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Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Stat growth and staying away bloated characters
So I think one of the things I hate the most about almost all of the mmos I play is that weapon and armor stats grow exponentially towards current content. This is done because most devs are lazy. Instead of making interesting mechanics or adding mechanical difficulty they opt to go with artificial difficulty.
So what do I mean like that? (numbers came up with randomly and are just to show a rough idea instead of being hard numbers for people to do math with xD) Okay say the current boss deals 100 dps and has 2000 health and the players are sitting around 500 health and deal 20dps. So when the boss drops loots it would be a 2% upgrade on what you have. This is useful because it makes repeat kills a little easier. So the devs add a new dungeon with new bosses and new gear. So instead of adding mechanics to make it more difficult but keeping the power and health the same, they decide to make the boss deal 150dps and have 5000hp. This is because they need to make the boss difficult for people that are geared out from the previous dungeon. They keep doing this for each new highest tier dungeon. So all this really does is bloat the numbers out of control. I think WoW is one of the worst perpetrators of this.
I would like to see stats to increase linearly. What I mean by this is the stats should go up at a flat rate each tier instead of exponentially. Yes this does mean that it would be easier for completely geared people but that can be solved with mechanics like needing to use crowd control on enemies or needing to kite an enemy.
With our earlier example maybe the next boss will deal 110dps and have 2500hp and have the players dealing a small increase to damage and armor. Again just some random numbers to show smaller and steadier increases to power instead of making it ridiculously more powerful just to raise the entry level.
Now whether stats come from armor or the character, it doesn't matter. There is not much more annoying than killing an enemy that almost destroyed the world or single-handedly annihilated a keep only to have random npc enemies in the next dungeon to hit harder. Or being able to one shot an old god because you are now 5 levels higher.
Maybe scaling would solve many of these problems but I know a lot of players like feeling powerful. They like running through a dungeon and wiping everything out with some thorns buff they have or using one aoe to one shot everyone. I think I should be able to take them out a lot easier with a greatsword I had made by the best crafter in the region but I think there should be a limit, same with damage taken. So yeah with the best gear I think you should be able to solo an older dungeon designed for a group. However, I think you should still have to pace yourself.
I can understand if anyone completely agrees or disagrees because when it comes to power growth some like to be OP while others don't like old content to become trivial. The real problem is that most devs are lazy when it comes to difficulty so all they can do is resort to stat bloat. And it only gets worse with expansions... yeah that dragonslayer greatsword that was a hidden artifact blessed by the gods... yeah a new common drop off the new npc enemies now greatly outperforms it... because laziness.
So what do I mean like that? (numbers came up with randomly and are just to show a rough idea instead of being hard numbers for people to do math with xD) Okay say the current boss deals 100 dps and has 2000 health and the players are sitting around 500 health and deal 20dps. So when the boss drops loots it would be a 2% upgrade on what you have. This is useful because it makes repeat kills a little easier. So the devs add a new dungeon with new bosses and new gear. So instead of adding mechanics to make it more difficult but keeping the power and health the same, they decide to make the boss deal 150dps and have 5000hp. This is because they need to make the boss difficult for people that are geared out from the previous dungeon. They keep doing this for each new highest tier dungeon. So all this really does is bloat the numbers out of control. I think WoW is one of the worst perpetrators of this.
I would like to see stats to increase linearly. What I mean by this is the stats should go up at a flat rate each tier instead of exponentially. Yes this does mean that it would be easier for completely geared people but that can be solved with mechanics like needing to use crowd control on enemies or needing to kite an enemy.
With our earlier example maybe the next boss will deal 110dps and have 2500hp and have the players dealing a small increase to damage and armor. Again just some random numbers to show smaller and steadier increases to power instead of making it ridiculously more powerful just to raise the entry level.
Now whether stats come from armor or the character, it doesn't matter. There is not much more annoying than killing an enemy that almost destroyed the world or single-handedly annihilated a keep only to have random npc enemies in the next dungeon to hit harder. Or being able to one shot an old god because you are now 5 levels higher.
Maybe scaling would solve many of these problems but I know a lot of players like feeling powerful. They like running through a dungeon and wiping everything out with some thorns buff they have or using one aoe to one shot everyone. I think I should be able to take them out a lot easier with a greatsword I had made by the best crafter in the region but I think there should be a limit, same with damage taken. So yeah with the best gear I think you should be able to solo an older dungeon designed for a group. However, I think you should still have to pace yourself.
I can understand if anyone completely agrees or disagrees because when it comes to power growth some like to be OP while others don't like old content to become trivial. The real problem is that most devs are lazy when it comes to difficulty so all they can do is resort to stat bloat. And it only gets worse with expansions... yeah that dragonslayer greatsword that was a hidden artifact blessed by the gods... yeah a new common drop off the new npc enemies now greatly outperforms it... because laziness.
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