Focused Feedback: Enemy Group - Kallisti Wharf Skulls

[The Curator]

Use this channel to discuss and provide feedback regarding enemy group critter balance for the high level Skulls enemies encountered in Kallisti Wharf.

[jkwak]

Saw Skulls spawned at 3 level higher than surounding mobs in a couple of places and comletly obliterating them even without a player coming close to trigger a fight, forgot to make a screencap on where it happend though, i will make one next time i explore the improved KW

[High_Beam]

Saw some level 45.  It just makes no sense placing them and certain other mobs that cap at certain levels here.  There are plenty of other higher level fish here that you don't need to pile on with padding like this.

[StarkWhite]

My understanding is that every enemy group you run into in KW is there for a story reason. This Page is only the first part of what is planned to be a continuing story in the zone, so even if it seems like certain groups are just there to be there, there are plans for them.

[ViridianDev]

15 hours ago, jkwak said:

Saw Skulls spawned at 3 level higher than surounding mobs in a couple of places and comletly obliterating them even without a player coming close to trigger a fight, forgot to make a screencap on where it happend though, i will make one next time i explore the improved KW

 

This is a working as intended feature; there are some brawling enemy groups throughout the Wharf, Skulls are one of them.

[High_Beam]

So, things I liked.  I liked the new Skull types, Death Knight (name isn't great though), Volkhv Priestesses are cool as are some of the others.  If you are going to lean into the Slavic deities and thematic laid down my the Petrovics then call them Banniks or something.  But I digress.

 

My problem is they don't belong there, they are way over level range with no explanation for their massive jump in power.  I get the statement that there is a movement in story for them but there is no real reason for what amounts to a 30+ level skip.  And if you follow the Lords of Death Arc, it makes even less sense their becoming more powerful.  now if they were bumped up to a follow-on zone from KR like say . . . Skyway and given their new power models, there is some sense,  their relationship with Atta and the Trolls relating tot he sale of Superadine would make sense their being there.  But KW?  It makes zero sense (like several of the other villain groups).

 

I haven't had a chance yet to test the story arcs but it is really irrelevant in this case because of the over leveling.

 

But

 

As I said, the addition of new enemy types in the Skulls is nice.  Most are cool and an interesting fight so thumbs up there.

[Velvet Violet]

There will be stuff in the next page that explains the power jump. It is not in this page because my story arcs (particularly Erin West) are complex and required far more debugging than I initially expected. I cannot promise that you will like the explanations, but I tend to have a high standard for writing and believe it will all make sense.

[High_Beam]

Okay additional feedback on the upgraded skulls.  Please please if you you are still gonna call em buckshot and slugger and slammer then stop with the dark noir negative energy attacks and instead improve their weapons because they are all popping off like Bone Daddy's and Death Dolls which makes them just sloppy reskins.  If you are gonna do that then make them newer costumes like the Priestesses and such and not call them Sluggers and Slammers, call them something like undertakers or since they wanna lean into Slavic pantheons, Banniks (sp).

 

to @Velvet Violet, I hear what you are saying and will of course have a degree of "benefit of the doubt" factored in but if your explanation is additional story content at lower levels then you should have waited with this and done that, it breaks the flow of a character leveling up; exposed to the enemy, continuing to fight them, them becoming a arch or nemesis of sorts, and then the further up the food chain they progress they find out bigger and broader.  Not, "wow these guys got powerful, I guess I need to call Mender Lazarus and go back to when the change happened."  I am doing the Arc right now (just finished mission 2) so I will feedback over there.

 

And please, don't take this as disrespecting your or others hard work but you asked for constructive feedback and I am trying to give that.

Edited 12 hours ago by High_Beam
Spelling and grammer as usual.

[Velvet Violet]

5 hours ago, High_Beam said:

Okay additional feedback on the upgraded skulls.  Please please if you you are still gonna call em buckshot and slugger and slammer then stop with the dark noir negative energy attacks and instead improve their weapons because they are all popping off like Bone Daddy's and Death Dolls which makes them just sloppy reskins.  If you are gonna do that then make them newer costumes like the Priestesses and such and not call them Sluggers and Slammers, call them something like undertakers or since they wanna lean into Slavic pantheons, Banniks (sp).

 

to @Velvet Violet, I hear what you are saying and will of course have a degree of "benefit of the doubt" factored in but if your explanation is additional story content at lower levels then you should have waited with this and done that, it breaks the flow of a character leveling up; exposed to the enemy, continuing to fight them, them becoming a arch or nemesis of sorts, and then the further up the food chain they progress they find out bigger and broader.  Not, "wow these guys got powerful, I guess I need to call Mender Lazarus and go back to when the change happened."  I am doing the Arc right now (just finished mission 2) so I will feedback over there.

 

And please, don't take this as disrespecting your or others hard work but you asked for constructive feedback and I am trying to give that.

 

No disrespect taken. The order of creation for stuff was out of whack, I agree. West and Kogan were supposed to be finished last page and I was going to have the other arcs finished this page. It was bad planning on my part, that's it.