u/Fenderslasher

Just reread all the Eragon books to my wife (helps her sleep), and I can't help but be excited for future additions to the series. I have been reading some threads and posts from various users in the community to try and get an idea of where the series is and I am not getting a clear idea. Apparently, Paolini has been making comments as far back as the mid 2000's when he was touring the original titles about content he would like to write. And more recently since the 2020's there have been various comments that he has already plotted several book ideas and yet some other quotes where he claimed he has made little to no progress. Many of his comments/quotes often conflict with each other and the only activity I have seen recently are various kick starters.

Is there anyone in community that can take this bag of snakes and lay them out straight for me?

• What are likely titles that Paolini is working on in the Eragon franchise and when are we likely to see them?

Because my current take based on various quotes taken out of context is that he is pinballing from one idea to the next and working on a tv series so we are unlikely to see anything soon. I want to have reasonable expectations. Is all this talk just hype to sell more versions of his books and should we be expecting little to nothing from Paolini? Or is there a pattern of Paolini delivering on projects he has discussed on a timely basis, and can we have reasonable hope for new titles soon?

(Edited for clarity)

Update: Yes, I read to my wife. We book club.

Conclusion:
As of August 2026, it appears that Tales from Alagaësia Volume 2 (Book of Remembrance + new short stories) is nearing completion and set for publishing next year (2027) with Murtagh Volume 2 on the agenda for some years after that with only a teaser chapter completed so far. Some musing about a new trilogy after that. Books are seemingly secondary to his work on the Eragon TV show for now.

Thanks for the feedback, it's good to have a reasonable understanding of where the series is and what to expect. Hope this also helps others who are checking in to see what is going in the series.

Was putting together another post and ended up on this topic so I figured I would make a centered post of it.

Combat skills are worthless. At least in the conventional sense.

What do we hope to achieve from combat levels? If you had played any RPG's before or even any other Runescape game you would probably expect that Melee levels, Magic levels, or Ranged levels would make you more effective in those areas, primarily through damage, speed, or access to unique abilities. Lets talk about that and why levels fail to do this in Dragonwilds. Furthermore, the game's design almost suggests that levels don't belong in this game and are a vestigial RPG mechanic that they allowed to persist when all their other design choices suggest it shouldn't.

1. Combat levels don't make you a better fighter, equipment does.

The primary attribute that we gain from combat levels is that we spend less stamina in an attack chain. So ultimately, a level 99 fighter can perhaps lay on more damage in a limited amount of time. But most enemies die in one combo or phased fights are literally designed to prevent extended damage burst opportunities. It's almost like they centered combat abilities around a stat that doesn't matter or that they can negate entirely.

What attributes would you expect from combat levels? Damage. Speed. Abilities. In Dragonwilds, we are not permitted to gain damage, attack speed, or significant combat abilities through leveled progress. Instead, those attributes are gained from armor set bonuses and weapon choice. Some utility spells are gained from levels, but never anything that can be construed as an offensive combat ability save perhaps the wind enchantment for melee weapons (and I honestly suspect they regret it now). We are not currently permitted to gain damage or speed from combat levels, only the ability to attack more which I already mentioned is neutered for various reasons. What does 99 melee, magic, or ranged actually get you? More dodges in combat. That's right baby, combat skills are actually pseudo agility skills.

Combat abilities are locked to your weapons and only utility spells go in the spellbook. This is in line with previous games as explained to me, but this has consequences. As a direct result, your flexibility or versatility in combat is also strictly dictated by your equipment. 99 combat skills doesn't make you a better ranger, more Bows do! 99 Magic doesn't grant a player to cast fireballs or magic missiles even when they are holding a sword and wearing armor, their range of colorful staffs and wands do. And up to recently, this wasn't even necessarily true because in each region only a few weapons of each category featured damage appropriate for the region difficulty. At least with access to the Mystic Forge and Ascension Cores, your choices abilities can continue to grow, but again you just have to haul around more equipment to maintain access to choices. Because combat abilities cannot go in the spellbook. No, that would actually make combat levels matter. A ranger does not perform a volley, his bow does!

2. Levels don't gate access to power, your region does.

We get it, its a survival crafting game and you want each region to offer unique materials that bring about a whole new slew of weapons, armor, and tools to access. Regions/materials are the true gates to power, not your skills. It makes sense for the design and category of the game, it just means that levels do not do what you think they do and they are just a vestigial organ of previous games. And your power level is an exactly measured and metered state of being. A level 99 melee fighter is no better in Adamant armor with an Adamant sword than the guy that just created his character and right clicked the equipment to put it on his body. We are not allowed to extend this carefully and precisely measured and metered power level except in rare circumstances (Glory Amulet being a notable exception), but again these exceptions are often in the form of a specific equipment that you may or may not grind for. But again, that power does not derive from your combat level.

It is possible that levels could be made useful when metering power through making certain levels of gear accessible only to those who have met certain level requirements. At least a melee fighter wearing level 50 Adamant equipment would fair better than a melee fighter wearing level 30 Mithril Adamant on average, for example. But this doesn't really fit the survival crafty genre or at least this game. If equipment was also level gated, they could put sprinkle higher level materials through lower level biomes but then they couldn't strictly gate your power level to the region could they? The dev's wouldn't be able to carefully measure and meter your power if a player could grind to level 50 and then source Adamant equipment to fight the first dragon boss, could they? But what that would allow is a level of player agency and freedom as each player decided when and on what terms to challenge each boss, essentially letting levels matter. But this brings about the greater challenge of designing each region to cater to a number of equipment levels and it would make developing the game one region at a time far more difficult. Region-gated-equipment is perhaps a victim of the Early Access design of the game where new items and regions are delivered in a regular manner in tiers. It is conceivable they could change this to let each region cater to a range of resource levels, but it is unlikely as regions would lose their entire utility of gating each player in a strictly regimented way and ultimately require players to actually engage with the skills that will be needed to advance.

3. Levels don't matter. BUT THEY COULD

I have a few ideas and suggestions that could close the gap and get levels to a place where they feel more satisfying to earn. Or at least, make them semi-relevant in a game where they are specifically designed to not be very useful. Afterall, If levels must exist then they should matter and be satisfying. Otherwise just dispense with them already, we already suspect they exist merely to engage players in making number go up and being a somewhat mildly usable tool for doling out a few significant abilities such as the Personal Chest or Air Jump. Spells that are currently unlocked by level are nice to have but almost completely optional except to offer convenience or niche temporary advantages.

- Combat levels should grant scalable damage and/or attack speed, not equipment. The recent introduction of the Stamina skill suggest they may be interested in doing this. Even the scant offering of -0 to -10% stamina usage on sprinting over 99 levels has a legitimate impact on a player feeling more powerful or truly effective. Likewise, the Melee, Magic, and Ranged skills should offer at least a damage or attack speed increase of 0 to 10%. It's enough that even in a game where your power is gated by region and equipment, you can at least feel like you are extending the reach of that bandwidth and at most be hitting one region level higher than your equipment. If you are stuck on a boss, you can now legitimately acquire power through practice and improve your odds as is RPG tradition. Those bonus associated from equipment sets can be reworked or replaced to better fit those fighting roles or to offer perks that are meaningful to the region they come from in some way. Melee armor can retain the bonuses associated with blocking, typifying it to melee builds of course. But Steel is specifically is associated to the necrotic region of the undead, perhaps Steel armor should offer resistance to damage from undead foes as well?

- If, in fact, the developers absolutely must dictate that all combat associated skills must come from equipment to maintain the region and resource gated pacing of the game, then perhaps we can learn the skills from those weapons and add them to our spellbook? This would at least satisfy certain game design restrictions. But why should player be restricted to a single bow to perform a volley? Why can a level 99 Ranger not perform a volley with any bow once the skill is learned?

- Just let us learn combat spells in the spellbook as we level up. Some skills that are at least more combat adjacent or usable in combat to control the battlefield. They clearly don't want to do this as they have a design preference that spells be prepared abilities that you use in advance of combat, not during.

Ultimately, the design choice they are currently going with is one that eventually has players carrying around dozens of various weapons, bows, and staves that all perform various unique functions. And inevitably, all these multitudes of gear will have to be leveled and ascended, yadayadayada to remain relevant or useful much to our chagrin. My preference, and perhaps the easiest change to make levels matter, is to just add some minor damage or attack speed bonuses to the combat levels.

Feel free to leave thought and opinions, I just realized its late here and I'll leave it at that. Do you guys feel that levels are not satisfying and if that's the case, what changes would you make?

Edit: Let me be clear, because many people enjoy looking for argument. This post is meant in good humor and is not intended to sound mocking in any way. I am legitimately enjoying early access and being a part of the conversation. The game won't necessarily look like what I want at the end of it but talking about it is part of the fun and I have a lot of friends in game design and this is stuff we talk about all the time. Pointing to the ranger's bow doing the volley and not the ranger himself is an expression of where a game's mechanics does not meet the game's narrative and creates ludonarrative dissonance. Thanks for your comments!

I wonder if we can get some additional proper Magic skill spells. I can see why they moved Arcane Dash and Recall to Agility and I'm honestly surprised they didn't move Arcane Surge as well (its literally a dodge).

Would appreciate a couple legit Magic combat skill spells. Couple ideas come to mind:
- A wind cyclone that pulls in enemies for grouping/controlling?
- A firewall spell that we can use to control enemy pathing or as an environmental hazard?
- A shield bubble that negates incoming missile or magic damage?
- Magic missiles that home out to nearby targets?
- Literally anything that can be construed as a combat spell that isn't tied to a staff or wand?

Honestly, I think an entire rework of combat spells is in the cards once they also have time to enchant all kinds of magic weapons and armor and get around to cleaning up the system.

Store was empty, played a long game that ran late with 2 other regulars. It was a tense match and we kept going back and forth from 1 hp to back in the game, several of us. Employee starts getting real rude towards me about halfway through because I agonizing over some decisions and taking some time on my turn. Granted, but I certainly wasn't hoarding the time. Anyways, the guy accuses me of being a liar and a snake whenever I try to eek out some deals. let it be known, by this point in the game 2 players have legitimately broken verbatim deals with me and this guy is accusing me of being a snake while he spends the entire game setting up a 3 v 1 against me. I mean its magic, I don't give heck but this dude is getting real slanderous with the comments. By the grace of god they finish me off and I'm heading out. Store is empty, there is no audience, so at the door I look him in the face and I say "a game is just a game and I don't mind that it gets heated, but I didn't appreciate the disrespectful comments". (something very close to that) You know, basic man to man shit. Dude legit tell me to fucking leave or he will do "worse things to me". I said "alright!" and I left.

Honestly expected a dap and a "my bad, see you next time". Nah man, its sounded threatening and I am not sure how to interpret the exchange. Maybe he was just livid. I'm certainly disappointed in the lack of professionalism and I certainly did not do anything to warrant that kind of behavior.

I'm no stranger to mild tier adversity so my natural inclination to just not to sweat it. But I dunno if I should contact the owner and inform him of the exchange with the employee or just let it go. If the employee is as immature as his behavior would suggest I suspect I should find a new place of business and just take my money elsewhere.

And yes this is an authentic representation of events. I have a habit of barely winning events so people gun for me and I am used to being targeted but this shit was different and very rude from an employee that I have literally only ever played 2 games with.

Any thoughts?

Looks like it was supposed to be a staff but nothing happened so I reckon it was a bug. Was probably supposed to be the Golden Pharaoh staff and they moved it elsewhere.

How to do the Fire Cape Trial:
Once you have defeated Fuzan, you can reenter the fight cave and approach the pedestal to initiate the event. There are two options. 1/ Fight Cave and 2/ the Fuzan Path. The first option is the 30 wave event for the cape, the second option is the 10 wave event just to fight the boss. This is somewhat poorly named because both events end with fighting Fuzan.

How to prepare:
The 30 wave event is predominately an endurance challenge. To that end, it is important to prepare the following materials to increase your odds of success.

1/ Bring multiple stacks of food. Because we actually care about effectively using our entire carry capacity, you may opt to bring a couple stacks of Kebabs or Fish sticks that offer high healing and low weight. A couple stacks ought to do it but you might take extra stacks in your magical personal chest. It may be difficult to access your magical chest between waves but with some practice you can pull it off in a pinch.

2/ Bring various drinks and potions. Weight is a factor so just the important ones. Bring about 10 Antifire potions to help deal with all the errant fireballs and lava geysers. Bring about 10 sharpening stones/weapon poisons/magical runes, whichever is appropriate for your fighting style. Bring about 20 drinks that cut stamina drain from the attacks of your choice. Finally, take the time to purchase tea leaves and make about 10 Tea beverages. The event will drain your Rest heavily so being able to top up that meter and not lose Stamina is key to success. Extras of all these can be placed in the magical personal chest if you have to access it between waves but you want access to some of each of these on short notice.

3/ All tools and noncombat materials should be put away to maximize your inventory for useful materials. You don't need a shovel, net, anything like that.

4/ Bring a backup weapon in case of a breakage. The fight will be long and if you rely on one weapon solely it may break on you. There is time between waves to quickly drop your weapons and perform a Magical Mending spell. It is best to deploy multiple strategies and fighting styles as needed but you may find yourself unable to repair weapons if you are not fast enough to menu between waves. This is at least something to think about and plan for.

5/ Goes without saying but just for the record, try to approach the challenge with a complete level 7 gear set.

Combat strategies:
The early waves are easy, expect a lot of lower level creature to rush you but they are easily dispatched. Later waves will deploy the higher level KotHaar-Kal, these are the ones to watch for as they will trouble you with ranged attacks and can take a beating. Finally, the Tok-Xil golems will hound you with fire attacks but are only difficult because they are surrounded by half a dozen KotHaar-Xil at all times that rush you and keep respawning. But we have some useful strategies to handle these foes.

1/ Deploy your entire magical skillset. Tempest Shield and Surge should be cast at the beginning of each wave to maximize your survival. The shield spell will help resist those red unblockable attacks if your reflexes and dodges are poorly timed. The Surge spell is great for zipping out of mobs that surround you and distracting them while you make space or set up an AOE attack. You may also consider setting up a Snare spell between waves to retreat through when backpedaling.

2/ Turn your enemies against each other. The Confuse spell is very powerful here, especially when you can target the more powerful KotHaar-Kal. They take a beating and can buy you time while you fix your inventory or fight another crowd. An advanced technique to buy time is to Confuse the final enemy on a wave so that it takes a walk and buys you up to a minute to manage yourself for the next wave.

3/ Melee fighting advice. You may be tempted to go sword and board but you really get outnumbered and pressured too quickly to worry about defensive posturing. Better to use a 2-hand sword with Air Enchant for speed and use the special attack to AOE the large squads and stagger them for repeated attacks. This works wonders with the Ferocious Drink so you can spin attack multiple times and clean up entire squads.

4/ Ranged fighting advice. I had great luck with the Crossbow and shield. If you are quick on the reloads, you can often kite around entire waves of enemies and pick off foes one at a time for extended periods of time. Ranged is recommended when dealing with the larger Golems as groups of smaller foes will try to surround and pin you. Recommended only if you can effectively navigate the area while backpedaling without running yourself into lava pools, requires situational awareness.

5/ Magical fighting advice. Water magic can be used to AOE down groups of enemies that are either staggered, Snared, etc to set up a bunch of water orbs for free healing and refreshment. If you have the Pharaoh's Scepter you can spawn the Buddy Kalphite to help draw away your attackers.

Ultimately, a mixed combination of melee and ranged/magical fighting styles is best for adapting to each fight.

Specific fights to watch out for:
Wave 20: The Golem fight can be difficult due to the hordes of smaller enemies that run you down, recommend ranged attacking the Golem while kiting the smaller foes.

Wave 25: I think a couple waves would spawn 3-4 of the more difficult KotHaar-Kal, they will nuke you fast if you are not careful. Recommend Confusion spell to turn them against each other and pick off the aggro ones with ranged attacks before charging in with 2-hand sword spin attacks to stagger them and clean them up.

Wave 30: The last wave in the caves is 2 Golems at the same time while the lava geysers go mad and spray fire at you at all times. Make sure you have Antifire pots for the later waves. Each Golem appeared to have less health than a single Golem but they also seemingly restore health over time so recommend focusing one at a time.

Final Fight: The final fight is Fuzan, of course. You should already have this fight figured out for story reasons but recommend Ranged attacks to avoid his powerful claws and fire AOE'S. This fight is mostly avoiding environmental damage while waiting for opportunities to do damage. When he ground slams, be prepared to dodge the 4 ground waves that burrow to your location. As long as you approach it with the mindset of taking your time and not rushing it, you will be fine.

~~~
Hope this helps, feel free to add advice, argue your own tips/strategies, etc. I almost got it first try but ran out of food. Nailed it second try with all this prep and ended up being way over prepared. Reading this and going in stacked with everything you need should more or less guarantee success on the first attempt. Which is great because it can take 45m-1hr. Good luck!

Edit: The Fire Cape will be granted once you kill Fuzan and the recipe can be found in your Key Items inventory. Commenters have confirmed that repeat attempts do not offer additional unique rewards, just more Fire Capes. Though it is possiblenthat Fuzan has a rare drop item like Imaru did, please report if anyone kills him a bunch and getba rare drop.

(Side topic: Please also report if you guys can determine where to get access to more of the Obsidian weapons/shield or accessory vestiges as I am still searching for them. Edit: Koth enemies drop the Obby weapons, Red Dragons drop Skill Necklace and Ammulet of Glory, and we speculate that the Golem drops the Obby Shield.)