I have spent many long days and nights pondering and debating and complaining online about it, but I've come to the following conclusions regarding each labyrinth segment, which I shall detail below with some suggestions to improve them:


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Lab 1 is a good introductory laby. My only nitpick might be how straightforward and simple it is as a 'puzzle' once you know exactly where to go, and yet I'm not sure if this puzzle is obvious to new players who don't know where the first key is. Sure you can pop on the forum and see but that kind of seems like cheating?

Still, there's no real issues here.


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Lab 2 is another good lab, although there's no real indication that you're supposed to go to the shopkeepers to get mini quests for the keys. Maybe if the tavern room opened directly into the starting room and the barkeeper could see you and just tell you "my companions each have a key, solve their problems to complete this lab" or something.

My only other nitpick would be the shopkeepers making a mad-dash to close their doors when you're trying to hand them the item they want, and this could be solved by just getting rid of their 'close this door' logic, but that's a really specific nitpick.


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Lab 3 is where things start to get a bit annoying; I would say this is simply way too frigging big and has very little room for error concerning the tools. If you can handle the first few hallways, you can absolutely handle the remainder, so the length of this lab is just tedium instead of challenge.

I'd suggest either straight up shortening the length of the entire lab so there's only 5 hallways instead of 9 (and only 5 tool doors), or instead open up the path between halls 3 and 7 so there's a bit more freedom in moving around and reduce the number of tool doors so there's a surplus of tools versus doors.

Maybe also put a little inscription next to the first tool door with just a number, for how many tools you need to get to the Keeper at the end? Just a few thoughts. Lab 3 is one of my least favorites, because it's ultimately boring.


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Lab 4, if anything, is obscenely easy if you just avoid the mage or kill the mage away from any of the knights. By this time you should be able to do the bonus Sewer 1 area so you can have pants full of Rat Prince eyes and it's trivial to eat one or two (if you even need to bother).

Lab 4, if anything, could stand to be made a little bit longer and a little bit tougher, though I'm not certain precisely how... All I know is the spellcasters in 3 are harder than the knights in 4. If you can clear 3, 4 is a joke.


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Lab 5 as well is kind of easy because it's short.

My one real complaint here would be to give the ladder in the no-magic area some light of its own so you can see the exit if you go in without a torch by accident (frankly I think most ladders in the game should have their own light source; at least enough to see the ladder itself and the surrounding tiles).

One of the reasons why it is so easy is because of the grave discrepancy: iirc in Merc2 every grave looked alike and there was a puzzle to walk a certain number of steps from the well to find the grave that went underground, which meant there was some trial and error and fighting undead above ground. Then the grave in the south west was also identical to the others, so after getting the skeleton note you had to do some more trial and error and fight additional undead.

In its current state you can beat Lab 5 with only 5 cups of water, maybe 6 if the lord regens too fast for you. My suggestions are either to revert things to their Merc 2 "riddle" state, or to extend the underground area a bit and give it some mild light sources, then add additional undead you need to toss holy water at where it isn't impossible to see them. It's kind of hard to make this lab challenging with its gimmick, but in the current state of the game if you can beat lab 3 you can beat labs 4 and 5 with zero issues immediately afterward.


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Lab 6 is fine as it is, though I do wish the infrared potions were easier to drink -- I drank them recently for a change and it kind of makes the lab really cool instead of just blindly fumbling in the dark. The problem is that there's zero indication that they damage your HP when you consume them, so it's very easy to straight up die-with-no-save by accident (as I also have done, and it sucks).


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Lab 7 is where we first hit a massive road block in the form of the golems.

In lab 6 you can get away with probably about 90 weapon skill no problem, which you will naturally fall into having as you gain exp from Sewer 1 and the previous labs. Lab 7 however expects you to suddenly have a weapon skill of at least 140 and you still risk getting chunked at hard by the golems' obscenely high weapon value compared to your meager armour.

To make matters worse, even if you think "okay I just need to beat this first golem and I've beaten the lab", there is still a chance you will run into two golems at once later on, and you will have a very, very bad time and are pretty much guaranteed to die. So suddenly doing laby after laby with only brief breaks in between, you now have to grind for friggin ages to be able to handle this labyrinth.

Puzzle-wise it's also simultaneously straightforward yet easy to eff up. The Ice Gargoyles seem to have really bad eye sight, so it's deceptive how close you need to be to actually start telling them the password, and if you say it too far away they just won't hear it. But if you're too close they stun you and obliterate you and then you die because text doesn't process while stunned. Cool.

I would sincerely suggest nerfing these golems down to early Captain and severely reducing their implicit weapon value. These golems are harder than the ones in Lab 10. I would also give the ice gargoyles much higher perception and infrared or something so they can see and hear you from far outside their aggro radius. Or perhaps change the floor tiles within their aggro radius so you can tell where the line you can't cross is...?


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Lab 8 is awful.

The golems are copies of their lab 7 counterparts but now in swarms of up to 6 at once. Even with a group you need at least two gpots per member (which are hard or impossible to get at the intended rank), and if anyone dies you need to immediately drop everything to recover their things and quit the lab to get new gpots and grind some more.

My suggestion with these golems is to also nerf from Major down to early Captain, and severely reduce their implicit weapon value; they can still be copies of the lab 7 golems, but as it stands fighting them isn't fun, it's just thumbscrews for over an hour straight. The thieves and grolms can stay as-is, though if the grolms have implicit WV I'd consider lowering it a bit as well so you don't get utterly steamrolled while you're stunned.

I'd also like to mention that the trees here obscure all members names and HP% so it's very difficult to keep track of who is fine and who is dying. I don't know if its possible, but it might be wise to put the names and HP on a higher draw layer so they aren't obscured by in-game objects.


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Lab 9 is fine, although some of the true/false switches turn into a bit of a guessing game. The pent value ones are kind of just throwaways that are hard to memorize and harder to find out yourself, and its often easier to just set the ones you know are true as true and then sequentially flip the remaining switches on and off until you hear the door open.

I would suggest making the books themselves respawn after only 1 minute so that doing this lab as a group isn't as tedious or time consuming. It would also be nice if the doors could be opened from the inside without a key so you don't need to hot-potato the key around in every room without someone accidentally having to start the whole lab over.


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Lab 10 is not bad in itself, but the first two areas are frustrating.

Area 1 (spring) is frustrating because the trees obscure your vision. This could be solved by giving the trees a half-sprite (even if they're just cut-off popsicle sticks) like most walls have. Area 2 (summer) is frustrating because the Archmages simply have way too much Mana or their heal is too powerful - they aren't a threat in the slightest but they just heal to full over and over and draw the fights out much longer than they need to be. Both areas also suffer from '1 tile wide syndrome' where playing as a party is made tedious for little reason.

I'm also not a huge fan of the grolm traps effectively stunlocking you for a while, but I assume it's premeditated revenge for future arch harakims and sorcerers. All in all this lab seems easier than lab 8 aside from the grolms hitting like trucks.


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Lab 11 is a bit weird... In a way it seems easier than 10 (which I reiterate, is easier than lab 8), although I suppose it comes down to your class and your build. If you can handle the first barbarian you can handle them all, and fighting multiples at a time isn't that big a deal if you can curse them or were forced to solo lab 8.

I'm not sure I'm a fan of the blind tiles obscuring important rooms, but it is what it is; on the whole this lab is fine and it fits in with the others with a simple puzzle you need to solve to complete it.


====

Finally, Lab 12 is aggravating for all the wrong reasons.

It is entirely up to RNG whether you breeze through this lab or are stuck here forever, and I understand why that is but I'm not sure I agree with it. Navigating this lab as well is just a long and tedious process instead of anything challenging, and the tink tink tink TINK TINK sound from mining for such a long time aggravates my tinnitus and drives me bananas.

To make matters worse, because this lab was designed the way it was, and because it's entirely "possible" to only run into a few enemies, the dwarves are obscenely powerful in a number of ways that can strictly roadblock you and wreck you unless you pause to grind for another eight to ten hours, or happen to have an endless supply of ishtar scrolls.

My sincere suggestion for this lab would be to keep the general idea but redesign it so that navigation is not dictated solely by mining. Tone down the dwarves a bit and have them occasionally appear in groups of one or two naturally as the lab progresses, so that you know what to expect while mining and aren't set up to fail if you find three in a row while clearing dirt piles. Perhaps this lab can be made up of hallways with minecart tracks and large side-areas dedicated to mining, and perhaps there could be hidden chests with either singular copies of the gems you need or extra copies of the pickaxes you need to progress. This would ease the tedium and provide alternative ways to tackle the labyrinth instead of strictly having to just watch your character punch a wall for up to two hours straight. And, since the dwarves would hypothetically be available in the wild with a different layout, the RNG could be eased up a bit so you're more likely to find what you need instead of just fumbling around for an increasingly aggravating period of time while your fourth gpot dwindles and you scream in frustration that you found your fiftieth dwarf. Not that I know what that's like.

I also might suggest putting an arch shrine for mercenaries somewhere in the entrance area in case you accidentally skip the one in lab 11. It would suck getting trapped here as a mercenary.


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I apologize of some of this comes off as agitated, but some of the labs in their current state are just frustrating instead of engaging or rewarding...

I've put together my own little hypothetical lab 12 map as a hypothetical redesign to show what I mean. Below are some images; first are zoomed in and second is to scale. I have taken liberty to double-up the surrounding wall around the labyrinth to keep any light from bleeding inside.

On the left is the general map and how it would appear, and on the right is the gem layout; fairly similar to its current version.



The start area is in the upper right, same as currently. The red cross is where you would enter the labyrinth at. Above the red cross would be a small room with the arching shrine in case mercenaries missed it on lab 11. Below the red cross would be an obligatory tavern and exit.

To the right of the red cross are three shops:

- A general store with one green dot
- A weapon store with two green dots; each merchant offering different weapons
- An armor store with three green dots; split up into steel, emerald, crystal.

Below these three shops is the entrance to the proper labyrinth. The beige lines around the map would effectively be mine cart tracks, and the dark yellow dividing lines would be the overhead mining beams propping the walls up. Ideally these beams or most of these beams would be no-sight to divide parts of the area up. Next to this antechamber is another shop, this one offering the sticks and bronze pick heads to get you started.


Below this is the first area with rubies, and the labyrinth proper broken up into five effective sections similar to how the current Lab 12 is. The purple dots littering the map would be dwarves - as I said previously these dwarves would be toned down from what they currently are since you are expected to fight them more frequently during the labyrinth, and their fights increased in numbers until you fight two at a time, and then three at a time near the end of the lab.

At the end of the first minecart track would be a chest, and this chest would contain a ruby with a two-hour recharge timer. This is to give the player the item they should be looking for so they know how to proceed into the next section of the labyrinth, but leave them to have to find the remaining gemstones them self. Ideally as well each pedestal they need to slot gems into would have a description about a color of dust around the slot, so you can tell at a glance what kind of gemstone is used to unlock the door.

You can also see there are small open squares inside the walls. Each brown dot would contain bonus materials such as picks or pick heads for the current room so that extensive mining won't risk breaking the picks without backups. I neglected to place dots for the existing chests with pick heads for each new area in them, but those can be placed on the opposite side of each door as they currently are in the current iteration.

Each yellow cross would be one of the poles, surrounded by a 3x3 open space.

Finally, you may notice in the amber area that there is a dwarf tucked away inside the wall -- this dwarf would spout the solution to the labyrinth in incoherent babbling ("Rubies, Amber, Amethysts and Jades... Clockwise, he says! Clockwise!!"). I'm not certain if the current iteration of the lab has a solution hidden somewhere, but I'm not sure how players are expected to know how to solve the final room?

The blue cross is the exit portal.



Anyway, I feel this would make the labyrinth section more engaging and less tedious. It helps that you feel like you're progressing, know where you're going, and don't have to rely exclusively on a walkthrough to barely be able to tackle the lab.

\o/

I wouldn't mind if labyrinths were made to be more intuitive. Like many other areas in the game, they are presented in an extremely cryptic way; your only general idea is that you have to do something to get keys, to then open a door and fight the boss. Some labs are pretty straightforward, and with simple exploring and messing around with the environment you can figure it out on your own. However, to a new player this could prove troublesome in certain labs.

Lab3 indeed feels somewhat tedious, however making a lab shorter does involve having to use less boosters (rpots, spells) to get through, which for a builder might be a different design decision.

I could imagine multiple deaths in lab5 before you realize you can kill the undead with holy water, or by forgetting to buy a torch. In lab6 you could end up going the wrong way and visiting the undead lord without knowing about the staff's existence. Fortunately, there's still players around willing to explain how these work, as well as guides online (which I wouldn't consider cheating for sanity's sake ).

On lab7 and 8, I do agree that the power spike is quite significant considering the previous challenges. However, by changing your strategy a bit, you can ignore most of the golems in these.

As a champ merc, I managed to solo both lab7 and 8 using rpots and ish spells. In lab7, the only golems I really had to kill were the entrance one and last boss. Going on slow and escaping golems (fightback off), I rushed to poles and berries, and recalled if I got caught. They wouldn't hit for too much with ish MS up. I believe I ended up with a golem following me to gargs, but gargs don't go aggressive if a golem fights you, so it's completely possible to just ignore the golem and rush in while speaking the passphrase.

For lab8 I remember using 2 rpots, 3 charges of ish bless, prot and EW and 6 charges of ish MS. Having 2 sets of spells and mana pots would definitely help. I rushed to the grolm traps on slow, ignoring any golem in my way. I used ish prot exclusively for grolms, and updated MS whenever it got low. If multiple golems caught me, I'd recall then and there, but if you roughly know where to find them, you don't end up with too many following you. When you exit the traps, the golems that were following you will have returned to their original position. Dealing with the thieves gets trickier. What I did was try to rush inside the house, waiting for door to close, then fighting the back thief with chalice. In all 3 houses I ended up fighting both thieves simultaneously, but if you have mana pots, you should be fine. After getting the 3 chalices, rush into the shrines, ignoring golems in the way as per usual. Finally, rush into the yellow house; golems can't enter this one. I did have to save the last charge of MS and EW for the final golem. I got close to death a couple times when turning in the chalices, both times I had 3 golems on me while recalling, with more ish MS this would be safer.

It was a rather tense run, but I did go somewhat unprepared. Even then, it's still possible to pull off, even as a mere merc soloing it on rpots. It's probably even easier on other races. I still agree that it's quite a difficulty spike compared to other labs.

Lab12 is indeed a nightmare, dedicating the entire place to the chore that is mining, and throwing magens at you every now and then. Especially the RNG factor makes it potentially frustrating. I do like your suggestion for the area, the mining aspect of it remains but at least you know where you're going.

All in all, it's also probably possible to just grind pents or abandoned town a lot, until you can reliably deal with the area's threats. But let's be honest, grinding pents or AT is rather dull and boring, and we'd rather run the lab for that power-up ASAP

I would guess that most players are here for nostalgia. So keeping the labs as they are would fit them.

The game has already a lot of extras to make game life easier, like rpot and gpot chests, spiderheads, AT. It's way easier these days to get a high rank. And plenty more to do too.
Lab 3 a bit long? Lab 7 a bit difficult with those enemies? Every part of the game has its challenges. As it should, otherwise you could just have a pole in temple and have an instant warlord. Game would be boring.

You could see labs as a straight path to arching. That it should help you in a logical way to reach that. If you talk about new players, then they won't be able to make a char that way, so that won't fit.
You could see them as a challenge you have to overcome before you are allowed to arch. Having a difficult or lengthy lab does fit well with that idea.
And since we all (most) are experienced players, a bit of a challenge should be welcome, I would say.

About the cryptic parts of the game: I think those work fine. It often requires help from others. And that encourages teamplay. And teamplay often leads to more fun.

Well, it's not that the labs can't be challenging, but their current "difficulty curve" makes me scratch my head.


Lab 3 is harder and more time consuming than Lab 4 or 5.
You aren't necessarily too weak in 3, but you're limited by your resources. It either takes forever, or you over-grind and turn it and the following labs into jokes.

Lab 8 is harder and more time consuming than Lab 9 or 10 or 11.
You are too weak and need to stop to grind. But if you grind until you can handle several golems at a time, suddenly the other three labs are jokes.


If these specific 'road block' labs are intended to be challenging, their challenge undermines the challenge of the labs you can access afterward.


I'm also of the likely minority opinion that penting or AT should be supplementary content and not "what you're supposed to do." If I can pent to make lab 7 and 8 easier, then I can just keep penting until they're both a joke. What's the break-off point supposed to be? Is it intended behavior that instead of feel challenged by the lab, I just grind until that challenge is gone?

I will not be looking at any lab changes until after the completion of the current Champ Quest.

Many of your comments are valid and a few may have missed the intention of the original lab makers, where possibly the intention of the lab was to be something different as opposed to something harder.
My scope for making wholesale changes is limited but I will have a look at some of the suggestions made.

Just one comment on lab 12, at some stage in the past where we had wide spread corruption of some areas of the map, lab 12 was badly hit. Instead of replacing it as it was, we left large sections as clear walk ways to help speed up the grind.

I would guess that most players are here for nostalgia. So keeping the labs as they are would fit them.

The game has already a lot of extras to make game life easier, like rpot and gpot chests, spiderheads, AT. It's way easier these days to get a high rank. And plenty more to do too.
Lab 3 a bit long? Lab 7 a bit difficult with those enemies? Every part of the game has its challenges. As it should, otherwise you could just have a pole in temple and have an instant warlord. Game would be boring.

You could see labs as a straight path to arching. That it should help you in a logical way to reach that. If you talk about new players, then they won't be able to make a char that way, so that won't fit.
You could see them as a challenge you have to overcome before you are allowed to arch. Having a difficult or lengthy lab does fit well with that idea.
And since we all (most) are experienced players, a bit of a challenge should be welcome, I would say.

About the cryptic parts of the game: I think those work fine. It often requires help from others. And that encourages teamplay. And teamplay often leads to more fun.

Edited to remove external link. Posted blocked.

I find there's a fine line between cryptic and genuinely bad design.

There are many things in the game that are abstract but it is often self-contained or hinted at through the process of following other hints. You can puzzle out what to do in certain situations without having to be told, while asking for a global hint from other players can be a point where you simply can't figure out the process of hints and need assistance.

Some situations, however, are hinted at poorly as if to attempt to pad the length of the process through obscurity. Knowing there is something you must do that you would never logically attempt is itself a hint of the process, and withholding that as well to obfuscate and pretend everything is an elaborate puzzle, is often frustrating instead of engaging or fun.


An example I can pull from, for this "fine line", is the Magic Maze. It is a simple puzzle, made simple by its hint, which is obscured by a short riddle. These pieces work together to provide a simple "ahah" moment when you unravel the hint and understand how the Magic Maze works.

Now, let's imagine if the Magic Maze were presented without this hint. You are tasked, with a number of tiles of different colors, to navigate this maze without a frame of reference for what the tiles might mean or do. Some might easily pick up on the abstract of red = danger, but from a general visual frame of reference, nothing prevents your character from walking on red tiles whether clicked or on the shortest route to your target location. Without this hint, a player is at a much greater risk of walking on a red tile and immediately dying and losing everything they have. While the trip to recover it is not far away from the spawn point, the message that they can simply lose everything they have on a whim is a potent one, and something that can easily drive a player to quit the game early and quickly. It is however entirely possible to ask for help, and players who know what the colors mean can offer their wisdom quite easily.

But now, let's go a step beyond. The concept of color is itself also a hint - each tile of a different color behaves differently and it can be guessed or brute forced. So, let's instead make the Magic Maze just a series of rooms without color. All tiles are grey but behave differently per room. You can still navigate this maze, and you can still ask for help from other players without problem. The maze is made cryptic as possible, and it is a puzzle that takes a lot of time or a simple chat message to solve -- "Zig-zag south-west two rooms at a time"

But it can be made more cryptic. Rooms themselves are also hints - that each room of 3x3 tiles behaves differently. We can remove this as well and leave just a large spread of grey tiles that do different things. It is still solvable through trial and error, and the solution can still be requested by asking chat... So what's the problem here? Would or wouldn't peak puzzle design just be an abstract room full of tiles that might kill you, blind you, block your path, or do nothing at all?


Pendantics aside, let me share my tipping point from the other day.

In Castle Quest 1, you very early on come across a door like any other, but no key to unlock this door. To the south is a sign, and the sign hints(!) that there is something behind it, and you can clearly see the sign can be 'used' and will produce a key.

South of this sign is a red tile, obscuring the path to the door behind it. There is no hint of what this red tile might do, but general referential hints from The Magic Maze offers an idea: it will likely kill you instantly.

So you take your key and use the door, and... it does not work.

Further exploration of the previous rooms shows there are corners you can possibly enter, but they are solid. You can feasibly try to see if any wall tiles are fake, but you turn up empty.

So at this point, I ask for a hint, because maybe I'm an idiot. I've been given no tools to tackle this door, no way around this door except to possibly walk on the red tile.

My hint is to use a lockpick, and that I need a mod of 150 lockpicking to be able to open this door.


This is my tipping point because this is obscenely frustrating design on almost every level. You are not supplied a lockpick in this area. You are not given any hint in the door's appearance. You are never before this point required to have raised lockpick for any reason whatsoever.

Is this good design? Being forced to ask for help, being told you're an idiot for wasting your time, being told you raised your character wrong and need to grind some more to beat "the puzzle" ?

I quit.

This is an old post, but I read it just now. I think this thread is good and makes a good point. I had a discussion with someone today about redbrand hideout or whatever it's called that led me to a similar conclusion. Everyone has been telling me to go to the redbrand hideout (RB?) to get rpots and gold rings and such. I don't know where it is but someone gave me a pretty good idea today. I did not go there though and I will explain why.

When that person asked me today if I had done it, I said no. I asked if I could do it and they said maybe but it's tricky. I said is it something I can figure out or am I just going to die from traps there unless I know where they are? I don't mind figuring things out, but the penalty of death is extreme. Once someone helped me get all my belongings back from mad hermit and that made death not very painful. The last week, there is usually only one other person online or I'm alone. If I die, then I will lose all my stuff.

When I think about doing labs, it is scary. I don't want to die because of some red tile that was unlabeled or whatever. I will lose all my stuff and, from what I gather that is not such a big deal for everyone because they have numerous "mules" who hold backup items. Some people had a mule per ishtar scroll. I have seen maybe 5 ishtar scrolls in my time here. I have never successfully gotten my own greenling eye essence. It took me 6 hours to mine my first huge sapphire on gold. Today I had to sell titanium helmets from the temple and things I could get around town so I could afford a weapon. If I walk into a trap, it's not fun. It's just disheartening. I think this is what makes me want to wait for other people so I can do labs with them instead of trying them on my own. That spoils the whole puzzle side of it because there is nothing to figure out - they just tell me what to do. There has got to be a middle ground between risking death and undoing hours/days of work vs. not having any puzzle to figure out.

I don't know how you could do it, but perhaps the first time someone does a portion of the labyrinth or a new area, they can't lose their stuff. When I solve a puzzle in real life, I usually try several times and fail. I don't feel like that is how this game works, though: each failure is probably 24 hours or more to recover from.

Along the same vein, there probably need to be clues. On the second part of the labyrinth, it is confusing that you have to talk to people behind the doors. And it is confusing that what they ask for, you need to pay attention to. A lot of non-playable characters say stuff to me all the time like "do you know about emerald caves?" (everyone in town) or "watch out for trouble around here/from shiva/the path/etc" (everyone else in town). I pretty much ignore what they say unless they are on the /data list. In the fifth part of the labyrinth, there is a scroll that drops and I always read those. I can learn to listen to people, but I'm just glad someone helped me with the labs. I'm actually also not glad because it would have been fun to figure them out. I feel like I'm quite overpowered now as a major on the sixth portion of the labyrinth (I helped someone complete it at barely first lt) and therefore should not have too much trouble. However, there might be deathtraps, so that's no guarantee.

In summary, I think:
1. The risk of death is just too high to solve the puzzles and so you wait for someone else who knows the puzzle. We might as well not have the puzzles which is unfortunate because some are clever (like the carpet in the fourth part of the labyrinth) There should be some minimizing of this penalty for new people at a minimum.
2. There need to be some kind of clues. Maybe there is even someone in each part of the labyrinth whose whole job is to give some kind of hint when asked. Like in the fourth part of the labyrinth, he could say "see what items are usable" Or even "Around here, we sometimes sweep problems under the rug" or something like that. Maybe there is a time limit from hint to hint so it doesn't spoil it. I would be willing to do some work on this. For example, the first part of the labyrinth has the key in a fire that you would not normally walk by. How long do you think it took me to figure that out? We will never know because my group didn't know what to do and got help. How many people figure this out originally? It seems like a wasted opportunity.

I am somewhat worried about doing labyrinths alone, however, I will probably not have a choice as nearly all players are major general and up. I have seen some people doing labs online but most people are not making new characters. I would like to figure them out on my own or with my group the first time.

Hello Friendly.
I am online for a few hours almost every day. I have seen you progressing and not tried to add anything unless you ask.

I'll tell you a few things that may help your journey...

First off, it is more than possible to start with a brand new character having no gear, scrolls, or potions and complete to Warlord without a single death. 99.9% of those Labyrinth deaths you are fearing are actually just being killed by monsters that are too strong for you. Actual Death traps that kill you instantly are Very rare in this game and for the most part reserved for high levels when you should know what they look like and how to avoid them. That being said...

If you take things in the order that the game has designed it is somewhat linear, and your progression will keep you stronger than the monsters so you won't have any sure or instant deaths in the Labyrinth or anywhere else for that matter. You will have to do some "grinding" to go into certain areas at levels higher than the monsters. I personally don't see it as a "grind" but as another enjoyable part of the game I have loved for a very long time.

If you ever get stumped or to a point of frustration you can be sure anybody that plays this game will help you. The magic of this game has always been its community.
Just let people know you want the fun of solving the "puzzles" and only ask for help on what has you stumped.


Just as an example so you can see it is possible...

Almost every player here once started with a Private that had nothing.

I started Zraaq at Private after being away from this game for nearly 20 years. (I think it was in the Temple as they didn't have the training grounds yet.) I had never seen all the new areas (and traps) of Aranock. Zraaq was my ONLY character so I built all my gear and supplies from nothing. I soloed every area in the game except Cohor's and the top 3 boss areas, taking him from Private to Warlord.

I did ALL that with 0 deaths before I built any other character or any "mules".
I find it a very enjoyable challenge.

It can be done.


Z

Thanks for the words of good cheer. I agree that it is possible to make it warlord. I have been penting a lot while I'm online and I know I can do that indefinitely and eventually I will reach the rank of warlord (pending resolution of my internet situation). I guess I can just leave all of my items in the bank when trying a new area and then it won't really matter if I die.

I will try the next few parts of the labyrinth alone and see if I can figure them out without hints.

When you have more than 5K luck, you will get saved from death. Your luck will then be halved.
You won't lose any items, gold, or such at that moment.
Best ways to get luck:
1. Donate as a private.
Maybe you're lucky and see some old useless tit gear in temple. Max 20K luck can be gotten this way. It will tell you when you have reached the maximum luck from donating. Donating as a high(er) rank will require massive investments and are currently virtually impossible.
2. Garna loves spider heads.
NPC Garna lives next to the Strange Forest entrance, on the south side. She loves spider heads. She gives you 150 exp and some luck per head. Good to a look boost.
3. Abandoned Town (AT)
Abandoned Town is an area with ranks Major and up. A good alternative to grind for exp, instead of just penting. Every rank has 4 rooms of 9 skeletons of that rank. Kill them all in 1 room and you will get 1 grave. In that grave is a scroll that gives exp and quite often some luck too. It will take some time to get good luck this way. But when you do it this way, you will get stronger too, what will also prevent deaths
4. Random Dungeon.
In Random Dungeon 1 there are luck scrolls to be found on the graves...if you're lucky. When you can easily wipe out those monsters, and have an outsider eye (amulet that helps getting good sense magic) this is a good way to get your luck up. You will need some real life luck to have scrolls drop, but getting 5K luck in an hour or less is quite possible. Do it right, and with some luck, and you get rich and get some stat scrolls too. Well, luck scrolls seem to drop more often than stat scrolls, so you might be done quicker than finding a stat scroll

To check your luck, give 50g to the beggar. He lives outside of the temple, south exit, then move east.

Good luck! (pun intended).

PS: I have seen someone get grabbed by the gods when stepping on a deathtrap. So he was saved. There is one kind of death that just kills you. Just don't die on lava tiles....I guess when you're burned there is no body to be saved by the gods There will be a grave with your stuff nevertheless

I did AT for the first time yesterday. I guess I'll just get a lot of luck before I try a new area. Thanks for the information!

Labs and other stuff are a bit too cryptic IMHO.
Sure there are things that are easy enough to ask for, and asking does indeed help with camaraderie, but this game would cause a rage quite if you were a brand new player, like "Friendly", or a forgetful old player, like myself, and had to brute force getting through this game.

Where is the key in Lab 1?
There is 0 indicator or hint that I found that tells you where it is. Consult a map for that Ah ha moment.

What about the well east end of town, Where is the hint that you are to deposit a specific amount in there? and then find out that you will get murdered.

Going down a ladder in M1 to Mine 2 to get creamed, oh, but you go down another ladder in M1 to get staff.

I think there are many things that so many take for granted, but a brand new player would find just frustrating.

These call come from a time (1990s) in which you get punished for not exploring everything ;p
If anyones played V3 think of the Vamp quest *shudder*

In terms of the labs, i did like Zarro's retake on them but at the same time i see nothing wrong with current ones (cept 12...)
Comes down to learning them, yeah 2gpots on first run of lab 8 if you are new.
But I've done lab 8 on all 3 classes in ~20minutes at 2nd lieutenant with nothing but Rpots/Ishtar scrolls.

Dont believe labs are suppose to be smashed out 1-13.
I usually do 1-7 then Pent/UII before 8-12