Goblin Squad Member
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@Bob,
Better in-game information of each stage of escalation (and rewards/task completed) will go a long way to make escalations easier to understand and coordinate settlement and group level escalation activities.
Question: Are you doing your "escalation math" based on 1 or 2 size six party groups and/or on a higher (and player requested) 1 or 2 eight to size ten party group; working together to clear the same hex?
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Goblin Squad Member
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@ Bob Settles
Thank You for the reply. It makes understanding clearer. It is nice to have it explained a bit, even if you have to do it over and over.
I certainly won't pretend that I have any idea on what is the right balance. I know that you will adjust things until you have the results and player involvement in balance. Sticks and Carrots will motivate us all. :)
Keep up the good work.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Cal, if you're persistent, you can usually escape the Thornguards. Just make sure you don't run close to any others on your way out of town, and make sure you quickly adapt to any necessary heading changes when you respawn if you get killed.
I was pretty persistent, but with the number of guards in the area in front of the keep, there was only one area where I could come down and manage to move more than a few paces before being stunned, and with no armour, I'd be dead before the stun cleared. Most of the time, I was still stunned when I rez'd. Also, about 50% of the time I was rez'd facing the shrine, instead of away from it, so as soon as I had a chance to start running, I also had to execute a turn to avoid hitting the shrine, let alone one of the guards.
I had a faint hope that I could escape if I rez'd
Not frozen
Facing South (toward the Seminary)
On the south side of the shrine
At max distance from the shrine
with none of the guards already pulled over there by my previous incarnation.
But even then I couldn't get out of range of their stun on time.
At times (while I was observing), there would be up to eight simultaneous attacks, and they would kill me more than once per second.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Yuck, yuck, yuck. Re-spawning into an endless round of Thornguard best-downs sounds pretty terrible. Let's hope that come EE, the devs set it up so a low-rep character doesn't re-spawn into that same killing ground every time.
If I were paying for time, I wouldn't be too happy wasting a day or two of it dying over and over again. Yes, the penalties in the reputation system should have teeth. No, those teeth shouldn't make the game unplayable for a day or more, but force you to stay logged in the whole time.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Yuck, yuck, yuck. Re-spawning into an endless round of Thornguard best-downs sounds pretty terrible. Let's hope that come EE, the devs set it up so a low-rep character doesn't re-spawn into that same killing ground every time.
If I were paying for time, I wouldn't be too happy wasting a day or two of it dying over and over again. Yes, the penalties in the reputation system should have teeth. No, those teeth shouldn't make the game unplayable for a day or more, but force you to stay logged in the whole time.
Agreed. My first 3 hours of play in Alpha 7 (or was it 8?) consisted of accidentally hitting another player twice (while trying to customize keybinds) and then being repeatedly spawn-killed by the Thorguards :)
Not too much fun... although I ALMOST got away a few times! Those will be the best stories for the grandkids! :P
Question: Are you doing your "escalation math" based on 1 or 2 size six party groups and/or on a higher (and player requested) 1 or 2 eight to size ten party group; working together to clear the same hex?
In general, I base my assumptions on a single party operating fairly efficiently at clearing any encounters they come upon, while steering themselves toward event encounters where possible. If your party can, at full stamina and health, attack even the largest encounters in the hex and win without having to cheese the AI significantly (kiting, excessive heals knowing your healers won't be targeted, any tactics that significantly slow combat resolution) and without taking more than token losses, then your party is powerful enough to clear encounters at the assumed speed or better.
How many players that requires really depends on how powerful the characters are relative to the monsters being launched at that phase of the escalation, and how many monsters are typically launched at the larger encounters. A single over-powered character could be sufficient, or you could have 15 under-powered characters working together.