Good Morning Folks! I have to be perfectly honest… I thought I was done documenting camps. Yesterday I crafted my final level of flame altar and was going to spend the evening poking around the previously deadly shroud areas. However, before sitting down to do this, I saw this video over on YouTube reporting to have the “fastest legendary farm ever”. I am a sucker for this nonsense and given that I documented two other really good farms, I thought I would at least check this one out. Turns out that this is maybe the single best farming spot I have experienced.
The video title was not hyperbole in the least. The farm originally comes from this video by 04AM, but since Glitchiz is the video I first saw and it covers ONLY this one farm I figured that would be the one that I embed. I am uncertain what level of shroud you need to have, but you likely need to have at least found the Kindlewastes spire and have the ability updraft to make it straight forward. During the video, he covers the entire setup of the farm and some tips, like things I did not even think about such as using a grappling point to make getting to the chest a bit faster. I’m legitimately hoping that this is going to be the last time I feel compelled to document one of these chest farms, but in truth pending you want max-level gear, this is the only one you are going to need.
Essentially you are going to fly West South West of the Kindlewastes Ancient Spire, which I have highlighted on my map to show in reference where the spot is. The red bag icon marks where the location of the chest actually is. The only gotchas with this camp is that it isn’t necessarily entirely safe. There are the “giant pterodactyl bird” things roaming around this area, and on very rare occasions one will get close enough to this area to aggro. So either you need to build yourself a safe “hidey hole” that you can duck into around the flame altar, or you need to be able to safely kill one of these. You can see in the first screenshot of this post, that the chest will be sticking half out of the sand by a dead tree on the edge of a set of desert ruins that have no spawns in them.
The above screenshot of my chest represents an hour of farming at this location. I did not keep anything below legendary quality and skipped over most of the duplicates. Additionally, I ignored all of the set gear because I already had two full sets of everything. In truth had I kept everything it would have easily filled up two of the max-size chests, and I got more than a full set of each of the types of armor. What was interesting about this location is that the legendary drop rate chance was so much higher than either of the two camps that I had spent time farming. More than that I saw a lot of items that I only ever saw in epic rarity from the other camps. I am pretty sure this chest is capable of dropping every single legendary weapon in the game. At none of the camps have I seen any legendary shields or rings, and the only thing of the sort I have seen is a magical shield bracelet thingy from the first camp.
What was awesome though is that the camp allowed me to pretty much swap out all of the gear that I was using for an upgrade. The White Wolf Sword has a very bright blue glow, but more important than that is all of the +Shroud Damage it is capable of doing. Similarly, the Ritual Tempest Wand is awesome for all of the +Shock Damage it can deal. Then we have Wolf’s Snarl Longbow, which I had only ever seen a purple version of… and has the highest damage of any bow I have seen in the game so far. That said there were so many drops that you could pretty much find a weapon to suit whatever playstyle you are going for at this one camp. The Iron Cave is still probably easier to get to early on, but after seeing the output of this camp I would completely skip the Cliffside camp that I talked about yesterday.
I have some thoughts about where I would love to see Enshrouded go as a game, but I will probably save those for another day. I hope to try out grouping with some friends over the weekend where I will very likely start a brand new character. I legitimately hope this is the last one of these camps that I feel like I need to document, as spinning the loot table over and over is getting a bit boring.
Good Morning Folks! After having some luck with the chest farm that I showed off yesterday, I decided to try another one that I have seen in literally every YouTube video talking about Level 25 Golden Chests. This one is located in the very Southeastern corner of the map down by Scatterbone and one of the Sun Temples. Of note… this is the Sun Temple which has the legendary glider that I talked about yesterday. It is going to require you to have Flame Level 5 and you are also going to have to take a bit of a leap of faith. There is a ledge just above the deadly shroud where the chest is located, and the easiest way to get there is to run along the cliffside to the west of Scatterbone and then drop down and glide into place.
When you get there the chest is going to be exposed on a pile of rubble, and there is plenty of land for you to be able to set up a Flame Altar just outside of the range of the chest. I am guessing that the original intent for this chest was to be buried down inside of the rubble and that you would have to bomb or dig to expose it. Unlike the chest I showed off yesterday, this one does not require any lockpicks. However that said it seems to have significantly worse drop rates than the Iron Cave chest. The majority of the time you are likely going to get white and blue items, the occasional purple, and very rarely legendary orange items. What is interesting about this farm however is that it has a completely different batch of armor sets, this time the level 25 versions.
Elder Armor Set
I thought I would take a moment this morning to go over the three new armor sets that I found, and photoshop together a little image that shows all of the items as well as the appearance. First up we have the Elder set, and this seems to be the set that I see most of the YouTubers wearing. This is primarily designed for the wand and stave wielders and buffs mana regen and magical damage. It also offers high magical resistance but low physical resistance.
Eagle Eye Armor Set
Next up is the Eagle Eye set which is very clearly designed for ranged combat and specifically folks going down the path of the bow. Most of these armor sets have a bit of a natural glow to them that helps illuminate dark areas, but this one unfortunately has the least amount of glowy bits. I dig the design but I am likely never going to main a bow, and mostly just use mine for pulling. This set has balanced resistance with the same numbers for both physical and magical.
Radiant Paladin Armor Set
This set however is entirely my jam, The Radiant Paladin is a health regen, melee set, offering high physical resistance and decent enough magical resistance. It also has a lot of glowy bits which really helps to illuminate your surroundings. This is going to be the set that I wear from this point forward, or at least until there is an even better set that I find.
Between the two camps, I have spent quite a bit of time opening chests and doing the logout reset game. However, I think for the time being I am mostly done with chest farming. I was specifically seeking the legendary version of the Nova sword and I picked that up last night. I also got a bow that I like quite a bit and have swapped it out for my purple one. Mostly several of the bosses are weak to shroud damage and this will give me a way of plinking them from a distance. You can also see the assortment of legendary weapons that I have picked up in my travels in a shot of my storage chest on the right side of the above image. There is a shield that I got early on in the game that had a lot of glow to it, and I would really like to find a level 25 legendary version of it. So I might do some research to see if such a thing exists. It seems like every item in the game can be found in all four rarities and at most item levels, so I am guessing it is out there somewhere.
I’ve come very close to “beating” the game in its current state. Now that I have finished gearing up, I will likely gather the rest of the bits needed to unlock the final rank of the Flame Altar so that I can explore the remaining deadly shroud areas. Past that, I think the only real things that I have left on my radar is doing some more build projects. I would like to take over a town at some point and try refurbishing it. I also need to finish up the remaining few tradesfolk quests requesting different items from the shrouded areas. All in all, it is a heck of a game. However, it has made me realize how much I would love to see something akin to Enshrouded but with an ARPG build and randomized loot system. Having some chase rare items would make farming content in this game feel a bit more enjoyable, especially if the drops were more focused on individual monster kills rather than finding golden chests. As it stands killing random encounters is a way to farm resources, not actually find anything cool.
At this point, I have gotten over 50 hours of joy from this game so I would definitely say it is worth the purchase and then some. I will also keep returning over time, but it is making me realize that at some point I really need to make my way back to Valheim and give it another go. A few years have passed and I am sure the game is a bit more fleshed out now.
I guess I am digging into Enshrouded as a primary game… after saying that I was mostly casually playing it on the side. The Path of Exile league is winding down a bit, and we are a ways out from the launch of Last Epoch so I am finding myself gravitating towards this game more and more. Last night I pretty much only played it and as a result made a ton of progress. They recently added a hide HUD option in the menu, but I really wish it was something that I could hotkey quickly as the game can generate some really breathtaking vistas. That is a general comment though, because I wish ALL games had a hide UI button that was easily hotkeyed or better yet… have the ability to configure in-game screenshots that by default hide the UI. I don’t remember which game had that but I loved it.
Mostly I have been focused on collecting the various tradespeople from around the map so that I can flesh out my trade hall. At the moment I have unlocked the Blacksmith, Alchemist, Hunter, Carpenter, and Farmer… with Carpenter probably being the most difficult to get to. I’ve been using the waypoint tower that I unlocked as a way of gliding down toward various map objectives and at least getting part of the way there. I’ve also been using the fact that I could craft flame altars cheaply as a method of creating a waypoint network to get around the map quickly. Unfortunately, I seem to have reached the point where I can no longer place down any more of those. I am not sure if that number goes up as I upgrade my primary altar or if it is a fixed number of “bases” you can have around the world.
I guess I will have to reassess where I have placed them. Unfortunately, I built a bit of a base near the one furthest to the west, so that one is probably stuck where it is currently. The others are just a flame altar without anything build around them, and in theory I really need to move one of those to the north. That is the direction I need to explore now because apparently that is where I can find clay. I need clay in order to craft the Kiln that the Carpenter is requesting, which in theory should unlock additional stuff that I can craft. I also have a slew of fetch quests for the various tradespeople that I already have, and in theory, should probably focus on those now to unlock additional recipes. I also need to find a more reliable source of tar than just crafting campfires and letting them burn out.
I veered off the Tank path a bit in my character build in order to pick up some utility abilities. Double Jump is something that pretty much makes EVERY game better, and Enshrouded is not an exception to that rule. In theory, going forward I would probably rush that ability because it makes that much difference while trying to traverse dangerous areas. I think Double Jump is probably as far into the Survivor tree as I want to go for the moment and there are still a number of beefy abilities in the Tank tree that I want to pick up. I like that I can pretty easily respec my character completely by spending some of the runic coins that you get off monsters and from salvaging weapons. One of my bases is next to the spot where a legendary sword can be obtained, so in theory, if I ever get short I can just go there and keep looting that sword to salvage it.
Speaking of weapons… I’ve picked up a number of very nice items along my travels. In truth, the only one of these I can say for certain where it comes from is the Wailing Blade, which started a neat dialog with the Smith because apparently he crafted it. I found it originally because this video showed up in my YouTube feed, and in truth, it is pretty straightforward to get early on and I leaned on it heavily for some of the harder areas I have been adventuring in. I am not sure if the Wand or Bow are from fixed locations because they are named similarly to green or blue quality weapons, so I think I might have simply hit the jackpot there. One thing that I did not appreciate early on is just how good wands are in this game. They auto-target things… making them super freaking easy to kite mobs while plinking away at them. The range is really short so if you want to snipe… you still need a bow but once you equip your bow in the ranged slot you can access it from whatever weapon you have equipped currently by holding down Q.
Other than that I have been starting to do some renovations on my keep. I am trying to make it a bit less “big generic stone box” so I will likely be spending some time trying to improve the outside now. The main crafting hall works pretty well and I ended up replacing chunks of the wall with wood just to vary the appearance a bit. The little annex I built off the side was originally just a way to have an entrance on the other side of the building but I’m contemplating closing it in and opening it up to the inside and turning it into a treasure vault. I just unlocked magic boxes when I rescued the Carpenter and those allow you to draw from those boxes automagically when you are crafting in your base. So in theory I am going to want a room with nothing but a ton of boxes in there, potentially one box for every item type. Having it off the room where I spawn into the keep would be extra handy because it would mean depositing loot is pretty straightforward.
I’ve also spent a bit of time trying to craft out some living quarters and something resembling a proper bedroom. Most of this was to get my comfort buff up a bit, but also because it felt like I needed something down here. I am looking forward to whenever I can craft some bookcases or something like that. I just unlocked the ability to make rugs so I am probably going to focus on getting one of those which I think will bump up that buff a bit more. All in all I find myself going through phases of serious crafting and other phases where I am adventuring. I need to figure out where best to park some of my flame altars to make farming resources a bit easier.
We seem to be living in a bit of a renaissance of “survival” games, and I am going to use that term loosely here. If you hate combat and want to do the comfy squishy parts of a survival game you have something like Palia. If you were a 90s kid and are obsessed with catching them all, then you have PalWorld. Then there is Enshrouded which is a bit of a harder nut to crack when it comes to actually giving you the elevator pitch. What if Minecraft but with solid combat and an actual point beyond the crafting? What if Valheim but with a clear quest progression system and actual NPCs? While most people seem to be talking about PalWorld, I was drawn to the lesser-known new survival game because what I had seen of it interested me. It seemed like it was drawing some upon classical MMORPG roots with a fixed well-designed world, quest progression throughout it, and something akin to a proper loot chase.
So the quick summary of this world is that the general populace was tempted by this magical drug called the Elixir, and dug too deep rending the world seeking it. These deep wells unleashed upon the land a curse in the form of the Shroud, which is a fog that spreads in the low-lying areas of the world and becomes fatal after too much exposure. The ancient people created the forge born… and I am not entirely certain if we are a created being or just someone who has been locked away for safekeeping. Whatever the case we are spat out of this weird cauldron-looking thing and have to make our way through the world with nothing more than a crappy pair of pants. This starts the normal sequence of events you always do in a survival game where you collect some twigs to cobble together tools and then start harvesting ever-increasingly more difficult items to build the very best of everything.
The world is divided into essentially two different areas. There are the highlands that are not impacted by the Shroud, or at least not as impacted. These serve as the relatively safe area, and it is on of these that you are prompted to build your first base. From here you can harvest the basic resources needed to get started… wood, stone, assorted plant matter, fur, and food. You are also near a number of ruined former towns where you can start to scavage things like cloth and metal bits. All of this is in theory to prepare you to delve down into the shrouded areas and get more rare and dangerous resources. The game has a day/night cycle and during the night… some hostile things spawn in like these weird shroud-infected zombie things. They are slow-moving and relatively easy to deal with and honestly serve as a great resource for dropped weapons and such.
Then there are the shrouded areas, which are more dangerous to traverse and generally have some sort of visual occlusion in the form of an ever-present fog. You are usually going to encounter more of the shroud zombies here but also might encounter more difficult things as well. When you enter a shroud it starts a timer which you can see at the top of the above screenshot. When it ticks down you end up taking fatal damage and dying. When you die you end up dropping a tombstone of a sort and lose some of your resources. I am not entirely certain what the line in the sand is for what gets dropped versus what stays on your character. It does not seem to impact your actual gear loadout, but does seem to impact a lot of the resources you have gathered. You have to find your way back to your tombstone to loot everything. One interesting thing of note… I died underground and my tombstone was spawned up on the surface. Not sure if this is intentional to make it easier to gather your stuff or just a bug given that this is an early access game, but I am hoping it was intentional.
I’ve heard this referred to as the “Dark Souls of Survival Games” which is a bit off to be honest. Dark Souls means a lot of things to a lot of different people. For me at least it is “Dark Souls” about challenging combat and some sort of mechanic that trades healing your character back to full for respawning the entire world as a result. At this point, I have taken down the first boss but it was over the weekend and I did not think to take any screenshots. Instead, I am linking to a gameplay video of someone fighting it. The only comparison to Dark Souls is that when the enemy hits you… it deals a LOT of damage, like a disproportionate amount of damage. However, you have a bunch of different ways to heal yourself back up to full health in the form of bandages which are cheap and easy to make, potions that are rarer but more impactful, and the ability to have three food buffs ticking on your character that greatly increase your natural health regeneration. Instead of Dark Souls, the combat feels more like New World did when that game was new and before we had really good gear to soak damage. Anyways the above video shows a bunch of combat if you are interested.
One of the more interesting things about Enshrouded is that it has a proper MMORPG-style talent tree rather than a more sparse tech tree as found in the majority of survival games. There is a sphere grid of a sort with different paths of evolution and the freedom to go down multiple at the same time to sort of create your own mangled multiclass. I know absolutely nothing about their magical system but I can craft wands and saves and have even seen a spell drop… so it seems to “exist” but “finger wiggling” is not my forte. I am doing what I always do and focusing down the tank tree which at least currently seems to be focused on parrying an attack to stun the target and then follow up with a massive “merciless attack”. Mostly I just want to “embiggen” my health poor and armor stats to make combat a bit more forgiving.
The progression of the game seems to focus on two things. Firstly saving NPCs from shrouded areas or from hostile camps, and then setting them up in your base to allow you to craft better items. The second is that you can destroy Shroud Roots which will remove the shroud of areas of the world opening where you can more safely travel. You can also build up your flame altar which allows you to have a bigger buildable area in the world and allows you to spend more time in the shroud before taking fatal damage. There are also other bits and bobs that you can craft that make your base more “comfortable” which gives you a much better-rested bonus while you are out in the world. It seems there is also a bit of a “Metroidvania” system in the game where certain machines allow you to unlock access to new areas of the game. For example, I have built a glider and a grappling hook, both of which allow me access to areas that were not previously.
Another thing that I find interesting about the game is that your character progression is separate from your world state. I’ve been spending most of my time playing privately, but I can flip over to “host” mode if I want to let a friend of mine join me in my world. I can also join a public server that has a persistent world state or even host a dedicated private server. I’ve not done any of these things, but when I flip over into “host” mode it seems to adopt the current state of my world, and my guess is if I joined someone else’s game I would be living in their world for the time being only bringing over what I had in my inventory. Mostly I dig the flexibility with these various options because when I want to progress on my own I can, but also then later join up with friends to do shenanigans.
I’ve only played about six hours of the game so far, but I have a spiffy “Keep on the Borderlands” to show for it. Resources seem pretty plentiful, to be honest, and everything respawns pretty quickly so you can keep harvesting the same bushes, rocks, and trees… or just start digging a hole into the ground looking for stone that way. That is my own real complaint so far is that the excavation systems seem to be a bit “squishy” and my brief foray into trying to dig out a basement was less than successful as I kept having to stop to rest after depleting my stamina. If you have tried to dig into the ground in Valheim you would be familiar with this problem and maybe that is just a thing with voxel terrain. Instead, I closed in my bottom floor and just built up allowing me to still have a basement feel.
A lot of the early game has been a progression through the normal tech tress of improving your gear. Right now I have a full set of metal gear that I have crafted which was opened up by saving the Blacksmith and then building a Charcoal Kiln and Forge. I had to spend quite of time going to a nearby hostile scrapper village in search of metal scraps which I then turned into sheets of metal to craft into armor. You can kit yourself in a full set of cloth gear pretty quickly, then I progressed into fur armor, and finally metal. My hope is that as I go forward it will start looking a little less haphazard and broken down as it does currently.
There are also world drops that follow the standard blue, purple, orange progression scheme. For example, I got this purple sword to drop when I took out the first world boss, and I was able to spend down this runic coin currency with the blacksmith in order to level up the weapon and unlock a bunch of bonus traits. You tend to get those coins from killing zombies and cultists so you could in theory farm up enough of them to fully kit out your gear. I had gathered enough by the time I found this weapon to fully unlock it, but it burned through most of my reserves of that currency. In theory if you wanted to always have the best of everything unlocked you would probably need to make a concerted effort to go farming.
Right now I am pretty happy with the game, but I am also not really paying it as my “main” game yet. I am always somewhat hesitant to dive too deeply into an early-access title. I remember going super hard with Valheim and essentially burning myself out before a lot of the later features even went into the game. I don’t really want to do that with Enshrouded, and quite honestly at some point I should pick back up Valheim and see what all has changed. This is probably something I am going to quietly play on the side and if some of my friends end up picking it up, I might dive in to see how the group play works. Right now it seems like the game has a lot of promise though. For now, I think I am staying out of the Palworld discourse because Pokemon were never really my thing. This, however, lands firmly in my wheelhouse.
