Thrundrarr's "kill quest"

[Al-Khwarizmi]

The problem with the quest as it was some prereleases ago was not the difficulty of the quest in isolation - is that it was much much harder than the following Thrundarr's quests, and by the time you completed this one, the others were boring and meaningless. For a PC that has gone as far as the TotHK or possibly the ToEF before finding their random monster, the ogre cave is a joke.

Say what you want, but having a sequence of quests that must be done in order and where the first one is way way harder than the others is just plain bad game design.

That said, in the latest prereleases the quest is just fine IMO. The problem was in previous prereleases but it was solved, I don't think the quest needs any more tweaking now.

[Tyrnyx]

I personally think this quest is great at it's current place.

I think it would be interesting for an additional random monster quest to be added at the end except make the monsters really rare ones. Like a bounty hunt. Reward: Visit the Smith for an upgrade (+2,+2) for a piece of armor.

For the final quest: instead of the greater demon have it be something rare but random. I almost always sac the demon to avoid stat loss more than anything else...

Anyway, just my thoughts on the Dwarven quests as a whole. I love the rewards but they are unnecessary so if you get something rare just keep movin'!

[Tannis]

I think this is one of the weaker quests in the game. I would prefer that the quest target be a named monster (buffed too) that appears somewhere in an already explored CoC level. I'd gladly reexplore a bunch of levels if finding the target was ultimately a guarantee.

[mjkittredge]

You should read through the RFEs then. It used to be able to request a Ki Rin! It was made easier then easier then easier! Every time TB dumbs the quest down, the slippery slope continues and people continue to post on the forums to get it made easier still.
I like overcoming problems. I don't like considering 'whine on the forums until it gets changed' a satisfying way to overcome a problem in any game, and this quest, above almost everything else in the game, has been whined to a pathetically easy state these days.
The key is, for me, realising that it's not a quest you have to do. You'll have the same issues if you believe finding an AoLS for Khelly is compulsory - it's much better (and more fun) to learn to play without it sometimes and appreciate the variety.

@Yourmum: My whole point about variety is that overcoming the pyramid, griffyard, and arena without the wand are actually interesting challenges to tackle in the early-mid game, and the solutions will vary depending on your class and your adventure so far! I appreciate what you're saying about the wand being valuable, but that was my entire point!

I haven't heard anybody whining about this or anything else. I think you are just an overreacting masochist. And I really don't see how the quest has been dumbed down. You seem to not understand, the quest is meant to be gained by as early as level 6, and part of a chain which penalizes you if not done in order. TB put it in meaning for you to get it and do it and the others, but then it falls victim to horribly bad luck RNG which in many cases makes it very hard if not impossible to do without screwing up the other quests or using up too much time before the double background corruption rate kicks in. I think it's unintended consequences which undermines how the creator wanted the quest chain to go. I don't think he envisioned a level 30 character fighting the Greater Demon attacking the town because the RNG was ridiculous.

You're in the minority here, in fact the only one I've seen who wishes it were harder or thinks it's great that many times it's impossible to do because the damn monster just won't spawn. It's kind of pointless to have an occasionally near impossible quest given - why be given a task you potentially can't do? It goes against the spirit of the game and having quests at all and doesn't make sense. I hope with the deluxe version you get an option to turn up the randomness and difficulty so you can drive yourself crazy.

Maybe as an alternative make it a tough fight, like each time it's a unique monster with an entourage of guards but guaranteed to spawn. I'd rather risk dying than have that quest undone for half the game, taunting me and my completionist nature. Hahaha RNG won't let you complete it, haha! So annoying! Like a game where the 1 guaranteed climbing set gets destroyed and you can't get another one to get the RotHK

[Evil Knievel]

"Kill a random monster" is in my opinion bad game design in itself, because it is a lazy way to generate a boring/grindy/pointless/impossible quest, which does not give the player a clear direction other than hoping for getting lucky.

I'd think that a proper quest would be better, even if hard.

EDIT: I should say that it is good that randomness has been reduced, because it shifts the quest from grindy/impossible to just boring, but it does not solve the problem of the quest making me as a player not happy in the slightest.

[magpie]

I don't like considering 'whine on the forums until it gets changed' a satisfying way to overcome a problem in any game, and this quest, above almost everything else in the game, has been whined to a pathetically easy state these days.

... You're kidding, right?

The problem with the quest was not that it was easy; the problem was that it was a bad quest. It was either ludicrously easy ('kill an orc'), or far too grindy for that point in the game. I play ADOM to have fun, not to give myself an RSI.

As for the quest not being compulsory; there's not many quests in ADOM at all, and not being able to complete this one blocked about half of the quests that are in the game. In that case, what's the point of having any quests in the game at all? You might as well go back to prehistoric ADOM where there weren't any quests, and everything 'hadn't been whined to a pathetically easy state'.

(I will say, I'm still on pre20; I understand it's better in recent versions.)

[_Ln_]

Is this still raging?

There are simple steps to solve the problem - someone should go to RFE section, create a new RFE with topic "Change Thrundarr's first quest (again)" with the following text:
"Please make first quest to kill <foo> boss monster and set a flag to make the very next boss monster appearance to be <foo> and boost the chance of boss monster appearance (for the duration of the quest) several times in order to ensure its generation in reasonable future. <foo> type should scale to the PC's level at the time of getting the quest."

This will mostly ensure reasonably quick quest completion, tie boss monsters to quests and ensure reasonable amount of challenge depending on the PC's level.