June 2019: Brigantes
Area of the Month for April 2019 is The Altamira Boardwalk!
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(Yes, a wiki account is required to edit the page and therefore post your review, but take heart: The wiki is hosted by the Cleft itself, not a third party!
Player: You!(Class/Level)
Review Date(s):
Descriptions: X/10
How does the area's room descriptions(descs) work for you? Do they give you a good idea of the area? Do things that stand out in the desc and NEED explanation GET that, either from flavor text(extra-descs) or NPCs in the room or anything?
What about mobiles(mobs) and their descriptions? Can you get a decent mental image of who or what this NPC/monster is? Do they respond when you talk or interact with them?
Some areas have interact-able objects like fountains. Do they stack up well also?
Balance: X/10 (OR N/A)
(NOTE: combat will be most accurately gauged when your character is in the area's suggested level range.)
If this area has combat, how does it feel? Does anything jump as horribly overpowered and impossible to deal with? What about the flipside, anything far too easy to beat?
Are purchased or rewarded items at the appropriate strength levels? Is the effort required to obtain rewarded items reflected in their usefulness (or uniqueness and fancifulness)
Attractions: X/10
Why would you suggest someone come to this area? Is it just a good place to grind experience(lots of mobs)? Does the area provide a chunk of good gold and loot?
What about the quests? Does this area's quests feel properly done, or is there some part of it that you feel needs work?
For towns, are the shops good? Any other non-combative attraction for the area?
Connections: X/10
How easily and well does this area connect to its nearby areas? Does it make sense thematically to be connected to the areas it is?
Personal
Any comments you'd like to make that you don't feel apply to the other sections can go here!
Player - Aelys (Sorceress, level 100, 16 Remorts) --SHELL'D
Review Date - 6/17/2019
Descriptions:8/10
Brigantes is a joy to wander through and to see and take in all its myriad sights and descriptions. From its mobs various interactions and talk progs to its detailed and thematic descriptions, you can tell it is lovely made and tweaked over time to near perfection. There are still a few minor typo's and odd bits left over to finish polishing up, but they are hardly disruptive. However, it is because of this loving attention, that its other flaw, does stand out more. While the main room-descs are largely fine, and the most important, often interactive, details have extra-descs, things the main-description draws attention too and that could thus merit an Extra-Desc, as like as not, dont have them. This is most disruptive in places like the Witch's Wart, where specific mention is made of several attention-grabbers, and not all appear to be covered with actual Extra-Desc's. The streets and various shops may have one thing Extra-Desced, but mention two or three more that could pop out as an Extra-Desc, but dont pan out as such. Is such attention to detail necisary, no, however, given the rest of the attention to detail Brigantes offers, it stands out in a slightly negative fashion. The various mobs and npc's around Brigantes, are also worth mentioning for having fun, distinctive interactions, some particularly sneaky and tricky to finagle out how to coax out of them, most of the results furthering progress in relation to the various mini-quests around the Town.
Balance:7/10
Combat
From a combat-perspective Brigantes has a rather sterling reputation for Remorters as being 'easy', yet high lvl enough to be exceptional experience. Its combatable mobs dealing slight, but noticably so, less damage then even some lower lvl foes, a decent variaty of said combat-ables and primarily for being easy to Re-Populate by leaving the Town. From a Wizarding stand-point, this is exceptionally so, since the majority of foes you are likely to face, are Pumpkinheads, with a major known and thus exploitable weakness, in the form of a vulnerability to Fire. However, the fact everyone and their pet could know this by looking up the Pumpkinhead race, should not be counted against them as a whole, any thus known consistant weakness ends up being equally usefull, it's just Brigantes weakpoint that the majority of its kill-ables have it. All that said, this is from a Remorted perspective, thus the same can be said for most any area, Brigantes merely being a very nice place because of its relatively high lvl by comparison to other likewise areas. Without the knowledge of how to use the weaknesses of its mobs, they are quite capable of tearing the unwary limb from limb or blasting them to a twitching, crisp mess of magical mayhem. They may Disarm, Trip, Bash, hurl myriad status afflictions at you, and in general, have many, many ways of messing people up. Combat thus, remorted 5/10, non-remorted 9/10, for an average of 7/10.
9/10 Items
Purchased Goods and Quest-earned Items are rife in Brigantes. It's one of the biggest towns in the Cleft by its offer of various shops and types of things to purchase; Pets, Potions, Wearables and Craftables, Usables and Edibles. About the only thing it Lacks, is a Weapon's Shop. It even has a place to sell Vehicles, the finest Pawnshop which buys most things at the highest price you're likely to find, and holds the only shop for Saber and Enchantment services. Not everything in itself might be as you may like it, but Brigantes is sure to have something to delight most any shopper. As to its quest-earned items; while personally they are more quirky then usefull, some are quite nice indeed for all that.
Attractions:9/10
As mentioned in the Combat portion of the Balance section, Brigantes is an exceptional place to level in. The mobs are slightly on the weak side, but mainly have exploitable weaknesses with the right tool-sets, and earn a goodly amount of exp and gold. Which combines nicely with a nice mob diversity and density level, while allowing comparatively easy and quick repopulation. Further, it has some of the most excellent services available, in the form of the Pawnshop for re-sale value, and the Rune Shop for various Saber and Enchantment needs. Aswell as some of the better pets, and quirky items from around its various shopping spree spread. Quest-wise, Brigantes also has mostly good things, in that the finished Quests are fun, appropriate and well entrenched into the Town, with hints and interactions with its various npc's guiding you through them where applicable. However, there is one major Demerit keeping it from a full 10/10. The Main-Quest, appears by all intents and purposes to be un-finished. After lots of run-around, interaction and sleuthing for Clues, you hit a literal dead-end, just when it's getting nice and spooky. Which is rather frustrating since up to then, it is very well-played, sends you running around the Cleft as-proper for Big-Leagues Quests, and seems to be nearing its end Boss-fight stage.
Connections:6/10
With all that is available in Brigantes, it should come as no surprise, that even Entering the Midnight City, is Quest-Locked. And while I actually approve of it being Quest-locked, the method of finding out how-too Unlock it, I do not agree with. Without going into overt detail, since Qinfo, the proper method of even knowing how-too-unlock, is buried down the 3rd or 4th link of a unrelated Quest-chain, so obscure that it took much, much sleuthing to even find out it was the Link to find out how to learn the Unlocking Method. Fortunately, the actual un-locking method is unreliant on said quest-chain, it merely high-lights you on what you need to do. Ergo, the first time I found out said Questchain, I'd actually already done the Unlocking, and thus broke said chain of events and the Questchain came undone, joy. All that said, it's actual Location as a City, is perfectly suited, the unlocking method itself makes sense enough in context, however the connective Link to learn how too, no, that is very poorly executed personally. It is a good questchain, but too obscurely placed.
Personal: Brigantes, is Awesome. It doesnt need much done, a bit of polish on some room descs, some more extra descs if anything at all. Its one, glaring flaw, lies in the abrupt Ending to its joys; Finish that Main Quest!
Player: Ademisk (84 Cavalier, 3 remorts)
Review Date(s): 6/21/19
Descriptions: 9/10
The area's descriptions are fantastic. It gives the area a great sense of thematic color and the places where a closer look are required are easily noticed. Socials never seem too difficult to figure out either. I haven't had any problems looking at anything that piqued my interest either. The mob descriptions do a competent job at giving you an image of the character they're describing.
Balance: 6/10
Brigantes has always felt a little too easy to me, and my recent trips there have all confirmed this. The pumpkinheads do decent damage but very little in the area will attack you on its own, so there's very little danger of fleeing a losing battle, which rarely happens. The War Witches can be challenging, especially if you're vulnerable to their element, but the prizes they give are so good that it more than makes up for this fact. The occasional named NPC can be a little difficult, but for the most part they're not quite on-level for named fights. The shops in Brigantes are, on the other hand, very balanced. Brigantes has a lot of great items to buy and all of them are interesting and useful for the level without going overboard. Comparing it among towns with shops I'd say that Brigantes is almost unbalanced for high quality, but honestly I'd rather say that Brigantes should be the model for a shopping experience in this game.
Attractions: 9.5/10
In terms of a place to level, this one takes the cake among all other level-equivalent areas. There are a large number of mobs wandering around, none of them target you, they are mostly pretty easy to kill, and many of them gives fantastic on-level drops. As balance this is a minus but as an attraction, Brigantes is always an area that I prioritize coming to. The shopping experience as well is phenomenal: fun, useful, and huge variety.
Quests have actually improved significantly since the last time I checked this area. There's a few things that are difficult to find but I've been able to get a handle on a number of them. There's also a fairly large number of quests that come into Brigantes from other areas, which means you'll most likely be finding your way here for one reason or another. The only quest-related concern I have is that the main line of quest doesn't seem particularly robust, and the rewards I've seen from quests don't seem to quite match up to the level of drops or shopping items in the town.
The town is also full of interesting characters to talk to and look at, which is not unique but Brigantes does it especially well. There's a number of unique features such as the Hallowrena and the blackjack parlour which you won't find anything like in any other town. Even the most innocuous characters that aren't mobs for killing have some purpose or something interesting to do with.
Connections: 5/10
It's a bit difficult to understand what a player is supposed to do to access Brigantes if they don't meet the requirements. It just gives you an electric shock and you're supposed to figure it out on your own. It could be really annoying for a new player. I honestly don't even remember how to access it at the moment since it was already unlocked for my character, however when I tried to access on my Iron Soul character I was annoyed at not remembering what to do.
Brigantes doesn't really fit that well with the surrounding area. Everything around it is ice-themed, and suddenly it's a halloween themed town. That being said, due to Brigantes' unique entrance, it really could go anywhere and the area it's in is at least level-wise and distance from a starting town very appropriate.
Personal
Brigantes is one of my favorite areas that I always find my way back to. In some ways this is good, in other ways it's a sign that it needs improvement. It's definitely one of the best areas in the game from a player experience perspective, but I think it could be brought in line a bit better with overall expectations of cleft balance and exploration flow.