The environment team did a great job with the jungle, as with everything else - I love the look of it. As for making it a worthwhile part of the game… notsomuch.
I’ve played Exiled Lands and Siptah extensively, currently re-playing Exiled Lands. The place I spend the least amount of time in, and always want to leave as soon as I find myself there, is the jungle.
the worst enemies: birds are the dumbest most hateful thing in the game; also tons of poison
nothing rewarding: no good bosses, drops, or thralls
painful to navigate: when starting the game the cliffs all around the desert can be annoying, but the jungle takes it to the next level
The pirate camp is neat to explore once or twice, but there’s not much reason to return. The only thing that makes me spend much time in the jungle is farming Derketo priests, which is also terrible since there is only a single camp and nothing to do between respawns.
I go to the jungle to get a few recipes, tame Beastmaster Tiemos and get scales from the Dagon dungeon. That’s it. I never build there because I hate the terrain and all of the poison mobs. It definitely has a great jungle atmosphere, but I don’t go there if I can avoid it for the same reasons you stated
“No, no. We have already succeeded. I mean, what are the three terrors of the Fire Swamp? One, the flame spurt — no problem. There’s a popping sound preceding each; we can avoid that. Two, the lightning sand, which you were clever enough to discover what that looks like, so in the future, we can avoid that too.”-The Dread Pirate Roberts
If you only look at it as a resource, you may have a point. However if you look at it as a home location…all your negatives are now positives. The trees, temples, and hidden knooks and caves make it ideal for base building…many of which can be god and treb proof. You got lots of water to hidden fish farming and so an endless supply of buff fish and oil. With the addition of the small animal pens…you could literally live in the trees with all (-fish because FC is mean) means of production up there (technically there were a few spots where you could have the normal animal pen but you loose the stealth of it all). It has tons of treasure chests that consitently spawn gold and silver…meaning with the lizards and spiders, you got constant alchemical base. The only thing that is mildy painful is brimstone but that is all in the sea to mine. The only thing it really doesn’t have is rhino and elephant skins but most areas don’t and very few build their main bases in those zones (auxilary bases definitely but not the main ones).
If I were you, I would make it a point to learn every inch of that jungle so that you can master it and everyone else can sit there wondering what use it is…as you are in there.
Beastmaster Teimos is a great thrall right on the northeastern edge of the jungle, and there’s a few named thralls in the jungle camps as well. Just gotta get lucky with them.
F them birds, btw. They have waaaaaay too much health for creatures with supposedly hollow bones. As for the rest of the jungle creatures, spiders/reapers=ichor, the scaly rhinos=reptile hide, and there’s thick hide and fur in the mix as well.
Materials: Gold in chests along the river/lake/ocean bottom, brimstone in the same areas, silk in the southern portion, water is plentiful, and so is iron.
Painful to navigate: as @erjoh stated, that’s less of a negative than you’d think. Plus excellent hiding places all over.
For single player it’s good for resources once you’re ready to venture away from the newbie river. Gorillas are easier to kill than rhinos for thick hide. The ocean has brimstone, gold, & silver. Panthers make solid pets. The dock area filled with grey apes is great for levelling thralls & pets. I usually build a small base near there and can level an average follower to 20 in about 4-5 trips around the docks. There’s a nice island to farm silk. Riding to my jungle base from my newb river base will level mounts with little danger. I usually build my first tier 2 base near Flotsam. Good iron and brimstone for getting steel production going along with a good area to get some named thralls. I generally consider the jungle my phase 2 area. Endgame stuff, no. Stepping up from newbie river, yes.
The problem with the jungle is the awkward placement of the two obelisks. at least one should much closer to the pirate camp IMO. As an Arachnophobe I dislike the one in the swamps and the other is high up on the cliff and usually someone builds all around it.
Also as not many people build there, it is hard to find a map room out. I had a small base with a map room near Teimos camp but let it decay after the thrall limit, since it became pointless for me, being over the cap.
There’s not much reason to go to the jungle except for a few journey steps and achievements. Tiemos isn’t even worth going for. For each one of him you could get, you could grab like six or more Relic Hunter Treasure Seekers. Even if they perk badly, they’re still better than any Tiemos that perked well.
Even with 0 STR/ACC they would out damage a 20-30 STR/ACC Tiemos.
I like to build by the upper jungle obelisk. There are lots of building to bild in, and the critters keep folks away.
Like you said, no one goes there.
The only important thing that jungle doesn’t have is aloe. In Exile lands jungle is my home. @arktara, I understand you, it is a place to love it or hate it. But I recommend you to go admin mode, cloack, fly, clean sky, midday freeze, and spend some hours exploring the caves, the trees, the recourse etc…
It is a real jungle, but if you make this biome home, then you’ll hold an outstanding advantage in pvp, without freezing your butt .
I’ve explored it plenty enough to appreciate its beauty - whoever created the environment did a fantastic job! But for those of us who are PvE players it is sadly the least useful area, for me almost totally useless. It’s not even fun to explore, constantly having obnoxious birds squawking and pecking at you, getting full stacks of poison from spiders, snakes, and bugs. Going up and down the numerous cliffs is too much (a bad habit they carried over to siptah).
I love it and wish it was more useful and less annoying so it could be a regular part of my gameplay, but alas!
Well, there’s a huge patch of aloe just to the East of the jungle by xalthars refuge. I also love to build in the jungle now that the rain stays outside.
Well, the jungle at least has some stuff like Pagoda, witch queen, underwater dungeon and so on, if you want to really look at wasted potential just have a look on the other side of the river, the swamp
I like building in the jungle. Especially with the lemurian building kit (mod), and just wandering around in the night while the background music makes my skin go brrrrgoosebumps.
Been in the jungle since the beginning of the game, and the jungle has a lot of resources, pre silver mines it was even a decent spot for silver cause no one goes there.
There is brimstone in the sea and a lot of easy thrall camps (with gold and silver chests), no need for a thrall at all.
The jungle looks epic and is mysterious, there is plenty of iron and basic materials, you can teleport anyway so for me there is no problem getting some resources anywhere else.
However the swamp hasn’t got much, even iron is super rare and the rhino’s doesn’t drop rhino hides -.-
The swamp looks amazing in my opinion, but is has nothing of interest…
2 big spiders, 1 rhino lizard, 1 crocodile, all with epic chests. Also Lemurian Queen and Dagon dungeon with best 1h axe recipe right at the entrance. bad location really.
Birds are 1-2 shotted with good weapon, and APES bive you TONS of XP.
I’ve always wondered about when areas are called wasted potential, in my opinion not every area has to be a super good building spot, however as said before, the jungle is a really good place for hidden bases in pvp.
It does have a few reasons to visit, black lotus, derketo priests, dagon dungeon for scales, rare spice, but I do agree that it also can feel like a place you don’t visit unless you need something from it.
Could they do more with the area… Absolutely, they could add more reasons to re-visit this area, but in my opinion all areas in the game serves a purpose to make the world feel real, just like the desert where you start, it barely has resources, you cannot build there, but it sets the scene
Not all places need to be perfect for base building, it is great to go through areas enjoying the view without being hindered by shoeboxes
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