📝 Let's chat about elite creatures 👹

Greetings, glorious testers!

We've made some changes to elite mobs this weekend, and we’d like to hear your feedback on 3-star elite mobs and other elite creatures 🚨 from this weekend's test! 🚨

Here are a few key points we’re curious about:

How does the overall difficulty of 3-star elites feel?
Do elite creatures feel manageable, overwhelming, easy, or just right?
How do you approach these encounters— solo, or in a group?
Are there any encounters with 3-star elites where their mechanics or stats stood out as particularly fun or frustrating?

This feedback helps us find the fun and ensure the challenge feels rewarding. Whether you’ve tackled just one or many, we’d love to hear your thoughts!

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Comments

Veeshan

Almost all 3 current 3 star mobs i feel like should be 2 stars. They feel more like dmg sponge than a challenging fight.

The only 3 star i feel is appropriate 3 star mob would be the flesh golem or abhorant golem or what it called in sephillion cause they have mechanics that are relay punishing with the rain of spikes or what ever it called that will 1 shot most dps who not paying attention and stand still when he casts it

1 stars should be half group mobs
2 stars should be a standard full group mobs
3 star should be not as common but they have mechanics groups realy need to be carful of

Like the Flesh golems have the rain of spike they cast on DPS which 1 shot them often if they are not paying attention when they cast it on them.

3 stars mobs should be basicly named mobs and sparse difficult challenge mobs that have mechanics that make them feel very dangerous so a group need to wake up and pay attention they help break up mindless grinding where people are half asleep mashing keys :P

Imnotkio

How does the overall difficulty of 3-star elites feel?

I think the difficulty is almost on point. Most encounters are threatening and you'll die a few times while grinding and learning how the monsters work. My issue is, currently, the difficulty is most on the damage/hp of the mobs rather than mechanical complexity. Most encounters can be easily trivialized when you learn how the mob works and it becomes a basic autopilot grind from then on.

I've noticed an increase in around 25% of the HP of 3* mobs from around 2 weeks ago. Along with the gear nerf, I don't see how this makes sense. The fights are already pretty monotonous and then you increase the time to kill, it just makes it more tedious and not more difficult or complex. Maybe you made the tankier 3* mobs have less hp to compensate, I didn't check, but even then, it was probably not enough.

PVE TTK should be high enough that the mobs use all their mechanics a couple of times, but that's it. If you just make PVE TTK longer all the mobs do is repeat the same 2~3 mechanics over and over. Now, if the mechanical complexity of mobs is increased based on their star rating, with 3* mobs being mechanically challenging, then it's fine if the fight lasts a little longer to accommodate all that complexity.

My opinion on TTK: PVE TTK from 0-2* mobs are fine mostly, but 3* is way too high at the moment. I would say it should last around 10 to 20 seconds for the intended level and average gear.

Now, to the issues I see in the current pve encounter design:

A.
Issue
The current group pve design is very static.

Reasoning
There are several encounters in which the tank can just hold aggro and face the monsters away from the rest of the party and no one has to move at all anymore, creating a very static combat scenario. It does not create compelling gameplay and other party members other than tank have no risk of dying. There are a few things that can be done to avoid these scenarios.

Suggestions
1. Add more ranged mobs: That would make it hard for the tank to pull them all into a small area away from all players
2. Give some of these mobs more AoE abilities that can hit a big area around them.
3. Mid-of-combat adds: Ads (like summons) in the middle of combat are spawned with random aggro, making it so they are not instantly glued to the tank and the tank has to work to grab that additional aggro.
4. More balanced threat management: So the tank doesn't hold permanent aggro and the mob can aggro into someone else after a period where the tank has exhausted his big aggro abilities.
5. Smart AI: Mobs with the ability to throw AoE abilities that focus on doing damage on the most number of players, and not on the aggroed player. Also mobs with the ability to do off-aggro skills like debuffs, and CCs (mob focus the CC on healer so he can kill the tank more easily).

B.
Issue
Some hunting spots feel like they were designed to be a group vs group encounter but you can easily pull them separately.

Reasoning
There are spots where you have enemies like clerics, DPS, and tank-like roles, and they seem like they are designed to be fought together, but being able to pull them one by one completely overrides the intended encounter. That way, you can only pick out the easiest mobs and trivialize the encounter. This issue is also in part because the entire encounter together would be almost a guaranteed wipe with the current encounter design, so it's not worth it trying to pull them all.

C.
Issue
Mob damage output feels like it's either super low or super high, with no in-between.

Reasoning
Right now, fighting mobs, especially in groups fighting 2 and 3 stars, the feeling is that there is almost no damage being done until there is a mechanic that can one-shot you. It's a bad feeling because it has a lot of moments of autopilot gameplay followed by a high-risk moment then back into autopilot.

Suggestions
My suggestion would be to create encounters that stay in the middle most of the time. Not a lot of autopilot, but also not a lot of one-shot mechanics. Mostly constant low/mid pressure on the players, so that they need to keep engaged in the fight but not die from one mistake by a mechanic that comes out of nowhere. Keep the damage constant through mechanics that make you move and react to them by interrupting or soaking or tanks mitigation/cleric high output heals and creating a scenario where a series of mistakes can kill you.

D.
Issue
Increased difficulty in 3* mobs comes more from a higher health pool and damage per ability than mechanical difficulty.

Reasoning
There are 3* mobs that present less threat than some 2* mobs, and then there are 3* mobs that are way harder than other 3* mobs. Some 3* mobs just feel like they are damage sponges and present no threat. Also, higher star mobs don't feel like they are designed differently than low star mobs. Most mob encounters feel like they were designed to fight a solo player, and once you introduce a tank holding the aggro, it gets trivialized. Others feel like it's impossible to kill. But most of the time I would say with a full party, most 3* pve encounters get trivialized aside from the eventual big burst damage.

Suggestions
I would like to see a star system where you would more easily be able to distinguish between challenges and group size.
For instance:
0*: easier encounter for solos
1*: harder encounter for solos
2*: easier encounter for groups
3*: harder encounter for groups

And then design encounters (mechanics, mob density, ability to pull isolated mobs or pack tactics, etc) and rewards based on that. You could have 3* mobs that are designed to be a 3* challenge by themselves, or 3* mobs that are designed to be fought together, composing a 3* challenge as a group, and creating the inability to pull them one at a time. Also, each star above should be more mechanics-heavy than the star before. 2* and 3* encounters should be designed to threaten the entire group, and not just the tank, while 0* and 1* encounters are fine being heavily focused on a single player being the center of the mob's attention.

How do you approach these encounters— solo, or in a group?

As a fighter, I've only hunted solo 0 and 1-star mobs. 2 stars forwards feel like it is too much to take alone and it is not efficient even if you could do it (not saying it's a bad thing). I do have a problem with how groups approach the group hunting encounters:

E.
Issue
The current hunting spots design encourages staying still in one spot and infinitely pulling mobs

Reasoning
Right now, in most hunting spots, there are issues with mob density/mob respawn timer. In some spots, there are more mobs that you can kill in time for them to respawn. So you kill one, you kill 2, and by the time you're killing the third the first one is respawning. That way, your party doesn't move and does not need to create a rotation around the hunting spot, creating a very static and boring gameplay. You could argue that you could pull more mobs, but that is also discouraged seeing that an extra mob is an actual risk and high probability of wiping the party.

On the flipside, there are some spots in which you pull a big group of mobs, and then kill them all but don't have anything else to kill and you sit around waiting for that group to respawn.

Are there any encounters with 3-star elites where their mechanics or stats stood out as particularly fun or frustrating?

Examples of good mechanics already in-game:

.I think the Kumot fight is an almost perfect example of an engaging pve fight that keeps constant pressure on all the group, without resorting to one-shot mechanics. It is the best pve encounter I found on the game yet, and I believe it can be easily replicated into grind spots.

Other examples of good mechanics that keep pressure but don't instantly kill you are the Minotaur berserker spin and zombies vomit puddle (although the zombies should be placed in constrained locations with limited space and more overwhelming numbers rather than one or two zombies in an open field).

Another example of good mechanics: the ocular mobs with an interruptable AoE big damage burst is a good mechanic that keeps everyone on their toes, not just the tank; One of the golems roll attacks that go through everyone in the party; One of the zombie's life leeches that puts constant pressure on one of the players;

An example of a mechanic that I think is in-game but is super underused is the NPC's having tank-like reflect abilities. A tank NPC could literally have the same tank's reflect ability and punish people who are not paying attention with a trip. On that note, use the already-designed archetype abilities to supplement mobs mechanics and make the combat more mechanically heavy.

I'm sure there is more, but I have one issue with the mechanics visibilities that don't let me appreciate all of the mobs' mechanics:

F.
Issue
The majority of mob mechanics are really hard to notice and react to.

Reasoning
Most of the time is just damage that you take and the healer deals with it. Ideally, the pve encounter becomes more readable and you can increase the lethality of these mechanics so players have to react and defend against them, and not just tank it.

On the topics of mechanics, I think they are still lacking and fail to make hunting encounters different from one another:

G.
Issue
Hunting spots feel like they are all the same.

Reasoning
I am incredibly in favor of long leveling, and if the core gameplay (combat and pve design) is fun then grinding for hours on end is fun. But, inevitably, it can start feeling stale after a few days. This is the time when you eventually move to another grind spot. And here is the catch: if the other hunting spot feels like you're just doing the exact same thing as the other hunting spot, the feeling of staleness won't go away. Eventually, players will be burned out because every place plays the same.

Suggestions
This game needs diverse hunting spots that feel like you're having a completely different encounter than what you were hunting before. Some spots should be focused on a smaller number of mobs, while others should overwhelm you with numbers. Some spots should feel like you need to be moving all the time to stay alive, while other spots should feel like the challenge is in reacting fast enough to the mob's mechanics and dealing with stuff like cleaning stacks and debuffs, interrupting mob's mechanics and grouping to soak damage. You should also use resistances and immunities to shake things up a bit. If a creature is immune to sleep or immune to being tripped, it can completely change a player's effective rotation and add that feeling of new gameplay. Include the named mobs on the encounter design and not as an isolated encounter in the middle of a hunting spot. I believe every hunting spot should be treated as a mini-boss encounter, with different mechanics and challenges. Keep the gameplay fresh and the players who like the grind gameplay will never feel burned out on the grind no matter how long it is.

Additional note: Just keep in mind that MMO players are 100% about efficiency. If you design a bunch of diverse and engaging encounters, but miss on the balance and make a bad and boring encounter super worth it, players will do that bad encounter until oblivion and then will complain the game's pve is bad.

SonicXplosion

How does the overall difficulty of 3-star elites feel?
They just feel like damage sponges. The feeling of killing a 3 star in a group of 8 is exactly the same as killing a 1 star solo. There's not really a mechanical jump, the TTK will be about the same. The only difference is the rewards.

Do elite creatures feel manageable, overwhelming, easy, or just right?
They just seem like damage sponges. The mob that felt the best to me was the Bloomeria (the flowers). The have blinks, they have mana reaves that force you to reposition, they have self heals that you need to interrupt. Those are mechanics that I find enjoyable. I do not find damage sponges with 1 shot mechanics to be fun, especially as a tank.

How do you approach these encounters— solo, or in a group?
I really hope that eventually the solo encounter experience will be better. I find it annoying that for some POI, theres ONLY 3 stars (for example Steelbloom). I think an improvement would be for 1 and 2 stars to drop materials to craft a POIs gear, instead of dropping the completed gear like 3 star mobs do.

In my opinion, the balancing for mobs should be something around:
Non-Star: Easy for solo. Able to take on multiple at a time.
1 Star: Challenging for solo (currently these are pretty easy for solo)
2 Star: Challenging for group 2-4, easy for groups of 8 (currently these are challenging for solo)
3 Star: Challenging for groups of 8
There are way too many 3 stars. there are currently about as many 3 stars in the game as 1 stars and 2 stars combined, according to ashes codex. This makes 3 stars feel like the default difficulty, and makes 1 and 2 stars feel suboptimal (especially 2 stars).

Are there any encounters with 3-star elites where their mechanics or stats stood out as particularly fun or frustrating?
Overgrown Bloomeria (or just Bloomeria in general) are in my opinion pretty fun mechanics wise. The mechanics arent just overloaded onto the tank to deal with, since the mana reave needs to be dodged by everyone. The main issue with this mob is that the blink will allow them to infinitely chase you, and might accidentally leash other mobs onto you.

Edit: It seems the change this weekend has increased the health of 3 stars (a 25k mob went to 31k health), which in my opinion (and it seems like many others in this thread agree) is going in the complete opposite direction. Difficulty from raw stats (damage sponges & 1 shots) does not feel good.

Solvryn

There’s no real reason to have starred mobs when there’s no mechanical difference between them and the starter mobs. Unless the whole point was to just bolster numbers.

Mechanical difficulty is the only difficulty. The rest is just tuning.

Gaul_

I spent a lot of time hanging around Carphin and the City of Carphin has too many 3-star mobs. I think Intrepid overestimated the demand for 3-stars greatly. Huge sections of it are filled to the brim with 3-starred monsters which are hardly ever touched by players. I bet the database reflects this as well.

Also, given that the player density of A2 is likely much higher than what is expected for launch, I think Intrepid in the future can tone down on the sheer number of elite trash mobs in grand dungeons like Carphin. The developers could easily remove or demote 1/3 of the elite trash mobs in Carphin and the players would still not feel any sort of elite mob scarcity.

This should help with performance and also make it less of a slog for groups to move around the dungeon area.

Dolyem

I feel like 1 and 2 stars should be purely stat boosted creatures. 3 Stars should indicate the creature having additional mechanics with stat boosts. 4 should indicated bosses/special mobs, and 5 are your raid bosses.

Its hard to say how 3 stars feel overall because it depends on the mob. They definitely feel strong in terms of HP and damage. But they arent particularly difficult. Even firebrand has been soloed or 3 manned which I think should be impossible. A raid boss should at minimum take a full level-appropriate min/maxxed to the teeth group, and even then thatd be kind of lame to see a raid boss be able to be taken out by a fraction of what its supposed to be fighting.

Elite creatures feel manageable for the most part. Its a good thing to have mobs that make people stay on their toes. Like the Occulars big damage gaze that you have to turn from or trip them up. Though many could be considered either easy to avoid, or the simple nukes some drop on players can be a bit much though it definitely works as a deterrent to pulling too many mobs which is a good thing to prevent AOE farming. Maybe include more soft CC mechanics or limited hard CCs to give supports other things to deal with.

As a fighter I always approach 3 stars in a group, But I have seen ranged classes being able to kite these mobs solo.

The Flesh golem things that make a red mist and drop spikes are pretty fun. Honestly most of the golems seem fun. Goblins are a blast since theres a variation of mobs in their groups and each has their own abilities to deal with, "HES LAUGHIN!" is a pretty prominent callout when dealing with flayers. I cant recall the name of the mob but its a human that makes an explosion happen on their target for massive damage, I hate them but they keep me on my toes. The super slow zombies are a pain since they usually just teleport after chasing for too long.

Lil Diddle

I think for the most part that the elite mobs are in a great place. there are some damage abilities and oneshots that arent so fun and with the stat squish alot of these mobs have become damage sponges. I think a little lower health and maybe spreading current damage accross different abilities instead of increasing or decreasing might go a long way.

Vhaeyne

I have soloed 1-3 star elites on bard. This is unacceptable.

If I could barley solo a 1 star that would be fine.

Being able to solo 2 and 3 stars is bad.

Personally, I would prefer these mobs get harder.

Saint1

Increasing health pool of mobs 3 stars doesnt feel great. It just make it boring to kill taking longer time, It need to be more fun with different abilities or mechanics and not just taking longer to kill, specially now that all weapons have reduced damage with last week patch that nerfed uncommon+ weapons

Phaz0n

Make the mobs bigger in size according to their star ranking. They need to be more threatening visually too, not just due to having more stars next to their nameplate (color change and size like some elite wolves is perfect). A bigger size is also way better to anticipate mechanics. It can be a pain to recognize some animations when the mobs are all stacked up.

Otherwise I agree with the sentiment above that many of them are just HP sponge. It can take ages to kill a zombie 3 stars while not being very challenging. More mechanics, less HP is what and my friends would appreciate.

gogupsn

Saint1 wrote: »

Increasing health pool of mobs 3 stars doesnt feel great. It just make it boring to kill taking longer time, I need to be more fun with different abilities or mechanics and not just taking longer to kill, specially now that all weapons have reduced damage with last week patch that nerfed uncommon+ weapons

Yes. Am just now looking at Warmages in Carphin tower 77k hp. Named has 110 k . Its just boring . Hp was around 55k before,was about right. Add more dynamic stuff ,not more hp

Alaw77

How does the overall difficulty of 3-star elites feel?

I find the feel of three star mobs to be okay. As a mage there are some mobs that are just extra time to kill simply due to the mob being dodgeable. As far as a tank goes there are mobs just the same that can be tanked by armor. With the amount of grinding required to level I find the feel to be okay.

Do elite creatures feel manageable, overwhelming, easy, or just right?

Some of their mechanics feel outright overwhelming, see any pyromancer mob that can 100-0 a tank with one ability. Otherwise I would like to see these elites not simply be a health sponge or rely on a single spell to do more damage than the tank has HP. Unfortunately complexity is the general fix for this.

How do you approach these encounters— solo, or in a group?

I grew up playing archeage, I dislike having to rely on a group to do the long tedious level grind. I think in general 3 stars of player level should be manageable by 6-7 man groups and then increase to 7-8 would not make it so easy that it becomes trivial. I could see 1 stars= 1-3 players 2 stars= 3-5 players and 3 stars= 5-7 players. I feel something like this would provide solo players or small groups the ability to level reasonably while at the same time making content that does require bigger groups. It would also give you the ability to create quests that can be categorized as well.

Are there any encounters with 3-star elites where their mechanics or stats stood out as particularly fun or frustrating?

The only elites I have a particular dislike of are the casters within carphin. I find their explosion ability needs to be more noticeable as well as like a .1 second increase to the cast time. Fighting 2 at once is a terror that as a tank leaves you needing to move constantly.

Lloyd

In all honesty... I think most elite mobs right now are in a pretty awful spot and it's not even that the mechanics are bad, it's that the TTK is way too long. Ashen haunts, wolves, bears, etc. that are less than elite mobs have good TTK and experience benefit is pretty on point. But for elite mobs I need a group in order to kill them (which is the point) but even with that group it takes like 2-3 minutes per mob/group of mobs to kill. It's just more efficient to have tank pull 10 mobs and have everyone use AoE to grind them down while half-afk waiting for the next pull.

It's not fun or interactive gameplay honestly. You have some instakill mechanics with invoker's lifesteal with almost zero counterplay without a cleric, which isn't great. The mobs generally don't feel "outplayable" but more "gimmicky" like having your tank face them one way and the rest of the party just stands and hits for 2 minutes waiting for it to be over.

It doesn't make it "difficult" it's just a gear/party member check and is not fun. The combat is extremely slow for a game I honestly love the combat in. I think the combat is one of the best parts about this game and has the absolute most potential. The most efficient grinding in this game does not feel fun. It's painful.

I could also make the point that mob level, hp value, and "star level" don't mean anything at the moment. Yeah, a 1 star marauder is like a 2 star marauder but the 2 star is tankier and has an additional mechanic and then a 3 star does more damage, is tankier, and maybe has another mechanic. That's intuitive, and that's fine, but that's just copy pasting mobs and using archetype abilities like the fighter's whirlwind to make them feel more fleshed out. It's okay, but it's not going to make me remember a mob.

Ironically the mob I remembered and thought was cool was something I said I disliked earlier in the post: the Ocular stunning gaze. It's a cool mechanic, it's different and makes you think and react on your toes, and if you don't react to it... it will one shot you. The difference between the ocular stunning gaze and the invoker life steal is that any archetype can counterplay the stunning gaze and it feels good when you do.

(Another UI change that is necessary is that when you have 5 oculars and you're not targeting the other 4, I should still be able to see Stunning Gaze charging up on their target bar).

Mobs need:
- wider range of mechanics to deal with range dps, healer aggro, and be more interactive.
- much faster TTK AND balanced around the level/gear the players are supposed to be at.
- Follow the trinity of "Fast, Damage, Tanky" --> Pick two.
- Don't tie XP to HP values.
- Pack mechanics
- Knockbacks, stuns, other CCs and random target leaping or hate breaking mechanics.
- Can have gear checks, but those gear checks and mob level need to make sense. Right now it doesn't.
- Interesting mechanics and not just copy pasted on all different mob types (some copy paste is fine).

Murkwater

I'll keep this short because I know for a fact you have the data to back this up. Every 3 star should feel like the "Rot Hounds" from Grave Peak. The problem is, at points of interest like this is every mob is 2-3 star and if everything is elite, then nothing is, they just become "the standard mob" that we fight.

Leonerdo

The overall difficulty of 3*s seems close to correct for me (when tackled in an 8-man group, which I assume is intended.

There's only two big pain points with 3*s I've run across repeatedly.

The first is accidently pulling too much. The combination of aggro range, mob density, respawn rate, and patrols makes it too easy to stumble into a 6+ mob pull that overwhelms the group. That's where most of my deaths have come from when farming POIs. Obviously you can say, "just play better," and to an extent that's fair. But I've found that "playing better" severely limits where and how you can farm. Most parties just find a safe corner of a POI (with a wall or empty space behind them) and stay there for hours, making very careful pulls. Bluntly, this is just boring, and I wish groups felt it was safe to push through the POIs and have more varied encounters.

Reducing respawn rates would help with this, both to reduce the risk of mobs respawning behind you, and to reduce the efficiency of camping a single spot.

The second pain point is one-shots. A few mobs have abilities that are poorly telegraphed but capable of one-shotting anyone who's not the tank. If this lands on a Cleric while he's casting, it's GG. The pyromancers in Highwayman Hills are a good example. Especially because they can also put large DoTs on the party in addition to the one-shot potential. These mobs only seems safe to pull one-at-a-time, and stun-locking them.

Again, this is partially a skill issue, but sometimes it feels like there was nothing that could be done about it, except to bring a second Cleric and be ready to rezz a lot. I don't think there's a blanket solution for this, but here's a few ideas:

Make sure these big-hit abilities don't randomly crit/high-roll. It feels especially unfair to get one-shot by a spell that you survived the first 5 times you got hit and assumed was safe, simply because RNG rolled higher this time.

Better telegraphs. Just in general. Visual clarity needs work across the board for NPCs.

The pyromancers in particular should probably not have a one-shot, but be focused more on building up DoTs that gradually build to lethal levels.

Again, I think it's fine for these mobs to be able to one-shot you if you play poorly. And you should have to play carefully and utilize CC when pulling multiple one-shot-able elites at a time. But the clarity and RNG around these one-shot abilities is just a bit frustrating right now.

One final note: In general, the HP pools were good before this week's adjustment. Only the the tank-type mobs felt like damage sponges that don't really have threat. And that would have been acceptable as long as there's only 1 of them in a mob pull, since you can AoE the rest and focus ST abilities on the tank after. But pretty frequently you end up fighting two in a row, and it creates a pretty big lull in the combat pacing.

Saint1

TTK in 3 stars elite mobs with those changes = slow and boring
TTK in PvP = was too fast before weapon changes but now feels better in lower levels but higher levels equipment are still kinda fast

Lughlaoch

In my opinion...

How does the overall difficulty of 3-star elites feel?
I think the numbers (dmg sponge) are fine, but the encounters need some work. I find the tank-type 3-stars (HH defender-types) to be a snore solo and in groups. It's all about big hp numbers and they just stand and block. Again, the mobs themselves seem on-point for ability and hp, but as many have said, the encounters are static. The only thing that makes me move typically would be a respawn or an add. I'm not saying this is wrong as one can find this type of "mechanic" in any mmorpg, but if you're looking to be different, then heed some of the great encounter suggestions that I have read in the above posts.

Any of the ranged (ranger-type) mobs are an easy takedown regardless of star level (at least for a bard or cleric) as well as healer-types (humanoid only). This applies in group and solo play. I focused mainly in HH and SoH. There's nothing about any of these mobs that stands out as particularly threatening. I will say my bard can silence all of their abilities (aimed shots on the archer-types) - so that seems out of place and maybe unintended since they're not "speaking" their aimed shot like a a caster may recite an incantation to cast (hence, silence their voice). Another physical ability (i.e., trip) should be required to interrupt an npc's physical ability; and magic to magic.

The elite fire-casters are my nemesis. Regardless of threat (so it seems) as a cleric or bard healer I WILL get one-shot by their casted ability (or at least left with less than 10% health). It's inevitable. THIS is annoying since I typically do not pull aggro. I tend to play old-school (i.e. wait for tank to get aggro before dpsing/healing, don't pop a HOT on the tank when he's pulling, and I'm certainly NOT pulling aggo with my stellar dps as a bard/cleric, etc.) and it doesn't seem to matter. The pyromancers in HH (can't recall the name of the ones in SoH) are an arse-pucker and multiple encounters result in high gear repair costs due to repeated group wipes. Add in the fast respawn times and it's a recipe for a chaotic wipe....OR training mobs into another group. Which of course leads into that entire can-of-worms. It's not always intentional. Sometimes I wish I could yell, "get out the way," when I have 5 elites on my heels. I try to "go around" other players, but sometimes the terrain/building doesn't allow this (HH again, is a perfect example).

Do elite creatures feel manageable, overwhelming, easy, or just right?
Some are manageable, some not (see above.). The respawn rates are too high and the mobs in these areas are far too dense with near overlapping pathing which makes it almost impossible to find a safe place to setup. Repeatedly having mobs spawn ON the group or directly behind has been my experience. This happens less at higher levels of course because we can burn and clear faster and manage more mobs, but if a group goes at the expected level for the area, it feels like "hurry up and clear" before we get spawns. Some will read and say, "git gud" but I know it's not that...many of the players in my groups are very experienced mmorpg/trinity players and almost all had the same reaction as I'm explaining.

How do you approach these encounters— solo, or in a group?
I think HH has the best setup. Non-elite starred mobs around the POI with lower levels. This allows players to learn the mechanics (solo or in smaller groups) and drop some level-appropriate gear and then to feel comfortable to be invited to groups and/or move "inside" with their group to encounter the more advanced npcs, with the "most" elite being deeper inside the keep.
I did not find this at SoH...it was fairly desolate around the POI until moving inside. Solo was not possible (for me - there's some wolves and agitated-grem around, but not the humanoid for gear drops) . HH felt to be the most fleshed out which was reflected in the number of people who farm there for gear/xp.
Of course the area south of Lionhold along the river/lumber encampment is also a perfectly laid out area to me for low level grind, but the topic is elites...

Are there any encounters with 3-star elites where their mechanics or stats stood out as particularly fun or frustrating.
Yes, Pyromancers stand out.
The minotaurs that cast the water shield and have the spirit-wolves that heal. Just annoying for solo play on support characters. Maybe fighters, rangers, mages (dps) can melt, but cleric and bard (at least for me - specced mainly heals) it's an eye roll and not fun.

Overall, in an alpha stage, you'll need to pat yourselves on the back and have a beer. The stability of the realm (for me) and playable quality of what is available (aside from the obvious/expected non-functional stuff) is impressive. The game will be AMAZING and worth every penny.

FourLeaf

> One star mobs
Good: They feel elite as a solo player, and they feel like normal mobs when in a group. The damage is not over tuned. If I grab two or three as a solo player, I should only be able to do that as something 1-2 levels higher than those mobs or with good gear.
Bad: Not much here, There are some mob that are only one-star and those make sense, as they have more abilities.

> Two star mobs
Good: Barely soloable. Only in the best scenarios or 2-3 levels lower can this be done outside of being a bard. If you have a group of 3, you can often pull a 2 star along with a few normal mobs or even a single-star as well. Some mobs you see for the first time because they are only two star or up make sense - like Spinning blade goblins. They feel two star. You cant pull these solo without huge work or great gear.
Bad: There feels like a lack of experience and gear rewards vs. the extra health and danger they pose.

> Three star mobs
Bottom line, too numerous and they do not feel like the same jump as 0 - to - 1, or 1 - to - 2.
They just have more health for the most part. And a LOT more health.
I don't even have a good or bad, because to me most of these are just "big 2 stars", they have no new abilities, just a stat jump.
These should be Named enemies, or enemies that DO take longer to fight (maybe even more than what they are now) that a group doesn't want to pull more than 2 of without fear of wipe because they have new abilities, or are special mobs - similar to the spin-goblins where you dont see them at one star or normal. They're special. Or like Death-beam blue golems. Those are 3 stars, not just "a higher health Zombie or animated armor"

Mordune

Higher armor and and magic resistance is NOT more engaging content. Making the same boring fight take longer literally just makes it more boring. We want more interruptible abilities on 3 stars or other ways to make the fight engaging.

Interruptible abilities ( just a few, the possibilities are endless)
- Summon reinforcements
- big heal
- big cast
- teleport a random team mate
- disarm the entire party
- flag a a member of the party for PvP
- Place a rally banner
- Big defensive boosts
- AoE silence
- drop a loot box that is trapped 50% of the time with a party debuff

More creativity please!

Vaknar

Oh hell yes, look at all of this feedback

The team is excited about our report on this. Please feel free to spread the word, and remember, we're looking for feedback specifically from this weekend, since we altered the stats of elites on Friday, 12/13

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