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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.
đź“ť Let's chat about elite creatures đź‘ą
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:
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!
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!
5
Comments
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
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 tanker 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.
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.
Mechanical difficulty is the only difficulty. The rest is just tuning.
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.
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.
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.
This is my personal feedback, shared to help the game thrive in its niche.
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.
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
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.
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).
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Current Member of the Gray Sentinels.
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.
TTK in PvP = was too fast before weapon changes but now feels better in lower levels but higher levels equipment are still kinda fast
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.
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"
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!
Ill preface this to say I've only gone as far as level 19ish 3 star mobs in Steelbloom and I am a 19 Ranger
How does the overall difficulty of 3-star elites feel?
Some of the "tank" style mobs feel a little too tanky and take too long to kill. The DPS mobs like the "firestarter "can in some cases do too much damage and wipe a group with an inexperience tank or lack of an interrupt. Overall they don't seem that difficult for a skilled group and really do nothing special. The boss or named 3 star mobs should have special moves or skills and require a little more teamwork to kill. For now they seem a little blah.
Do elite creatures feel manageable, overwhelming, easy, or just right?
Manageable to easy. Just wack away till they are dead.
How do you approach these encounters— solo, or in a group?
Group. Solo doesnt seem possible for a Ranger even if 5 -10 levels below.
Are there any encounters with 3-star elites where their mechanics or stats stood out as particularly fun or frustrating?
The Highwayman Hills Sniper jumps through walls and/or disappears or dies in an inaccessible area where you cant get the loot. Which is horrible for a ranger as they seem to be the only ones that drop bow and ranger armors which are hard enough to get anyway.
Fire starter / DPS mobs.. If there is a lag ( which seems constant in congested areas) players can miss their interrupts of the "one shot spells" and wipe the entire group in seconds. Super frustrating.
Also overall... Most of the mobs just stand around.. they should roam a bit and make it a little more challenging.
The loot drops seem very unbalanced for monsters in general and for 3 star mobs.. Mostly drop tank and mage gear. As a ranger I am at level 19 and still in much of the newbie gear after probably 20 + hour of grinding 3 star mobs in groups. By the time it would take to get gear in these areas I would level out of the gear . which is really frustrating.
In short there seems like really no reward for killing the 3 star mobs other than EXP and a minuscule chance at getting some gear or blue + gear.
I understand the focus is on crafting and guilds/groups and not solo play but what if you dont want to craft your own gear.. how do you get gear then? Others wont offer it for free.. so you are then forced to farm materials..
It seems like chance for drops should be bumped up and quality of drops should be bumped up a bit for 3 star mobs. For example the last 8 + hours I grinded in groups in Steelbloom there was only 1 medium armor drop to like 20+ items of tank and caster gear.
I think they are close.. just need a little polish.
Thank you!
It also doesnt help that there are many POIs that *only* have 3 star enemies but do not have any incentive to go and farm them with a group, making vast areas of the map sorta pointless, the entirety of carphin outside of the tower now serves no purpose, most of sephillion aswell. (Due to the 3 stars not giving enough loot for a full party to feel rewarded for killing them) (carphin town felt borderline pointless before aswell
Increasing unique enemy timers to 1 hour has also damaged any reason to go and *be* at any of these areas because you kill the unique enemy, leave, and come back in an hour, instead of farming around it waiting for it to respawn, further making POIs sorta lifeless unfortunately
If i had to provide a single actionable suggestion, it would be to bring their health back to normal, increase the gear drops from 3 star enemies to make them rewarding, and then try to give most 3 star enemies some kind of *VERY STRONG* maybe casted ability that will kill players even if they are very geared, forcing them to actually think and do mechanics during group play instead of mindlessly holding down skills, if its too much to create a bunch of new abilities, then the damage of the 3 stars should be at minimum doubled to make them pose a challenge aswell as require a tank (to warrant their increase in value with more gear drops)
Its just too much bullet sponge, i think leashing distance should stay the same but aggro range should go down alot, so that tanks can position better, or other aoe oriented atks can be introduced to bring more non-static gameplay and allow the party to move around without wiping. 3 stars should give much more exp than 2 stars and better loot, but 2 stars should be the most common mob in places like carphin, seph, and oakenbane and should have their xp adjusted to current 3 stars. 3 stars should be more rare and mechanically intensive making grinding not so boring.
Do elite creatures feel manageable, overwhelming, easy, or just right?
Their honesty way too easy, and they are only overwhelming when it takes so long to kill them that things respawn on and wipe the group, ttk should go down, and difficulty should go up.
How do you approach these encounters— solo, or in a group?
Group only, as most classes can't solo elites.
Are there any encounters with 3-star elites where their mechanics or stats stood out as particularly fun or frustrating?
Golems, their tough and have party wipe style mechanics that makes them feel like an actual elite, most current 3 stars just feel like fodder. Issue is though with the death penalties, most tanks wont pull them since the xp penalties arent worth trying, so maybe adding halfed xp pentalties to specifically tanks would make them less scared to dive into harder mobs.
The current 3 stars. That being ursine, steelbloom and carhpin should be 2 stars. Maybe up the difficulty of 2 stars as well for those POI's or jsut leave them as they are but jsut call them 2 stars. Then make the bosses in those POIs 3 stars.
I think that other then specific classes and mobs cant really fight 3 stars alone unless some crazzy cheese is going on. I think that anything above 2 stars should need a group to best.
Fights that stood out to me was the fight with a minautor beserker and his healer inside ursine cave. And the giants in new aela
I went and solo'd some 3 star elites that I used to level on prior to this and I felt my damage was off. (This was from a few patches though). It just took me longer to kill them than I remembered.
Do elite creatures feel manageable, overwhelming, easy, or just right?
The fights were about the same as before. Only difficulty arises when they would throw AoE attacks into the terrain and I couldn't see what I was getting hit with until I found myself dead to too much damage too quickly and not being able to notice I need to move before it's too late. But that's a problem not really pertaining to what you are looking for here.
How do you approach these encounters— solo, or in a group?
I'm a Bard, so my approach is the same as every solo encounter. Elite status just means it takes longer. Kite and pepper with damage
Are there any encounters with 3-star elites where their mechanics or stats stood out as particularly fun or frustrating?
As mentioned above. When an AoE attack was hidden in the terrain making me unable to respond because I can't see it happening.
Currently, the difficulty of 3-star elites is overall well-balanced, especially for a group with appropriate gear. A single mistake can be fatal, which adds an interesting level of tension. For instance, in the open dungeons of the Citadel and Carphin, we managed to chain fights with moderate difficulty, which felt rewarding. However, in an optimized group, these elites can feel a bit too easy. Facing these creatures with 8 players sometimes feels like "Asian farming." I think there’s room to make these mobs more challenging without simply increasing their stats, by introducing additional mechanics or more varied behaviors.
Do elite creatures feel manageable, overwhelming, easy, or just right?
It depends on the situation. The creatures themselves are not particularly difficult for a group of 8, but managing the respawns can make things more challenging. In fact, the main difficulty often comes from handling the constant respawns rather than the mobs themselves, creating a larger mass of enemies to deal with. A strong point is that some mobs require a specific focus depending on their abilities. For example, the fire mage in the Citadel can wipe out a group if not interrupted in time. That’s an excellent mechanic, and this type of challenge should be emphasized even further.
How do you approach these encounters: solo or in a group?
In my opinion, these creatures should never be doable solo by a player with an equivalent or even slightly higher level (+2 or +3 levels). If they are, it indicates a balance issue, as we’ve seen before with overpowered crafted weapons. 3-star elites should strictly be group content. Otherwise, there’s no point in forming a group to deal with them.
Are there any encounters with 3-star elites where their mechanics or stats stood out as particularly fun or frustrating?
Yes, some mobs have genuinely interesting mechanics. For instance, the fire mages in the Citadel, the zombies that create puddles on the ground, or the skeletons that revive unless debuffed by Clerics. These are great ideas that make the fights more engaging.
However, it would be even better to go further by implementing a smarter AI. For example, mobs could dodge certain attacks or use special abilities more strategically. At the moment, many mobs feel like simple health sponges, which can make the experience repetitive over time, especially when grinding up to level 50.
A fun idea inspired by DAOC: a mob could call for help by shouting, attracting nearby enemies. This would create unpredictable, dangerous situations and further reinforce the importance of group play.
Imanech
Three stars should be exceptional and/or named mobs. Feels like 3 stars are like an Oprah show - you get a 3 star, you get a 3 star, etc. A three star should be gathered with groups of 1-2 stars and share aggro like the above. Give them an extra mechanic or two to spice things up. You could also have three stars that get a "boss room" for fighting them solo but jack up the mechanics and make it feel hard for a group of 8 to fight solo.
Reduce HP pools across the board since mobs are grouped. Give xp based on some other metric (having a super-lethal pyro give less xp than a similarly starred and leveled tanky-class NPC that's a snoozefest fight doesn't make me want to fight pyros at all).
As far as mechanics, anything that can one-shot an on-level non-tank character should have a cast bar over the head or be heavily telegraphed. Seems a lot of the mage class NPCs are guilty of this (pyros, firestarters, etc.). It isn't fun to play against these with less than 5 when we can kill the other types with ease. That and the fact that they don't respect tank aggro makes them very frustrating to fight against.
More mobs should have special abilities, dots, and AoEs but these need to be obvious to the player. The camo-ground puddles that blend with green grass are frustrating to follow. Also would be interesting to see some area denial abilities like putting AOE circles around them on the ground or having a directional pie-shaped ability that is lethal to step in would mix up the positioning for groups.
I think its on point for the most part.
The elite mobs in the desert seem to be missing mechanics (at least it feels like it - some really can't do anything)
The only creature I think is a fucking joke are the 0-star zombies, running around making everyone non-healable...
Group
The no-healing thing kills tanks a lot.
What is most frustrating in general is, that its extremly hard to distinguish player and NSC effects.
This becomes even worse in PvP with effects that can be positive or negative.
You think its from your cleric but its from the opposing and you die...
Since reaching level 13 I felt like there was something missing from the combat at the later stages.
After thinking it thorugh I came to conclusion that there are way too many Elite monsters, especially 3* ones, they stopped feeling special and even normal grinding is changing into this blood piniata hitting contest.
I think the game would be much more enjoyable if there were less 3* elites, makes groups a bit bigger mixing in some adds like 2* , 1* and even normal. Mix groups so there are some groups of regular ones also. it would allow for more diverse fights and party sizes.