In Reforged Eden (and probably most other custom scenarios) NPCs will deal double the intended damage to players until we can fix it. So "medium" is actually equivalent to hard, and "easy" is equivalent to medium. That's why I recommend playing on easy or medium. The servers I follow changed it to easy after a lot of complaints about poi difficulty and pretty much everyone agreed combat feels a lot better. The side effect is that NPCs will have less health but that's better than getting two shot by every enemy. And yes, that's the base on Sienna. Then you go to the ship in orbit. Then I made a new derelict station you get sent to that actually has a pretty challenging boss fight at the end. For the derelict station I recommend having some decent medications and such before you do it. I went all out on the station, there are some traps and surprises but they should make sense when they happen and not put you into an impossible situation. There's some non-linear progression and shortcuts that open up so if you dien you can get back to your body fast. I also put repair stations at certain parts where you can repair your armor throughout the poi as armor's damage protection is lowered based on durability. But heed the warnings posted in the derelict station, as there's several "anti cheese" measures to prevent people from just cheesing the station. Hopefully, people don't need like they need to. Because of the way NPC damage works the numbers in the config files for a scenario need to be set lower than they currently are. This may not be something that all scenario authors are aware of, I know it affects RE for sure. For example if I balanced a npc to have a 10 second time to kill on a player wearing medium armor on normal difficulty, that npc will actually kill the player in 5 seconds. A huge difference! So currently RE does not account for this difference. It will in the 2.0 version so for now if you've been playing RE on hard you've actually been playing it on ultra hard.
Thanks @ravien_ff - I hope to get some time to play this weekend. So, I will return to Sienna and start the infected mission-chain from there. I will be sure to set my difficulty down to "Easy" to accommodate the issue you mention.
This is a timely subject for me. I have just in the last couple of days realized I f***ing HATE POIs in this game. Some are okay but mostly they suck. Either the core is hidden behind some wall with no indication of where it is or there are spawners that spawn mobs faster than I can kill them, or rooms full of mobs I can't possibly kill or some other cheesy BS. Most of the time, I find myself popping into god mode to zip through walls to find the core and destroy it. Then, depending on my mood, I might go back to the start and try to complete the POI - or not. The only POI I like is the Burial Chamber even though I had to cheat to find the core the first time. Now that I know where it is, I can destroy it going in. Other than that, it's a decent POI. The rest of them are just no fun to me. 1> Mobs should not respawn unless the POI has been vacant for 30 min. Having mobs respawn in an area already I've already cleared is an instant switch to god mode for me. 2> CPU core should not be hidden behind a wall. You should be able to find a core without having to destroy anything. 3> I should NOT need a drill to complete an POI unless it is an obvious cave in and those should be minimal. 4> No rooms full of mobs waiting to destroy you as soon as you open the door unless there is a reasonably intuitive way to avoid getting gang-banged. 5> Very few POIs should take a first-time player more than 30-45 minutes to complete unless it is a major, major POI.
Do we know whether it is at all possible to scale a POI based on how many players are currently raiding it? Many of the POI's where spawns seem excessive - let's ignore the timing of those spawns for the moment - would be near trivial with say three to four players teamed up. In many cases, even just a second player to have your back would be a total game-changer. I've seen POI's - again, weird spawn timing aside - that I've really struggled with, then I'll see a video where a small group of players just breeze through it with minimal effort. That's stark difference in difficulty based on number of players is significant here. Balance a POI for a solo player? Two or more are going to totally breeze it. Balance it for a group? Solo player is going to struggle. This is the heart of the issue really, when talking from a POI design perspective. As a Solo player, taking a tactical, slow, considered approach to such a POI is a must, I simply don't have anywhere near the combined fire power of a small group of players, nor can I readily engaged several enemies at once like a group can. That ramps the challenge up significantly, but lots of ammo, meds and a willingness to "tactically withdraw" if necessary before returning are the counter. When spawning goes wrong though, or any number of the other issues mentioned here, death can be instant. Didn't get the chance to play the entire weekend, might get some time in the week. Really want to try the Infected mission chain POI's and share my experience. Back to my initial point, if Eleon could allow POI designers to scale them based on the number of players present, I think (again, vanilla issues aside) that would be massive progress towards making these POI's a challenge for both the group and solo player. Final thought. When you get to the point where you've got a lot of the REALLY high-end gear possible in RE, things do of course get easier. However, that's purely from a dealing more damage due to better guns and taking less damage due to better armour / killing the enemy more quickly. Tactics don't really play much of a part in that. While I'm far from the best FPS player by any means, knowing that my skill and my tactics played a large part in my success and not just that "lucky find" gear I got in the last POI is something I derive great satisfaction from. With the current state of the game, it seems that gear counts for everything at times.
Or at the very least, a way of communicating to players the recommended number players you should have to take a given POI. In the short term, an entry in the PDA with a little blurb about each POI you encounter (get within render range) would be the easiest but long term something like the scanning visor in No Mans Sky or Metroid Prime would be a nice way to handle this. I don't have a problem with there being some POIs that I just cant reasonably take on foot by myself. I do have a problem with there being no way of knowing what a POI is or how its balanced until I go in and waist a bunch of time and resources on it. Right now you just kind of have to guess based on its size, faction, and name. That's not ideal. The game needs a way of communicating threat level to players. This applies to ALL encounters, POI or otherwise.
At this point, I'm just gonna recommend that players who find POIs are too difficult or tedious just blast them apart from the outside with vessel weapons. Cracking open a POI is the best part if you're more into building stuff to solve problems. Solo players, co-op hosts, and server owners can even disable admin core immunity if they want to more fully facilitate this method as well. I don't think scaling the number of troops in a POI would work very well. Spaces are setup for a certain number of troops. Too many in a small space would make a mess of clipping and pathing. Too few in a large space is boring. As far as testing the threat level of a POI, do some recon. Grab an assault rifle, a light suit with some armor boosters, and a few bandages, and go inside. Or stand outside and send your drone in whatever holes you find or make. Prod the snares a little.
Having had a hard time with POIs, and having read this thread, and especially having watched the video earlier in the thread of the guy taking down the hard POI, I decided to give POIs another go, with a few changes to my playstyle. First thing (this is in RE) was to set enemy difficulty to Easy. Second thing was to, instead of going after big POIs, start small and work my way up. Third thing was to take death a bit less seriously. Yes, I will try to avoid it as much as possible (obviously), but I'm also not going to delete my save when I die. Results have been very good so far. I've found the POIs I've gone after so far (admittedly low-level ones, like Zirax Com Station, Zirax Refuelling Station (I think?) and some other level 1 POI of some sort), have been actually very fun to go through. Enemy numbers weren't too high, nothing spawned on top of me (well, one or two Zirax Shotgun troops spawned a few blocks in front of me but they were easy to put down). Loot was decent, guns felt powerful (maybe that's just the Elite Assault Rifle vs Level 1 Zirax but anyway) and overall I enjoyed the experience A LOT more than I expected. I didn't have anything shooting me through walls. Nothing spawned directly on me or behind me. Maybe it's just the POIs I've chosen, but so far I've not experienced any of the things that have been complained about so far. I think one of the mistakes that I (and perhaps others) have been making is to avoid the small "easy" POIs and instead go for the big ones. Skipping the small Outposts and going straight for the Drone Base, things like that. This tactic, clearly, was a poor choice. The new tactic, of taking on small POIs to build experience and loot, seems to be working for me so far. I keep forgetting to send my drone into rooms ahead of me to check for enemies, but maybe that will be more necessary with higher level POIs. It's definitely changed my attitude towards POI raiding. A feature I once considered skipping is now something I will probably continue to look forward to. Though I must agree with the above: some sort of POI rating system (NOT the level 1 - level 10 thing since that doesn't apply to all POIs anyway) would probably really help players identify appropriate challenges to take on for their skill and loot level.
The Derelict Station scales with the number of players present in the playfield when you first start the POI. Optionally, players can manually increase the difficulty of the POI if they want more of a challenge. This just adds more NPC spawns for certain areas.
Just going to add my two cents here. The Overview: Great atmosphere in general. This is a combination of the writing, level design, sound choice, enemy choice, and playfield choice. Level design is simple and straight forward up until the derelict station. More on that in its own section. I have only ever run these in RE. The Colony: Spoiler I love the Sienna start and the colony fits nicely with the difficulty level of this game start. You can run this one with minimal gear and things are telegraphed well. Light Armor, a shotgun, and an assault rifle are all you really need for this. You could probably get by with just the shotgun. The music, lighting, and mob sounds carry this POI. The individual office rooms near the start are prone to late spawning. These spawners should probably active as soon as you enter the hall way. The giant bug in the cafeteria tend to get stuck in it's compartment. I get what your going for here but its a little cheesy. Especially when the enemy never actually makes an appearance. I never enter the 'computer room' through the decontamination chamber. I Always go through the vents here so I have a nice fall back point for when the cryo chambers open. I'm not a fan of were you moved the core. I liked being able to turn this place into my base in single player. The Ship: Spoiler Like the colony, I think the balance on this one is just right for where it is on the story line. A T2 shotgun is recommended but probably not required. I like to have a T2 pulse rifle as well. As you best option is to not get hit at all due to space herpes, you can just run this one in light armor with no boosts. If you have a gernade launcher and flame thrower you can steam role this one. The close quarters combat in the crew section can be a little squirrely sometimes. I could see someone who is not familiar with this POI getting frustrated here. I never have issues with late spawns here. The sentry gun can give you a bad day if your not expecting it but its a vast improvement from how it used to be. Atmosphere is fitting for a derelict ship that was mostly empty and partly cannibalized to began with. The Station: Spoiler This place felt really CREAPY. Expellant lighting and sound choices. The atmosphere kind of reminds me of some of the Metroid game for some reason. Good stuff. No late or unexplained magic spawns that I could find. I do seem to remember being caught off guard by the infected solders but I guess that could be explained by an ambush. I would need to re-run that section now that I know what to look for. The deferent section all kind of started to look and feel the same. Its a liner path but I don't remember much about the rooms I passed through. The only memorable sections were the docking bay and the legacy area. In a way this kind of works to enhance the atmosphere. The path just feels very twisty. Its hard to say if that is good or bad. I was WAY over equipped for this one so I can't comment on the gear I think you should have. I came in with an T2 Flame Thrower, Assault Shotgun, Tactical Stealth Rifle, Epic Advanced Armor with four Advanced Multiboosts and a battleship full of meds parked outside. Having things spawn if you fly close to the ceiling is a nice touch. I still used the jetpack for the greater mobility though and sometimes it really helps to be upside-down. Up until the room with the infected solders the balance felt really good. Combat was hectic but the level design gave plenty of room to maneuver and fall back as needed. I hate the infected solders with a burning passion. Even with all my gear they melted me in about a two seconds. Two or three burst from them killed me in my supposedly mid/late game armor. I killed them in god mode and moved on. This is the point that I basically gave up on completing the POI legitimately. At some point I will need to re-run this section. I don't remember if I had the games difficulty set to medium or easy. In the legacy section, I couldn't figure out how to get past the entry room with the forcefield. I don't know if I missed a hidden switch or the signal logic bugged out because I was running it on a server. I did find the fiery tunnel of doom but couldn't find a way to turn off the flames. At this point I just god moded through the rest of the POI. Though I did at least fallow the path set by the POI to the end. Level design of the legacy section was suitably creepy and gorse. I like all the destroyable alien nests. Not sure how I feel about the new turret enemies. Kudos on at least attempting a boss battle but it seemed really awkward and janky, even in god mode. This just isn't something Empyrion is cut out for. Its hard to assess this without playing it legitimately, but maybe try reducing the boss HP by half. Also having the boss be a zirax solder felt a bit anti-climatic. This battle seemed really gimmicky and overstayed it welcome. If given the option, I would have gladly just left after the docking bay section and blown the station to hell with my ships guns. There needs to be a better narrative reason for players not to want to do this. Maybe there are survivors on board, or valuable data, or needing a DNA sample of the boss? Something tangible and/or story related beyond the meager loot at the end. Admittedly this is I partly feel this way because I ran this so late in the game. I feel like there needs to be another step in the story before being set to the station. Maybe reporting your finding about the colony and derelict ship to the UCH first? And some final thoughts that aren't really relevant to these missions specifically. Overseers are way too fast to use in enclosed spaces. That and the fact that they seem to be able to fit through a 1x1 door make them a very poor gameplay choice for most situation. Yes I know that's how spiders are in real life but real life spiders don't stand three meters tall, have only four lags, humanoid torsos and telekinetic powers to hit you through walls. These guys should probably be about 30% slower and have a melee range of 2m max. Though giving them a slow moving, short range telekinetic projectile attack might be cool.
Spoiler You just need to crawl through it. You'll get overheated but will recover. Having some water helps. Spoiler They definitely should not kill players that fast. Hence the double damage issue in the scenario. I balanced them against medium difficulty but will probably need to tone them down some more (in addition to the 50% damage nerf they will get for RE2). Spoiler The boss is a Human, Spoiler who was infected by the virus and mutated. Once you kill him, his body reforms into an overlord. I think the boss room is a little too much compared to the rest of the POI, so I'll take another look at it. I had a lot of trouble with the signal logic here on servers so I had to add a manual override for players who get stuck on it too. Unfortunately you are right that Empyrion is not really set up for scriptable "boss" encounters. I did the best I could think of using the signal logic and PDA tools available. I think it would work better if I fixed it up some, cut out some stages maybe. Spoiler That's a good idea. I have to redo some of the other starting PE missions too. Thanks for the feedback on it! The Derelict Station was my first real attempt at something of this level of scale and complexity. I see it as a learning experience.
Huh. That seems kind of brute forcey. Some form of environmental story telling would probably help here. An armor locker full of insolation boosts wouldn't really fit the legacy theme...There needs to be something in that room to indicate that you are indeed supposed to craw through the tunnel and roast yourself. Maybe cycle the flames so that it looks more like a legitimate path forward. I know getting signals to loop isn't supported so I'm not sure you would go about this. Maybe there is some way the incorporate the personal drone into this section? That or increase the protection form each tier of armor. I never go into a POI in heavy armor because it makes me so slow I cant dodge out of melee range and it doesn't offer enough protection to take the hits I can no longer dodge. That and the fact you can get status effect from any hit that lands even if it does zero damage does a good job of kill that facet of gameplay. Heavy Armor should make you feel like your stomping around in power armor. Advanced Armor should make you feel like the Juggernaut. Epic Advanced Armor (or whatever its called) should make you feel like Iron Man. I never reached the point in the game where I had Augmented Armor so I can't comment on that. Progression works best when you can feel it. For some reason I could have sworn he was just a boring zirax solder stuck in a force field. Its been a couple months but I didn't think my memory was that bad... Compared to the rest of the POI, yes, it is a bit much. Part of the problem is that there is no precedent for this sort of thing anywhere else in the game. Having more of unique boss encounters would help expectations. If possible, try for something more interesting than 'random golem mech guarding the core' but less involved than this boss. Not ever boss fight needs to be a World of Warcraft raid boss. That was about the only thing that didn't go wrong on my server. I have run servers on older game versions and I never had the number of completely random thing break as I did in v1.9.4. No problem. Like I said, you nailed the atmosphere on all of them and you deserve a lot of credit for trying something no one else has attempted.
Well, to build on this, I have started encountering more issues the more POIs I play. Had the "enemies spawn inside the floor" bug yesterday on a Zirax Rados Base, which is a POI I'd raided, with no issues, at least half a dozen times up to that point. Basically, after flipping the switch at the top, going to the core, going back up to hit the other switch, then finally going back to destroy the core, there were two corners that when I would walk past, I would get shot from the wall. Being annoyed at not finding the enemy, especially after clearing every enemy I could find, I went into godmode and clipped into the floor. Sure enough, two Zirax were there, shooting me through the floor and walls. This only happened in one POI out of probably a dozen so far, but it's still a bit annoying. This was the only POI in render range (if I recall correctly) and the only other thing nearby was my size 2 SV. I did have a few late spawns as well, but these were few and far between. Nothing too heinous in that area yet. Still very much been enjoying raiding POIs, and I hope this bug doesn't pop up too often, since it's quite an annoying one that ostensibly can only be solved with console commands. I'll absolutely still continue to raid POIs, but I think I understand peoples frustrations a bit more now. It seems that even in POIs that work most of the time, issues can still occur.
Actually had a little time this eve to fire up the game. Just finishing off on my current planet, before heading back to the starting systems to do the Infected mission chain. Just wanted to do the POI I parked near last time I played - Abandoned Assembly Yard - and looted a few cargo boxes. Managed to get a Flame Thrower, which I though would come in really handy vs. the various critters it sounds like have spawned inside. However, I'm having a weird issue with Abominations... If I aim for the head, they take damage just fine and die quickly to the basic Flame Thrower. However, as this is an AoE and DoT (burning) weapon, I didn't think my natural inclination to head-shot (when I can) was really needed. So, I started simply aiming at the Abominations torso which is easier, quicker to aim and I'm dealing damage sooner. Except, I don't. For me, the Flamethrower is doing ZERO damage if I shoot at the torso. I was back-pedalling while firing the Flame Thrower as an Abomination approached. I thought it odd that I wasn't seeing a health bar, despite firing constantly for several seconds. As I had been doing damage with head shots earlier, I moved my aim to the head and, instantly, damage was being dealt. I know the Abomination is based on a vanilla model, so I don't know if this issue is vanilla or not. Also, while I've not seen absolute proof of no damage, like with the Abomination just now, the Flame Thrower is proving far less effective vs. other critters than I'd expect. Basically, torso shots on the Abomination critter do ZERO damage, passing right through. Head shots appear to deal damage just fine. The Flame Thrower should be the PERFECT weapons vs. critters that literally line-up to attack - well, more a mob of them, but you get what I mean - as the flame appears to pass through them, I assume doing damage to all. Query: While the visual effect passes through, does the Flame Thrower's damage propagate through targets?
@Scoob I think NPC can't gain status effects in this game which would include things like DoT effects. Someone will correct me if I'm wrong. But this means a flamethrower isn't as great as it probably should be. Incendiary miniguns, on the other hand... are probably better called rapid-fire mini-grenade launchers. They're less "incendiary" and more "explosive." Just pure, direct, and instant aoe damage. Love those things.
Ok, cool, thanks for clarifying. Another one for the vanilla issue list then. Will just have to remember to keep head-shotting these guys as best I can. I wasn't aware of that @builder680 - thanks for clarifying. I was sure that critters would sometime show the "on fire" effect - seeming to burn for a few seconds after I'd stopped firing - but without the associated damage that's pretty useless lol How about the visual effect of the flames hitting multiple targets when they're lined up? Does damage only apply to the first enemy in that instance? I know flames passing through something might not work, as the "bullet" is stopped, but with flames passing around a target, I wondered if it might be a bit shot-gun like, with some sort of "spread". Basically, if the flames visually hit something, they should ideally do damage. I've certainly been damaged through blocks - usually furniture deco type blocks - from Flame Thrower attacks.
As I said, I might be wrong, but it makes little difference. The flamethrower just ain't that great, unless you're the one being shot with it lol
I'll play with it some more and see how I get on. I did use it on some of those whatsit Major guys and it made short work of them. Will try to observe closely to see if I can conclusively prove that DoT isn't working vs. enemies. Some weapons do have weird issues, the Flame Thrower isn't unique. For example, the usually excellent Grendade Launcher sometimes does zero damage too. Can land a shot perfectly in a group of enemies and it does nothing. There's the usually boom so it looks like the shot has exploded as it should, but enemies manage to avoid damage. Can't quite figure out what causes that yet.
Still on the same POI (Abandoned Assembly Yard) and, while I've compensated for body-shots on the Abominations not dealing damage, they are still proving problematic. It's an old, vanilla issue, where they literally walk right through me, then stop, but repeatedly attack while my shots do nothing as we're clipped together. Also got attacked through blocks a couple of times, with the Abominations being in an elevator block, and me outside the block about two metres away. They can also attack directly UP over two metres away, if we're sharing the elevator block. Being unable to point directly down is also exploited by the AI, as the AI will move as you move to get a better shot. Even though I'm fairly nimble in light armour, they appear to be able to match my movement, so "unclipping" isn't as simple as just moving. If in an open area, jet pack works, but it tight spaces I have little chance. Once again, my approach is steady and methodical, trying to clear out areas before advancing. However, the Abomination rushes are effectively broken due to their ability to just walk through me - and each other - so I can end up with several able to attack at once, even though the narrow corridor I'm in would suggest they'd not be able to. I also had an issue where a sensor triggered an LCD display to blow up - I wasn't close enough to see what it said - while I was descending some stairs. Moments after the LCD blew, two mini-scorpions (the red ones) spawned on top of me. Weirdly, these guys seemed to present a solid object, in that I was stuck, unable to move past them on the stairs. I had to jet pack to jump over them. If I just wade in and not care about death, I think I make better progress, which isn't how it should be. This is a cool POI, but it's being plagued by vanilla issues with spawn timing, attack ranges and clipping issues. While the Flame Thrower does appear to do a degree of AoE - shoot at a block, damage all on that block - it's inconsistent and will sometimes deal zero damage. Where the Flamethrower does work well is when enemies are standing next to each other, so, lined up left to right for example. Then the Flamer Thrower acts a bit like a shot gun, hitting several targets. Lined up approaching the player though, this does not appear to be the case. Btw: has anyone else noticed how looking at a block with the Multi-Tool no longer reveals what it is in a POI? For example, I though there was a Sentry Pop-up at in a certain location - a slightly different textures suggests this - yet looking at it with the MT doesn't say what it is. I know what it is (it has 100 hit points, so it's not a regular steel block) but I'd not noticed this before. Edit: Things are spawning on top of me again. I'm now in the lower-levels of this POI, I was sniping a red scorpion from a distance - didn't work, rounded block "blocking" me, despite the sniper's site showing the Scorpion was targetted. Then an Abomination pops in on top of me, don't know what triggered it, I'd not moved for a few seconds. It was behind me - an area I'd "cleared" - so I don't think it was hiding anywhere, unless it was hidden due to being clipped. Edit 2: There are so many enemies spawning in this POI (which is great) that I think it's really highlighting certain issues. For me in particular, the bad audio is really throwing me off. I have constant critter sounds all around me, no idea where they're coming from (game's direction audio is broken) and no idea how far away they might be - distant enemies behind walls / floors, just as loud as those right next to me. This combination is making this POI not so fun. NOT the designers fault, but core game issues. Having been playing another first person game with working positional audio, it's thrown me coming back to this. Urgh, I hate being so negative, but feeling frustrated. Edit 3: I'll stop soon, honest. Just walked through a door, saw it led to an elevator and was about to turn around when an "Infected" spawned right on top of me. Area before the door was clear, I'd been walking around checking all the nooks and crannies. However, I opened the door and two seconds later and enemy was on me. No obvious spawn points, it was there, on the same block as me. What's also interesting is, after this encounter, I returned to the main (cleared?) room and stood there. As I watched, several red scorpions popped in right in front of me from thin air - literally, they spawned above the ground and fell a block, before heading towards me. Again, this area appeared cleared, I'll killed LOTS of enemies here, yet now more are just popping it. I don't know if this is a bug or not.
About the Abandoned Assembly Yard: Some of the spawners are set to infinitely spawn enemies. There is at least one in the assembly line room with the 'conveyer belt' and generators and I'm pretty sure the spawners in/near the drop shaft leading down to the final level as well. I tend to spam explosives around anything that looks like a grate or teleporter just to make sure I don't get snuck up on here. Also the final room in this POI is bs. Its much easier to just core this one with an SV with 10 rail guns. Spoiler Don't open this unless you want to spoiler this POI for your self forever. Spoiler Hint: Find a block between a window and a grid of cylinders Spoiler then go down. About flamethrowers [and all other weapons that do AOE damage]: It kind of looks like explosions do not pass through enemies. So if you shoot an infected in the face with a rocket launcher, it will kill the one you shot, but its friends that were right behind it won't take any damage. The weird part is it doesn't seem to be not consistent. Sometimes AOEs will wipe out entire groups and other times they...won't. Maybe it has something to do with how blast radius is applied differently depending on the target. The easiest way to see this in action is to go into creative, shoot a CV missile at a wall of BA block then at a wall of SV blocks and compare the radius of damaged blocks. But that's just a theory.
