Improve NPC Variety in High Level Zones

[Monos King]

I go to Peregrine Island and at Portal Corp I'm always met with the same two sights.

 

 

 

I'd like to see some Agony Mages, Overlord Bosses, and more of the lesser encountered Circle hanging around at Portal Corp. And as for Grandville, more Paragon Protectors. I never understood why they replace Paragon Protectors with Paragon Protector "Elite". The Elite are just vastly inferior, for the highest level ordinary zone there should definitely be some MoG and Elude users mixed in the crowd.

Edited October 17, 2020 by Monos King

[Vanden]

1 minute ago, Monos King said:

The Elite are just vastly inferior, for the highest level ordinary zone there should definitely be some MoG and Elude users mixed in the crowd.

Paragon Protectors with MoG suck. That's why they got rid of it for high levels. We hates it! We hates it forever!

[Monos King]

That's right. I want everyone to suffer because suffering is fun. Level 50s deserve the hardest, not pity NPCs! Bring back Paragon Protectors at level 50, and also Shadow Cysts ty for listening.

[srmalloy]

50 minutes ago, Monos King said:

I'd like to see some Agony Mages, Overlord Bosses, and more of the lesser encountered Circle hanging around at Portal Corp.

I would have to go back and look at the various charts for some of the mob groups that were built back on Live as assist tools, but I know that the composition of the Circle spawns you encounter change as you level -- for example, the Energy Mages, Life Mages, and Madness Mages only appear in low-level Circle spawns. It would be necessary to define new level ranges, and in some cases plot the mobs out with new powers, to make them competitive outside their current level ranges -- bumping the hit points, chance to hit, and damage for Clockwork still make them underpowered after level 20, for example.

 

[Monos King]

43 minutes ago, srmalloy said:

I would have to go back and look at the various charts for some of the mob groups that were built back on Live as assist tools, but I know that the composition of the Circle spawns you encounter change as you level -- for example, the Energy Mages, Life Mages, and Madness Mages only appear in low-level Circle spawns. It would be necessary to define new level ranges, and in some cases plot the mobs out with new powers, to make them competitive outside their current level ranges -- bumping the hit points, chance to hit, and damage for Clockwork still make them underpowered after level 20, for example.

 

Nah Agony Mages actually do spawn at level 50, or at the least level 50 defined Agony Mages exist already (via AE). 

 

What I would REALLY love to see are Elite Bosses occasionally spawning in Founders Falls and Peregrine Island, like they do in St. Martial and Nerva Archipelago. These are high level zones, seems appropriate. And also cool.

[Sakura Tenshi]

I do agree that high level enemies need more variety than less. What's strange about the Circle of Thorns' case is that a lot of their lower level mobs do show up in the form of the possessed scientists, powers unchanged and ranks much the same. There's really no reason we shouldn't be fighting Air, Earth, Fire, and Ice thorn casters filling out the minion ranks, nor why Succubi and Hellfrosts can't go to level 50 and add some good variety to the CoT bosses alongside the additions of madness and ruin mages. Sadly, with Nemesis troops, not much can be done there was their entire mob in general is kind of small, only thing that could add variety is making sure some of the dudes with the smaller rifles and the medics remain in the ranks and that is pretty much it, every other change to them is the minions getting those gatling guns, or a new name and color scheme if that.

 

Admittedly though, I can see an in universe reason the CoT stop using Ruin and Force mages to fight heroes. Their descriptions mention Ruin and Force mages are the mages used to protect Oranbega from cave ins, so they might realize it's a bad idea to send their most important civic workers to be beaten up in droves and put out of work.

[Greycat]

... someone mention bringing cysts back?

[zenblack]

Cyst! (appropriate leveled) Praetoria Patrol!

[ZacKing]

totally agreed.  forget about low level story arcs.  start making new content for 50+  that's the part of the game that desperately needs it

[Doomguide2005]

4 hours ago, ZacKing said:

totally agreed.  forget about low level story arcs.  start making new content for 50+  that's the part of the game that desperately needs it

While story content at any level would be great if resource intensive what's being asked for, I believe, is more variety in level 50 (high level) zone mobs, in particular in and around Portal Corp.

[Sakura Tenshi]

here's a major example of NPC groups we need at the higher level, namely for villains, though some would need more work than others.

 

1. PPD - Just have powered armor guys and psicops also scale up to 50 so the PPD isn't a boring bunch of laser shooting mannequins and soulless machines (which do look pretty cool, except for the PPD drone which should not be in the group as a normal spawn). Once again, there doesn't seem to be a lot of reason to limit the level ranges on these guys, Council and Nemesis have less attacks or resistances than PPD shells and even less damage diversity but they go up to 50. with the psicops, if they do need additional powers, it'd be easy enough to add them in theory.
2. Legacy chain and Wyvern - No denying these guys would need more attacks, and in the case of the legacy chain, possibly new helmets for new elements, but in general it's really frustrating that villains were set up to fight heroes and the only heroic organization they consistently fight is Longbow who are basically a cross between Council and Crey. (if you don't do newspaper missions or do arcs that stay entirely in the rogue isles, you can even avoid PPD). It's like the live devs started to work on these groups and went 'eh, we've got other factions villains can fight' and tossed them aside. The Legacy Chain, most frustratingly, doesn't even cover the elements of wind, water/ice, or darkness. Nevermind how the Legacy chain also only lets you fight two branches at a time when the Legacy of Steel should be protecting the mages throughout the faction's appearance (nevermind giving them shields at higher levels or even titan weapons)

[ShardWarrior]

I always looked at this as the CoT and Nemesis realizing they have no chance at ever winning against the heroes, so they just send in their second string players.

[Greycat]

Don't forget the mobs that spawn in randomly just outside - you can find yourself dealing with malta and carnies, as well.

Honestly, the oddest thing to me when it comes to the area around Portal is that the DE are so low level (comparitively.) As for the rest of the mobs? You're in portal, getting sent all over the place, high level mobs exist there, too, so I don't think it's *as* big a problem. That said, one of those areas - the Shard - could use more missions, admittedly.