Nest of Vipers - impressions

[vilkolak]

SPOILER - DON’T READ THIS POST IF YOU HAVEN’T COMPLETED THE “NEST OF VIPERS” QUEST.

I’ve played KC:D three times already, never finished it.
The couse of this is that there was always some kind of bug that irritated me, so when major patches appeared, I’d decided to start a new game.
This is my third playthrough and hopefuly be the last. I just want to finish the game and be over it, as it seems that bugs are a never ending story.
Anyway, let’s get to the point.

On my current play I decided to go for a mix of stealth and heavy fighting. I have a decent level of stealth skills and even enjoyed pickpocketing and breaking into houses to steal nice looking equipment that I was unable to get in shops.
Soo… my stealth stats and sneaky gear allow me to silently assassinate a person while there is somebody else right next to us. I can sneak through a bunch of bandits wihtout them seeing me and I can easily get out of trouble with town guards as my speech skills are high enough.

Now, when I started the quest “Nest of Vipers” I was very, very eager to begin. Seemed like it would be the perfect quest for a sneaky character, lots of fun, food poisoning, scouting, sabotaging. So nice!

Well… no. The quest is truly a mess. I was reloading over and over again with my mouth wide open. I was able to kill 3 sleeping cumans in the same tent with a dagger, but as soon as I tried to poison their kettle, the whole camp just miraculously woke up.
When I ignited their arrows before anybody could have had the chance to notice me, I scatted far away, but they always knew where I went, even though I was supposedly hidden.

After reloading a bunch of times, I went for a different approach - camuflage! I dressed as a Cuman and took a walk around the camp. Cool thing there was a nice cutscene upon entering the bandit part of the camp and I also found out that Henry learned a bit of Hungarian to succesfuly persuade a Cuman, but apart from that I wasn’t able to do much. Still everyone somehow saw me poisoning the food (although I’m 100% sure they didn’t…).

Tired of that crap I eventually put on my heavy armor and my St. Michael’s Sword and killed every last Cuman and bandit in the camp.
So much for sneak and sabotage, but at least I was able to poison the food and smoke their arrows…

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What are your feelings about this quest, guys?
I think it’s a waste of potential and I actually finished it being very, very disappointed.

[Nymbil]

I just did this quest for the 4th or 5th time, but I always kill everyone, as you can go around the town, through the woods, and snipe most of them with a bow lol.
My first time through I tried to be sneaky, but even at night, like you said, it seems to alert them when you poison a pot. It has been like that since launch for me.

It does seem like a poorly done quest. You have to kill everyone to get the optional quests done, but then after, you have this huge battle there, with a ton of guys, even though you left the camp empty.

I do have to say, you are only at the end of the first half when you kill Runt, and the story does get really good after that. Maybe wait for them to fix all the bugs first, but you really should finish out the story. It is a very good story.

[vilkolak]

Yeah, so far in my opinion the main questline has been very, very good.

[frelmedieval]

I dressed almost all in Cuman and tried to sneek around. Stealth killed first Cuman (alone). Ok. Put body in bushes. More guys came. Found body (in the dark?). Cover busted. Snuck next to broken down cabin and trees. Busted again (in the dark when I have chameleon and noise <10?). Got hammered but hammered back. Slid into creek. Break in battle (really, you saw me in bushes but now you can’t see me in the creek?!) Drank some marigold. Went back. Said forget this. Jumped out of bush and bashed a bandit. Got busted again. Rest of camp on alert. Hid back again. Killed all comers. Lull. Stepped out into open. A few stragglers cried alert and/or battled. Killed them. With whole camp dead, sabotaged and poisoned (bane+poison) everything. Looted some. When returned, didn’t seem like numbers were smaller.

Stressful and fun but not at all realistic.