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My Experience Thus Far:

AuthorMessage
Bosun
Feb 25, 2012
329
Hello! I've been unable to use my laptop for a long time, but the issue was fixed quite recently. Apparently, Book 15 came out while the issue was being fixed so... cool beans!

Now, I chose not to participate in Test Realm because I prefer to experience thing in live, when most of the glitches/bugs have supposedly been figured out, and the game has been balanced to be most effective.

I've decided to write a short summary of my experience and impressions thus far of the Book 15 Update as a whole:

First thing I did was get on my swashbuckler, who has not seen any action for... one and a half years or so. He was the first character I made, so It seemed right to have him take Book 15 on first.

Preparation:
I immediately checked out Morgan Lafitte to see what powers I had in store, and was quite surprised to see nothing of note: I'm sure riposte 3 will be a nice little addition, but trap sense 2 seems quite unnecessary, and kind of a silly ability to have. Perhaps more PvE encounters will feature traps in the coming time, but if not then I suspect this will be a marginally pointless ability. I also decided, having heard that Valencia was a significant jump in challenge from the Tower, that I would reset all my companions, (And I do mean, Every single companion) and build them for combat tot he best of my ability. To mix things up, I also set companion selection to random. Now, I'll be making a post about this shortly, but doing this REALLY highlighted the power difference between some companions. Anyway, with this all sorted away, I went to Avery and began Book 15.

Skip to Florenza:
Florenza is one of the most gorgeous environments KI has ever made. Now, I still prefer the gritty ambiance of Marleybone, but Florenza really is beautiful. However, it feels quite... empty. Especially when compared to the condensed, cramped architecture of Granchia and Sivella. simply put, Florenza is massive and quite empty. I was surprised to see no Armada at all, as well: The only Armada I've seen since I started was the marine who asked for our papers at the stormgate. A surprising number of Pirates/Brigands seem to be roaming the skyway, though. I really expected a skyway filled with exclusively armada ships, and I was quite surprised to see, among others... ophidians? How did they even... Eh, I'm sure it'll be explained in time.

First Dungeon:
My first taste of combat was the Vandallo Villa, or some such, in the quest to get the overdue book back for the ulpian library. I immediately saw what people meant about challenge: The Epics on those guys! and with totally random companions, too... Long story short, I won the fight, but it was close. toward the end I had sent half my crew into corners to survive, and I'd taken a significant amount of damage. Upon completing the fight, I got the reward of the dialogue repeating itself, and then the fight restarting with the added fun of me being extremely low on health. I won, but lost all 3 companions doing so.

More Soon!
Ensign
Feb 19, 2010
39
I laughed when i first saw the Ophidian Ships, like what the heck were they doing in Valencia? Go back to Aquila!
Ensign
Jun 12, 2009
4
Greetings!

Yeah, same here. Even my Argento dies too fast, and I gave her a lot of armor, dodge, and agility. Valencian battles are like this for me: finally winning with just a tiny amount of my health left, and all my companions are KO'd. I am spending too much gold to resurrect them, and the enemies are ridiculously OP. Their epic attacks take most of my health away, and it seems like my skills aren't working. I only survived the throne room battle by hiring a henchman. I NEVER do that. The unicorn guardsmen also seem to nullify black fog's bonus, making my crew and I just attack normally (glitch maybe?) I even get beat up badly by fish. Fish. KingsIsle needs to nerf/fix some of this. It is maddeningly insane.

- Katie Galway, Level 66
Bosun
Feb 25, 2012
329
Continued:
Upon Finishing the vandallo villa, I returned to the ulpian library where the librarian made a statement that clearly was meant to be leadup to either another quest or to the next step in the quest, and then the quest ended and I got my reward. May want to check that one out. might just be a dialogue error.

Broadside Combat: Well, I went ahead and bought the Aquilan galleon from the ship vendor on florenza's docks, and bought some ship gear to make sure I was best prepared. Every single naval battle I've had since was incredibly easy, so... yeah. I can only assume that this was intentional, and the game is taking a turn away from tedious and repetitive broadside combat- something I'm quite happy about.

Side Quests: Everything here seems quite good, except for the dungeon in which you obtain the orange sulfur for the ki-rin flower. The Sigil put me in the dungeon with another person already in it. another person joined us shortly, and none of us were on the sigil together. the sulfur was there but none of us could interact with it. we left and returned several times, and even tried different realms, but it never worked. Eventually, I entered and saw one of the players who had been in the dungeon previously in combat with some trolls. I joined him, we expressed our confusion over what was going on, and got the sulfur.

Gear: bought some nice ship gear. haven't seen anything at all of note since then, but perhaps Typhon will drop something of note? he's the only boss i've fought thus far.

General combat: aside from multiple instances of the unicorn guard swashbucklers getting an epic hit and dealing 2k+ damage, everything seems good. quite the challenge, especially considering the self imposed companion rule I have, but an enjoyable challenge.
Bosun
Feb 25, 2012
329
Minor things: The recording quality, sometimes varies significantly from one statement to another. one dialogue box will occur, You hit 'More' to progress, and when the character speaks they sometimes sound marginally different, as if they were using another microphone, or were recording in a room with different acoustics. Its not BAD, but it is certainly a little jarring.

Overall Impressions: It feels rushed. particularly, the transition from beta to live obviously came too early. There are bugs evident in multiple places I have encountered simply whilst following the game's path. Thus far, I'm beginning to suspect that the Insidious Hydra is the real antagonist, and kane is simply a puppet. Speaking of kane...

Story: I suspect quite strongly that this really is 5 books condensed into one- or perhaps, 4 books cut, and 1 book packed with as much simultaneous exposition and rising action as it can hold. Honestly, The conflict between the individual Bison Tribes had much more satisfying leadup than literally all of valencia thus far. Characters are introduced mere minutes before they are destroyed (typhon) Class Differences are introduced (guinea pigs) then almost immediately forgotten about.

In Conclusion: I know I'm not even halfway done with Valencia yet, But I'm quite confident in my assertion that It was rushed through both production and testing, and that the story has seen the cleaver more than the scalpel. Nonetheless, I've genuinely Enjoyed every moment of it! Well, every moment that has not been afflicted by instance repetition or dungeon-breaking glitches, at least.

I Should Clarify: despite the negativity expressed, I'm quite pleased with the update. I'm delighted to see Pirate101 continue, and hopeful for future patches and updates.

So... Thoughts, Fellow Marauders?
Pirate Overlord
Mar 16, 2012
10631
Darkchaser12 on Jun 18, 2016 wrote:
Greetings!

Yeah, same here. Even my Argento dies too fast, and I gave her a lot of armor, dodge, and agility. Valencian battles are like this for me: finally winning with just a tiny amount of my health left, and all my companions are KO'd. I am spending too much gold to resurrect them, and the enemies are ridiculously OP. Their epic attacks take most of my health away, and it seems like my skills aren't working. I only survived the throne room battle by hiring a henchman. I NEVER do that. The unicorn guardsmen also seem to nullify black fog's bonus, making my crew and I just attack normally (glitch maybe?) I even get beat up badly by fish. Fish. KingsIsle needs to nerf/fix some of this. It is maddeningly insane.

- Katie Galway, Level 66
The Unicorn Guardsmen have First Strike 3, this removes your hide, thus you don't get that x2 weapon damage.
If you use Black Fog, I suggest you take the time to use all buffs ( Shadowdance or whatever ) and any shields you may have from gear, training or pets. You don't have to worry about fog running out and those buffs/shields will help in the battle.
Did you enter the Duomo ( throne room ) at level 65? I found that doing at least 2 side quests before I did that ( and using the gold to buy tomes to level my core team ) made the battle easier on me and them.
It was nerfed from test realm, the Lucci battle and even the Trigante cellars have been reduced ( a bit ) in difficulty.
I'm finding the difficulty refreshing after all the easy dungeons we've out-grown in gear and strategy. It's time to grow again and re-strategize.
Esperanza Devereaux, level 70
And, yes, I soloed 99% percent of Valencia 2 ( Sole exception, The Great Machine )
Bosun
Feb 25, 2012
329
Darkchaser12 on Jun 18, 2016 wrote:
Greetings!

Yeah, same here. Even my Argento dies too fast, and I gave her a lot of armor, dodge, and agility. Valencian battles are like this for me: finally winning with just a tiny amount of my health left, and all my companions are KO'd. I am spending too much gold to resurrect them, and the enemies are ridiculously OP. Their epic attacks take most of my health away, and it seems like my skills aren't working. I only survived the throne room battle by hiring a henchman. I NEVER do that. The unicorn guardsmen also seem to nullify black fog's bonus, making my crew and I just attack normally (glitch maybe?) I even get beat up badly by fish. Fish. KingsIsle needs to nerf/fix some of this. It is maddeningly insane.

- Katie Galway, Level 66
Ah- Thats part of the benefit of playing with my full roster, and on random. I'm forced to do my best each match, and thus I feel i'm becoming a better player, simply because I have no choice but to play better. I had both nurse quinn and hermit crab in the second throne room fight, and man was it close... but FUN! PvE in pirate has been such a curb stomp for so long; enemies that can really fight back are quite welcome. Even if it means they almost obliterate me as punishment for using random companions.

As for the unicorn guards breaking your hide: They had the epic talent first strike 3, which breaks hide no matter what. This means that fighting enemies with first strike 3 forces fog into a defensive/support ability only. as long as none of your epics trigger it, and you don't attack, you still cannot be targeted whilst hidden. 4 rounds to buff ain't bad, my friend.
Bosun
Dec 28, 2012
361
I agree with most of these points and maybe you could do another post on the final dungeon/ending when you get to it.
Captain
Mar 24, 2013
732
The Quarry quest took me by surprise, I must say these ophidians got thire revenge on my main pirate character. They always critical hit multiple times . This by far the worst luck i ever had, a quest that turned into an unbeatable battle,in my opinion. To make it worst Contessa glitched on me,during the quest.

This quest is ridicules in terms of difficulty, it took me 7 tires and still could not pass this dungeon. I was doing the quest solo and 90 % of my active companions were wounded.

I guess, I need to rethink my strategies ( fighting style ).

That is my experience so far, I have had witnessed the most difficult battle as a and the most frustrating quest thus far. I will try again to defeat these ophidians and hopefully Contessa dose not glitched on me again.
Bosun
Feb 25, 2012
329
Hello, and my apologies for my little hiatus from the message boards. I've had a great week, complete with delightful drivers on their phones and their subsequent collisions, dealing with the most interesting of South Carolina's tow truck drivers, and many other fun things including but not limited to a potential infection of something not terribly pleasant that someone may have brought home from the hospital.

In other words, a great week.

However, I had time to sit down and play a little more of valencia 2. here's what I've done:

Made it to the clockworks; kicked butt. Crabs didn't know what hit them. I lost 2 companions on the entire dungeon, and I AM using 100% random companions, with nobody excluded. meaning yes, I even ended up fighting pomodore with Nurse Quinn. good times.

Right after the clockworks, I was pushed STRAIGHT TO 'THE MACHINE'. Now, this goes without saying at this point, but i'll say it anyway: rushed. painfully rushed. never before, in all of pirate, did I ever feel like anything was so harshly edited and cut and pushed forward. I mean, each of the individual traitor's cave quests held more interesting build up and a better paced story than literally all of Valencia 2 thus far. I don't know what to say, other than that I was really kinda put off by the suddenness of it.

I decided, before charging to my final battle, and probably my doom, that I would upgrade my companions a little. Every single companion would be at least level 66, and the story companions would be level 67. This meant that I got to experience the Presidio Companion's promotion quest: which is quite undoubtedly the best part of the update. everything about it, from the backstory to the fight with Hande felt fleshed out and was a pleasure to experience.

Gasparde, my presidio companion, is super underwhelming of course, so... I suppose every silver lining has its cloud. In any case, I decided that I would now move on to 'The Machine'.
Bosun
Feb 25, 2012
329
SPOILER ALERT:

the following post will go somewhat in depth on the dungeon 'The Machine', and if you have not yet gone after it yourself then you should wait to read this post until you have completed the dungeon.

YOU'VE BEEN WARNED.

So: The Machine has a delightfully crafted feeling of deja vu, being very reminiscent of Beachhead. Before anything can even begin, however, we meet Phule, and learn some about his backstory, and the larger story of Kane and his Court. Its well written, but it feels as rushed and awkward as almost anything else in book 15, so... par for the course, I suppose. Its just out of place; It feels like this encounter and everything after should happen much later. In any case: I enter the machine.

Kane and Gazpaccio... well, you already know what I have to say about this. Its the same thing I have to say about our encounter with Phule: Excellent by itself, disappointing in context- But only because there is so little context! I won't talk at length about the cutscene, but I will say that I very much appreciate it when the gloves come off. Pirate101's story isn't all sunshine and rainbows, and It's nice to see that KI isn't afraid to make sure that the story carries a little weight.

Moving on: the combat.

I easily beat the first encounter. nothing special.

I was too clever for my own good, I suppose, on the second encounter. I assumed that more enemies would arrive on the destruction of all the machines, and I chose to attempt to fight the units on board before destroying the machines. Big mistake: on 2 different occasions, the battle angel hit me with an assasins strike (dealing 2K-ish damage and comboed immediately into a super bladestorm, which was enough to kill me from just about full health both times. quite frustrating, considering that I have 217 dodge, and getting 2-shot twice isn't exactly oodles of fun. Eventually, I decided that I'd go for the machines first and deal with the result, which was victory.

oops.
Bosun
Feb 25, 2012
329
So, with that wrapped up, I moved on to what I presume is the final battle. I presume this because... well, it's pretty obviously the final battle. Queen, Kane, Rooke 2.0, Deacon 2.0, Bishop 2.0, and 2 Marines. Quite the fight.

I steeled myself for a hard battle, worked out a quick little strategy, got brutalized in about 4 turns. An enemy that is superior not only in numbers, but also in both raw power and ability potential is quite frustrating to fight.

I decided that my next attempts would not be serious attempts to achieve victory, but simply to learn what I could about the fight. Cheesy, I know, but in a fight where you are at an objective disadvantage in every imaginable way, I don't feel bad about pushing my sole advantage: I can retry as many times as I like. I had hypothesized that the chess theme was far more than aesthetic, and... well, maybe a list would be a superior format.

Here's what I've learned thus far:

-Rooke consistently spawns away from the other enemies, most likely to avoid premature castling of some sort. Castle works just as it did in 'The Victory'.
-Kane moves sparingly, just as if he were the King in a game of chess.
-Kane's ability, 'King's Castle', seems to teleport Kane to Rooke in the event of either of them being damaged.
-Moving away from an armada marine triggers 'En Passant', which seems to be cheap shot that immobilizes you. yay.
-When a Marine makes it to the other side of the board, 'Courtly promotion' activates, which instantly makes the marine into a carbon copy of Queen.
-I immediately moved to the other side of the board, to see if 'Courtly Promotion' was something I could exploit. -I got 12 movement speed, and it seemed like nothing else.
-Courtly promotion is like, totally useless to you.
-Thanks, KI.
-Thanks.
-Kane is invincible, presumably just like Manchu is. I almost killed him, hoping that 'checkmate' might end the fight, but no dice. he got super low, then stopped taking damage.
-Thanks, KI.
Bosun
Feb 25, 2012
329
(Continued)

-Thanks.
-Queen has a team heal that Always criticals. Or at least, It's critical-ed 4/4 times.

And that's just about all I've figured out so far.

Conclusions:

-Seeing as I've done every single sidequest I could find, yet could not reach level 70, those of us who chose never to complete aquila to save the XP are at an advantage here. Every enemy is level 70, so a level advantage is just about unavoidable, unless you're prepared to do some extreme grinding.

-The fight is... a frustrating omen. Wiz took a turn at some point, where soloing was no longer an option. I legitimately see no way for me to win this fight, not unless I go back and start grinding pvp and captain blood for the flames.

- Every single enemy is objectively stronger than any companion. Privateers may not struggle so with the dungeon, due to scratch and the subsequent uber shields/heals, but everyone else better find a team to do it with.

-The fact that Everything in the battle follows a chess theme with the exception of Kane himself is very frustrating. Upon my second defeat, I hypothesized that the only way to win was to attain checkmate- by killing kane. However, his status as effectively immortal makes that quite hard. Now, I doubt that we have to kill every thing on the board before we can kill Kane: That would be quite ridiculous. No, I suspect that if we kill Queen then Kane will be vulnerable. There is literally nothing that would suggest this, but there is just as much nothing to suggest that many of the eccentricities of this battle so much as exist: there was no warning about en passant existing, and courtly promotion, while fitting the theme, was a nasty surprise with no warning whatsoever.

-A Crucial facet of the game that this battle has snubbed: Telling the player what powers an enemy has. By not explicitly listing 'en passant' as a marine's ability, for example, This power took me completely by surprise and ended one of my gambits before it began.
Bosun
Feb 25, 2012
329
Final Conclusions:

Its Rushed.

Its Hard.

Its Really Hard.

Its Really Rushed.

I'm glad we got It.

I wish they had released it in a more fixed form: Repeating dialogue and battle plague the world, dungeons and instances that should be private but that anyone can walk into at any time are broken and need to be fixed.

The Hydra still exists. That's not immediately relevant, I just think that the fact that the Hydra still exists is awful.

The Hydra still exists. That's not immediately relevant, I just think that the fact that the Hydra still exists is awful.

I didn't need to repeat that, I just chose to because things repeating for no particular reason is also awful.

Both Courtly Promotion and The Concept of Checkmate are irritating and make me want to play more online chess and less Pirate101.
(-Thanks, KI.)

The promotion quest is awesome.

As someone who's been using random companions consistently, the difference in power between some companions is becoming more and more glaringly apparent. I'm getting to the point where The absurd imbalances of companions is up there with my top 4 issues with the game. The other 2 issues are the Hydra, Repeating instances, and broken/public dungeons.

The Hydra still exists. That's not immediately relevant, I just think that the fact that the Hydra still exists is awful.

SEE?! It's annoying!

Anyway... Thanks for reading all that. Sorry for the 5 sudden messages, Things have just been quite hectic lately and I've been quite eager to get back to P101. I appreciate any and all thoughts any of you may have, dissenting or concurring. I'll make another post, probably a little more formal, and a lot more final, once I've got Kane's head firmly mounted on my ship's mast. Until Then... Au Revoir.
Bosun
Feb 25, 2012
329
Finally, my Pirate has defeated kane. It took hours of study, practice, doubloons, and attempts at the mechanical dirtbag's life to finally figure out the one true stratagem for beating kane:

Team Up.

Yessir, after soloing literally every inch of valencia 2, after forcing my way through every glitch, finding my own way through delightfully challenging battles, and using every bit of my semi-formidable cunning in my crusade against kane, I gave in. I thought that I could outplay my opponent; I thought that I could do it. Eventually, I reached my conclusion: The fight cannot be soloed. At least, not without wasting money on henchmen, not without the greatest gear and an ideal team.

I'm of two minds on this. First, I understand that P101 is an mmo. It is meant to be played with other people. Player interaction is the bread and butter of any truly successful mmo. However... making primary story content unsolo-able is... infuriating. fighting an opponent that is not only significantly more potent, but also has far more potential to become powerful in the fight, (courtly promotion) as well as straight up outnumbering you is simply not a realistic request of those of us that like a little solitude.

Believe me, I tried every gambit and tactic that occured to me. (freezing wave into fog into group courtly promotion, targeting kane for 'checkmate', hiding and group assasinating rooke and queen first, etc. When it came down to it, a single player simply doesn't have the firepower to put this battle under their belt.

Now, some things like the TOMM for example, I'm ok with. That is MEANT AND DESIGNED to be a group activity. A story dungeon however... that should be challenging- exceptionally challenging, in the case of kane, but not so difficult that success is infeasible.

The nature of the final battle is even more concerning to me as it does not bode well for the future of P101. I don't want every fight to be a team fight in the years to come, i suppose.

Anyway... thoughts?
Lieutenant
Mar 28, 2010
113
Blixet on Jul 10, 2016 wrote:
Finally, my Pirate has defeated kane. It took hours of study, practice, doubloons, and attempts at the mechanical dirtbag's life to finally figure out the one true stratagem for beating kane:

Team Up.

Yessir, after soloing literally every inch of valencia 2, after forcing my way through every glitch, finding my own way through delightfully challenging battles, and using every bit of my semi-formidable cunning in my crusade against kane, I gave in. I thought that I could outplay my opponent; I thought that I could do it. Eventually, I reached my conclusion: The fight cannot be soloed. At least, not without wasting money on henchmen, not without the greatest gear and an ideal team.

I'm of two minds on this. First, I understand that P101 is an mmo. It is meant to be played with other people. Player interaction is the bread and butter of any truly successful mmo. However... making primary story content unsolo-able is... infuriating. fighting an opponent that is not only significantly more potent, but also has far more potential to become powerful in the fight, (courtly promotion) as well as straight up outnumbering you is simply not a realistic request of those of us that like a little solitude.

Believe me, I tried every gambit and tactic that occured to me. (freezing wave into fog into group courtly promotion, targeting kane for 'checkmate', hiding and group assasinating rooke and queen first, etc. When it came down to it, a single player simply doesn't have the firepower to put this battle under their belt.

Now, some things like the TOMM for example, I'm ok with. That is MEANT AND DESIGNED to be a group activity. A story dungeon however... that should be challenging- exceptionally challenging, in the case of kane, but not so difficult that success is infeasible.

The nature of the final battle is even more concerning to me as it does not bode well for the future of P101. I don't want every fight to be a team fight in the years to come, i suppose.

Anyway... thoughts?
"...making story primary story content unsolo-able is.. infuriating." Kingsisle has always done this for years, take The Trial of Spheres, Mirror Lake and Xibalba as examples, really hard to solo and it's primary content .

Plus, any class can solo it pretty easily with the right gear (except for buc), I've seen swashbuckler and witchdoctor solo it with few problems. Heck, the witchdoctor didn't even have any companion deaths.

Even my swashbuckler managed to almost beat it (got down to a marine and Kane vs my pirate but the marine went for the promotion and became a queen so I ended up dying).

You also seem to mention frequently that you bring random companions, I'm not sure if you did this for Kane also but that might be one of the reasons why you struggle so much with it. If you ask me, the battle was a bit underwhelming, with a full team, it's way too easy just like The Tower of Moo Manchu. I was hoping the Kane fight would be as hard as Malistaire The Undying before his nerfs

Lvl 70
Pirate Overlord
Mar 16, 2012
10631
Blixet on Jul 10, 2016 wrote:
Finally, my Pirate has defeated kane. It took hours of study, practice, doubloons, and attempts at the mechanical dirtbag's life to finally figure out the one true stratagem for beating kane:

Team Up.

Yessir, after soloing literally every inch of valencia 2, after forcing my way through every glitch, finding my own way through delightfully challenging battles, and using every bit of my semi-formidable cunning in my crusade against kane, I gave in. I thought that I could outplay my opponent; I thought that I could do it. Eventually, I reached my conclusion: The fight cannot be soloed. At least, not without wasting money on henchmen, not without the greatest gear and an ideal team.

I'm of two minds on this. First, I understand that P101 is an mmo. It is meant to be played with other people. Player interaction is the bread and butter of any truly successful mmo. However... making primary story content unsolo-able is... infuriating. fighting an opponent that is not only significantly more potent, but also has far more potential to become powerful in the fight, (courtly promotion) as well as straight up outnumbering you is simply not a realistic request of those of us that like a little solitude.

Believe me, I tried every gambit and tactic that occured to me. (freezing wave into fog into group courtly promotion, targeting kane for 'checkmate', hiding and group assasinating rooke and queen first, etc. When it came down to it, a single player simply doesn't have the firepower to put this battle under their belt.

Now, some things like the TOMM for example, I'm ok with. That is MEANT AND DESIGNED to be a group activity. A story dungeon however... that should be challenging- exceptionally challenging, in the case of kane, but not so difficult that success is infeasible.

The nature of the final battle is even more concerning to me as it does not bode well for the future of P101. I don't want every fight to be a team fight in the years to come, i suppose.

Anyway... thoughts?
"The fight cannot be soloed. At least not without wasting money on henchmen, not without the greatest gear, and an ideal team."
I soloed it - without henchmen, with standard Moo Tower gear ( nothing from Moo ) and when my "ideal team" bit the dust I re-entered and used my secondary team.
Mind you, this wasn't my first time in the Great Machine, but I have heard of others soloing first time. I think you forgot to add one important ingredient to your list for soloing - Luck.
Gunner's Mate
Dec 26, 2013
214
Blixet on Jul 2, 2016 wrote:
Final Conclusions:

Its Rushed.

Its Hard.

Its Really Hard.

Its Really Rushed.

I'm glad we got It.

I wish they had released it in a more fixed form: Repeating dialogue and battle plague the world, dungeons and instances that should be private but that anyone can walk into at any time are broken and need to be fixed.

The Hydra still exists. That's not immediately relevant, I just think that the fact that the Hydra still exists is awful.

The Hydra still exists. That's not immediately relevant, I just think that the fact that the Hydra still exists is awful.

I didn't need to repeat that, I just chose to because things repeating for no particular reason is also awful.

Both Courtly Promotion and The Concept of Checkmate are irritating and make me want to play more online chess and less Pirate101.
(-Thanks, KI.)

The promotion quest is awesome.

As someone who's been using random companions consistently, the difference in power between some companions is becoming more and more glaringly apparent. I'm getting to the point where The absurd imbalances of companions is up there with my top 4 issues with the game. The other 2 issues are the Hydra, Repeating instances, and broken/public dungeons.

The Hydra still exists. That's not immediately relevant, I just think that the fact that the Hydra still exists is awful.

SEE?! It's annoying!

Anyway... Thanks for reading all that. Sorry for the 5 sudden messages, Things have just been quite hectic lately and I've been quite eager to get back to P101. I appreciate any and all thoughts any of you may have, dissenting or concurring. I'll make another post, probably a little more formal, and a lot more final, once I've got Kane's head firmly mounted on my ship's mast. Until Then... Au Revoir.
Can you just clear one thing up for me.... how do you really feel about the Hydra?
Lieutenant
Oct 11, 2012
108
I was also quite surprised to engage in the final duel with Kane so early as well. At least it's an update after 3&1/2 years. I personally soloed Kane with my brother, and I found it quite scary the first time. We had no idea to expect a deadly frenzy, and 4 of our companions died from that. However, I really enjoyed finishing up Valencia, part 2. I just wished some questions would have been answered, such as why our parents contradict themselves. Overall, nice job with the update of Valencia part 2, Kingsisle.

(P.S. PLEASE fix the Nuoro Mantle, seeing my body not intact is not something I personally enjoy!!!)
Captain
Mar 24, 2013
732
The Irony in Valencia 2 is, ship combat was not that hard.

However the battle there on land are unbearable,sometimes like the one in the promo quest. Like what is going on with those cutthroats, they super hit like crazy. This remind me of Azteca, back in wizards,every time I tired to beat the quest at the cave to collect something,the last cutthroat always beat my companions.
Bosun
Dec 28, 2012
361
1. I have never seen a non - moderator so dedicated to a thread. Seriously, can we get this guy a meddle for taking so much time to right these posts.

2. A lot of people are conflicted on the ending, especially with the scene after talking to Avery. It would be interesting to see your view on this.

That's all I really have to say, and see you in the Spiral.
Gunner's Mate
Dec 16, 2009
212
Blixet on Jul 10, 2016 wrote:
Finally, my Pirate has defeated kane. It took hours of study, practice, doubloons, and attempts at the mechanical dirtbag's life to finally figure out the one true stratagem for beating kane:

Team Up.

Yessir, after soloing literally every inch of valencia 2, after forcing my way through every glitch, finding my own way through delightfully challenging battles, and using every bit of my semi-formidable cunning in my crusade against kane, I gave in. I thought that I could outplay my opponent; I thought that I could do it. Eventually, I reached my conclusion: The fight cannot be soloed. At least, not without wasting money on henchmen, not without the greatest gear and an ideal team.

I'm of two minds on this. First, I understand that P101 is an mmo. It is meant to be played with other people. Player interaction is the bread and butter of any truly successful mmo. However... making primary story content unsolo-able is... infuriating. fighting an opponent that is not only significantly more potent, but also has far more potential to become powerful in the fight, (courtly promotion) as well as straight up outnumbering you is simply not a realistic request of those of us that like a little solitude.

Believe me, I tried every gambit and tactic that occured to me. (freezing wave into fog into group courtly promotion, targeting kane for 'checkmate', hiding and group assasinating rooke and queen first, etc. When it came down to it, a single player simply doesn't have the firepower to put this battle under their belt.

Now, some things like the TOMM for example, I'm ok with. That is MEANT AND DESIGNED to be a group activity. A story dungeon however... that should be challenging- exceptionally challenging, in the case of kane, but not so difficult that success is infeasible.

The nature of the final battle is even more concerning to me as it does not bode well for the future of P101. I don't want every fight to be a team fight in the years to come, i suppose.

Anyway... thoughts?
Eventually, I reached my conclusion: The fight cannot be soloed. At least, not without wasting money on henchmen, not without the greatest gear and an ideal team.

http://www.pirate101central.com/forums/showthread.php?59058-SPOILER-Pirate-101-Kane-Final-Battle-Solo-Run
Ensign
Dec 15, 2012
13
anecorbie on Jun 19, 2016 wrote:
The Unicorn Guardsmen have First Strike 3, this removes your hide, thus you don't get that x2 weapon damage.
If you use Black Fog, I suggest you take the time to use all buffs ( Shadowdance or whatever ) and any shields you may have from gear, training or pets. You don't have to worry about fog running out and those buffs/shields will help in the battle.
Did you enter the Duomo ( throne room ) at level 65? I found that doing at least 2 side quests before I did that ( and using the gold to buy tomes to level my core team ) made the battle easier on me and them.
It was nerfed from test realm, the Lucci battle and even the Trigante cellars have been reduced ( a bit ) in difficulty.
I'm finding the difficulty refreshing after all the easy dungeons we've out-grown in gear and strategy. It's time to grow again and re-strategize.
Esperanza Devereaux, level 70
And, yes, I soloed 99% percent of Valencia 2 ( Sole exception, The Great Machine )
Ah, thank you for this! I thought it was a glitch! I ran into the throne room head on and completely balked when I saw my shadows disappear! I depend heavily on them. Needless to say, I lost the battle. Now I can go in with a better strategy :)

Red Lenora Noble, Level 69
Petty Officer
May 27, 2009
71
Darkchaser12 on Jun 18, 2016 wrote:
Greetings!

Yeah, same here. Even my Argento dies too fast, and I gave her a lot of armor, dodge, and agility. Valencian battles are like this for me: finally winning with just a tiny amount of my health left, and all my companions are KO'd. I am spending too much gold to resurrect them, and the enemies are ridiculously OP. Their epic attacks take most of my health away, and it seems like my skills aren't working. I only survived the throne room battle by hiring a henchman. I NEVER do that. The unicorn guardsmen also seem to nullify black fog's bonus, making my crew and I just attack normally (glitch maybe?) I even get beat up badly by fish. Fish. KingsIsle needs to nerf/fix some of this. It is maddeningly insane.

- Katie Galway, Level 66
I feel your pain. When I went in the throne room and the guards attack were insane I was like I'm dead. Lucky me I had my best friends on so I messaged them. Said I may need help. They asked if they should port right as they said that two of my poor companions died so I said yes please. When my friends got there they said oh sorry I should have warned you about this room it's harder than Kane she said. And in my opinion she's darn right! So I did get though but lost three to four companions at least.

-Bold Ryan Richardson (lvl 70) and noobs.
Petty Officer
May 27, 2009
71
Blixet on Jul 2, 2016 wrote:
(Continued)

-Thanks.
-Queen has a team heal that Always criticals. Or at least, It's critical-ed 4/4 times.

And that's just about all I've figured out so far.

Conclusions:

-Seeing as I've done every single sidequest I could find, yet could not reach level 70, those of us who chose never to complete aquila to save the XP are at an advantage here. Every enemy is level 70, so a level advantage is just about unavoidable, unless you're prepared to do some extreme grinding.

-The fight is... a frustrating omen. Wiz took a turn at some point, where soloing was no longer an option. I legitimately see no way for me to win this fight, not unless I go back and start grinding pvp and captain blood for the flames.

- Every single enemy is objectively stronger than any companion. Privateers may not struggle so with the dungeon, due to scratch and the subsequent uber shields/heals, but everyone else better find a team to do it with.

-The fact that Everything in the battle follows a chess theme with the exception of Kane himself is very frustrating. Upon my second defeat, I hypothesized that the only way to win was to attain checkmate- by killing kane. However, his status as effectively immortal makes that quite hard. Now, I doubt that we have to kill every thing on the board before we can kill Kane: That would be quite ridiculous. No, I suspect that if we kill Queen then Kane will be vulnerable. There is literally nothing that would suggest this, but there is just as much nothing to suggest that many of the eccentricities of this battle so much as exist: there was no warning about en passant existing, and courtly promotion, while fitting the theme, was a nasty surprise with no warning whatsoever.

-A Crucial facet of the game that this battle has snubbed: Telling the player what powers an enemy has. By not explicitly listing 'en passant' as a marine's ability, for example, This power took me completely by surprise and ended one of my gambits before it began.
Yea i was one of the people who never completed aquila until the update.

Bold Ryan Richardson (lvl 70) and noobs.