. But we don't need the added stress of worrying about our tickets and our money when we are trying to equip ourselves for the run.

Of course there is always the worry that someone will show up late once the ticket is given away, and then TD asking if they can put another person on our run. I absolutely hate this idea as I think 10 people is already too many people to go into the dungeon with. 11 or 12 (yes, I have seen 12) is *way* too many and subtracts from my experience which cost me $150 (me and my two boys). I hope we have some way to keep TD from adding extra people on to our run if this happens.

Have done TD for several years, first year as a volunteer. Awesome experience. A few suggestions after working as a Greeter for 10+ hours...

1) Add the Tavern back. Had scores of people asking about it, and several more asking for the "observation area" which was advertised in the guidebook, but frankly didn't really exist. Adding the Tavern back solves that and offers a place for folks to mingle and learn about the TD experience without having a Greeter have to spend 15 minutes (over and over for new people) answer the question "Whats up with this place?" Plenty of room for a cash bar in the corner, limited hours is fine. Toss in a few medieval style table games and you are set! I'll volunteer as a full time bar wench next year to help make this happen!

2) Schedule break times for volunteers... or a floater volunteer. After 8 hours of standing in one place going through the narrative of "Whats this place about?" (see above), one gets rather horse and tired. Having a floating volunteer to give people short breaks to rest feet and voice would be awesome.

3) Vipers Pit had a table set aside from the check-in table for folks to complete the waivers, but Zephyr didn't. The table really helped with flow, and the Greeters could direct people there first, saving time with the Hostesses.

4) No more vacuum-driven puzzles please. Half our time in these rooms was waiting while the DMs tried to get the mechanisms to work. There are just too many places for a vacuum seal to get broken, and time is tight.

5) Many of the puzzle rooms felt like they were driven by one person. One person with the wand to change light orbs, one person carving in the sand and bleeding, etc. Created a lot of sitting around doing nothing for the other 9 players. Would love to see more puzzles that involve more group members cooperating for an objective.

6) The picture areas afterward were GREAT! Nice to have that photo opportunity, thank you for including it.

Thanks!!
Beth

PM sent to Deni