[Autumn]

I think personally monsters have a little bit too much HP, can all around VIT for monsters be lowered? They have the numbers advantage compared to players (Usually)

[Rendar]

Certain monsters that have a lot of vit (and sanctity) are even more terrifying monsters than before.

While I like that monsters got buffed, their damage got buffed through the roof, and in general, so did there health. An example that me and Kunai got to experience first hand at level 9 in a dungeon was the level 9 enemies having nearly 100 HP...

And hitting for about 40-50 damage each hit (we had like 120 HP).

To make matters worse, the level 12 boss had 412 HP. These numbers are kind of completely unreasonable, and makes it near impossible for a lowby character to grind, and still near impossible for higher level characters to grind out levels at any meaningful rate.

[Exxy]

It's definitely more manageable in groups, and while that's a good thing to encourage (at least, in my opinion)- it can be a little hard to find willing people to grind out lower levels.

This cooouulld probably use some slight tweaks.

[Mokou-tan]

This right here is part of why I was wondering if anyone had tried to 1-60 in the beta server. I'd have done it myself, but life hit a rough patch recently so I couldn't spend as much time on the beta as I'd liked. I'd also wanted to see how hard it was to keep optimal stats, since it may give players who had already done the grind before the switch a bit of an advantage, but the reset fruit kinda evened that out.

Some other thoughts that may matter to the balance here:
What was the boss' damage output like? If it is truly insurmountable, that would highlight a need to change.

Did you bring the mercenaries with you? They are kind of intended to help pad out a party, right? You may have to rely on them a bit more now, which may not be too bad a thing with total control.

[Lolzytripd]

the lag on the test server wouldn't let me get past level 5, I tried to test it

[Ranylyn]

I approve of lowering monster HP somewhat.

I've personally had no major problems yet, but the builds I've been trying are polar opposites; a complete glass cannon who shreds everything apart, and a supertank. I definitely see how it could be problematic for people with more balanced builds before Def amounts to sweet jack all, or even worse, people who pumped aptitude early on. That said, just because I'm surviving, it doesn't make it FUN. Every battle is a slog since enemies take too much punishment, and I'll admit my glass cannon is only surviving because she subbed MA purely for Meditate so she can fall back and regroup before making another rush.

[Chaos]

I think we need to poke around more on this before we make a decision. Very low level enemies shouldn't have much survivability, yes. However, we do have various items that give the player a leg-up on dungeon enemies, and levels come cheap for the first half of the grind. Beyond that, I've also found that higher-level enemies are still punching bags. (unless you're letting them gang on you, in which case that's your problem)

[Rendar]

Uh.

Chaos. I'm not sure if you've actually went grinding yet but a solo person against 2-3 enemies (see; JUST NORMAL THINGS) isn't going to actually live, or have much sustained fight power. Before a single person (see; not grind mage) could stand up against enemies. Now though? Now enemies are dishing out about 90-140 damage per hit and have about double if not triple their HP prior to the update. As a vampire verg/hexer, I was having trouble having sustained fight power against 3, and had to result to dragging out each fight to silvermist spam for HP/FP and then banquet spam the poor schmuck that was left behind.

We don't want a grind because we'd rather RP. Grinding is literally one of the worst parts about this game and is what keeps me away from making new characters. Sure, the grind isn't 'as' bad anymore because you no longer have to max out the LE book for a good character. However this doesn't alleviate the fact that you do get about.. what. 12 extra stat points should you actually do it. Some builds require more stats than others, which means that something like say... STR/WIL/SKI/DEF/RES/VIT are staples in their builds, and +3 traits means another +3 stats... but to get past that slog you also have to spend 1 legend ink upon Deja vu. So thats 10 right there, which isn't so bad, thanks to the 5 Legend Ink quests, however it's still a slog to get through 1 LE, let alone many more.

The lower end enemies hit for about as much as the higher end enemies, due to the way scaling works in this wonky ass world, and have less HP. Bosses and enemies alike deal (roughly) the same damage if they're doing basic attacks, but the bosses have roughly 4-5x the HP (and lord have mercy on your soul if they get near you at lower levels because you are D E A D). The game, in it's current state, requires someone to grind you through the lower levels becasue it's so imbalanced that you can't do it on your own. This is a poor design mechanic. Not to mention the high level enemies have such stupidly high stats that you're left wondering how they have 40-60 in numerous stats.

[Exxy]

I'm curious to know just how exactly NPCs suffer from DIminishing Returns but that's another topic. . .


Admittedly Rendar makes a lot of good points. All in all, it seems people are a bit frustrated with this and two options scream out to me:

-Reduce their HP namely (and possibly minor adjustments to lower Defense/Resistance and/or Attack stats).

-Reduce their stat growths across the board a minor amount, bit by bit, until we hit the sweet spot.

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As for the part Chaos mentioned about higher levels being punching bags: Most likely DIminishing Returns.

Note: With Aptitude currently not working how it should, there's a chunk of experience that we're still missing from the experience (which could prove to help quite a bit.... obviously not as pronounced at 1 Aptitude but still). And I still would like to stand by my comment about using this to encourage group activity although being able to solo-level shouldn't be snuffed out almost entirely at early stages... especially since when that's needed the most.

Edited

[Chaos]

Uh.

Chaos. I'm not sure if you've actually went grinding yet

Did you even read what I was saying? I would not have said something if I didn't already try grinding.

-I have went solo grinding in a regular dungeon, and only suffered when I acted like an idiot. (see: running into a pack of spatials, which I proceeded to murder the next turn anyways)
-I have went solo in group matches at the Arena, and while it wasn't a complete walk in the park, I found that they are entirely doable.
-I have went solo against a Dungeon Boss +50% my level that didn't have a bare-bones/poor skill set, and secured a win.

I'd also like to mention that you pretty much just ran into the big new weakness of Vampires; their ability to sustain is crippled without taking a hit to their SC buffs, or a risky offense that can be easily outdamaged. In PvP, it might only be an issue against certain opponents, but it's one hell of a weakness if your plan is to go all Rambo through a dungeon, or in an event that uses more-than-sporadic fights.