History YMMV / AdventureQuest3D

** The lich Noxus' rematch is sure to put you in situations that leave you... well, [[IncrediblyLamePun boned]]. The first phase of the fight isn't too difficult, just as long as you remember to hide behind the pillars when he charges up Death Nova, and to stay out of the green magical circle when he begins to leech souls to heal. However, his second phase is where most of the problems start rolling in. Once you're in the Necrotic Realm, he can try and trap you under skeletal hands that slow you down and deal heavy tick damage, and he also loves to swipe down your bone bridges before following up with Death Bomb to kill those who can't repair the bridges quickly enough. He also has a giant skull that randomly shoots a massive green beam flying around the arena, almost guaranteed to kill those caught in its firing range. The worst part? If you die, you're hurled into a bone prison, unable to do anything until your teammates rescue you, which takes a very long time and often leaves them vulnerable to Noxus' attacks. If everyone dies? You're kicked out of the dungeon and sent down to the skeleton pit in the Tower of Necromancy, being forced to start all over again. [[SarcasmMode Have fun!]] Thankfully, a lot of his equipment are considered the best in the game for level 31 players, so the struggle is at least somewhat reasonable.

* NightmareFuel:
** In the Doomwood map, it's revealed that all of the skeletons walking around were Artix's fellow fallen paladins.
** In Boog's Inn, Anne's husband is lying on the ground injured. Morgul reveals he's the victim of a vampire attack, shortly before said victim transforms into a vampire ghoul in front of everyone. The Hero is forced to put him down.
** Both of the Friday the 13th dungeons count. One is in a crashed spaceship with you fighting [[VideoGame/MechQuest Shadowscythe aliens]], all while [[Film/JasonX Shrade X]] wanders around and kills you if he finds you. Another is in a nightmare, where the player is in a warped labyrinth littered with traps. Some of these traps include [[JumpScare Fleshette's claws popping out of walls]], and a long hallway leading to another one of her claws trying to grab you, while boards spurt out of the walls to try and force you into it.
** Heartwood's Guardian Tower has some humanoid enemies with roots and plants growing all over them. Then you realize that they were former Guardians, having been corrupted and turned completely mindless by the Nature Orb's power. The Guardian that is affected by this the worst is none other than the one who utilized the orb, Silvan. A glimpse at her shows that she's almost completely unrecognizable, save for her skeleton hanging downwards from the massive growth of roots.

* TierInducedScrappy: A lot of the healing classes like Paladin, Guardian, and Moglomancer don’t contribute very much to the party outside of very specific, difficult dungeons. This especially applies to Moglomancer, which has very low damage output in comparison to other classes, its healing ability drains its mana before you can blink, and its cross skill serves little to no use as all it does is slow enemies down, which isn’t that useful in combat due to the skill’s small area of effect. Fortunately, with the introduction of skill auras, Moglomancer's cross skill got buffed so that it now deals tick damage to anything standing in the icy circle it creates, and the player can move the circle to wherever they are standing until it finally gets placed.
** Rogue is also controversial due to its cross skill only working with its own class, and it doesn’t serve much use against multiple targets. This was lessened by the introduction of Ranger, which has a skill that also poisons targets.
** That being said, Paladin in duels is often said to be overpowered due to its quick healing and good tanking abilities.

* AuthorsSavingThrow:
** Player running speed was increased, especially the speed of player moving backwards.
** Ashfall being a very story heavy release, likely in response to remarks that the game had very little in the way of plot. Nearly every NPC conversation is accompanied by an animated cutscene, with heavy delving into character backstory. It also features the first ever cutscenes where the characters do more than stand around and talk, including [[spoiler:[=DragonLord=] Talyn killing Essa [[InTheBack by impaling through the back]].]]
** Likely in response to fans feeling first Friday the 13th event was underwhelming, the second one takes place in a glorious ShoutOut of Camp Crystal Lake, chock to the brim with detail, creative monsters, NPC cutscenes, and very deep story lines.

** Raytengu in the Bamboo Forest challenge counts, having a variety of hard-hitting attacks like Crippling Blow (shared by Li’l Dage mentioned above) and Tsuchi. It only gets worse when he teleports away and summons waves of shadows that share a lot (but thankfully not all) of his attacks. There are also all sorts of hidden barrels that deal incredibly high damage scattered across the map, often leaving you weakened when you find Raytengu again. The kicker? You need to beat him numerous times if you want some of the best equipment for level 27/29 players in the game, and [[UpToEleven potentially much, much, MUCH more than that if you want the Lightning Halo.]] If you don’t have a Necromancer, Guardian, or Berserker on your team, good luck.

* CompleteMonster: "Dragons of Ashfall" Saga: [[BadBoss Talyn the DragonLord]] is first introduced when his previous dragon that [[BondCreatures he was bonded to]] gets slain by a [[TheDragonslayer DragonSlayer]]. A delighted Talyn thanks said [=DragonSlayer=] for this, as with his previous dragon partner gone it allows him to bond with a stronger dragon. Specifically, Talyn plans to awaken and enslave Akriloth the Great Fire Dragon, which he would then use to [[OmnicidalManiac lay waste to the entire world]]. In order to awaken the dragon, Talyn would require several tributes, one of which being livestock for it to feed upon. Talyn's choice of livestock ends up being [[ToServeMan humans]]; to this end, Talyn has his minions capture villages of humans, and intends to [[PeopleFarms breed them like animals]]. When [[PlayerCharacter the Hero]] and [=DragonSlayer=] Essa manage to foil this plan and celebrate their victory, Talyn shows up out of nowhere and kills Essa by stabbing her InTheBack with his sword out of spite. Once the Hero ruins three of his tributes, Talyn then vows to use his final tribute, the Fire Orb, to forcefully awaken Akriloth, before enslaving its mind with his Dragon Amulet, at which point his new slave could have "as many tributes as it wished".

* CompleteMonster: "Dragons of Ashfall" Saga: [[BadBoss Talyn the DragonLord]] is first introduced when his previous dragon that [[BondCreatures he was bonded to]] gets slain by a [[TheDragonslayer DragonSlayer]]. A delighted Talyn thanks said [=DragonSlayer=] for this, as with his previous dragon partner gone it allows him to bond with a stronger dragon. Specifically, Talyn plans to awaken and enslave Akriloth the Great Fire Dragon, which he would then use to [[OmnicidalManiac lay waste to the entire world]]. In order to awaken the dragon, Talyn would require several tributes, one of which being livestock for it to feed upon. Talyn's choice of livestock ends up being [[ToServeMan humans]]; to this end, Talyn has his minions capture villages of humans, and intends to [[PeopleFarms breed them like animals]]. When the PlayerCharacter and [=DragonSlayer=] Essa manage to foil this plan and celebrate their victory, Talyn shows up out of nowhere and kills Essa by stabbing her InTheBack with his sword out of spite. Once the Hero ruins three of his tributes, Talyn then vows to use his final tribute, the Fire Orb, to forcefully awaken Akriloth, before enslaving its mind with his Dragon Amulet, at which point his new slave could have "as many tributes as it wished".

* CompleteMonster: "Dragons of Ashfall" Saga: [[BadBoss Talyn the DragonLord]], is first introduced when his previous dragon that [[BondCreatures he was bonded to]] gets slain by a dragonslayer. However, he is delighted over this and thanks said dragonslayer for the act, as with his previous dragon partner gone it freed up space for him to bond with a stronger dragon. Specifically, he plans to awaken and enslave Akriloth the Great Fire Dragon, which he would then use to [[OmnicidalManiac lay waste to the entire world]]. In order to awaken the dragon, he would require several tributes, one of which being livestock for it to feed upon. Talyn's choice of livestock ends up being [[ToServeMan humans]], to which Talyn has his minions capture villages of humans and intends to [[PeopleFarms breed them like animals]]. When the Player and Dragonslayer Essa manage to foil this plan and celebrate their victory, Talyn shows up out of nowhere and kills Essa by stabbing her InTheBack with his sword out of spite. Once the Hero ruins three of his tributes, Talyn then vows to use his final tribute, the Fire Orb, to forcefully awaken Akriloth, before enslaving its mind with his Dragon Amulet, at which point his new slave could have "as many tributes as it wished".

** Raytengu in the Bamboo Forest challenge counts, having a variety of hard-hitting attacks like Crippling Blow (shared by Li’l Dage mentioned above) and Tsuchi. It only gets worse when he teleports away and summons waves of shadows that share a lot (but thankfully not all) of his attacks. There are also all sorts of hidden barrels that deal incredibly high damage scattered across the map, often leaving you weakened when you find Raytengu again. The kicker? You need to beat him numerous times if you want some of the best equipment in the game, and [[UpToEleven potentially much, much, MUCH more than that if you want the Lightning Halo.]] If you don’t have a Necromancer, Guardian, or Berserker on your team, good luck.

** Son of Braken in the Ship’s Bow challenge is not only a long fight; it’s a very difficult one as well. Most of the issues lie in the first and final phases, where you’re directly attacking him. He uses a (thankfully fixed) pattern of hard-hitting [=AoE=] attacks, and in the final phase, he has his similarly hard-hitting tentacles assisting him, leaving you with a lot to dodge if you don’t take out the tentacles quickly. If you die even once, you get booted from the dungeon without any rewards whatsoever. And this boss, along with Raytengu mentioned above, drops some of the best equipment in the game.

** The lich Noxus' rematch is sure to put you in situations that leave you... well, [[IncrediblyLamePun boned]]. The first phase of the fight isn't too difficult, just as long as you remember to hide behind the pillars when he charges up Death Nova, and to stay out of the green magical circle when he begins to leech souls to heal. However, his second phase is where most of the problems start rolling in. Once you're in the Necrotic Realm, he can try and trap you under skeletal hands that slow you down and deal heavy tick damage, and he also loves to swipe down your bone bridges before following up with Death Bomb to kill those who can't repair the bridges quickly enough. He also has a giant skull that randomly shoots a massive green beam flying around the arena, almost guaranteed to kill those caught in its firing range. The worst part? If you die, you're hurled into a bone prison, unable to do anything until your teammates rescue you, which takes a very long time and often leaves them vulnerable to Noxus' attacks. If everyone dies? You're kicked out of the dungeon and sent down to the skeleton pit in the Tower of Necromancy, being forced to start all over again. [[SarcasmMode Have fun!]]

** Rogue is also controversial due to its cross skill only working with its own class, and it doesn’t serve much use against multiple targets.

* CompleteMonster: [[BadBoss Talyn the DragonLord]], the BigBad of the "Dragons of Ashfall" Saga, is first introduced when his previous dragon that [[BondCreatures he was bonded to]] gets slain by a [[TheDragonslayer dragon slayer]]. However, he is delighted over this and thanks said Dragonslayer for the act, as with his previous dragon partner gone it freed up space for him to bond with a stronger dragon. Specifically, he plans to awaken and enslave Akriloth the Great Fire Dragon, which he would then use to [[OmnicidalManiac lay waste to the entire world]]. In order to awaken the dragon, he would require several tributes, one of which being livestock for it to feed upon. Talyn's choice of livestock ends up being [[ToServeMan humans]]. To this end, Talyn has his minions capture villages of humans and intends to breed them like animals. When the PlayerCharacter and Dragonslayer Essa manage to foil this plan and celebrate their victory, Talyn shows up out of nowhere and kills Essa by stabbing her InTheBack with his sword out of spite. Once the Hero ruins three of his tributes, Talyn then vows to use his final tribute, the Fire Orb, to forcefully awaken Akriloth, before enslaving its mind with his Dragon Amulet, at which point his new slave could have "as many tributes as it wished".

* TierInducedScrappy: A lot of the healing classes like Paladin, Guardian, and Moglomancer don’t contribute very much to the party outside of very specific, difficult dungeons. This especially applies to Moglomancer, which has very low damage output in comparison to other classes, its healing ability drains its mana before you can blink, and its cross skill serves little to no use as all it does is slow enemies down, which isn’t that useful in combat due to the skill’s small area of effect.

* ThatOneLevel: A lot of the parkour levels and dungeons are considered this by the community (especially from mobile players), but the Clock Tower in Darkovia Castle warrants special mention. Not only do you have to fight enemies littering the dungeon, but you also have to jump through a long series of parkour... and if you die once? You're booted right back to the beginning of the dungeon... unless you jump down to hit a button that activates a portal to the dungeon's boss. Fortunately, the enemies don't respawn.

* GoddamnedBoss: The Cryptodirax is a boss that not only runs away frequently, but it also requires you to farm the enemies over and over due to the fact that it can't be attacked without using Spicy Bait first (and even then, the effects wear off after a bit, forcing you to farm again). While it's resting, it also heals a lot of HP every few seconds.

* FandomRivalry: With ''VideoGame/AdventureQuestWorlds'' to a degree, over which is the superior MMO, and due to the fact that some of the writers for AQW were moved to work on this game. However, this is mostly one-sided as fans of AQW feel that their game is being neglected in favor of this game, while most fans of [=AQ3D=] are either indifferent towards or are also fans of AQW (although some do complain that AQW is [[BribingYourWayToVictory pay-to-win]] in some aspects).

* FandomRivalry: With ''VideoGame/AdventureQuestWorlds'' to a degree, over which is the superior MMO, and due to the fact that some of the writers for AQW were moved to work on this game. However, this is mostly one-sided as fans of AQW feel that their game is being neglected in favor of this game, while most fans of [=AQ3D=] are either indifferent towards or are also fans of AQW.

** ''VideoGame/EpicDuel''’s fanbase is in a similar spot with AQW’s, based on several Twitter comment sections. This was lessened after Artix himself confirmed that Titan would be given more time to work on ''[=EpicDuel=]''.