Why Aurum Vale is Loathed

[SenorPatty]

Aesthetically, you know what AV reminds me of?


All the cave maps in jrpgs, particularly of the Dragon Quest flavor, that made sure your trek through it was a living nightmare. Spike traps, puddle of poisons, random encounters that always had that one monster silencing your cleric, mid bosses that acted like big bosses and exploding/mimic chests. Don't forget it's always poorly lit and creepy and the map had a bunch of dead ends and secret paths that may or may not send you back to the entrance.

Maybe that's why I love it so much.


P.S. don't even get me started on the save point locations.

[tymora]

Aurum Vale in 2.0 was already nerfed for those of us from 1.0.
For starters, the first couple rooms used to be a "poison cloud" dot across the entire area, not just puddles.
And we had to speed run it to get all the chests, achieved through class stacking and such.

So /shrug.

[Barraind]

Aurum vale is one of the fastest squad dungeons and speedrunable dungeons in the game.

[NocturniaUzuki]

I have no issue with AV. As far as poorly-designed dungeon zones go, my vote is on Dzemael's second room and its wonky aggro ranges (pulling mobs at the bottom of a cliff from on top of the cliff).

[Zukissa]

I always expect Artax to come out of one of the gold pools as a golden Acherus Deathcharger