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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.
Enemy difficulty tiering and scaling
Everdark
Member, Alpha Two
What are everyone's thoughts on enemy difficulty scaling/tiering and how that is flagged to players?
I haven't played much in the way of MMORPG's since EQ2 vanilla many years ago, but I quite enjoyed the enemy scaling and flagging method used at the time. In addition to enemy level as a difficulty indicator, some enemies were "heroic" or "Epic" and had special flags on their name that warned players of such. "Heroic" enemies were further broken into tier 1-3. If you were a solo player, you knew that even with the best gear you'd need help from a few more players to deal with a "heroic" enemy, and in groups you tended to target those more difficult enemies for the better loot. I don't know what's changed in my time away, just wondering what people would prefer to see.
I haven't played much in the way of MMORPG's since EQ2 vanilla many years ago, but I quite enjoyed the enemy scaling and flagging method used at the time. In addition to enemy level as a difficulty indicator, some enemies were "heroic" or "Epic" and had special flags on their name that warned players of such. "Heroic" enemies were further broken into tier 1-3. If you were a solo player, you knew that even with the best gear you'd need help from a few more players to deal with a "heroic" enemy, and in groups you tended to target those more difficult enemies for the better loot. I don't know what's changed in my time away, just wondering what people would prefer to see.
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Comments
That is a good starting read. I could not find anything on the wiki specifically about named difficulty tiers for mobs like "Elite" in must games, but I have been under the assumption the game has them. I think I remember a video where Steven was carful about pulling a plant mob due to the difficulty of the single mob, but I can't seem to locate that video.
I am also fine with mobs just being mobs, and some of them being vastly more difficult with no indication to the player. It would be cool if you just had to assume ahead of time that a basilisk is significantly more difficult than a Dire Wolf.
I think it is more likely that the game is going to tier, and label mobs based on relative difficulty. The old "this mob is red to me" type thing. As long as the game don't give you too much information I am fine. I like the feeling of coming up on a new mob, and no knowing what I am getting into.
This is my personal feedback, shared to help the game thrive in its niche.
I like the idea of varied difficulty levels and different frames for them like most MMO's have. Helps keep people on their toes. Not sure they will but pretty sure they will. How they will display it is a good question.
Thanks, looking at it now. I am seeing the "Name (X)". I am not sure what X is? I thought it was mob level, but the Deathcap was (+8) while the other mobs were just (3), and (4). The boarder on the Deathcap seems to be more elaborate too.
It looks like we are getting a fair amount of information, about relative difficulty and level. Which I guess is par for the course with MMOs. I don't think we will see anything like: "Seems like a decent challenge" from FFXI, then you get steam rolled into the ground by a mob that looks the same as other mobs you were just killing.
This is my personal feedback, shared to help the game thrive in its niche.
Enemy scaling (adjusting enemy difficulty to match the player) - hate it; a lvl 1 wolf shouldn't suddenly become a lvl 50 wolf.
Other products have changed the border around the mobs portrait to a different color or design. I think they will probably go this direction as they have said they want to make things so you can see at a glance what you are facing when they talked about classes can't see why this would be any different for monsters with special icons or something.
Also, boss difficulty might scale based on the progress in linear dungeons. There will also be Elite Mobs and Named Mobs.
Mobs will scale in strength dependant upon Node Levels. It won't make lower mobs higher level but it will make higher level mobs spawn around higher level nodes.
Mechanical scaling is fine