Assault: I'm still not liking this

On Friday, Elboron, Grymalkyn and Kiki decided that they'd try an Assualt mission or two with just the three of them. After all, the official description from the NPCs is that these missions are for 3 to 6 adventurers.

We decided to first try the Imperial Agent Rescue mission in the Mamool Ja Training Grounds. For this one, we have to find the Agent locked up in one of three rooms. In order to open the gate to the rooms, you have to fight the Mamool Ja in such a way that they break the gate down for you, either by throwing a weapon at you and hitting the gate instead, or by missing you and hitting the gate with Firespit four times. It wasn't until our third Mamool Ja that we even got it to hit the gate at all, but by that time it was too late. The fourth firespit hitting the door happened just as time expired, and we got to see the animation for the falling gate just as we were warped back to the staging point.

This is another example of where luck plays an important factor - if you're lucky enough to choose the right room and manage to get the gate knocked down, it should be winnable. I actually wouldn't mind trying this one again, since I think I got better at dodging firespit towards the end. The mobs were all Tough to us, and we don't usually take on Toughs as a trio. We even had to rest for MP between each fight.

Next we decided to see if there was any difference with the worms for the Leujoam Cleansing mission with just 3 people. There wasn't. There were still all the worms, and they were all just as tough as they had been with five people. There's no way the three of us could possibly kill all of them within the time limit, so we picked off the singles for some exp as long as we were there. Then we foolishly decided that one of the worms in the final room was far enough from its neighbors to avoid having them link. It wasn't, but the others were mostly castly harmless spells, so we kept fighting. Then we were hit with Stonega III from one worm and Stonega IV from another. Grym was dead, and Elboron and Kiki were soon to follow. With no choice but to home-point, there went 2000 exp.

I really am disappointed with Assault. It just isn't what we were hoping for when they announced it.