something off with the game balance?

ucetincanucetincan
in Hero of Lukomorye IV

hello again cat.

my character was a level 56 rasvim (now58). i really wanted to see the end of kozney the deathless, so even though luko IV required a minimum level 70, i jumped in... i found a couple of cool eqipment, enchanted some more, and suddenly it became a walk in the park! now i can kill anyone with a single blow (damage: 10774) and the game reduced down to just solving the puzzles and no joy in combat.

also my gold exceeded 11M, so i just spend it like there’s no tomorrow, but somehow still continue to pile up even more.

another thing is repairing my equipment. when i boosted my repairing skills to 124, i suddenly had the ability to fix my stuff with a single click... no more tapping dozens of times to fix my gear...

i’m attaching my stats for you to check. so have i encountered a glitch, or did i just went way past the expected character development?

thanks!


Comments

  • CatacomberCatacomber
    edited October 2020

    It's just that there are so many expansions, so much equioment, so many books, it's not that hard to amass a lot of gold. Elendil fixed the repair thing to make it easier so no, it's not a glitch. What you can do is start another character or don't play with your high level weapons. You could try playing as a monk and just use staves. Because there are so many expansions, it's better to start each new series with a fresh avatar.

    I could create a ghoul in Horde II that would drain some of those high levels. : )

  • ucetincanucetincan
    but my preciousss weaponssses :) okay got it, thanks!
  • CatacomberCatacomber

    I had xp eating monsters in most of the later expansions but the betatesters complained. That would have helped. Maybe I'll resurrect them in Horde II. : )

  • ucetincanucetincan
    well, i wouldn't like it either because it'll mean taking something back that i had rightfully earned and will ruin the punish/reward balance. why don't you put tougher monsters instead? i looked at the average hp of the monsters in luko3 and luko4... both are around 4900-5500, and interestingly the average hp seems a bit lower in luko4 even though it is supposed to be a higher level adventure.

    monsters with higher stats is one thing, but i also would recommend some arena-like battles where my character gets ambushed or surrounded by legions of enemies. that way refining the combat and movement tactics will make the game much more fun and rewarding. i've encountered this situation only a couple of times and surviving these were pure satisfaction!
  • ucetincanucetincan
    edited November 2020

    while we are having this nifty conversation, i'll throw in my humble two cents about the game balance in a broader sense...

    i've noticed quest is quite flexible in terms of character development, and character level vs. power is not always linear... so instead of trying to hold back players, or punish them for being good at it, you might introduce adaptive difficulty. you could check player's character stats (damage / hp / skill points) at the very beginning of the expansion and level up your enemy roster accordingly.

    another issue that kept me disappointed time and again was the 'minion - sub boss - main boss' structure of the game. think about the blue alphawit and the black bogatyr... the minions were actually more powerful than their bosses (either singularly or by the power of their numbers). the bosses appeared time to time and threatened me (which is good for increasing the tension), but when i finally face them it only took one blow to kill... imagine the final fights of bruce lee ending in just one punch :)

    my final note is about the balance of melee weapons vs. magic. having a high magic skill helped me a lot in the beginning of the series, but as i level up throughout the expansions, melee weapons overpowered all magic dramatically. i've noticed the game introduces a lot of new spells, but they hardly make any difference. i would rather love to see my good ol' fireball spell incinerate my foes into ashes as i level up. currently my melee power is about 11k while my best magic spell does no more than 1k damage, although my attack magic is 320.

    sorry if i blabbed too much. but i love the game, and would love to play more it in the times to come :)

  • CatacomberCatacomber

    I can add arenas in Horde II. I can add higher magic spells but I have to be careful because there are limits set by the Quest's memory and if I go too high, numbers will wrap around and everything will be minus numbers. The Quest was never intended for so many expansions. That is a real problem.

    I can't check player's stats at the beginning of the game and level up monsters accordingly because the programming would be enormous. I've tried checking levels in some expansions, but some stats are sometimes maxed out beyond a level by reading books and quest rewards.

    Most of the latest expansions with the exception of Basilisk's Eye are ports from the Classic versions. I try to add some quests and levels but basically they're ports so to redo too many things would mean one or two expansions ported a year because creating the ports is already very time consuming.

    But I think the arenas are a very good idea.

    I'll reread your posts again when I get more of a chance to think about this and see what I can do.

    The boss/minion problem sometimes arises because more than one person worked on the expansions. : )

    Feel free to post your thoughts about these things and I'll see what I can do in Horde II, keeping in mind that Horde II also is a port so to reworking it completely would mean it might be out sometime in the middle of next year.

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