Seeking Understanding

[grumpygamer]

A quick follow-up on boss difficulty... Most (all?) bosses I've come across have big warnings before you get to their room/area where it gives you an indication of the difficulty of the mob you'll encounter. I find that to be a good indication of difficulty even if the mobs prior to this boss are very easy.

[Citan]

Thanks for the feedback! I consider newbie-questions to be invaluable feedback, because it shows what isn't intuitable about the game. Not everything is supposed to be instantly intuitive, necessarily, but most game mechanics should make sense within their own context. But because we change things around a lot, systems that may have made sense once don't always stay sane. Boss monster difficulty is one such area -- bosses were once easier than they are now, and while I toned some bosses down when we changed monster difficulty, it's especially hard to find the sweet spot for newbie bosses, because it's hard to tell how powerful you're going to be at that point.

The rhino boss in the crypt is almost certainly too difficult ... or, perhaps another way to fix that is that the monsters near there need to be tougher. But probably just toning down the boss in this case. Another SUPER-unfortunate boss is 'Tremor' in the myconian dungeon. His curse is supposed to be annoying -- back when basic attacks weren't that important, it was an annoying curse. But we made Basic Attacks much more important recently, and now Tremor's curse is one of the worst in the game... and it's in a low-level dungeon. (We'll fix it soonish, but the point is just that changes do have unexpected side-effects, and I rarely find all of those on my own -- I only realize there's problems when I get feedback.)

As far as finding research components, it's supposed to be time consuming and/or expensive. Keep in mind that other skills have other time-consuming and/or expensive aspects that aren't necessarily obvious. For instance, to make the Staff skill really shine, you need to find the Hoplology skill, which is in a difficult level 40 dungeon. Prior to that, the skill is good, but not amazing. Similarly with Mentalism -- some of the best powers will be missing for a bit until you can come back and get them from the myconians.

But saying it's supposed to be expensive and time consuming is just the general goal. Precisely how difficult should it be? I dunno. It's alpha; we're mostly winging it based on feedback and, sometimes, metrics. And it can see-saw back and forth a bit. I suspect part of the problem with fire magic is that I recently made getting Fire Dust a bit too easy, so it seems extra-weird that the later components are so hard to get. The fix is probably to make fire dust a bit less common while also making higher-level components a bit more common. You'll see in each snapshot build's patch notes where I attempt to tackle one or two of these kinds of things each time. (How many arrows should a "bundle of arrows" generate? How hard should it really be to level up First Aid? On and on it goes.)

Bottom line is mostly: it's alpha, I dunno, please give feedback (as you have!) when something seems amiss -- either too hard OR too easy -- nobody ever reports the too-easy stuff. We're going for an organic difficulty, where not everything is necessarily as hard or easy as everything else, and that means we don't have to make everything perfectly orthogonal, but it can also be an excuse that hides major content problems.

I'll talk with Silvonis about setting up an area of the forum where newbies can give their first impressions about things in a safe environment -- that is, one where people don't say "learn to play noob" etc. (That doesn't happen much around here, but when it does happen, it makes newbies shut up, and that's bad.)

In the short term, the advice in this thread is pretty good. If you have trouble with boss difficulty levels, the wiki can help. If you can't find something you need, try checking the Used tab of vendors; if that doesn't work, try using the user-requested-items board in the back of Serbule. There's no level or skill requirements there. It acts as a sort of reverse-auction-house. Try requesting 1 saltpeter at whatever price you can afford, and see how it works out. And having level-appropriate gear is at least as important as having level-appropriate abilities, so when you're stuck on one, try working on the other.

Alpha can be a rocky time, but it definitely has its up-sides, too. Hopefully you can work around the difficulties, and if you continue to give us feedback when you find them, the game will get better as a result.

[Crissa]

The mushroom cave is doable for a group at 15-25. That's the design. It's not soloable until much later (because of the wanderers). Even at 40 I die in there oft times. Heck, I can solo the brain bug cave, but if I try to just run past the mobs, they'll eventually eat me.

Ask people to group up! There's no shame in it. We all exist in the same instance.

[Mortitia]

Regarding Mu favor, you dont have to kill anything to get his favor up, he likes other things that are not linked to combat and are doable at low lvl.

[alleryn]

Regarding Mu favor, you dont have to kill anything to get his favor up, he likes other things that are not linked to combat and are doable at low lvl.

Does he? In my notes all i have written down are "loves blue crystals" and "likes heartshrooms". Maybe my notes are incomplete or blue crystals are easier to get than i think (i've yet to find one) ?

[Extractum11]

"Blue crystals" confusingly means blue gems, so that's anything from blue mineral surveys + Turquoise/Sapphire/Vervadium.

[Spiritfingers]

What makes some of the bosses so difficult...besides the permanent curses...is they knock you back into other mobs or they stun you a lot and the adds destroy your health bar. I haven't been to crypt in a long time but when I was new to the game, the rhinos would knock you back and you'd aggro mobs through walls and around corners.

[alleryn]

"Blue crystals" confusingly means blue gems, so that's anything from blue mineral surveys + Turquoise/Sapphire/Vervadium.

Oh, that is confusing. I assumed it was referring to something similar to the redwall crystal or the blue crystal velkort has the player chip a piece off of. Thanks for the elucidation.

[Mortitia]

Blue crystals are not dropped, you have to dig them. Maybe a girl in South Serbule can tell you about it. And yes your notes are incomplete, there is a third item even easier because he is sold by a npc, just have to find who and get money.

[alleryn]

Blue crystals are not dropped, you have to dig them. Maybe a girl in South Serbule can tell you about it. And yes your notes are incomplete, there is a third item even easier because he is sold by a npc, just have to find who and get money.

I checked the wiki and it looks like that third item doesn't unlock until Friends level, so that's still not a way to raise favor initially.