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Forays and the Intrepid
Thanks to the grand efforts of Jayden, Farrah, Gamoneterik, Ahmet, Siduri, and Iakimen, the foray board belonging to Russell was rescued from the clutches of dread Aran'Kesh, and forays are now available to all Achaeans!
A "foray" is the name given to a difficult task or challenge undertaken by a group of Intrepid adventurers. Each foray takes place in a unique, isolated setting, found among dozens of possible remote areas of the wilderness. The trials you may face are varied, ranging from confusing puzzles that must be solved to overwhelming denizens that must be defeated. One singular theme unites the forays, however, and that is that none can be completed alone. These are no ordinary hunting grounds, and the combined might of an Intrepid group will be required if you hope to succeed and claim their rewards.
To engage in a foray, you will need to be in a group and visit the foray board in the common room of the Wander Inn, in New Thera. From there, you will be able to review which forays are available (using READ BOARD), and see any additional information on them (such as a minimum or maximum group size) with READ BOARD <foray name/number>.
SIGN FOR THE <foray> FORAY is used to accept a foray from the board. This will automatically add the foray to your entire group's repertoire.
Once your group is assembled and you have accepted a challenge from the board, you are ready to begin your foray! You will have an Achaean day (real hour) after accepting your task to discover the foray's whereabouts.
Each foray has a number of possible locations where it can appear, all contained within the wilderness. These invariably follow a distinct theme (such as mountains or coasts) and most will have a hint either in the description or with a specific clue (use the INTREPID command to view your current foray status). Once you are ready, enter the wilderness and begin exploring!
As well as the experience and gold acquired from a successful foray, (not to mention the prestige of being a victorious member of the Intrepid), each foray has its own unique talisman that can be obtained. Some of these are rarer than others, with the rarest of all opening a brand new, special foray location to be faced down.
In addition to the Achaean day time limit to discover a foray's location, each foray has its own time limit for completion. This timer begins once inside, can be seen using the INTREPID command, and has devastating consequences when it expires. You should endeavour to complete these challenges promptly if you hope to emerge victorious!
Forays are unique in that they are flexible to the levels of the group undertaking them. As such, a group of three dragons facing down Aran'Kesh, the Fleshrender (for example) will find a similar challenge to that faced by a group of level 70 adventurers.
Teamwork cannot be emphasised enough. Many forays will require cooperation and strategic thinking, rather than brute force, to overcome.
As of today there are five forays and six talismans in the Forays set.
Whilst this concept has been touched in other IRE games, none have quite implemented it in this fashion and we'd love to hear your thoughts and feedback!
Comments
Huge props to @Farrah, @Siduri. @Ahmet, @Gamoneterik, and @Iakimen for being a joy to work with - even if we utterly failed a couple times over - and to everyone else who was gathered at the Wander Inn for the event. I would've taken basically everyone if I could, I was super disappointed when I had to pick people.
And thank you to those at IRE that put this thing together. Rough as it was, it was an absolute blast!
Sad I missed out on taking part in the opening!
- With sharp, crackling tones, Kyrra tells you, "The ladies must love you immensely."
- (Eleusian Ranger Techs): Savira says, "Most of the hard stuff seem to have this built in code like: If adventurer_hitting_me = "Sarathai" then send("terminate and selfdestruct")."
- Makarios says, "Serve well and perish."
- Xaden says, "Xaden confirmed scrub 2017."
https://ada-young.appspot.com/pastebin/l0xBvJV1
It shouldn't be "reflex move or instantly die" tbh.
00:56:00.907 Horald, Captain of The Margam lifts you off the ground, clutching your body in his strong grasp before hurling you across the deck.
BitCHHHHHHHHHHH
Top it with fishes who kill dragons, and really bad gold/experience payout, all contributed to making diving extremely impopular unless you're actually farming for fish scales or larder food. This is different in that regards!
I agree with @Daeir here. Scaling and improved PvE content is awesome and it sound like a huge amount of thought and work has gone into this, but not keen on the idea of instances in Achaea.
One of the big reasons against these "hunting instances" in the past was the fact people with a price on their heads (Mark, Bounty etc) could essentially go bashing without their counterpart being able to follow. While these foray's are not risk free from a PvE point of view, they do seem to be able to completely bypass the PvP risk that comes with being hunted while hunting..
How long do the Forays last?, does this time count against the Mark Contract in place?, are they completely isolated from someone outside the group?
If you pray you lose the foray?
How do bursts and such work?
Is there a limit to taking and completing forays?
2) Like normal, but sometimes you just get slapped down again immediately after bursting, so you just doubled down on a bad idea.
C) Yes. You can only take them if they're available, though I am not sure what determines availability at all at the moment, I only did some last night with Ahmet and crew.
As for time limits, you have a day (1 hour) to find the foray and enter it, but entering it starts the timer, which varies per site. As best I recall I saw 35 minutes, 45 minutes, and 1 hour last night, but I'm not certain about the first, and I'm not at my desktop with the logs right now.
Scaling is weird. I was with 3 dragons and 1 other non-dragon (myself not a dragon, level 85), the dragons were, in some spots, getting three-shot, and I was getting one-shot on some stuff. But at other times, it was a total non-issue and I was just getting murdered by failing the puzzles instead.
The areas scale on a per mob basis (so some mobs might scale more aggressively than others). Everyone in the group will influence the scaling, but high level people are going to tilt it their way more than low - stacking a group with low level people won't work.
Once a foray is completed/failed, it goes on cooldown for x minutes (half as long if it was failed). After that timer is up its available for an intrepid to accept at the board again.
The game needed something group oriented that isn't raiding in a pretty bad way. Glad to see something to help gat issue.
Penwize has cowardly forfeited the challenge to mortal combat issued by Atalkez.
- With sharp, crackling tones, Kyrra tells you, "The ladies must love you immensely."
- (Eleusian Ranger Techs): Savira says, "Most of the hard stuff seem to have this built in code like: If adventurer_hitting_me = "Sarathai" then send("terminate and selfdestruct")."
- Makarios says, "Serve well and perish."
- Xaden says, "Xaden confirmed scrub 2017."
However, I would not be surprised to find out they move each time the foray is run. I can guarantee you it is there somewhere, just have to keep looking.