Discussion: Dev Blog: February 2022

[xerandus]

I'm kind of curious, in regards to close combat, how did we get from the Povus lamp lighting "It only takes me about 30 minutes, in pretty shoddy gear" to "And I learned that city fighting... sucks in this game". That sounds like very different statements. What changed? Personally I managed to solo the lamp lighting once, took me about 40 minutes with really, really good gear and luck that the only ghosts were in the Annex. I also managed not to die, which required a lot of care in advancing through the city.

I definitely agree with the more recent statement - that close combat sucks. The first one or two invasion waves after the lamp lighting are typically easier than the lamp lighting, probably because the enemies are concentrated in one or two regions of the city and not spread over the entire city, and consist of just 2-3 kinds of enemies. Some of the other Povus events, particularly the flapskull and the Ranalon one with the megafauna, you get such concentrations of enemies that fighting in the city is almost untenable, even with a couple full groups. We've largely adapted by fighting outside the city and pulling enemies out in ones and twos. The Povusaloosa events are probably different (I've always been busy with something IRL when they have been held) but I gather there were enough people on hand to overcome those difficulties.

[Edit]

In regards to needing more max level characters to get better data: Yes, there are many, many ways that skills can be combined. But if a combination isn't deemed viable, you aren't going to get a lot of data on that if you want to make changes. For instance, two skills without ranged attacks presents some difficulties when playing solo. It might be good for a tank in a group, but not when you have to chase down enemy archers/mages and beat on them in melee range, while possibly being hit by other ranged attacks at the same time. I recall leveling unarmed/battle chem on one of my alts, and though BC burst have 10m range, that really doesn't cut it when dealing with the ranged attackers in rahu desert, for instance.