In my day, we had to walk uphill to school, both ways

[Sidestepper]

Just for fun, I'd thought we'd kvetch about some of the hilariously hard aspects of early beta. Some things were easier, but oh wow were somethings much, much harder.

Bleaty: This guy used to have health similar to any normal boss. Totally unbeatable without CYDSTEP. Made the random dungeons a game of Russian roulette.

Complicated Tasks 5: Oh my god. The Berserkers had tons more health, did more damage, and you had to do this with a Wizard instead of a Sorcerer. Plus, we couldn't prep altars, so you had to scum for Taurog to even have a chance.

Deep Swamp: You had to fight a Naga Monk boss. He had something like 80% resistances, plus the usual weakening. Oh, and there was a quest to beat him purist with a Monk.

Bandits Mark II: After their first revision, Bandits permanently reduced your resistances by 20% per hit. Tomithy Longdall knocked off 80%. Half of Naga City was figuring out how to get past him without taking a hit.

Gods: With a few exceptions, they sucked hard.

[Darvin]

Bleaty: This guy used to have health similar to any normal boss. Totally unbeatable without CYDSTEP. Made the random dungeons a game of Russian roulette.

To be fair, once they made PISORF pierce magic resistance that also was a viable Bleaty-killing approach. Massive resists could also do the trick, but back then Binlor wasn't around and ENDISWAL was much weaker.

Complicated Tasks 5: Oh my god. The Berserkers had tons more health, did more damage, and you had to do this with a Wizard instead of a Sorcerer. Plus, we couldn't prep altars, so you had to scum for Taurog to even have a chance.

Let's not forget that the frozen trolls had 75% both resists and significantly higher damage, and there were frozen corpses everywhere. This was... not fun.

Deep Swamp: You had to fight a Naga Monk boss. He had something like 80% resistances, plus the usual weakening. Oh, and there was a quest to beat him purist with a Monk.

No, the purist Monk quest never entered deep swamp (thank goodness). And actually, he was 90% both resists, was blocked by a point of no return, and he was the second of two bosses, and after defeating the first boss you were hit by unblockable poison and mana burn, and fortitude potions only cured 3 layers of weakening back then.

Of course, back then the piercing wand just caused fireballs to ignore magic resistance entirely, so the level was quite stupid in that respect...

Bandits Mark II: After their first revision, Bandits permanently reduced your resistances by 20% per hit. Tomithy Longdall knocked off 80%. Half of Naga City was figuring out how to get past him without taking a hit.

That's when the community really discovered the power of Tikki Tooki.

Gods: With a few exceptions, they sucked hard.

Don't know where you're coming from with this. In the class days, we had some absolutely wicked combos with GG and Dracul in particular. Mystera was actually incredibly powerful before she got nerfed and then largely ignored for several months. Really Binlor and Earthmother were the only gods who were lackluster on arrival and left to stagnate for a prolonged period before they got updated (still not entirely happy with EM, to be honest, but she works).


Anyways, it's not like we didn't have our upsides either. Stacking Orc Conversion at 100 CP a pop, 33% Dragonshield, +3 base attack per level triswords, the original Ying/Yang dungeon, classic monks... ah, the good old days.

Heh... you know that originally Humility was a repeatable boon?

[The Avatar]

And so was Drac's blood curse. Blood curse + Blood Power = invincible fireballing gnome wizard with crappy stats!

Deep Swamp... Now that's something I want to forget. You guys forgot to mention its structure and monsters too. It was like a combo of Ick and Slime Pits monsters where everything was craped into one-space hallways.

For Complicated Tasks V let's not forget the boss had double health and two DPs.

Also, DPs didn't reduce damage. And Platemail didn't exist.

[Lujo]

God, the complicated tasks pt. 6 made me start posting.

Horatio had mana burn, so a playable Gaan'Telet run was one where you found Soul Orb, otherwise not so much.

The Getanadafix dungeon spawned all sorts of plants.

[Sidestepper]

Oh man, I forgot about the druid boss spawning barbing bushes. That could create completely unwinnable situations and there was usually nothing you could do about it.

As for the primordial gods, I remember Mystera sucking hard until Mystic Balance was created. Her other boons got upped around that time as well. Her old boon set was just a bunch of crippling curses that cost piety to get, things like gain +1 mana but all monsters gain 15% to both resistances or something like that. Binlor had a bunch of janky stuff that you would maybe want to use once but had nothing worth staying for. Taurog was always average. Having the Cliffstmper Boots removed and its powers distributed amongst the other items helped enormously. Old GG and Dracul were awesome.

And let's not forget the inventory restrictions. Pain-in-the-ass microrules for each class that weren't documented on the Kingdom screen and had to be memorized to plan around. Back then, the Monk was considered low-tier, even with his old starting resistances because, because he carried gear like a wizard.

There was also a dark age when dying in the dungeon meant that your locker prep was lost forever D:

[Lujo]

Yes, do you remember the time when there was no locker? Seems like it was only a month or so ago

And there was a time where the boss at Gaan'Telet could kill you at any time at all ^^

[fall_ark]

Heh... you know that originally Humility was a repeatable boon?

My only regret is I only played once before it was nerfed.

I still flashbacks of that one update where ENDISWAL regens monsters...or was that just a nightmarish dream of mine?

I remembered my Hard Gann-Telet run happened right after the Whurrgarbl change (Used to be, what, +1% damage per kill?), and I didn't see the update announcement. I was completely baffled by the new and amazing Whurrgarbl. Ah, good times.

[Abraxas]

Mystera was actually incredibly powerful before she got nerfed and then largely ignored for several months.?

I don't seem to remember such times. Anyone care to enlighten me?

[TigerKnee]

The very first Mystera had this self-sustaining combo.

First off, Mystera gave you piety based off numbers of spells cast, not MP spent. With 3 MP Halpmeh this means ridiculously piety gain real fast.

1) Gain more max mana (there weren't any "increasing exponential costs" boons at this point of time, it was a constant number piety -> max mana)

2) Once you reach a certain amount of MP, you could use Refreshment which at that time, refreshed full MP in exchange for healing all monsters.

3) That means you can basically reach a hilarious amount of MP easily, like 30-50 high. My browser constantly crashed doing this because of the memory leaks involved.

[The Avatar]

Although the old mystic balance and crystal ball were broken. I had a Wizard in DL who's only kills were the bosses.

Also, remember the strength potion PISORF bug? That was AWESOME.