Mythos Preview: Six to Twelve

Posted by Stropp on February 8, 2008

It’s been a few weeks since I posted the previous installments of my Mythos adventures – apologies for that – the last few weeks it seems that every time I’ve sat down to do this report, there’s something else fun to write about.

I was going to title this post Mythos 6 – 10, but I got a bit carried away and leveled up to twelve. It’s not hard, Mythos is one of the games where I can easily get to the end of a quest and tell myself I have time for one more.

Speaking of leveling. At this stage it remains reasonably consistent. My experience seems to be that it takes two or three dungeons to crack each level. Part of this is because the mobs you encounter appear to be locked to your around your level if you are in an appropriate level dungeon. Generally there are also one or two outdoor areas that you have to travel to to reach the dungeon.

Each dungeon is set to a level range which you see when you are in the world travel view. I actually haven’t tried a dungeon who’s level range I have exceeded yet, but I suspect the maximum level of the critters would be the maximum level of the dungeon.

I noticed that at around the level seven and up dungeons a few things started changing. First, there were more tough mobs in the dungeons. These weren’t the bosses that had to be defeated for the quests, but were random orange, blue, or named mobs. They were also quite a lot tougher to take down.

At around level eight or nine, these ‘elite’ mobs were also starting to appear more often in the outdoor lead-up areas. My Gadgeteer didn’t have too many problems with these guys, she’s getting pretty good at kiting. It’s the other ranged mobs that she has a problem with. Fortunately I haven’t run into any ranged elites yet. I suspect I will at some point soon.

Unfortunately, these elites don’t always drop the loot according to their difficulty, which can vary quite dramatically. I’ve had a number of fights that were long and drawn out and quite difficult, where only a couple of pieces of vendor trash were dropped. A little disappointing after the effort.

The second thing that I’m now seeing is master chests. There are chests dotted all over the place in Mythos. Some of them are locked and need a small key to get into, but most are ordinary chests that don’t need a key.

The master chests sit at the bottom of dungeons and drop some really nice loot. They also need a master key to be opened. The master key will drop off a mob somewhere in the dungeon.

I found out the hard way, that you need to clear all the levels of the dungeon. I didn’t for one quest because it was getting late and I wanted to finish. I got to the bottom level, killed the boss, and then came upon the master chest, and no key. I didn’t end up going back to look for it, but I kicked myself anyway.

The last thing I noticed was that the drop rate of green, blue, and purple items has increased. That’s only to be expected though I wouldn’t have thought to see any blue or purple items at this stage of the game. Not a problem though. I’ve now got a lot of blue armor equipped.

As is normal with these things, the rarer drops tend to be for other classes. That’s not so bad since they sell to the vendor for a lot more than the white items. That alone has boosted my wealth, I’m up to around 70 silver now. It’d be a lot more, but I bought a couple of blue items which at the time wiped me out.

I only have one beef with the way items work for the Gadgeteer. I’ve come across a few dexterity weapons that have much better stats than my existing weapons. (Gadgeteers focus on the dexterity attribute, Bloodletters on strength, and Pyromancers on wisdom.) I picked up a very nice and deadly bow, and a couple of single wield pistols that combined would be better than my trusty rifle. However, for some reason, the Gadgeteers offensive spells – including Piercing Barrage and Napalm – only work for rifles.

The word on the forums is that there are other classes in the wings that bows and pistols are meant for. That certainly gels with the information Max Schaefer provided in his interview – new classes are on their way. The problem is that it does seem to unduly limit the Gadgeteer. It would be nice not to be confined to a single weapon type and have range of weapons to choose from, as the Bloodletters and Pyromancers do.

Aside from that single issue, the beta still seems to be shining. I haven’t really found any more bugs. The only occasions have been where a mobs AI seems to have gotten its knickers in a twist and the mob has continually advanced and retreated on my position until I got its attention or killed it. Oh, and there was one time when I killed one of these confused elites and it dropped its loot in a place I could not access. Some nice gear dropped too. Doh!

I’ve also finally moved on from the starting zone, Stonehill. There were a ton of quests there, and I picked up at least a couple dozen maps as well. I reckon I could have stayed there for another four or five levels, but I was getting itchy feet. So I hopped on the transport and ended up in a new town, looking at three NPCs with yellow question marks.

And that’s where I am now. I’m probably going to pull back a little on my Mythos game time for a bit, but that’s not due to any fault in Mythos. I’ve got a few things I’d like to do in other games over the next couple of months. I’m definitely going to step back into Mythos, it’s a really great game, and one I’ve been having a lot of fun in.

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