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Xibalba - when challenging becomes abusive

AuthorMessage
Explorer
Dec 02, 2010
62
RottenHeart on Jul 7, 2013 wrote:
--> My major issue with xibalba was not the difficulty, but the time commitment required to solo it. It would be more reasonable (and exact same gameplay challenge) if xibalba was broken into two dungeons.

--> I agree that xibalba is much easier if you have some friends to help you. The difference between solo attempt and group effort is vast.

--> Some people on the forums report their ability to fly through xibalba solo. This could be empty boasts. They don't qualify their claims with the pets/gear/crown boosts they used. There is superior gear available in bundles, henchmen, elixers, etc. that can be used by those who are willing to throw money at it.

--> The only friends in the spiral that can help you with xibalba are those who have the quest (or completed the quest). Wizards that do not have the quest can not enter this dungeon. So.... all your level 80-something wizard friends are of no help.

--> xibalba is the final dungeon of the entire PvE game. Lots of players (ie: friends) stop playing their wizard once this is done. They move on to other wizards or activities. This also narrows the friends that might help.

--> xibalba is hardly like mirror lake with a crowd of people waiting to enter. Waiting for an actual friend to come online, or hoping to find a stranger to help can potentially take a very very long time. Not much gaming fun waiting at a dungeon entrance to ask strangers (that might never show up) for help.

--> xibalba is not a dungeon that many players enjoy doing repeatedly. It's not mirror lake or water works where people farm it for stuff. Some players might, but generally most won't. There isn't much point in farming xibalba. So again... the pool of players you can call on for help is very reduced compared to other dungeons.

--> What do you mean there is only one instance of xibalba? There are as many entrances to xibalba as there are realms. And there are as many instances of xibalba as there are players/groups that enter.

RottenHeart, Lvl 90
One of the few people on here that knows what they're talking about when it comes to Xibalba. I didn't find the dungeon hard either (compared to other areas in AZ) and you laid out all of the points perfectly, especially the third through seventh points! Heck, I only completed the dungeon once myself because I didn't see a need to farm it! There have been very few times after the initial release of AZ that I'd go over to the dungeon entrance to see if at least two other people are there so I could do it with them (due to boredom). I'd be switching realms for an hour before a give and leave, haven't been over there in months. All I've been doing is mostly gardening for amber.

Explorer
Mar 16, 2011
99
Dakota Death on Jul 6, 2013 wrote:
I love Azteca, especially the last few sections. It's my second favorite world after Avalon.

It seems like the people who are complaining want an easy solo. I'm sorry, but this is a multi-player game, and if you insist on doing the hardest dungeons solo it will be, and should be an epic challenge. I had no problem doing the entire game solo with the exception of a few instances. Xibalaba, like the Great Spire, Tower of the Helephant and Waterworks, is a rite of passage. There are only a few sections of the game that really press us, and one by one they are getting dumbed down - first Malistaire is DS, then Young Morganthe in AV, most recently Kensington (MB).

If you insist on everything being easy to solo for a casual player, it will be mind-numbingly dull for the rest of us. If someone has played 90 levels without making a single friend willing to help with one instance, I guess they need to hire henchmen, but seriously, it isn't that hard. If you ask around or wait on the sigils there are folks willing to team. It's ONE instance. You can do it!
i completely agree. w101 would be insanely boring if it was an easy solo.

Explorer
Apr 01, 2011
98
Before I started Azteca for the first time, I got worried after seeing so many posts about it being torture. To me, it wasn't too hard and I was able to solo just about everything ( I needed others to help with Belloq ) without henchmen. Like some of you have said, the problem I see in Azteca is the fact that it is time consuming. I also hate the fact that because Pirate101 was created, I rarely have any friends on anymore to help me. Before it came out the game was so full more realms had to be added, and now those realms have gone to waste as about half of the Wizard101 players have gone to Pirate101. The end of Azteca ( Floating Mountains and Twin Giants ) are always empty.

Geographer
Mar 12, 2013
923
Rebecca Bright on Jul 16, 2013 wrote:
Before I started Azteca for the first time, I got worried after seeing so many posts about it being torture. To me, it wasn't too hard and I was able to solo just about everything ( I needed others to help with Belloq ) without henchmen. Like some of you have said, the problem I see in Azteca is the fact that it is time consuming. I also hate the fact that because Pirate101 was created, I rarely have any friends on anymore to help me. Before it came out the game was so full more realms had to be added, and now those realms have gone to waste as about half of the Wizard101 players have gone to Pirate101. The end of Azteca ( Floating Mountains and Twin Giants ) are always empty.
Same here, and remember when you could see that your friends were in the quest line just ahead of you, and you could catch up with them in a few minutes and quest together?

Nope, catching up often requires hours of work in AZ because battles take a long time.

I've helped two friends finish the game and they've moved on. Never see them anymore. They play pvp and Pirate. That's it. I go to the busiest realm I can still change to, and sit in the Zocalo for 15 minutes and not a single soul comes by.

Nobody farming ML either. Full realm, prime play hours, not a soul.

Commons are still packed with idle folks looking for boys and girls, though. Some of them are even lvl 80+.

Me: "anyone want some xp and loot, we're going to farm in AZ"
Random promethean fire in commons: "Your gear is bad"

Explorer
Feb 06, 2010
98
gemstone2006 on Mar 10, 2013 wrote:
Just completed the Xibalba quest that completes the Azteca world in the spiral. I have to say that this sequence went far beyond being challenging - it was abusive. As a single player (Life School) it took over 6 hours to complete (no choice about stopping and coming back later since it is a dungeon type sequence) and forced me to go through about a dozen henchman in total to actually have a chance to win the series from beginning to end.

Since both Morganthe and Malistaire conveniently make an exit before the end, I assume folks at KI are planning on new worlds where they show up again. Hence a suggestion to the game designers at KI - please keep within some bounds of reason when designing future quests in future lands. Anything that requires in excess of an hour or so of continuous activity with no possibility of pausing the action for a return at a later time is too much. Creating opponent scenarios that force a single wizard to burn through vast quanities of henchman, especially in circumstances where finding allies to join in the fray are limited is too much.

Otherwise, thanks KI for another fun experience in Azteca!!!! Looking forward to see what you come up with for the next world .
It was hard but it only took my friends and I an hour and a half to do the whole thing. (And I don't think Azteca was a fun experience, nor were Zafaria and Celestia)

Defender
Jul 26, 2009
168
crunkatog on Jul 25, 2013 wrote:
Same here, and remember when you could see that your friends were in the quest line just ahead of you, and you could catch up with them in a few minutes and quest together?

Nope, catching up often requires hours of work in AZ because battles take a long time.

I've helped two friends finish the game and they've moved on. Never see them anymore. They play pvp and Pirate. That's it. I go to the busiest realm I can still change to, and sit in the Zocalo for 15 minutes and not a single soul comes by.

Nobody farming ML either. Full realm, prime play hours, not a soul.

Commons are still packed with idle folks looking for boys and girls, though. Some of them are even lvl 80+.

Me: "anyone want some xp and loot, we're going to farm in AZ"
Random promethean fire in commons: "Your gear is bad"
There is always someone saying its abusive, and Azteca isn't close. As a world, its easier than celestia was and its quite solo-able (Including the last dungeon).

This guys post made me laugh, its the most accurate thing in the world. Fights are not hard, they just take forever.

(Let me try, Your quotes are funny! ~ (Yours are better anyway))
"Me, Anyone want to farm some turquoise? We're going to Turquoise cave in Azteca!"
Random Promethean Ice: "Stuff doesn't drop"

Illuminator
Feb 24, 2009
1357
This dungeon really takes too long; and it is actually a little difficult. But it took me 4 hours. No dungeon should take that long. (There were 2 others, 1 was menu though. Level 90 menu storm. WOO :D) This dungeon needs to be shortened a little, or have the final boss drop crowns gear.

Survivor
Jul 20, 2012
2
Xibalba is the last boss of Azteca, (Aztec) Some wizards find it hard, Xibalba is a hard person to defeat because of Morganthe, and Undead Malistare, Xibalba cheats and uses different tricks to defeat enemies, so to every wizard that is soon going to be facing Xibalba and Undead Malistare and Morganthe, have faith and help Wizard City and the spiral survive in the rest of life it self and let it be the age of Bartaley (Sry I misspelled) (Ravenwood Tree) Have fath! -Sarai Lighttail, Katie Swiftdreamer, Eric Moonblood, Dylan

Survivor
May 21, 2010
43
look here. Stop complaining about the dificulty! I have soloed azteca and it didnt take me like 6 month or even 1 week and im . Did you expect the new world to get easy? Games get more challenging as they go on. Get a better strategy if you are having that much trouble. Nothing is impossible in this game. Stop complaining!!! it isnt that challenging. you dont need henchmen or any of that. i got by fine without them and am not even a teen!

Survivor
Jan 08, 2010
3
Xibalba is not as overpowering as some people think out there. I went into xibalba with 2 Promethean people and I was a lvl 90 and it only took about an hour and a half to finish the entire dungeon. If Xibalba is this challenging then I don't think Tartarus will be done as much when Aquila is released.

Geographer
Mar 12, 2013
923
Popzotz Unlucky Day and his oilcloth sidekick were tougher than most of Xibalba. The point is, the dungeon is only reasonable to do in a group of 3-4.

Anything else takes WAY too long. We got lives, families, jobs, school. If we leave to attend to our lives - we get to start over.

And don't knock the menu chatters in AZ. I can understand menu chatters in WC, KT, MB, even MS being perceived as weak or noob. Some of them undoubtedly have a lot to learn.

But by the time you get to AZ and you see a level 90 menu chatter, you're looking at someone who, because of their filtered communication and people's general scorn of younger players, has soloed much of what you did with all your friends.

This is a kid under 13 who has soloed much of the game, hit level 90, and you gotta respect that.

Delver
Mar 05, 2013
240
Challenging is one thing, I have no problem with that. I like a challenge. But I also like a challenge I have a chance to win. I haven't gotten as far as Xibalba yet...I'm still demoralized by the Boss Cilpalti (sorry about the spelling). How anyone is supposed to win when the boss can spam Dr. Von's Monster with no pip loss is unbelieveable. I started a thread wanting to know how people got through it. I used 6 henchmen and watched 4 of them die, then watched the other 2 die while I was dead. Not pleasant. Got no replies as of yet, I'd still like some input if anyone cares to reply. I'd be more than happy to join a crew and try it w/o henchmen, but I don't have any friends. I probably would if I wasn't so iffy about accepting friends. In the past, most of the friends I've accepted have asked me non-stop to 'port' or 'help'. Sorry, not going to happen. So if you see me hanging around in Azteca, I'll team up and give this one a shot. Guess it gets even harder. Oh well, so does life. Have fun ValdusHawkflame level 90

Survivor
Jun 13, 2009
2
Azteca to me it seems has gotten out of hand. since zafaria its gonna slowly less fun and i dont know if next world will even be worth it. on 3 out of 5 of my wizards i've stopped before zafaria. i've been playing the full 5 years that wizzy has been around and i've met some of my best friends on here but since everyone is either leaving because of difficulty, pvp, or p101 i've really had no choice but to solo and it takes forever. i'm stuck in pitch black lake and i dont even have much reason to continue. People have lifes and at least I dont have time to sit on the computer for hours to get a couple of quests done. Games are meant to relax you and let you have fun, and its starting to just stress me out. I think w101 should make an option that you can do a quest solo or with team and it would change the difficulty, just a suggestion. Happy questing!

Courtney starleaf lvl88
Sabrina willowthistle lvl61
Delaney mistbreeze lvl63
Emily nightgrove lvl62
Sydney Rainbow lvl74

Survivor
Jan 29, 2012
16
I made a help request in Mercenaries101 and we finished the dungeon in about a half hour.

Our tactics:
We had one tank (Someone who can take a bunch of damage, usually has good resist)
and one Damage Dealer (Usually one who has high damage - Storm/Fire)
And 2 other people who bladed the damage dealer and trapped the bosses.

This process worked very well because we breezed through each boss like it was nothing.

Geographer
Feb 19, 2010
935
If you have help I don't feel its bad at all. And even solo if you know what your doing and have the skill its not to bad either. I soloed the whole world a while ago when it first came out and I never thought it was anything to complain about, I see a lot more people on the forums saying it wasn't difficult compared to a while ago when it first came out. I guess I was right way back then lol.

Adherent
Jul 03, 2010
2634
lastdaysgunslinger on Aug 17, 2013 wrote:
If you have help I don't feel its bad at all. And even solo if you know what your doing and have the skill its not to bad either. I soloed the whole world a while ago when it first came out and I never thought it was anything to complain about, I see a lot more people on the forums saying it wasn't difficult compared to a while ago when it first came out. I guess I was right way back then lol.
I agree, as long as most can figure it out why make a world that everyone could get though

Personally it's not what I can "figure out" so I have choose to pass on it. As others had stated, it just gets to complicated for us and that = annoyance to me.

I have a lvl 90 Balance there I am going to leave parked and a Life which is my original wizard close to the end which I may complete the world with but frankly as game play steps up why bother. Hard as it maybe to understand for some of us this game play is stressful no fun.

Survivor
Jun 14, 2009
3
it is when people get over welmed

Survivor
Aug 25, 2009
40
i am doing this as we speak I am at the scream queen and I have her to 6k health but she keeps healing every time I attempt to hit she gets healed by minion and I have been at here for already over and hour out of this hour and a half dungeon with minions and soloing a lot it is a challenge but there was no one willing to help and when I went in before they fled before it started for the first boss

Richard ShadowWalker Level 90

Adherent
Jul 03, 2010
2634
best wiz ever on Aug 21, 2013 wrote:
it is when people get over welmed
I think that your sentence does explain how it is for some of us, Overwhelmed.

Illuminator
Feb 24, 2009
1357
Eric Ash on Aug 16, 2013 wrote:
I made a help request in Mercenaries101 and we finished the dungeon in about a half hour.

Our tactics:
We had one tank (Someone who can take a bunch of damage, usually has good resist)
and one Damage Dealer (Usually one who has high damage - Storm/Fire)
And 2 other people who bladed the damage dealer and trapped the bosses.

This process worked very well because we breezed through each boss like it was nothing.
Yes - But the average player doesn't know about M4H, do they? M4H/Central/Message Boards/Other Fansites make up a very minuscule amount of the Player Base; but most of my friends are stuck in their mid 80s. (Level wise, not age wise lol) KI should keep in mind that there are those that want to solo; and soloing should be challenging, but this is easy and way to long for the average player. (I had to go 5 hours straight, and I'm a hardcore player... We weren't that organized)

Geographer
Sep 07, 2011
823
"Our tactics:
We had one tank (Someone who can take a bunch of damage, usually has good resist)
and one Damage Dealer (Usually one who has high damage - Storm/Fire)
And 2 other people who bladed the damage dealer and trapped the bosses.

This process worked very well because we breezed through each boss like it was nothing."


That is the efficient way to do any boss fight. It's a shame that some people are so reluctant to group up and work together. There's a reason the schools have different specialties, and teams are the best way to enjoy this multiplayer game ;)

Adherent
Jul 03, 2010
2634
Gemma Luna on Sep 3, 2013 wrote:
"Our tactics:
We had one tank (Someone who can take a bunch of damage, usually has good resist)
and one Damage Dealer (Usually one who has high damage - Storm/Fire)
And 2 other people who bladed the damage dealer and trapped the bosses.

This process worked very well because we breezed through each boss like it was nothing."


That is the efficient way to do any boss fight. It's a shame that some people are so reluctant to group up and work together. There's a reason the schools have different specialties, and teams are the best way to enjoy this multiplayer game ;)
What is a shame is that every player does not have access to this "group" to do these difficult instances with. Many of us have been forced to solo or not play the game at all because of lack of this type of friends. Just because you found helpful friends doesn't mean we all can. Those of us that don't play the game the best are also kicked to the curb, does that mean we shouldn't be allowed to play the game. A lot of wizards that manage to get though certainly don't want to repeat it. If you don't run though it when it first comes out it empties out, aka, ghost realms. Just to name a few examples.

Many things can come into play in this multi player game = just because you say it is doesn't always make it work that way for everyone.

I can remember from my WW days that these Groups were also specific on which schools they would allow to run though the instance with them. Back then - being Life I was always "accepted" but other schools and especially menu chat wizards were not. Of course after a few runs though I became the healer and the dealer and most weren't to happy with that, no one was defeated when I was in there with them but still I didn't remain in my healer role.

Survivor
Jan 19, 2010
34
Xibalba should be more of a challenge, with 4 wizards it is not that bad. Soloing it is nearly
impossible though. For those having a hard time finding friends, you can always check the commons there are always friendly people there. And by the time you are promethaen you should have a good amount of friends, if not a full list. Which means there will almost always be some one to help you, (keep in mind there are people that need to finish this dungeon to) especially if they don't have their gear they wanted. So for those soloing next time take a friend rather than making unessecary complaints on this website. KI has enough on their minds, so dont trouble them with these rediculous reasons to change a dungeon (dungeons are supposed to be hard by the way [btw]).
Thank You

Explorer
Apr 17, 2011
80
Welp thanks for giving me something to enjoy Azteca with guys...

Armiger
Feb 25, 2009
2425
Northlite on Sep 3, 2013 wrote:
What is a shame is that every player does not have access to this "group" to do these difficult instances with. Many of us have been forced to solo or not play the game at all because of lack of this type of friends. Just because you found helpful friends doesn't mean we all can. Those of us that don't play the game the best are also kicked to the curb, does that mean we shouldn't be allowed to play the game. A lot of wizards that manage to get though certainly don't want to repeat it. If you don't run though it when it first comes out it empties out, aka, ghost realms. Just to name a few examples.

Many things can come into play in this multi player game = just because you say it is doesn't always make it work that way for everyone.

I can remember from my WW days that these Groups were also specific on which schools they would allow to run though the instance with them. Back then - being Life I was always "accepted" but other schools and especially menu chat wizards were not. Of course after a few runs though I became the healer and the dealer and most weren't to happy with that, no one was defeated when I was in there with them but still I didn't remain in my healer role.
You are correct, in your assessment of a lot of players not wanting to repeat Xibalba.

I have also gone through dungeons strictly as a healer. I also have some really great friends and recently did Xibalba with some of them but not as a main healer even though I was the only life wizard in the group. We did have one other that had a Life Mastery Amulet and between the 2 of us, we kept our team healed when needed but we also did some heavy damge. We were all able to support each other for the damage needed and had a great time doing it.

Yes, as with most of the second arc, Azteca has fallen to the ghost worlds.