Combat Balancing

Beta Feedback
#41

Here’s another report from a new Beta player that the game has been very difficult early on as a mostly solo player. Playing Ranger class, the king stag quest was almost impossible to win until I began kiting it over to the fence and teleporting back and forth to keep it from killing my before I could finish it off. Felt way too hard for the one of the first quests out of the gate. Hit box felt off for it at times, especially when it was right in my face.

Paired up with a musketeer for the redtail things at Cenn’s farm and was much easier, only died when we pulled too many or had one spawn under us without noticing.

I’ve gotten to level 4 now, maybe 3-4 hours of playtime? Hasn’t felt too slow necessarily, feels alright I guess?

As I was playing last night I noticed that almost all the mobs had partnered up, where in order to try to solo them I’d have to successfully trap one and kill the other. Once I got the hang of it, it wasn’t too bad, but still feels like very difficult combat for early stages of the game. On release this may not be bad with so many people in the beginner areas, but playing solo is still very difficult, especially if you don’t have game mechanics down 100%.

I’ve got some other feedback, but I’ll put that in the main feedback thread.

#42

There is a bit much grind involved. But let’s not forget that this is not a solo-player game. There are lots of opportunities to level up solo, but that’s only a fallback and naturally involves grind. This is needed so people don’t prefer soloing over grouping.

When you are grouped, for each monster kill of an equal or higher level you will get a XP chain bonus of 10% that stacks up to 60%, for 20 to 50 seconds. After that the bonus resets. That means that in an effective group with good pulling you can get a consistant 50% XP bonus going.

On a sidenote: There is a small exploit where you can get this XP chain bonus even while soloing, as long as you are in a group.

I am not sure about the beginner levels (not much experience there), but I actually think that the soloing opportunities at level 5 - 9 are plenty, maybe even too much.
For example: The boars and insects near New Kingsport are plenty and easy to single pull and solo them. The graveyard is right there. You can get good loot there at almost no risk. Why would someone prefer to group up and venture deeper into the jungle, which is a very dangerous place?

I see a big problem here, that people just grind through at those trivial spots and totally ignore all the content around them. And then come to the forums and complain about grind. Sorry could not resist.

#43

Speaking of Gravity Orb, I find this orb to be fairly useless in it’s current form. It pulls mobs to it’s location, but immediately lets them go and it does not seem to interrupt as the description says. I would much rather have it be some kind of root that lasts for a period of time for crowd control while in groups.

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#44

Mob kill quests would help out here a lot. For example, kill 20 tigers or collect 20 golem heads, etc.

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#45

So, I want the game to be challenging and be optimally organized around grouping. However, one of the things that I am considering here is that once the game has officially been out for a few weeks, like any MMO the plot of people will be lots of end-game 20’s, and then not many folks spread out across levels 1 - 19. So I do think it’s important that at least for the 1-20 leveling experience, it can be done solo and it’s not incredibly painful.

That said, when it comes to the Wilds, dungeons, and other max-level content, groups will be all but required for those who want to take on those challenges, and there will be plenty of rewards for those who do.

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#46

It’s funny that you mention this. I’ve hit level 7 on my warrior now and feel like I cannot progress further solo. All the mobs that I’m fighting are able to bypass my shield to attack me using spells, and shield bash is no help. Wyverns set me on fire, and both pigmen and spiders poison me. I can take one out and live most of the time, but after each fight, I’ll need to sit and wait for my HP to return to 100% before the next pull, making leveling extremely long and arduous.

#47

I am not sure if you have talked about this before, but I think it would be helpfull to add a LFG toggle (looking for group) in the menu. Also a search function in the menu that lets us search a level range for people that are LFG flagged and just click on their name and send them an invite or a message. If group based fighting is to be the main focus of the game, then this would help immensely in that regards, especially at odd hours when server population is low.

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#48

Yes, I am looking forward to the quests for these zones.
They should point the players to places that give (a group) more experience than the solo grind spots.

#49

I see the problem, but it can turn into some pendant of a self-fulfilling prophecy. The dev can give incentives for high level players to go revisit mid-game zones (with a lower level class), like special reagents / resources, plain XP or pure fun.

OrbusVR has actually a good system in place to help in this case with the different class levels on the very same character.

I don’t have enough experience with dungeon runs, but to me it seemed that the XP reward was lower than simply soloing, taking into account that organizing a full group takes a lot more time.
I already met people who skipped the jungle items and went directly to the desert.

I think there should be group-centric content in mid-game that gives a big XP reward, so people don’t choose to solo grind for hours, but instead look for a group to take on the special challenge.
A simple XP comparison could look like: 5 hours of solo-grind = 1 hour of forming a group + 2 hours of group-play

#50

Can’t talk for warriors, sorry, but that’s another problem.

If one class is not helpful outside of group-centric XP grinding, people will choose to not group with such a class. So not only do they make less XP while soloing, so it will actually be harder for them to find a group, because people will prefer to solo than to group with them.

#51

I don’t foresee any situation where there are groups of people who don’t want a tank going with them :stuck_out_tongue:

I’m not sure if the dungeon runs themselves give better XP than just grinding (probably not)…the dungeon play will really come into effect in the end-game where you will need to do dungeons to get some of the best gear rewards.

However, as a whole it’s currently way faster to grind in a group than solo, which is what prompted my statement. With the group XP bonus that you get there’s already a very high incentive to do group play, whether that’s grinding or dungeon runs or anything else.

#52

Did you ever make it over this hump? What level of weapon do/did you have equipped at the time in terms of attack?

#53

No, I quit playing due to the need for a group. It didn’t even occur to me until right now that 2 weapons of the same name might have different attack powers because no game ever does this. I’ve been watching beginner swords drop over and over and presumed that they had the same attack power on them because that’s how it works in every game I’ve ever played, didn’t even think to check if it changed. If the higher level mobs drop beginner weapons with more attack power, that would probably help alleviate some of the issue.

Additionally, the stats on the gear that’s dropped is not visible until it’s in the player’s inventory. Thus in order to see if an item is an upgrade or not, we’d have to pick up every item first to compare stats, then if it’s not an upgrade we’d need to discard it. The stats should be shown while the item is on the ground so that players can see if it’s an upgrade before even putting it in their inventory.

#54

I fail at replying. Trying to quote others who were talking about the Ghost/Spirit mobs:

You were missing a mechanic. They cast an aoe, if you’re in that aoe, they heal. You gotta pay attention and move out of range. Even the warrior can kill them if he pays attention. You don’t have to out level them.

#55

That is exactly the case.

Read the “New Itemization” part (again) in this post.

#56

Yeah, sorry, that was a change for this test. I tried to point it out but sorry if you didn’t get the message. Definitely equip those new weapons they will make you way more powerful.

#57

I realize it’s probably not worth it to have unique names and models for every level and quality of item throughout the whole game, but maybe there could be some kind of scaling adjective? For example:

  • Rusted Beginner’s Sword
  • Dinged Beginner’s Sword
  • Standard Beginner’s Sword
  • Polished Beginner’s Sword
  • Sharpened Beginner’s Sword

With each adjective showing you that the relative level has increased, so you can get a sense of it.

Alternately, showing the actual level would also have a similar effect. Like, “ok, I have a level 3 Beginner’s Sword, OH! A level 4 just dropped, nice!” Without needing to compare each drop manually. As an additional thought, showing the level could also help indicate how much effectiveness you are getting out of an overleveled item. (Example: 50 Atk in green out of 630 atk in red if a lowbie had a high end item)

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#58

I like both of these ideas!

#59

Sorry for having been ambiguous. I meant grouping in the sense of a small party of 2 - 3 people.
As a Runemage I can kill solo mobs with a single Frostbolt & Ice Lance combo. A Warrior has no way to help me, more to the contrary, he would slow me down.

Similar to the Musketeer. I already experienced that people chose to solo instead to group up with a Musketeer. Rangers and Runemages can kill monsters (that give both good XP and good items) way too fast without any need for healing.

It’s probably not that hard to kite elite monsters, because their AoE effects make them very vunerable (instead of being a danger).

We tried the boars near the teleportation stone near New Kingsport. They were immensely more powerful than the boars near / in the town, but only gave twice the XP and no loot. This way you actually force people to solo grind, since there is no point to do something other, if you don’t have a group of 4 - 5. And when the players solo-grind, they don’t team up with Warriors and Musketeers, which themselves are way less efficient in that area.

It’s good to be able to give direct feedback, so the devs can get aware what is actually happening “on the battle ground”. :wink:

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#60

As a warrior, when I group with other players I usually chain pull stuff instead of actually tanking. When the group is working on killing something, I simply move on to the next target until theirs in dead, then move on again. That way they can use higher damage spells rather than slowing ones, because they’re not gonna pull the mobs off me.

It all depends on how the players in the group play.