Tomb Titivator
Posts: 857
Joined: Monday, 31st January 2011, 23:19
This doesn't seem right...
Also after reaching the hive you're almost guaranteed to have poison resistance... which is part of the reason it's the easiest branch. If the hive was earlier it wouldn't be as easy since you'd probably lack poison resistance at that point.
Imagine for a moment how much smoother the game would be if the the branch order was the lair, hive, then mines. For one having the hive earlier presents a unique challenge to players instead of being a boring time sink, gives more play style options to vegetarian players, and just makes sense.
Now let's be honest about the lair. It's almost trivial because by the time you get to it you've already fought stone giants and unseen horrors and the only thing that can really compare are the death yaks at the far bottom of the place.
Finally the mines, if put deeper, could always be bumped up in difficulty to be harder than the things outside it. It's the most flexible branch for that and probably the most rewarding seeing as all that gold is there. Even if you just compare the loot from different branches it's clear to see that the vaults has more than the mines, which has more than the lair. The hive is quirky and it's mainly a food source and fits somewhere in the middle (thought is clearly out of place between the mines and the vaults).