( EXPLAINED ) Deep Talkash Hill

[Balkoth]

The Hawk Fiends and Hawk Knights drop gold on ground rather than inventory (and also both drop the same amount of gold).

Final boss seems insane compared to rest of zone. Sleep-walked through the 41 AB Fiends and 45 AB Knights who hit me for 15-20 damage each (with the Tolmar armor that has 15 physical resist). Then you hit the final boss who...

1. has 55 AB.
2. is hasted.
3. hits for 40-50 damage AFTER the Tolmar armor.
4. is immune to critical hits
5. ignores *40* points of physical damage per swing.

To give an idea of how much of a jump this is...imagine that I'm fighting 6 Hawk Knights and we'll give them ALL the flanking bonus for the hell of it (so 47 AB versus my 64 AC). Each Knight has a 20%/5%/5%/5% attack schedule for 0.35 hits per round. Six of them is 2.1 hits per round and let's assume 20 damage each (seemed to be the max) which results in me taking 42 damage per round. However, I'm killing them off as we fight so that damage per round drops off quickly (by 7 per Knight). I also regen 20 HP per round so I really only take 21 in effect.

Now let's look at the boss.

He has 60%/35%/10%/5%/60% = 1.7 hits per round with say 45 damage per hit which is 76.5 damage per round. Subtract 20 for regen and you get 56.5 -- which results in the boss alone doing 2.7 times the damage as all *six* Knights (and this isn't even factoring in the fact the boss can actually land some critical hits on me). And in 5ish rounds all the Knights will be dead whereas the boss hasn't even hit 75% yet -- a large part of which is the fact that he's immune to critical hits (meaning a Fighter is doing 25% less damage, a WM is doing 50% less damage, and a Rogue is losing all of his Sneak Attack damage). Then on top of being immune to crits he's ignoring 40 points of physical damage...which basically means only bonus non-physical weapon damage will hurt him at all.

Or, in summary: he's doing 270% of the damage as a group of *six* Knights, he's taking about 75% less damage as the Knights (so effectively four times whatever his actual HP is -- if the six Knights have 1000 HP each and the boss has 5000 HP, then after the critical immunity and ignoring damage the boss effectively has 20,000 HP...and that's not even factoring in the boss's increased AC which would make that more like 25,000-30,000 HP), AND his damage doesn't get reduced the way the Knights do (by getting killed off during the fight). Then on top of that his fight takes at least 4-5 times as long as the entire group of Knights.

Like I said, insane compared to the rest of the zone. A boss being significantly stronger than his minions/troops/etc is fine. But this jump is crazy.

[Balkoth]

Some more concrete numbers...

Time to kill a pack of six Knights: 33 seconds

Time to kill the last boss: 210 seconds.

So it took 6.36 times as long with the boss doing 2.7 times the damage of the entire pack for those whole 210 seconds.

The boss is beatable...but I don't think it's remotely reasonable, not compared to the rest of the zone.

P.S. Door behind the boss that doesn't seem to go anywhere? Was wondering if the giants were through there but apparently not...

[tarashon]

Balkoth i believe you are missing out the intire concept of the servers bosses...

Any boss IS SUPPOSED to be way harder than an intire group of whatever. Whenever you come to aboss, not counting the starting lowlevels ones for quests, he/she is supposed to be way harder and an epic challange. The fact that you bested him alone and survived it, if anything, Means he is too weak since you could kill him without a healer or extra buffs.

I realise many like it where a boss is the natural end of a given zone which also makes sense. Alangara however was designed so that bosses must be considered "outsite of the zone ecology".

Perhaps we will alter this since we are more or less recreating the intire ballance setup, but you need to understand how the World was designed before "taking a swing at it". I for one dont think everything should be as linear as you continuesly advocates for. I think most of the time your points and observations are good and valid, but I also think that if we kept strict to that "formular" the World would be sadly foreseable, and a boss encounter would be dull because if you beat the zone you allready know you can beat him.

But thats just my opinion and also my attempt to explain the Whole mindset behind that which seemes to upset you.

Try to look at it this way...

A given zone can be grinded for xp and loot, maybe alone maybe by a few. the boss however might need an intire party - and why not... why not actually let people meet something that surprices them and maybe even kill them instead of every zone gradually goues up wiuth 5-10% hardiness from the previous and every boss is ineffect more or less the Group you just beat, combined into one being... in my book - dreadfully booring and an devestating lack of imagination. fx RP wise... why is he/she the boss ??? - because he/she is utterly more powerfull than the subjects...

/tara

[Balkoth]

The fact that you bested him alone and survived it, if anything, Means he is too weak since you could kill him without a healer or extra buffs.

I burned several of the 300 HP potions during the fight, I think it was something like 3-4 of them. So I effectively did have a healer in that regard.

Any boss IS SUPPOSED to be way harder than an intire group of whatever. Whenever you come to aboss, not counting the starting lowlevels ones for quests, he/she is supposed to be way harder and an epic challange.

Let me ask you this, then, before we talk about anything else...

Say you're fighting through a cave of orcs. Each orc has 100 HP, 15 AB, 20 AC, and 10 damage per hit. At the end of the cave is the orc chieftain. Which of the following is *closest* to what you think the chieftain's stats should be?

A. 200 HP, 16 AB, 22 AC, 12 damage per hit
B. 500 HP, 17 AB, 23 AC, 16 damage per hit
C. 1000 HP, 20 AB, 24 AC, 20 damage per hit
D. 2000 HP, 23 AB, 27 AC, 25 damage per hit, haste
E. 4000 HP, 25 AB, 30 AC, 30 damage per hit, haste

[tarashon]

Knowing how I designed this World inspired by EverQuest1, I'll take a swing at option E and then perhaps tweaked some more...

My point is this... Every World has its perks and twists..

When this World was designed it was done so gradually while being used by players. Thus after having bested the first "REAL BOSS", lendizare the stormkeeper, all player knew that thats was how bosses worked in Alangara. New areas were made to challange players in smaller Groups and bosses added for new bossfight challanges.

Also to explain why zones often shift dramatically in powerlevel the same was happening there. SOme players reached level X and needed new challanges. I was in mood for making this or that scenario and Thus i made a new area in that style for said level. So Cyclobs were created as level 25+ farming area because i felt like creating such an area type and it gave meaning to expand that part of the Wild Isles some....

But explanation aside.... lets find some real meeting and take it from there. way more constructive than hammering on something without having a clear idea what it actually SHOULD look like in the future...

/tara