I want to start off by saying I love a lot of the monster design, especially siege golems. Really neat. I did notice a few things while playing that I want to point out, but keep in mind I have been playing a block paladin so my perspective might be biased.
A lot of monsters are too slow to ever be a threat. The big magma gorns have a great ranged attack that you might never see on a melee character, and they do nothing in melee. The big guys that swing their giant weapon(rock?) in place are really slow. At range they are not a threat because the lumber around so slowly. It seems like the smaller monsters engage quickly and the bigger ones are hit or miss on this. All monsters should be a threat.
Monsters can have bad aim. I saw a whole pack of skullen chuckers behind a rock throwing rocks at me that were just hitting the rock they were behind. Monsters need to be smarter about LoS.
Pack size is a big one. Some monsters show up in big packs, some monsters show up solo. Solo is bad. It just feels terrible for gameplay. I love how Ospyrix fly into the battlefield, but just one at a time feels really boring. We don’t need a thousand monsters per map, but we definitely need a minimum pack size. And maybe sometimes more packs.
There feels like a really good diversity of ranged and melee monsters. There is not enough monsters than do DoT. This is the bias of playing my paladin, nothing else hurts except DoT. The frost bats that seem to do a cold inferno are one of the most noticeable monsters for me. Few monsters are an actual threat to my paladin, but anything that does DoT I notice.
For general balance I think everything needs to do a bit more damage once you hit monolith endgame. A lot of people complain in chat in the game that the game feels too easy, but I think it’s okay for the story mode to be a walkthrough. In fact I encourage it to be a source for actively teaching players how to play the game. The problem is when you get to endgame and it’s still a breeze.
This is definitely related to your comments… Some mobs are definitely too easy, some too slow, some hit too hard, mob density is a little low in some maps, certain combinations of mobs are exponentially harder than others (compliment each other too well)…
However… change character/build and all of a sudden the same mobs that kicked your Sorcerers arse are pathetic against your low level Forge Guard… I suppose this is true of all arpg games really but over the 1k hours I have spent, I have definitely realised that is very true of LE right now.
Yes, the campaign levels are pretty easy and I dont think they should be too hard as they are not end game - so long as the difficulty and progression are in sync. MoF work fairly well imho as they quickly highlight problems with a build / gear and corruption scales up difficulty nicely… we just need more incentive to push corruption… (legendary drops anyone?)
I suppose a lot of this balancing is going to have to wait until the content gets more stable and complete…
To be fair though, my first character I played in endgame was a sorceror who killed a lot faster than my paladin and didn’t really struggle either. He couldn’t stand in packs like my paladin, but he obliterated packs from a distance which is its own defense. I just want to avoid all monsters being trash monsters. I occasionally one-shot rare monsters because the base monster is so pathetic and they don’t scale much as rares.
True… there are plenty of mobs that are so much easier than others that it highlights the wide range of difficulty in the current mob balance… Class/Build benefits aside obviously.
E.g. Spiders vs Lightmages - rare spiders are so pathetic that you could fart in their general direction and kill them, but rare Lightmages nuke you so easily that it seems like they belong in higher level maps…
I’m averse to turning up the pack density and number because I don’t want to see this game become like others where enemies are simply barrels that explode as you move through them. If encountering a single monster feels bad, I’d rather see the monster treated as an interesting setpiece, a threat that requires skill to clear and gives an appropriate reward when dealt with.
Perhaps something that makes the solo monster more sticky:
Fast chase speed
A slowing tether
A debuff that sticks with the player until they kill the enemy
I agree with this on a spiritual level. Don’t think I need say more on it lol.
Now, with current mob density as is… it definitely needs work as I’m sure most would agree. How they work it is what I’m curious about. My opinion is density can be used as a tool, and make the game world feel more live. If I go through open plains, Ill encounter some mobs, but I wouldn’t think mountains of packs. But, if I’m swathing through an invading army, density should be pretty damn high imo.
Using density and such can be a fun way to vibe while playing, and I curiously await how they implement.
That already happens. Some monsters are always in big packs, some monsters are always solo. I don’t expect packs of siege golems, but usually there are other small monsters nearby that make the fight interesting. Some of the big solo monsters are just not interesting or threatening and need buffed. Some solo monsters are not impressive at all, like ospyrix, and should probably be in packs.
Monos have +movespeed and +attack speed. This isn’t much of an issue. Besides making the giants fast by default is just silly.
Solo monsters are usually the tougher ones, the ones with big AoE. I don’t often see weaker monsters that are not in a pack.
They do a lot of damage, you are just playing VERY tanky builds with 100% crit avoid, capped res, high block and high health. Try facing them with a squishy character before you judge how much damage they are dealing.
You have a point about DoT but I would rather NOT die to poison ailment(it just feels bad as you cannot prevent it once poisoned) - I instead would like mobs to make ground DoT that you must avoid.
I have, I played a sorc with a third the health and three times the damage. Stuff died too fast to matter.
I can remove poison, why can’t you? Also, you should feel bad dying, that’s what makes it exciting. No challenge is no fun. If the monster design means it simply cannot be a threat then it’s just poor design, regardless of what class you play. This is about balance, part of that balance is the potential of death. Without that potential it’s not nearly as fun.
I do feel the mob density is a bit too low. I get my kicks when I reach close to the end and go to the reef and there are those big packs of crabs.
Not to say we should necessarily copy PoE and fill the screen with enemies, but, finding 1-2 enemies is not satisfying.
I also started adopting the simple strategy of ignoring tanky enemies. Even assuming that there actually is a consideration where tanky mobs are worth a whole pack of enemies’ worth in XP it still does not feel interesting when I find one, then another, then a fifth or sixth.
So I’ve taken to run past and leave them behind and just kill the ones I recognize as dying fast.
Eventually you will get hit and die because you are squishy. Most likely to an empowered boss or the faster mobs at high curruption/arena.
because I am not running a skill that specifically removes it, expecting every build to run something so specific just to deal with a specific enemy that rarely shows up is bad game design
