Hollow Halls feel like a chore

[royaldragonmaster1000]

I've seen a lot of arguing over the perceived difficulty of the new dungeons. I don't think the new Hollow Halls dungeons are "difficult" so much as they are tedious and annoying. Its honestly disappointing because they have some really interesting design, but dealing with the skeletal hordes for so long really takes all the fun out of it for me.
(For reference, I am max level and playing solo, with 3/4 Hallow Halls completed, with no real interest in bothering to complete the fourth.)
Getting swarmed by trash mobs is not my idea of a good time. The ridiculous amount of enemies are annoying to fight if you aren't using an AOE build, and quickly become tedious if you are. They aren't any fun to fight, considering most of them are either boring skeleton clones or boring wolf clones. FFS we already had skeletons: why add new, less interesting ones? They also don't FEEL like they're leveled the same as other enemies; they take way more hits than they should to die. Others have pointed this out also, so I know I'm not just imagining things. Its just tedious fake difficulty.
The length of the dungeons is too long, and makes completing them very irritating. I have to be sure that I'll have several hours to burn, stock up on arrows and potions, and still end up having to restart the dungeon if my game crashes. Its really not enjoyable to me at this point.
I enjoy the puzzles, and I think some of the new enemies are interesting, I just wish the dungeons were shorter and they traded in spamming the basic boring skeletons for a smaller number of the more interesting enemies - including the skeletons we already had. As others have said, these really feel like they're intended/scaled for co-op, which is disappointing seeing as the Devs said they intended for this to be single player with optional co-op play.

[Faffrd]

Yeah, Hallow Halls is ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥. It's not fun, its not hard, its a generic way to make the game longer. Sliding down poison halls, losing all your stamina to die from something over and over again, be it poison, an enemy or my own stupid fall damage. I'm not 10 any more. I don't have the time to play a part over and over and over again because I haven't memorized where to jump or whatever. It's already a grind for resources, now I have to waste my time memorizing crash bandicoot type ♥♥♥♥? Nawssir. this is starting to feel like work, and I don't play games to feel like I'm working. It's just not fun.

[Asmosis]

Overall i had a lot of fun exploring the new dungeons, my only complaint would be logging in back at home rather than last respawn point you visited.

The first dungeon was probably a bit overtuned on the amount of hostiles that spawned but by the final dungeon is was spot on for a challenge dungeon. Overall they took ~1hr each with 2 on the last dungeon because i returned to home to drop stuff on and the whole dungeon reset (didnt log out) so had to redo it.

If you feel like its a frustrating waste of time, dont do it. Go back at a later level or skip it entirely, it's side content not main content.

[OneCarbon]

Your all crazy This place rocks and the difficulty is right there. :)

[Asmosis]

The thing is if you're properly prepared/geared (and either patient or twitchy) they aren't that hard.

You can either move slowly only drawing 2-3 enemy aggro at a time safely picking everything off, OR you can try to glide past everything and just blitz your way through.

The problems come up when you face a challenge you're not good at, but stubbornly refuse to use the other tools at your disposal i.e. you suck at dodging attacks but insist on being "melee only" or something. I can't parry to save myself, so i use other tools instead of dying repeatedly while trying to parry then calling the game bad.

[Hondo]

I haven't done any of the Hollows yet, but from what I have read, I'm pretty sure I can make it through as a solo player. A lot of people have said that the dungeons are big and can take a long time to get through and there are lots of mobs. That's fine. The problem that I have with this is there are no "save" spots. I've played other games with this type of setup and I find it extremely frustrating. Nothing annoys me more than clearing an area out and almost getting to the end of a run and getting killed and then having to start all over again. I don't mind having to "redo" a section, but not the whole thing. Having 2 - 3 "save" spots would be a nice addition.

[Storm Reaver]

The new dungeons have both save spots and repair stations. :P

[Danne]

I think its quite fun, atleast me and my friend had lots of fun the other night. BUT we both had the feeling that the difficulty was mainly due to hordes of mobs, not mechanics so much and it felt kind of cheap making it harder just by increasing the number of mobs that you fight at once. Ofc i might have missed something and we didnt complete it due to its getting late and too many beers.

[Hondo]

Again, I haven't actually gone through any of the dungeons yet, I'm just going with what I have read. My understanding is, if something happens and you end up logging out of the game for some reason, you lose all progression within the Hollow dungeons. Is that not true?

[Asmosis]

Originally posted by Hondo:

Again, I haven't actually gone through any of the dungeons yet, I'm just going with what I have read. My understanding is, if something happens and you end up logging out of the game for some reason, you lose all progression within the Hollow dungeons. Is that not true?

That's correct. In fact the dungeon will start resetting (from the beginning) while your still doing it if you take your time. I left the last one ~1hr in and the first half of it had reset including the puzzle doors (i had a backpack filled with loot and the last flying puzzle coming up).

Need to make it clear the save points are just respawn checkpoints. If you log out it will kick you right out of the dungeon (fully reset). So you'll probably want 2 hours spare when doing one for the first time. So long as you bring extra food death isn't a big deal as the checkpoints are about 10 minutes apart.

Once you know what your doing you can get through them pretty quick. I can do them in about 40 mins now with a mana-steal fireball mage and a bit of pickaxe tomfoolery.

On your first runs i'd recommend crafting some campfires to take with you and having the 1pt perk that gives +5 minutes incase you die to fall damage/deadly shroud in the flying sections.

[royaldragonmaster1000]

Originally posted by Asmosis:

The thing is if you're properly prepared/geared (and either patient or twitchy) they aren't that hard.

To be clear, I agree! Its not that its hard! Thats not my problem with these dungeons. Its that it gets tedious really fast.

I haven't faced any true difficulty outside of the bosses (who are, y'know, supposed to be difficult to beat) but getting swarmed by skeletons isn't interesting after the fortieth time. There's no interesting trick to dealing with them; either its a slog if you don't use AOE, or its boring and repetitive if you do. Half the time I don't even really take any damage from the swarms; I just find a ledge they can't reach and blow them up with fireball.

It just takes so long to get through the dungeons, and the number of enemies just serves to make it take longer without making it anymore interesting. One or two swarms, strategically placed, would be way more interesting than all swarms all the time.

[Hondo]

Respawning before you even finishing a run through. I'm a slow player, so I really don't like that idea. LOL

[Asmosis]

Originally posted by Hondo:

Respawning before you even finishing a run through. I'm a slow player, so I really don't like that idea. LOL

It's because if you move far enough away from a world chunk, it will reset after some time and due to the gliding sections the last dungeon is *really* huge.

[Camelslob]

the only thing that kinda pissed me off was opening the last chest in the kindlewastes hh and getting a blue >_>
should be a guaranteed legendary

[i_got_blisters]

If the loot were better, it would be worth the chore. I just finished the last dungeon and only one f'ing legendary weapon dropped. Ignited Shortbow. Garbage! Scrap.
That sucks beyond sucking knows how to suck at being sucky!

[SirBenOfJam]

Tedious is a great word to describe them.