Quirefang - Island of achievements

In the current time, little is left of the rich history of Quirefang. Most of the surface is covered by the sentient Hive, and only some metal walls and floor in the underground areas of the Hive bear witness to the old research laboratory. Few ancient books in the libraries of Fiehonja are left that talk about Qjell's first and second coming. Visitors to the island are greeted by Rockboys, seemingly sentient rocks, that - as it turns out - are merely hollow rocks connected to the Navigator's funnels, through which he influences the player to create chaos and drive both species close to extinction, acting as the Navigator's puppet.

Quirefang, an island which is shrouded in mysteries. You can find here many activities to be performed, such as finishing your Bestiary, doing Quests. Ever heard of Jekhr, the Deepling language? In Fiehonjas Library you can learn about it. North of Gray Beach, there is a living insect nest, called The Hive, where some buzzing bosses may appear. We will focus today on achievements that we can get there, in total amount of 87 achievement points.

 

We asked achievement hunters from Antica about their experiences with Quirefang. Let’s start with The Hive.

 

 

 

Essiee: My last achievement in Quirefang was ”Manic”, which describes the whole achievement grind of the area pretty well.

 

 

 

  

  

Ryude/Elyrea: In the Hive, stage 1 tasks were a lot of fun to me. You can start them on a fairly low level, around level 100 on any vocation. It's a quick run of roughly 3 minutes for 3 task points total, and depending on other players in the area you always have to adjust your route and there's some quick thinking involved. On the other side, stage 2 tasks take too long and the addition of Spitters, Spidris and Kollos ramps up the difficulty. For those, I wish there was a system similar to some tasks of the Oramond quest - where you just keep picking roots and exchange them all at a later point in time.

In the first stage of the Hive, we can gain 12 achievements which are worth 36 points. Second stage tasks will give us 6 achievements which are 18 points in total. Is it enough for the effort given? Essiee comes with an answer!

Essiee: I think the amount of achievement points for the tasks is pretty fair. Sure, it is a rather big grind to complete all of them, but in the end it’s definitely worth it. In my opinion for the first stage tasks the points could have even been a little bit lower. It’s a bit silly that it is same amount of points for all tasks, when they don't require the same amount of effort.

Achievements from War against the Hive are the ones that are really timeconsuming. However, they have some advantages.

Veneficus: Apart from just doing tasks to gain War Exp (needed for the outfit) Favour points are also obtained which can be used to pass the Hive Gates. This brings some benefits, like a chance to obtain a Four-Leaf Clover from gooey masses which can be then used tame a ladybug and well to get another achievement :). Also worth to mention that it's a good place to get a nice amount of charm points, as there is alot of different monsters all over the place.

For gaining War Exp we get Hive Fighter (300 War Exp) and Hive War Veteran (500 War Exp) achievements, 1 point each. Bane of the Hive (2 points) can be achieved after finishing the full Insectoid outfit. For taming Ladybug, we will get 3 points. North part of Quirefang gives us 22 achievements that are worth 61 points. We asked Veneficus which achievements were the easiest and which were the hardest.

Veneficus: The easiest ones are for completing 10 tasks, which takes just a few minutes to complete and the hardest one for me was the 'Bane of the Hive' achievement for completing the full Insectoid outfit by repeating those tasks over and over again. I don't know how many hours I have spent on this, but it was a huge time-consuming effort for sure.

Let’s continue our Trip to the Beach (1 point) and let’s move to Fiehonja. Here we can get 8 achievements, worth 25 points. Half of them we can get by killing 300 Deeplings of each class: Scouts, Spellsingers, Warriors and Guards.

Ryude/Elyrea: It feels weird just getting an achievement for killing 300 of a certain monster. In case of Grizzly Adam's tasks, there's a society behind it that awards specific boss kills, but the Fiehonja ones just don't seem to make much sense to me.
It's nice to get something extra for doing what you do anyway, as you kill more than the required amounts for your bestiary, but it does feel a little pointless.

Essiee: Back in 2016 and 2017 when I was doing these tasks bestiary didn’t exist yet. I would recommend to also keep an eye on your bestiary progress while working on the achievements in both hive and deepling area.

After talking to NPC Navigator, we will get 5 points. Full Deepling Outfit gives us 4 points. After taming Manta Ray we get 3 points. Easy, or? Let’s ask our achievement hunters what do they think.

Ryude/Elyrea: Starting with the only good part for Fiehonja: The achievements are easy to obtain (sort of), and "Navigational Error" grants fantastic insights into the story behind both the Deeplings and also all of Quirefang.
And that's all the good there is to say. The killing tasks are straightforward and easily done, but also rather boring and uneventful. Getting the three boss items for "Spolium Profundis" can feel like a lottery, and finding teams for bosses other than Jaul can prove to be difficult as most players prefer guaranteed profit over the random chance to get an item from Tanjis or Obujos. The worst, however, is "Gem Cutter". Playing on Antica, one of the most populated servers, players never let Fiehonja reach stage 1. Since I started playing I have never seen Fiehonja in stage 1 on my server, there is virtually no chance to obtain Gem Cutter without a world transfer.

Veneficus: Manta ray and deepling outfit achievements turned out to be quite expensive.

To make your adventure on Quirefang easier, we asked our professionals for some hints. Here they are.

 

Veneficus: Be patient on the hive tasks and you will finish them sooner or later. Keep killing monters behind the Hive Gates, so you won't have to visit this place again for bestiary. Also gathering items to complete deepling outfit and manta ray mount can be quite hard and expensive, so I would suggest to use the Favour points wisely and after taming the lady bug simply sell the gooey masses to complete remaining achievements on Quirefang.

 

Essiee: First stage tasks in the hive are pretty easy to do alone, but I would definitely recommend bringing a friend or two for the two harder tasks, as well as for killing the deeplings, especially if your character is not very high level. It will be a lot easier to share the workload.

 

Ryude/Elyrea: Hive:
- Having map markers on the hive speeds things up immensely. Be aware of where antennae, pores and hive crystals are to increase your tasking speed
- Hotkey your stage 1 tasking items. Makes the entire ordeal much easier and quicker, especially if you ignore the monsters and just run
- For the dissolving task (Crawlers), just buy a bunch of Chitin Dissolver. Often other players kill Crawlers on their way through the area but don't dissolve them - which you can for a free extra flask
- For the same task, I found it a lot easier to just collect many Flasks of Dissolved Chitin (you can also try buying them from the market) and then ask a bunch of friends to spam the Swarmer Drum just in the beginning of the Hive surface. Just run back and forth and use the flasks on the Swarmer Hatchlings - it was a lot more comfortable than having to summon in the middle of the area when you are surrounded by monsters
- If the Floor Blobs just take forever to appear on the screen, rope yourself up and wait for a short time. You should be able to see them crawl their way to the southern part of the area rather quickly. Use the Battle List to not miss floor blobs.

Fiehonja:
- If you start the killing tasks on a low level, abuse hallways that are 1 sqm wide. There's a couple and only getting hit by one or two monsters increases your survivability, while still being able to hit multiple monsters
- You can find a lot of Deepling Scouts in Groam's area in the sunken mine, south-west of Kazordoon
- Killing Percht and Schiachs from the Winter Solstice event counts towards the "Depth Dwellers" achievement, which is the achievement for Deepling Warriors.

Let us know in the comments what do you think about Quirefang achievements.

 

 - Bijou Kidi