So we had some further discussions about this the other day. One of the things that came up was this idea that as a newer player just learning the game, you need space to make mistakes and improve. So for example let’s say you are fighting a sorceress who can teleport, dodge your attacks, and fire back with her own powerful fireball you need to dodge. A newer player is going to have a tough time managing all of that. But in a level scaled environment, you’re sort of thrown to the wolves mechanically right away.
So I think piggybacking off of what I mentioned before about “slightly breaking the level scaling”, we will likely also be doing something where either through natural vitality or the way the gearing works, at lower levels you would basically be more resilient to damage but deal less damage yourself, and then as you progress through the game you would be less resilient but deal more damage. The idea being that more resilient + less damage leads to a little longer fight times, and a little more room for error, and then as you increase in power you become able to kill things more quickly but you have a little less room for error, because in theory you should be better at the mechanics.
Again, this is all talking about +/- 10-25% in power, we’re not talking about the range of difference between a current Level 10 and Level 20 monster fight for a Level 20 player.
There are going to be some mob types in the new game that you can naturally do that with. So like, there is a mob type that we are working on right now that sort of rushes the player and each one is individually weak but they come in larger packs that you have to dispatch.
At the same time, with the overall increase in complexity of the new monster AI, there is a lot more to manage and deal with even in a 1 on 1 fight. The monsters are no longer just going to rush to you, stand there and take damage and occasionally put a DoT or something on you. They are going to be dodging your projectiles, rushing you or attempting to keep their distance, blocking your attacks (requiring you to break that block), have cast bars that are powerful attacks or heals that need to be interrupted, etc.
So if you’re saying, I want to be able to group up 7 things that are meant to be a challenge 1-on-1, outside of taking those on with a group that’s probably not likely to be possible, but not just due to level scaling.