Pyramid of Xafi

[Soaponarope]

Batty,

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Didn't know you were still stuck here. Sorry my last hint was vague since you said "a clue". Hope this puzzle didn't drive you batty.

The seemingly useless lever in the southeast most section which disables the teleporters is what you need to use. This lever also closes the northmost pit, allowing you to exit the zone. This is why you need to create a path you can use to walk there without the aid of the teleporters.

[Karski]

Alright, I got through that puzzle as well. I must have spent close to ten hours in this mod already, congratulations on capturing the challenge of the original DM series. Indeed, in the old days before the Internet, the solutions could only rise from trying out even the non-obvious in frustration. Your mod is a true gem.

However, hiding a key in a pit was still bad taste. The dungeon really doesn't want to train completionist players to jump into every pit to "discover its secrets"! This is akin to forcing them to bump into every wall in order to discover secret (invisible) passages.

Some other things to consider - a non-linear dungeon keeps players on their toes, but in my current order of completion, I have to travel through bottom floor to reach different unsolved puzzles in the dungeon, and this sometimes includes jumping to a pit as well. This does not increase the entertainment value, it is simply a chore.

It would be great if you could indicate solvable and unsolvable puzzles better to the player so that he would not have to spent hours trying to do the impossible. So far, I have given up on SW puzzle on floor 4 - I got the blue gem all right, but I think the small locked room with two crabs seem to be unreachable for now. Likewise, the center of floor 3 has this corridor with a trigger plate that closes a door at the end of the corridor, and barring new discoveries, I do not think the player can get to the open door past the plate. In both cases, it may of course be that I have simply missed the "obvious" solutions.

The puzzles are devious and sometimes diabolical, which is a good thing, but in order to prevent stubborn players from getting stuck "unfairly", you might also consider the "three keys out of four" approach that has successfully been deployed before. In other words, solving three difficult puzzles out of four should be enough to get to proceed, and solving all four should the player some extra treasure.

Thanks again for the dungeon so far, I am sure it will keep entertaining me right to the end.

Edit: Found out the truth about the "crab corner" later, and sure enough getting more doors open makes movement easier. I still dislike having to save-load and jump and/or throw stuff into every pit to make sure the solution does not lie there.

[Numberouane]

In the end, it is a perception matter

For instance there is a place with a demon head with no hole to receive its bolt...
As nothing happens for free there, I was sure that there was a secret behind and ... BINGO!
Overlapping the maps, I jump into a pit just behind the wall discovering the best sword in the game....

So Im addicted to this way of proposing puzzles even if they drive me mad...

I would always prefere sometimes that s pulling up vs down... Even for a few but u can never please everybody

As long a we all have fun... lets enjoy the mod



@Karski : The best to come you come back and feedback once completed

[Soaponarope]

Thanks for the feedback, Karski.

Personally I like using pits as a method of exploration, though since that particular pit needed to be entered in order to proceed I can see that a hint may be needed. I think my mistake was to have the deadly center shaft and warning about this, as it could make people think they shouldn't enter pits at all. Having hidden areas accessed only by pits is something I like doing though, and this was present in the original game as well.

I like to look at the dungeon as a whole instead of each level separate, and multi level puzzles is something I plan to bring to my next dungeon as well. Yes sometimes this means an area will be unreachable when you first arrive, but it all makes sense later. I'm not sure how I would indicate solvable and unsolvable puzzles without it seeming silly, though I'm open to suggestions. The unreachable areas tend to be secret zones not needed to complete the game though.

The three keys out of four approach is something I plan to implement in my next project, though this cannot always be done. I also plan to have teleportation spells and hopefully grappling hooks to make traveling both easier and more unique.

[Karski]

@Karski : The best to come you come back and feedback once completed

Bug report:Traversing my way back, I did not escape the pyramid with MacGuffin in hand. Literally. If the picked up item is kept in hand while player runs for his life, as opposed to party member's inventory, the trigger at the bottom of stairs does not function and the player is kept wondering how to get out of the darn place.

Wow - what a challenge. The end itself took several hours to complete. I was of course playing at "Hard", so I certainly got what I asked for. The puzzles and the monster challenge were "just right" - anyone who gets to ascend so far should be able to persist to the end.

At Hard difficulty, the success margin was quite slim, though.

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I am especially worried about the tentacle trap - I actually believe that it may be impossible for some parties to fight their way through. My party was fully optimized in composition and skills, I had to throw in everything I got and it still took me several attempts and a bit of luck to survive it. The original LoG was designed to allow some measure of suboptimization, and after commercial playtesting, a stack of fresh frost bombs might have been secretly located somewhere near...

All in all, I would still rate the mod as five stars out of five, despite my tendency to point out the bad. It hardly gets any better than this. The pyramid was stock full of puzzles with a new twist, the non-linear structure worked reasonably well, and the progression of monster challenge kept up perfectly with party progression (if the experienced player optimizes everything to the fullest extent and discovers most secrets). Stacking the levels on top of each other, it is indeed possible to see that the pyramid has been designed as a whole. Of course, in classic dungeon crawler fashion, none of it makes any sense as a functional structure but hey, that's the genre.

Keep up the good work!

[Hustin]

I think I'm nearly at the end, though a couple of things are making it rough...

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I wish I had known that fire resistance would be so important at the top. I had put most of my points into ice and spellcraft, so now I'm probably going to have to powerlevel my mage up a little to get some fire points.

I can't figure out how to get past the pit on the west side of lvl 4 ("get a running start"). I also can't get past the door with the keyhole in the middle of it on the level below it (maybe it's the exit?)

[Soaponarope]

Karski,

Thanks for bug report, I will fix.

Hard is indeed hard. From one of my comments on the steam workshop,

It is a tougher dungeon than the original game. I believe it to be balanced for party types though. I have beaten it on hard mode with multiples parties including a no mage group, though I recommend new players play on normal, or easy if they found normal difficult in the original game.

Sounds like you "just managed" which is how I intended hard mode to be. Well done. I like my games challenging so it shows in my own creations.

For the area in the spoiler.

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This spot will likely kill your back row in hard mode. That's why I put the crystal there. Also to make sure there was a nearby autosave in case people went to the end without the keys. Should be alright though killing one tentacle quickly and escaping, but this is one spot where hard mode makes a real difference.

Thanks for playing, and glad you enjoyed.

[Soaponarope]

Hustin,

The top-

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Fire resistance is important, but not necessary, especially if you have an ice mage. The key to the end battle is speed. Don't try to kill them all, just freeze or quickly kill any in your way, and focus on completing your goal and escaping. There are also some secrets on level 2 that can help. Remember that you need all four keys before this part.

Get a running start-

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You will need to throw/shoot something into the teleporter, but need to be in the right position as well.

[Numberouane]

I complete the mod with One Mage fully boosted in Air Magic

What I enjoyed the most, with all the positive comments that have already been shared, is the feeling of escaping for life from the last room...

The experience overall is far more better than original game because of all those feelings during playing it.

Thanks again



@Karsky : Now u understand how good it was right ? I happy u enjoy it to the max. Im impressed u completed it in hard mode.

PS : @ Soaponarope : Hope u r now convinced to go ahead with a new one .

[leewroy]

I´m stuck in level 4.

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Can't figure what to do with the demon heads that shots lightning bolts, how to close the pit to get the key and a blue gem.
also on level 4, there's a place that you can reach by falling from floor 3 and get a sword on an altar, then you fight a giant spider and a goromog. I killed the spider and then hit the button on the wall to prevent the goromog to reach me, and the I sleep. After wake up, to my surprise, the goromog was gone. I also could not figure what to do there other than that, there's a lot of plates but I can't throw anything there due the cell bars.

Any help will be appreciated