INFO Ye Thread of XP Balancing

[Thothie]

It has long been known that there are many, many, strange and bizarre fluctuations in XP to be found throughout the game world. In some cases, it's deliberate, even if sometimes the reasoning is not immediately obvious. In a few other cases, however, it's just a matter of there being so many monsters in the world now, and the world is so huge now, that we've neglected to change some things along the way.

This is *not* however, a thread to simply beg for more XP. There are rules:

• You can suggest swapping XP of two monsters in the same tier that appear in roughly the same frequency and difficulty of access.
• You can question why a certain monster has the XP value that it does.

Keep in mind a few things, however:

• MSC XP works on a "diminishing returns" basis. Monsters do not scale directly according to level. The higher level a monster, the less the XP adjustment will be, relative to its difficulty. In other words, harder monsters are usually worth more XP, but the XP does not raise as much as the increase of difficulty may suggest it should. This has always been a core mechanic to limit leveling rates in Master Sword. (In the early days, for instance, a commonly appearing minion with 400hp was worth 150xp, while the boss with over 6000hp, was worth 200xp.)
• XP often varies by area and difficulty to access. (Sometimes, exponentially so). The scaling spiders at the end of Orc_For would be a good example: they are worth *way* more than the similar spiders elsewhere, but are very difficult to gain access to. The same applies to bosses. How much an area favors the monster or the player can also often cause XP to change dramatically.

...and I would sticky this, but for some reason I cannot... Mayhaps will wait on fixing that bit before I make the other related thread.

 

[Foreman]

1. Why do the elementals at the beginning of Cleicert give like 400 exp when they are pushovers? I'd rather reload the map over and over than do a full clear. If that damn guy at the beginning didn't talk for a whole minute this would be the #1 exp spot in the game.

2. Those god damn goblins give 25 exp per kill and only have like 50 hp, I find it more efficient to farm oceancrossing with some sort of aoe ability than most maps in the game up until level ~30.

3. Most higher monsters kill me in a few hits (90% mitigation and 705 hp) yet I could kill 8 goblins who can't out damage a regeneration potion. Not only that, but said goblins would give 200 exp and I'd kill them in like 8 seconds, and the higher monsters like a minute and give like 400 or something stupid. Prime example - Umulak.

 

[Keldorn]

I'm in your thread, whining for expz! (Even though I don't really grind nowadays)

1. Orc Poisoner in orc_for, max tier (orc_for/orc_poisoner) - 12500 HP, 60% armor + parry, 2000 exp (Effectively over 31250 hp vs 2000 exp)

Enemies next to the poisoner have about 1/3rd or less life, 10-20% armor, but give over half the experience the poisoner does. (1150-1250ish)

Would like reasoning on this one.

2. Ogre of Ashes in phlames, max tier (monsters/ogre_stone) - 20000 HP, 50% armor, 4000 exp (Effectively 40000 hp vs 4000 exp)

The other djinns next to the Ogre of Ashes have 7000 hp, an elemental weakness, less (if any) armor, hit softer, hit less often, and give more exp (5250).

Suggest that it gives at least the same as the escort djinns (5250).

 

[Thothie]

1. Why do the elementals at the beginning of Cleicert give like 400 exp when they are pushovers? I'd rather reload the map over and over than do a full clear. If that damn guy at the beginning didn't talk for a whole minute this would be the #1 exp spot in the game.

2. Those god damn goblins give 25 exp per kill and only have like 50 hp, I find it more efficient to farm oceancrossing with some sort of aoe ability than most maps in the game up until level ~30.

Elementals... At the beginning of Cleicert... You may need to be more specific. There's a few armors in the front worth around ~300 that aren't hard to kill - but there's a hell of a lot more of those on b_castle, so...

Oceancrossing does have a concentration of Orcs and Goblins that borders on calling for nerfage ala Orc_Aerna or Old_Helena, but there's a good chance, on the later waves, that Ron will get taken out, so it at least takes a team dealing with assaults from multiple flanks. (Reminds me, I wanted to remove the nerfage from Old_Helena on the first run, or some such, never finished working that out...)

Granted, as I've said elsewhere, I don't really balance maps with the idea that people might restart them mid-way through repeatedly. I consider that exploiting, and we have occasionally dealt with it as such. It has the downside that you never get any item rewards as a result, in addition to being really boring, and removing any sense of accomplishment, but those last two disadvantages apply to almost all exploiting. I don't want to have to install something crazy like an XP ramp-up to full over time thing to prevent it.

3. Most higher monsters kill me in a few hits (90% mitigation and 705 hp) yet I could kill 8 goblins who can't out damage a regeneration potion. Not only that, but said goblins would give 200 exp and I'd kill them in like 8 seconds, and the higher monsters like a minute and give like 400 or something stupid. Prime example - Umulak.

That would be a prime example of how diminishing returns work. Eventually, however, it stops being worth it to go after the weaker monsters, and you are required to push past the stronger monsters to gain the better items that, eventually, render the stronger monsters nearly as easy to slay.

To slay a 700hp player in a few hits, at 90% damage reduction, a monster would have to be doing better than 500 damage per strike, and there aren't many bosses that can do that, save in the occasional special attacks (and even at that phenomenal rate, we're talking 14 strikes).

There are, however, plenty of bosses that can kill a 700hp player with 50% damage reduction, with the remainder cut by another 50% of ice shield in turn, in a few strikes, especially if he's lacking the required elemental resistance. Bosses in the ~700hp tier, are intended to deal with at least four such players at a time. Bosses in the ~1000hp tier (such as Phlames, who you may or may not be alluding to), can make very short work of a single 700hp player, being built to deal with four much stronger and better equipped players, who have learned team work to boot. (Granted, how such a player gets past Vitriox outside, I have no idea.)

[Phlames, btw, does 100pts per strike, plus 100dps fire. Every forth strike is quad strength, for 400 plus the same 100pt dps. But that's of course discounting all his minions pounding on you, which form his primary offense, as well as the fact that he does not approach when attacked, save when he can maneuver to strike around a minion.]

My primary is ~700hp, so my most serious work has been in that tier. I wouldn't even consider trying to solo Maldora, or Atholo, let alone Phlames, with such a character. Even at that modest level, however, there are already more bosses in the game that he can solo, than there are those that he cannot.

I'm in your thread, whining for expz! (Even though I don't really grind nowadays)

1. Orc Poisoner in orc_for, max tier (orc_for/orc_poisoner) - 12500 HP, 60% armor + parry, 2000 exp (Effectively over 31250 hp vs 2000 exp)

Enemies next to the poisoner have about 1/3rd or less life, 10-20% armor, but give over half the experience the poisoner does. (1150-1250ish)

Would like reasoning on this one.

2. Ogre of Ashes in phlames, max tier (monsters/ogre_stone) - 20000 HP, 50% armor, 4000 exp (Effectively 40000 hp vs 4000 exp)

The other djinns next to the Ogre of Ashes have 7000 hp, an elemental weakness, less (if any) armor, hit softer, hit less often, and give more exp (5250).

Suggest that it gives at least the same as the escort djinns (5250).

Ah, in both cases, what we have here is a combination of diminishing returns and limitations of the scaling system. Stronger monsters do not scale well, and thus they tend to have much stricter "caps", preventing them from becoming batsh*t insane mean, vs. their minions, who can be scaled more freely. Since, as explained at the top, they already don't scale at the same rate of difficulty vs. their minions, this differential gets exaggerated in the extreme, when they are scaled, say one level max, while their minions are being scaled, by say up to five.

What to do about that is tricky though. I'll have to do something to work it out on a case by case basis, while also taking into account how much the creature is or is not scaled. Most likely some system where we'll see a fixed XP value for the afflicted mini-boss at each tier for each map.

In the case of the stone ogre, I think there maybe something else going on as well... I don't think I ever finalized him, and his XP may not be parsing proper from the swamp ogre, in addition to the stricter cap.

 

[Foreman]

3. Most higher monsters kill me in a few hits (90% mitigation and 705 hp) yet I could kill 8 goblins who can't out damage a regeneration potion. Not only that, but said goblins would give 200 exp and I'd kill them in like 8 seconds, and the higher monsters like a minute and give like 400 or something stupid. Prime example - Umulak.

That would be a prime example of how diminishing returns work. Eventually, however, it stops being worth it to go after the weaker monsters, and you are required to push past the stronger monsters to gain the better items that, eventually, render the stronger monsters nearly as easy to slay.

To slay a 700hp player in a few hits, at 90% damage reduction, a monster would have to be doing better than 500 damage per strike, and there aren't many bosses that can do that, save in the occasional special attacks (and even at that phenomenal rate, we're talking 14 strikes).

There are, however, plenty of bosses that can kill a 700hp player with 50% damage reduction, with the remainder cut by another 50% of ice shield in turn, in a few strikes, especially if he's lacking the required elemental resistance. Bosses in the ~700hp tier, are intended to deal with at least four such players at a time. Bosses in the ~1000hp tier (such as Phlames, who you may or may not be alluding to), can make very short work of a single 700hp player, being built to deal with four much stronger and better equipped players, who have learned team work to boot. (Granted, how such a player gets past Vitriox outside, I have no idea.)

I figured out what my problem is, apparently when I'm wearing a particular item I'm taking 300% damage or something.. therefore with my armor/potions/ice armor I'm taking around 60-70% damage rather than 10-20%... Makes more sense now.

 

[Thothie]

Well, that might explain your problem since SEP2011a, though it wouldn't explain it before then...

I should point out that we've only quashed one major XP exploit this entire year (towards the beginning), and that exploit, more or less, required you to have around 700hp to even begin to use, so as per usual, I look upon this claim that it's harder to level now than before, despite being more powerful than ever before and having more opportunities than ever before, with heavy degree of skepticism.

 

[Fegged]

Orc_for special enemy: Orc Poisoner is OP and just gives a low ammount of exp <-- wth?

 

[zeus9860]

I'm in your thread, whining for expz! (Even though I don't really grind nowadays)

1. Orc Poisoner in orc_for, max tier (orc_for/orc_poisoner) - 12500 HP, 60% armor + parry, 2000 exp (Effectively over 31250 hp vs 2000 exp)

Enemies next to the poisoner have about 1/3rd or less life, 10-20% armor, but give over half the experience the poisoner does. (1150-1250ish)

Orc_for special enemy: Orc Poisoner is OP and just gives a low ammount of exp <-- wth?

 

[Fegged]

Î be lazy to watch the previous pages, it's my style :rideon:

 

[Thothie]

This, and the stone ogre, have been addressed in the next patch.

 

[zeus9860]

Î be lazy to watch the previous pages, it's my style :rideon:

viewtopic.php?f=6&t=4889&start=2745#p138767

Are you sure about that? Besides, it's still on the same page you posted, just saying.

 

[Thothie]

Play nice...

 

[Srgnt Rehab]

After thinking about it a long time, I have a question that I really would like an answer to for XP balance.

Why are there (especially such great) diminishing returns on boss exp?
They are clearly harder and if people work together the experience really goes down the drain as it gets split among everyone who was attacking it. In my mind, logically it would make sense to have bosses be worth greater exp and everything else be lower to encourage boss fights rather than monster grinds. It also gives that sense of "I completed this dungeon and now I get my experience reward!" rather than "I completed this dungeon and the boss wasn't worth the 5 minutes because I could have restarted the map and gained more exp in that time." I understand that the end of the dungeon typically is about teh epic lewts and what not, but in reality, when you are able to do a dungeon, the loot is exciting for the first 4 runs, but the next 100 runs of that dungeon, the end is always depressing. If the exp at the end of a dungeon were the exciting part then I'd feel much better about doing the_keep 207 times now. *not really counting, but its probably fairly accurate* The boss should be the last enemy you get to since almost always the boss is at the end of a dungeon. Some dungeons you can't rush to the boss at all which logically should give them some sort of "difficulty to access" experience boost.

My other beef with exp is how slow it gets and how fast it gets so slow. Its almost like between 28-32 is a developing wall that makes reasonable time spent to becoming an obsessive amount of time spent, even when fighting things your level or higher. I don't want anyone reading this to feel like I am QQing for more experience, its just that for me, getting stats is more fun than getting loot, but the stats are really not flowing past a certain point. The time spent from getting from around 900 HP to getting to 1k HP is like a week for 10 HP... or maybe like 20 HP if you are really really into the game that week. And I understand that those stats are really important and really do add up, but it doesn't give a whole lot for people who are fighting 12 foot tall skeletons that can hit for 50 *after all the damage reduction* Work hard for like a month and you can survive 1 more hit from these enemies, and they only hit you 3 times per second. Maybe after 3 months you will survive 1 second longer than you did way back then. However the damage you are dealing is a bit better and it will shorten the fight. There are a lot of other factors involved and the strength you get over time is definitely noticeable, I just don't know why it quickly comes to a halt so fast.

Don't get me wrong, I do not feel that the stats are bad at all, it is just the lack of (the feeling of) progression at a certain point. I am very open minded to opinions on the matter, and its not like this game has a huge error in these ways, I just don't understand why it was chosen to be the way that it is.

 

[jon50559]

I agree with the boss vs. XP thing, it'd even be an idea to forego decent loot on a map just to have the end boss really worth fighting.


And @ the stats: without a total rework it's not possible, unless Thothie just wants people to hit the level wall faster(no)

To get a better feel of progression, Levels could instead go from 1-70(for instance) with 1-25 being very very similar to how the required xp is now, and then the rest of the levels hardly increasing in XP, and each one providing significantly less boosts to stats(so characters are not more powerful than they are now)

EX:
Req. xp 24 -> 25: 50,000
Req. xp 25 -> 30: 50,000(each level)
Req. xp 31 -> 35: 60,000(each level)
Req. xp 36 -> 40: 65,000(each level)
And so on...


Although I remember Thoth also saying that as levels get very high, buggy(er) things start happening.

 

[Thothie]

Why are there (especially such great) diminishing returns on boss exp?

There's... Not... The bosses would be the exception to the rule.

Originally, they did operate on the same basis... Back in the initial release, Keledros and Garonhroth were the two toughest bosses in the game, each having 6,000hp (Keledros across two stages). They were worth 200xp a piece. Calrian, next up at 2,000hp, was worth 150xp. Meanwhile, Trolls, at 300hp, were worth 100xp. Everything else was worth less than that.

But about three years ago, I decided to uber XP all the bosses... So now Keledros is worth 1,000xp (500xp twice), Garonhroth is worth 2,000xp, Calrian 1,000xp, etc. etc. (Atholo and Maldora being the meanest at that time, at 5,000 and 20,000, respectively). So now, nearly all the bosses have ten times the XP of a minion in their tier or better.

Granted, the effective level limit has more than doubled since the initial release, so now there's minions that could eat Keledros, the Blacksmith, or Calrian for breakfast, and some of those are worth 1,000xp to 2,000xp in themselves (with related elites/mini-bosses being much higher). But the pattern of a boss in the same tier being worth ten times the value of its minions has remained. The newer bosses ranging from 15,000 to 30,000xp.

Sometimes former bosses get recycled as minions for higher levels (eg. Soul Eaters = Calrian). Their XP value is lower in these situations as you don't have to tear through the whole map to get to them, in addition to the fact that they're a lot more common and usually less favorably positioned.

 

[zeus9860]

Well, there's still that one problem where players just kill the bosses to go after the loot, as usual they realise that the effort put into killing most of the bosses/mini bosses in this game is not equally worth as killing the lesser mobs (aka minions).
This is what people actually do, and they will keep doing so untill there's nothing left in that map for us to go there.

I always wanted to suggest something about this, but i always get that feeling that it ends up being ignored or opposed with other statements which leads me to think "why even bother", anyways here it goes:

1) is it possible to make some progression system where the player gets rewarded much better the first few runs he does in a map, something like each new map offering double experience to players, each run they do removes 5% of that boost untill it reaches the default value?

2) is it possible to "manipulate" high experience mobs (bosses and mini bosses) xp values? like having maldora actually give 100k experience, but a single player could only get a max of 20k experience from him, means it could give balanced xp to 5 players equally rather than low amounts of experience from a 20k limit...

3) is it possible to make some sort of system that works similiar to self adjusting maps, but in this case for bosses and mini bosses? like if a player does a map solo and kills a boss worth 20k xp, if the boss was fought with 2 players, it would get a tier 2 next to its name and give an extra 5k experience (25% boost per player, just an example).


Personally i prefer option #2, and no, it's not because i would get more experience that way, because you can clearly see the amount of xp is basically the same if i was to do it solo (which is pretty much likely to happen anyways). I say this because... you know, what's the point of grinding in group if the experience is leeched alot from each others and something like that would give more of a feeling of an equal share in experience in the end.

In other words group runs = loot, solo runs = xp. That's how it works right now and it's not that fun anymore tbh.

 

[Wishbone]

Well, there's still that one problem where players just kill the bosses to go after the loot, as usual they realise that the effort put into killing most of the bosses/mini bosses in this game is not equally worth as killing the lesser mobs (aka minions).
This is what people actually do, and they will keep doing so untill there's nothing left in that map for us to go there.

I always wanted to suggest something about this, but i always get that feeling that it ends up being ignored or opposed with other statements which leads me to think "why even bother", anyways here it goes:

1) is it possible to make some progression system where the player gets rewarded much better the first few runs he does in a map, something like each new map offering double experience to players, each run they do removes 5% of that boost untill it reaches the default value?

2) is it possible to "manipulate" high experience mobs (bosses and mini bosses) xp values? like having maldora actually give 100k experience, but a single player could only get a max of 20k experience from him, means it could give balanced xp to 5 players equally rather than low amounts of experience from a 20k limit...

3) is it possible to make some sort of system that works similiar to self adjusting maps, but in this case for bosses and mini bosses? like if a player does a map solo and kills a boss worth 20k xp, if the boss was fought with 2 players, it would get a tier 2 next to its name and give an extra 5k experience (25% boost per player, just an example).


Personally i prefer option #2, and no, it's not because i would get more experience that way, because you can clearly see the amount of xp is basically the same if i was to do it solo (which is pretty much likely to happen anyways). I say this because... you know, what's the point of grinding in group if the experience is leeched alot from each others and something like that would give more of a feeling of an equal share in experience in the end.

In other words group runs = loot, solo runs = xp. That's how it works right now and it's not that fun anymore tbh.

Number 2 and 3 should be possible, not sure about 1... Though I don't what the engine allows you to do and not do, so I could be wrong. Anyways, I think a idea like this is nice, it balances things out more.

 

[Thothie]

#1 (decaying XP per map visit) is probably possible, assuming that quest data remains as overflow proof as it has been, however, I don't really see the purpose behind it.

#2 (multiply boss XP/player present)... That thar be an idear... Granted, I'd be a dick about it, go a step further, and halve the XP for single player. Sticky bit is figuring ways around exploits like idle players, or players no where near capable of threatening the boss, etc. Preferably without having to go through every boss script and checking, "you must be X high to ride".

#3 (self adjusting bosses) Yes, it's trickier to balance bosses by scale than it is minions - partly due to their flurry of extra abilities, and party because they tend to be on the high end scale, and could easily get multiplied into insanity (as happens with some of the high end mini-bosses, when the self adjusting flag is added).

Thus, #2 seems the most viable mitigation to the illusion that single player is the way to go for XP...

...Dunno why this reminds me, but it is getting to be fund-drive time for Lord K's hosting service... Think he's $200 short this year. :\ Not sure how exactly I'm going to setup a fun drive sticky this time.

 

[Drathamus]

Still think levels 1-20ish should be drawn out more, and take away some XP to level from 21-40.

Brick walls are a pain in the ass.

 

[HeteroTiger]

I'm finding some interesting things while leveling up, and mainly that is that variation in map design not necessarily XP dictates where I will go. orc_for is an area where you can run through the entire thing only killing the Battle Troll(s) that spawn and the boss, the trolls giving 'meh' experience and the boss giving 4k which is pretty good for how easy it is to kill, however this means that there are no other areas around this level that are actually even close to on par with this, of course because regular mobs have something more like a .5 HP:XP ratio they are subpar to bosses, the bosses that are 'weak' like fire Djinn (piss easy with fire lizard armor and helm of fire resistance which both you can get there then he can't even damage you without his melee) even at lvl 15-20.

This leaves me with the current progression inl evels simply because these areas are superior in almost every way:
Chapel -> goblintown boss rush -> orc_for boss rush-> phobia (certain skills MAYBE) -> hunderswamp boss rush

Now this isn't necessarily a problem, but when you factor in that people will give you a list of 5-10 maps per each level area to actually train in, it is, because realistically none of the other ones are even close to as good. Only thing that I wouldn't train on orc_for rushes is fire for obvious reasons really.

If more things in orc_for and other maps gave a better HP:XP ratio people might not be so inclined to do these rushes, you might accept crap exp (very very slow) for a while, but once you try something out or talk to someone and they tell you, you're not going back to those crappy areas unless you want to, for actual leveling they are beyond subpar.

I'm not sure how to suggest to honestly fix this, but to give some examples:

Orkat Forest (orc_for) - Boss has probably near 4k hp gives 4k EXP, 2 people give 12k EXP, seems to scale nicely to share, 1:1 ratio
Idemark's Tower1 - Very short map, the monsters were not so easy around 20, I actually found them more difficult than the battle trolls, and then the exp wasn't great either.
MScave - Without the fire lizard armor the fire shamans are very powerful yet give little xp because once you GET fire lizard armor they are pitifully easy
Challs - Found this area to be pretty low experience as well, killed a named mob and got less than 1k exp despite him taking almost as long to take out as the Djinn
Calruins2 - This was absolutely terrible, the riddlemaster is tied to multiple spawns of zombies which are dreadfully slow, the miniboss is kinda bleh and the boss doesn't seem to give exp if you want the drop, granted the drop is why you go there, the experience isn't really great.
lowlands/highlands/etc - Didn't find these good for training at all either
ww1/2 - Amazing for training div, not so great for anything else

Really nothing seems to come close to seeing a 1:1 ratio at a decent point as orc_for up until you get to hunderswamp where the hivemother has about 30k hp and gives 30k exp and the thunderbeaks are about 400 HP for 400 XP, no clue with the oodlebeaks seem to be 750-1k HP for 750 XP.
The attempt at scaling HP:XP with 'difficulty' is one that I don't believe was carried out properly and might be reconsidered when it is to the extent that it is really, I can find super easy mobs like Goblin Pouncers giving me 200XP (solo, up to 1k EXP wit more people) and 1hko them since Swordsmanship 15 or so with a Greater Ice Blade.

Increasing the experience gains on some of the less travelled maps for level ranges may see them gain a bit more traffic, that and spawn rate which I find horrific on almost every map and within 30 minutes will find myself forced to mapvote as it trails off to never spawning after a few waves.

Ah, and divinity is also still way too hard to level, while I understand the stance on 'no heal exp' because it's 'too easy to bot', everything is easy to bot, this game isn't exactly fresh with a brand new cheat detecting system, you can bot anything in this game easily and hooking into it to get bot values probably wouldn't be that hard either, if someone cared to they could easily do any of it, however if you want to limit botting of such a thing there is a much simpler way, make healing experience really low and bring more div spells... rebuke undead levels like a snail gaining only 1.5 damage a level while the skeletons get much tougher and still do crap for damage, I find myself forced to get an Unbreakable Golden Axe or another holy weapon if I want to level div, there is simply no other way Doing 20 damage a tick and getting bout .5 exp per 1 damage it is simply UNBEARABLE to level it past 20 using only rebuke undead and you are forced to stop what you're doing, level axes (what if I don't WANT to level axes), gain 100k, and get a UGA, not to mention the loreldian ore, so go actually run lodagond, just to level div. There's 'It's supposed to be hard' and then there's "No, screw you roll another character", guess which one div is right now? :<

</Rant on balance>
I just don't want to feel like when I go exploring I'm being penalized if I joined the game with friends and people running orc_for get way more exp than me exploring and fighting other things especially when orc_for is stupid easy compared to some of the others.

I'm not asking for a nerf on orc_for experience, I think it's fine as it is and without it the game would be too painfully slow to take, but bring other things a bit up to speed, perhaps see if a map or two similar to it could be made that would be fun for many levels and good experience, where after the boss just sitting around you can just run after different things on the map with friends.



e:Rewarding team play is also extremely well done on orc_for where you actually feel good about bringing on others, although XP leeching past what your normal max would be is annoying it keeps you on your game and works out, it can be annoying to level with others because of this, but it isn't terrible as long as the exp per player goes up more than 100% it ends up being "Well this is better than solo", otherwise you either lose some or gain some, but someone is losing some exp.

 

[TheOysterHippopotami]

That just might be the best post in the history of these boards. It's about time someone started talking some sense.

This game is not 'balanced' in any way, shape or form past it's earliest stages. This is because all of the games content has been simply 'tacked on' without any foresight or planning. Every single time the devs get their hands on a new map, no matter how shitty, they simply toss it in the next 'patch' along with another overpowered stolen model complete with monsters (also stolen) that give way too much XP (but are 'hard to get to' ) and then, forever after, the game is forced to compensate for the previously released OP content.

This isn't a new thing, either. Massive, game breaking blunders have been a perpetual part of MSC since the beginning. What on earth were you guys thinking when you released insanely OP items like Phoenix Armor and the ring of electrical resistence when the player base was only level ~20? Not to mention the biggest offender, ice shield, an early game spell which cuts all damage in half. So then, from that point on, all monsters were beefed up artificially to deal with the stupid and needless 50% defense that ice shield offers. On top of that, you guys added in a slew of easy to obtain armors that also cut damage in half and then on top of this you released a fucking potion that gives 60% defense and drops like candy. And it has to drop like candy now because once all of this garbage made its way into the game all mobs had to be boosted accordingly.

This game is not just broken, it's un-fixable. So much 'stuff' has been added that there is no way to go back and readjust everything. The only solution left is to completely rebalance every aspect of the game from the ground up, wipe the character database and start over.

 

[lvb2555]

A hearty 'hear hear' there.

The ice shield issue comes up rather early on in the game. Take lesser ice shield, has less protective, less cost, yet still needs spellcasting 4? Nevermind that the first time I ever saw was it in lodagon-1, and how many people at that point in the game are going to let it take up a valuable item slot for the expressed purpose of giving it to a new player? Well, there might be a few at that. Throw it in the Edana shop, or something, it'll do the most good there.

It starts to become heuristically impossible to play without ice shield after a certain point, even with a dedicated healer keeping a tank alive. Damage points are all well and good, but there's no incentive to healing a tank outside a surviving the map, and at that rate, the time could be better spent elsewhere that's easier, leveling everything else.

Keep going further and even with every damage reducing tool, potion, armor, spell, stun, etc, etc there are some situations that are so far-fetched that I can't help but think there was a misplaced zero or two in the values.

As far as exp, well, as far as exp goes, the first example that comes to mind is the ww series. There's a reason to run it *last I knew, for that [item I can't name due to anti-spoiler laws] spawns there, if you are above XXXhp. The Boss isn't hard once you reach a certain threshold, yet for a few low-levels, trying to get that other, less important, thing (slightly tongue in cheek beating around the spoiler) he is insanely hard! Even teaming up using the environment, effort is so far past the reward threshold, it's not even amusing. Twice as effective, twice as easy, to go to Keledros, for similar exp, faster run, easier run.

Then in comes orc_for.

I rest my case.

 

[Thothie]

It's not so much a balance issue. The minions are balanced to deal with characters equipped at their appropriate levels, and the bosses are balanced to deal with four players in their same tier a piece, and their design assumes their opponents will be equipped accordingly (could use some tweaking in some cases, but it's more or less the case.)

It's more of an issue of progression. There's no smooth level progression. The game just assumes that, before you face the bosses and inhabitants of certain maps, you'll have gathered the appropriate equipment. Be those immunity pots, Phoenix armor, an Electrical Resistance Ring, the various elemental resistance helms, Protection potions, protective spells, or what not. These tend to be "make it or break it" items, so leveling alone, ie. facing even basic minions of your own tier without having explored enough to find the appropriate items, will leave characters helpless before them, being effectively naked. Many times over, when encountering bosses.

That's not particularly unusual in MORPG's, but MSC takes it to a far greater extreme than most.

Now, this was mitigated to a degree when we managed to rig up a system where items that provide elemental resistance do so based on your elemental spell casting levels, ending at a certain cap, but even then, it's merely a matter of reaching that cap before facing bosses of certain tiers. If, for instance, Ice Shield provided 5% protection per level and capped out 50%, it'd only affect a very narrow range of monsters (maybe two or three bosses that previously assumed you'd have access to that additional 50% protection), while all monsters beyond that range would remain as they are.

Part of it is the side of effect of increasingly faster leveling, the constant raising of the overall level cap, really limits long term plans. Forward planning is difficult, at best, haphazard, at worst. Phoenix armor, for instance, was introduced at a time when only the most powerful players could possibly have any hope of acquiring it, and enough time has passed, and the world has so expanded that it is, at best, a mid tier item now.

So, what should be a smooth level progression, becomes very staggered, as what you can and cannot face hinges as much on individual items you may find as your overall level, if not more so.

It'd be nice to have a formulaic item generation system (as I suggested for MSS), but it's far too late for that in MSC. The best we can do is ensure that you have to round out your efforts, by training in a wide array of skills as possible, before advancing to certain areas. While the planned spell revamp would help counter the current staggering to a degree, it certainly isn't going to reverse it. At best, we can introduce new mast-have plateau items and elements at later levels (which, I suppose, we already are, with the dark damage line).


As for the "OMG NO OC!" complaint. Stuff it. We're a community built mod. We take what we can get. If we didn't, we'd be looking at a world with maybe 11-15 maps and but a tiny fraction of the content. We've no dedicated modelers and mappers or other content providers who work on demand, never really have, it's just a matter of what people feel like donating at the time. I'm amazed of what we've managed to achieve on that voluntary basis, even if it means taking a lot of shortcuts by using the works of others as filler. Without such content, this game really wouldn't exist today.

 

[Thothie]

The ice shield issue comes up rather early on in the game. Take lesser ice shield, has less protective, less cost, yet still needs spellcasting 4? Nevermind that the first time I ever saw was it in lodagon-1, and how many people at that point in the game are going to let it take up a valuable item slot for the expressed purpose of giving it to a new player? Well, there might be a few at that. Throw it in the Edana shop, or something, it'll do the most good there.

At the higher levels, it is not unusual to find rare but lower tiered items from time to time (such as Galat Notes). This is to encourage interaction with the lower level characters despite the extreme power gaps. In the case of Lesser Ice Shield, it first appears at one of the more tutorial oriented maps, with the intent of making easier to find the final variant not too long after. However, folks level so quickly now, usually they have the final variant before having ever visited, or even heard of, the lighthouse map.

 

[Echo717]

Alright so as I've recently found out Cethin, or whatever she is called, the angry fire lady at the end of phobia is not considered a boss by my armor of bravery, why?

Also crocodiles are immune to vampyric effects, why?