What are "leveled enemies"? In Alpha 9 you will notice an additional number when facing a NPC or a POI. This is the "level" of your opponent. What effect does the level have? The Level of the enemy is basically a MULTIPLIER of its attack (Damage of his weapon) and defense (Hitpoint) values, pretty much like the decision, which Difficulty mode to start the game with does also multiply the attack/defense parameters. The Level is an additional multiplier. Basic Multipliers for Difficulty modes EASY = 0.5 MEDIUM = 1 HARD = 2 Level multipliers (0.1667-stepping) Level 10 = 2.5 Level 9 = 2.33 Level 8 = 2.17 Level 7 = 2.00 Level 6 = 1.83 Level 5 = 1.67 Level 4 = 1.50 Level 3 = 1.33 Level 2 = 1.17 Level 1 = 1.00 Reads: If you played on MEDIUM before and now run into a Level 10 NPC on the same difficulty level, the NPC is 2.5x stronger than in Alpha 8. >> THIS is also our main feedback request on that topic (see below) How does this work? Example 1: You start the game on EASY and run into an NPC with level 10. His attack/defense values are multiplied with (0.5 x 2.5 ) = 1.25 Example 2: You start a game on HARD and run into an NPC with level 10 = 2 x 2.5 = 5 x attack/defense Example 3: You start a game on EASY and run into a NPC with level 1 = 0.5 x 1 = 0.5 Why do POIs also have a level and what does this mean? The level of a POI tells you which NPC-levels spawn there - with a slight variance: In a POI level 10 you can run into NPCs of level 7-10. Note: the level also applies to turrets! For Creators: where do i define the levels? For SSG (Randomly created solar systems via SolarSystem Generator): Levels can be set in the SOLARSYSTEMCONFIG.yaml in the parameter "PlayfieldLevel" The level of a playfield defines the maximum levels of the POIs and Entities (on terrain) that will spawn there. The level of the POI will then define the NPCs spawning inside You can give a RANGE for the PlayfieldLevel like: PlayfieldLevel: [6, 8] Example: You set the range for playfield levels to [6, 10] in the SSG / Solarsytemconfig This means you can bascially get playfields between these ranges when the solar system is generated on game start On a playfield level 8 you can see a small variant of POI and Terrain-NPCs UP TO level 8 (like 6-8) but NEVER above 8 For Fixed Systems The level can also be set DIRECTLY in the playfield.yaml, but WITHOUT a range. You can give an EXACT maximum Level for an individual playfield like: PlayfieldLevel: 8 This means you will get POIs and Terrain-Entities up to that level (with the same variance, like 6 or 7 might show up, but never 9 or 10) You can also increase the Level BY BIOME with a new parameter added to the biome definition in the playfield.yaml. "LevelMod: +<level>" Use any positive Integer value for <level>, like +2 = the level of this biome is +3 higher than the game-start/main definitions have set it.
My primary concern about levelled enemies is that currently we don't really have a lot of levelling on our equipment. The pre-levelling enemies were already severe bullet sponges for a lot of weapons, and a lot of stuff would instakill you more or less even with the best armor(missiles from hand-held missile launchers and base turrets). How is the levelling capped and where does it "start"? Is level 1 the same as what we've been facing previously, or weaker? And compared to the previous "level" of the unlevelled enemies, where does it end? Twice as tough? Three times? As I read it, only "level 1" is as strong as they used to be, and in my opinion that was already much too durable for a lot of enemies, especially those goddamn spiders that would eat ridiculous amounts of ammo to take down. I'd start the levelling well below the previous alpha 8 power level. Maybe at 0.5 and let 2.0 be the biggest multiplier available. Because it won't take much before the enemies instakill you with one shot, and take artillery cannons to kill even their wimpiest foot soldiers. Either you'd need to be really careful about the scaling, or you'd need to allow weapons and armor to scale to similar levels. Though personally I'd find that unsatisfying, I feel like levelling enemy health/damage is a poor idea. I'd say just... equip them better when they level up. Like a level 1 Zirax Goon only has a pistol and no body armor, a level 10 Zirax Goon maybe has power armor and a minigun, rather than a strict multiplier to power. Maybe even improve their AI, like the level 1 Zirax Goon just runs at you, blasting away, while the level 10 Zirax Goon takes cover, pops out to shoot, then pops back in again and stays close to his squad for backup. If the only real difference between tough and easy enemies is a health/damage multiplier and maybe their drop table, that's not very satisfying or interesting, and I feel like it would be extremely hard to balance.
The info above doesn't match with this example, easy is 0.5 and level 1 is 1.00 (not 0.25), so it would be = 0.5 (not 0.125) - Is the example wrong, or is the info above?
i like the idea, but not the realization. For me it those enemys don't feel so scary like they did without numbers and health bars over their heads. I would prefer something like: poor equipped Zirax on first planet, and on harder planets they get better weapons and armor. Or bigger groups of enemys on harder planets.
I already gave some feedback in the experimental thread which I won't repeat here, but to add to it: I agree with complaints about "bullet sponges". The hitpoints/defense of enemies is too high. I like challenge but even on medium difficulty I have to shoot most things with a sniper rifle 10+ times to kill them. Only certain highly armored enemies should be that hard to take down. Challenge should come from having more enemies, being attacked more often, having smarter enemies, and enemies hitting harder. Being hosed down with an assault rifle should pretty much be the end of most enemies.
yeh I would prefer it to be a little more realistic then a level of my gun vs level of an enemy determining an outcome, it just feels so unrealistic when i have to shoot something 30 times lol.. while better amour would increase more shooting overall i think the balance has to be right as well as maybe higher level enemies have better weapons themselves, can move faster, there's more of them in harder areas etc etc
Well, I already made a detailed post about this in the Experimental thread, so just gonna present more alternatives to just buffing base stats. 1) Enchanced NPC behavior as difficulty and it's level rises; 2) For humanoid NPCs, just make them wear better and/or more varied gear, make them patrol in larger numbers, give them HV/SV as support; 3) Steal the "affix" system from current WoW : The higher the level, the more "abilities" the NPC has, to make things more interesting, without altering it's base stats; 4) Make the NPCs less forgiving, tolerant; 5) Make the NPCs have abilities tied to the biome/planet they are in. Make them a force multiplier when it comes to environment survival.
Zirax that can toss bombs or use medkits, mechs that can put up a temporary personal shield, A Zirax that could swap weapons mid-fight, etc.
Hardly only WoW that has this, or which invented it, but the idea is good. Additionally, if the abilities are theming, and the levelling is in gear, then you don't need a dumb "YOU MUST BE THIS TALL TO RIDE BCUZ OF LEVEL BEING X"-sticker on every enemy. If it's a ZIRAX BURNYGUY, he'll be bright red or have sick flame decals on his armor. And if he's a level 1, he'll be running around in his boxers with a knife. If he's level 255, he'll be wearing sick power armor with shoulder-mounted rocket launchers and a minigun in each hand.
I would like to see better AI pathing and management in lieu of level buffs. Levels certain add difficulty in a way, but it's mostly trivial; in the end if my opponent is too slow to react to my shots anyway, my T2 rocket will only need 2 shots, not 1 to kill him. Some basic things I'd like to see with future level in AI management is: 3: I'll crouch or try and use cover (if available) 5: If you're using a close range weapon, I'll step back and fire, vice versa for a long range weapon 8: If I'm outmatched (compared to player level) I'll flee and attempt to call for support from nearby allies
So far this seems good, though I notice that the hit boxes on Alien Scorpions seem to be rather odd. I was shooting at some in an SV with 8 gatling guns, and even with all that bullet spam I could barely hit them. True that they are very spastic and hard to hit, but it seems as though you have to hit them dead center or you miss completely. Seems like they ought to at least take some fractional damage from the legs or tail.
I like the damage multiplier being applied to the enemy damage. I don't really like the increase to the enemy HP though, it leads to the "bullet sponge" problem where some enemies can take an unrealistic number of hits. The solution to making enemies more challenging at higher levels is to have more of them, not make each of them take forever to kill. Of course, having 3X the enemies is similar difficulty to having a single enemy with 3X the hitpoints, but it feels more realistic.
Leveling really does not work long term. Adding ability is preferred. Tweak a few numbers other that hit points and you can fool anyone into believing the game is fighting back against player leveling. Spawn number (+X / level) round down. They bring friends into the fight Just clocking up speed a tiny bit makes experinced monsters Extented range attack on the patrol units makes for better soldiers Minigun drone not working. Take heavy drone with plasma or rockets! However what is really fundamentaly broken right now is there is playfield leveling. Big Bugs appearing and spitting acid. Just 5 miunutes into the tutorial on the basic temperate planet is not great. New players are going to hate that. Another annoying thing is using the full range of creatures on every planet. Instead of limiting appearance by biome in the playfield generator. Worried here. As much as love the game and almost everything about it. The one thing they always mess up is play balance changes. Expect many months of patching as we go back and forth. Before this gets sorted out.
I totally agree with you guys, nearly in every topic! But why noone mentions the loot periods and the corpse deletion timer? Right now this is my biggest concern which is left out of those "fancy" math above: More hp/defense -> takes more time to kill!!! How on earth suppose i loot all of those bodys when I can't even finish fighting? The troop transport pops up really fast, the drones have so low cooldown that u can't even reach them in space without a respawn in your back. Why there isn't in the settings a slider to increase the corpse/body/wreck deletion time?? I don't have a highend PC but it could handle 10x times more corpses on the field. With current setup in open areas where you fight with 2-3 patrol groups, drones, troop transport half of your loot will vanish until you kill everyone and starting your loot collection process. Which is in my view is unacceptable. So please: Introduce a feature ((in difficult settings)) to set the reset time for corpses/wrecks as we please. (2mins-5-mins-10mins-20mins-30mins-forever/1day) if looted it will vanish in 30secs. Without a player leveling system (I mean true leveling) where we can either increase OUR base stats or get better equipment, the bruteforce upgrade of our enemys are really really frustrating. Only way to kill NPCs effectively is to increase the numbers of our weapons on our vehicles which makes the ground (on foot) combat meaningless. You may say wait a minute! In POIs you may fight on foot. No because i assume everyone like me heads for the core first and kills it without any npc to spawn in the building. ((only way to fix this till this core system exists is to introduce a random core where you place 5-10 random cores/building and the game will choose where to put that single one,)cheapest solution right now) My suggestions are with the current lazy bruteforce system: PLAN A: separate EXP -> Combat exp / Environments exp Combat exp: will provide points to increase our base stats and skills: Skills like in every RPG game in the past 3 decades, +dmg , +def +hp, reload time reduction, sight etcs Environment exp is the regular one which is in the game right now. Which will provide the points to unlock Techtree. PLAN B: Introduce mods to weapons and mods to armor to compete with upgraded enemys (((I would suggest the Mass Effect 1 weapon and armor system with those goodies (modded bullet types, boosters etc)))) [[[Omg how i miss ME1 in that aspect, that system was simple and briliant]]]] Today's problem is we have constant dmg and our hand weapons has constant dmg too. Therefore fighting on foot is a huge frustrating time sink. Nowadays kids do not remember kiting enemys in WoW for 20-30mins to kill them, they will just switch their games Of course the long term solution is to upgrade AI, but that require enormous amounts of work, and experience in AI programming. So far i see there are solutions in this game which are temorary and unfinished. If you want to keep it simple introduce PLAN B ((you have almost everything ready in this game for it (playing with numbers)))
