Sea Quest Parity

Yuzuki

It has been a long time since the Quests in the Inner Sea and Sea of Despair have been designed. Many changes have occurred since their inception. One amongst these is that taking down large, tanky mobs isn't as difficult as it once was. I believe that Ladantine and the quest for removing Princess Marilynth was formed primarily around the difficulty in killing him, which isn't so difficult anymore, and has resulted in a gross disparity compared to the difficulty in sinking the Ship of the Dead once it is a raised.

As I understand it, sinking the Ship of the Dead requires:

1. That you power the coral spire and fire it off to make Ladantine vulnerable.
2. Find the Ship of the Dead, board it, and kill Ladantine.

Once squid are inside of the coral spire, they stay there. A Magnagoran has no way to remove them in order to hinder progress in the sinking of the Ship, and can only kill Lanikai repeatedly in order to be a hindrance.

Comparatively, in order to remove Marilynth from the Sea of Despair, you need to bring Ladantine somewhere near 100 devil fish. There are no more than 30 devil fish in the Sea of Despair at any given time. As such, it requires hours of farming devil fish in order to accomplish. If, at any time during those hours, Ladantine dies, guess what? The number resets. You will not only need to raise Ladantine again, but you will need to gather all of the devil fish over again.

Ladantine is regularly solo-killed by a number of people, and guarding him for hours on end is not fun. You can argue the same occurs with Lanikai, except you must realise that the coral spire doesn't empty of squid every time Lanikai dies, nor does Lanikai being dead prevent you from putting more squid into the spire.

Therefore, I think one of two changes is in order:

1. Increase the number of devil fish per spawn to 50, and make that the number of devil fish that Ladantine needs. This would allow someone to feasibly perform the quest in an hour if they are unhindered, comparable to Celest, while still maintaining some difference between the two.

2. Allow Ladantine to retain the number of devil fish he has accumulated even if he is killed repeatedly. This way, all progress isn't erased every single time he dies.

And if neither of these are good, then I expect a damn good explanation for it.

Eritheyl

I'm fine with the second option, it makes sense given the way the coral spire operates.

However, if we're going to be drawing the two closer together in an attempt to balance out the kinks and upsets, I would like to see Lanikai take more than thirty seconds to kill.

Neos

Eritheyl said:

I'm fine with the second option, it makes sense given the way the coral spire operates.

However, if we're going to be drawing the two closer together in an attempt to balance out the kinks and upsets, I would like to see Lanikai take more than thirty seconds to kill.

30? More like 10.

Yuzuki

Eritheyl said:

However, if we're going to be drawing the two closer together in an attempt to balance out the kinks and upsets, I would like to see Lanikai take more than thirty seconds to kill.

The real flip side to Ladantine is that you have to work to revive him, which means you can potentially have him back sooner than the average repop time, but generally not, since any unenemied person can go snatch the pearl and keep a hold of it.

Which is why I didn't touch upon it at all and left it alone.

It really depends on which solution I presented people like best.

Eritheyl

Lanikai is required for literally every step of Celest's epic quest, which is why I find it silly that she can be dropped by any Joe Schmoe that can saunter into the fortress. I mean sure you can easily impede progress in any number of ways, but this is the most obnoxious. Admittedly I'm not sure why Ladantine dies so much more often than Lanikai, given how ridiculously easy it is for the latter.

Neos

Eritheyl said:

Lanikai is required for literally every step of Celest's epic quest, which is why I find it silly that she can be dropped by any Joe Schmoe that can saunter into the fortress. I mean sure you can easily impede progress in any number of ways, but this is the most obnoxious. Admittedly I'm not sure why Ladantine dies so much more often than Lanikai, given how ridiculously easy it is for the latter.

Because Kelly goes pew and goes (re)ded.

Eritheyl

I'm not saying that she should be super-buff, or even on par with Ladantine, just...a little something more would go a long way. But I'm done derailing, still in support of the second supposed change!

Yuzuki

Eritheyl said:

Admittedly I'm not sure why Ladantine dies so much more often than Lanikai, given how ridiculously easy it is for the latter.

It's not because he dies more, so much as that he stays dead more often and for longer. If someone from Celest gets the pearl needed to revive him, then they will know exactly when it resets, while Magnagora will not, and they will know when to go looking again.

You can argue the same for Lanikai's corpse, except there's always the option of waiting at the coral fortress for Lanikai to come back to life. It's always in the same room, and doesn't require any more action on your part than to look at the right moment, which could just as well happen sooner for you than the guy checking his inventory intermittently to see if Lanikai's corpse is still there.

It is much more likely that you will find the window of opportunity you need Lanikai for than it will be for Ladantine to be brought back unnoticed, then stay alive for 3-4 hours while devil fish are gathered. In fact, this usually only happens when Celest has a large line of people waiting for the Sea Battle (Marilynth and the Ship both prevent new sea battles from occurring), which results in much looking away and attempting not to notice there are Mags in the SoD.

Having said that, I wouldn't really be against Lanikai being tougher either. It'd just have to respect the difference between the two, which is pretty substantial at present.

This would change noticeably with solution 2, since once Ladantine has enough devil fish, you just walk him to Marilynth and there's no more work involved. I think it'd be more justifiable to buff Lanikai with this one.

With solution 1, there's still potential for work being thwarted/erased at Ladantine's death, and not being amenable until Ladantine is alive again.

Xenthos

Does Marilynth being up have any negative impacts (mechanically) at this point? I thought they nerfed it so that it did not actually destroy the spectres, allowing the power quest to be completed still.

That said, being able to put the devil fish into a chest that Ladantine consumes once it is full doesn't seem like it'd be an issue.

Shaddus

Obviously there needs to be a quest to revive Lanikai.

Yuzuki

Xenthos said:

Does Marilynth being up have any negative impacts (mechanically) at this point? I thought they nerfed it so that it did not actually destroy the spectres, allowing the power quest to be completed still.

As I said, it prevents more sea battles from happening. If a new sea battle can't happen, then even being able to so much as attempt to finish either the Mag/Celest epic goes on hold until after the ship/marilynth go down. This is a "feature" which no other epic suffers from, except possibly Halli/Gaudi if their nodes were to be left up undrained. But, really... who ignores free power?

Moi

I'm agreed. Ladantine's devil fish counter should not reset when he dies.

Phudmog

I'll add my voice to those agreeing with not resetting the devil fish counter when Ladantine is killed.  It is hugely obnoxious, for reasons stated above.  I wouldn't disagree if Lanikai was made harder to kill too, if that's an issue (on par with Ladantine).

Silvanus

Ladantine can die in one hit, and destroy four hours of work.

And yes, Marilynth being up means Magnagora's epic has 0 chance of being completed, at all.

Eritheyl

Silvanus said:

Ladantine can die in one hit, and destroy four hours of work.

And yes, Marilynth being up means Magnagora's epic has 0 chance of being completed, at all.

No, he cannot die in one hit. And as previously stated, Marilynth prevents the completion of either side's epic due to the lack of sea battles. Celest doesn't kill Ladantine to prevent Marilynth from coming down (at least to my knowledge, because this would be silly), but to prevent the conversion of dolphins. If anyone is using the former as motive, they're sort of being dumb.

Silvanus

He can die in one hit, not that he does die in one hit every time.

And you do kill him to reset the devil fish counter. Or else you wouldn't be killing him when Cay is set to your side, and dolphins turn to mist anyways. To say you don't do that, is kind of dumb. There is no point in killing Ladantine if Cay is set to your side, which it almost always is.

And the sea battle will never, ever happen if Marilynth is alive. So  lets not try and spread misinformation here.

And, it is not silly to do that, it is smart to do that, because it is very easy to abuse. Or else Xena wouldn't be setting pyramid points at Ladantine's cave, when the sea battle isn't going to happen for months and Marilynth is alive. Or else, Xena, Azula and Steingrim wouldn't have tried running in there and dropping a greatpentagram to kill him when Marilynth is alive.

Silvanus

To put it in simple steps that could be understood:

If Marilynth is alive, the sea battle won't happen.

If Cay is set to your side, when we kill dolphins, we don't get corpses, so no seawolves being made.

There is no reason to kill Ladantine if Cay is set to your side -and- Marilynth is alive.

Yet we spent a good few hours battling over Ladantine's cave last night. Actions speak louder then words, you most obviously do kill Ladantine to reset the counter.

Eritheyl

Addressing these "points" in order:

1.) If you insist.

2.) I, personally, do not. I believe my exact words in regards to this were, 'to my knowledge'. Settle down.

3.) Yes, I know the battle will never, ever happen if Marilynth is alive. My second sentence reads that pretty nicely, so I'm not sure what misinformation you're talking about.

4.) If the sea battle isn't going to happen for months, then it doesn't matter if Marilynth is dead or alive (in some sense of the word). We kill Ladantine because it's always fun, whether useful at the time or not. It isn't always about the bigger picture, ie., it may have absolutely nothing to do with Marilynth at all.

Sass aside, we really are getting off-topic here. Still voicing my support for the fix.

Silvanus

It seems like such a hard concept to support a fix without asking for something in return, even when its unbalanced, especially when you aren't knowledgeable in the situation, by your own admission.

Moi

Just to clarify, Celest kills Ladantine even if the Cay is in Celest's favour, not because we see you trying to get rid of Marilynth and want to stop you, but because we're not sure if the Cay is in our favour (we don't have any way to checking) and want to be extra sure no sea wolves are getting produced.

Karlach

Isn't there a line in the Dolphins description that shows them wearing necklaces?

Xenthos

I believe that's another quest entirely.

Kiradawea

It is. Them having necklaces has nothing to do with the Cay. It was the way to protect dolphins prior to the Cay.

Akyaevin

Yuzuki said:

Once squid are inside of the coral spire, they stay there. A Magnagoran has no way to remove them in order to hinder progress in the sinking of the Ship, and can only kill Lanikai repeatedly in order to be a hindrance.

A minor point: you can give Ladantine the squid to make them into tainted squid, which count against the glowing squid in the Spire when put in it.

Kaimanahi

I did kill Ladantine in one world-shattering critical destruction hit, but that's an extreme case. More often than not, if there is any semblance of defense, it's almost impossible to kill him solo. I'm not really adverse to looking at things, but I think it would only be fair to bring up Celest's gripes, too.

On the other side, Lanikai will die if you breathe too hard. Saying that you can just wait for her to respawn and finish the quest is not entirely accurate, because you need to get a pearl from her, find the seahorse, and bring it back to her - plenty of time for that heavy breath (and this has happened plenty of times). Moreover, Lanikai disappears indefinitely when the dark side of the Cay is active. This makes it impossible to A., remove the ship of the dead and B., do the beacon-lighting segment of Celest's epic quest. Given the extreme ease in messing up the Cay quest for someone trying to completet it, this becomes real annoying, and I doubt anyone really enjoys having to keep doing the Cay over and over and over again. Also enter my rants about the "good" side having to influence versus the "bad" side just having to bash for the talisman.

Akyaevin

On the other hand, if Celest has a tracker and Magnagora does not, it's pretty impossible to rezz Ladantine for hours on end (until the tracker QQs).

Kaimanahi

The same could be said for killing the seahorse, and then you could cycle between killing Lanikai and the seahorse so they would never respawn at the same time. In that regard, Magnagora has it even better, in considering there are multiple squid that the pearl can spawn in, and there would be an element of luck for the tracker to find that one.

Akyaevin

If I'm killing Lanikai every time she repops, all you need to do is count from when I last killed here, then take a few people there to gank me when I show up. If you want to flag the fortress room indoors to make it a little harder to escape, go ahead, but the point stands. 

By comparison, once you've killed Ladantine, you don't need to return to the cave to stop him from coming back: you just track down the coffin fish (and you can pick them up as they repop to ensure you don't miss any) and if you miss that, you can kill the squid or even the blob (although that room _can_ have a group waiting for you, if they have enough people not gathering corpses).

And, of course, only killing Ladantine in this scenario will get you enemied to the Sea: if a friend lands the killing blow, you're untouchable. Pretty sure you can kill the blob (and I know you could kill the squid) despite their loyal status: the bug/issue response was that they're "not sentient", so don't enemy (despite all the various Inner Sea things still enemying).

EDIT: To clarify, I'm not saying it's easier to kill Lanikai than it is to kill Ladantine. I'm saying it's easier to keep Ladantine dead.

Yuzuki

Akyaevin said:

Yuzuki said:

Once squid are inside of the coral spire, they stay there. A Magnagoran has no way to remove them in order to hinder progress in the sinking of the Ship, and can only kill Lanikai repeatedly in order to be a hindrance.

A minor point: you can give Ladantine the squid to make them into tainted squid, which count against the glowing squid in the Spire when put in it.

Oh. Well.

I'm pretty sure you told me that once and I completely forgot. I'm pretty sure 99% of the rest of Mag doesn't know either. That has the potential to change the dynamics of a lot of things if people actually do it.

That aside, there's no still no good arguable reason why Mag needs around 4 hours of completely unhindered time to put down Marilynth when Celest just needs one hour of completely unhindered time. Obviously there are differences all over the place, but none are as glaring as this.

I think if nothing else, at the minimum, the number of devil fish need to be trimmed down so that Mag can finish in two unhindered hours if he's going to keep losing all the devil fish whenever he dies.

I forgot about the seahorse. The clam is killable too, right?

Another thought:

Let's make Lanikai, the seahorse, the clam, and Ladantine immune to critical hits. Then Health levels can be adjusted accordingly, to whatever is deemed appropriate. Right now, criticals make it really hard to compare effort, and if Ladantine can be one-shot at all, even if it is with a lucky super ascendant power - well, that kind of makes life hard.

Akyaevin

Also, my point of view is that of someone trying to win the Sea Battle, not so much someone trying to stop the other side raising Marilynth or the Ship, which is why I didn't discuss the seahorse/clam. In that respect, Ladantine is required to make seawolves but not to destroy turtles, and Lanikai is required to destroy seawolves but not make turtles (disregarding the Cay quest influence). You can also make seawolves faster than turtles, but it requires going into the Inner Sea and dolphins can be protected for hours at a time with those necklaces.

Moi

Yeah, I don't think anyone in Celest or in Magnagora actually goes out of their way to prevent Marilynth/the Ship of the Dead from going up. Ruin the other side's Cay ritual, yes. Ruin the other side's sea battle conversions, all the time. But nobody bothers with blocking Marilynth/the Ship of the Dead.