NPC Balance Thread

bonobi

Already I know of a mob that needs more balancing so I figure that we should start up a thread devoted to people's experiences with NPC's and which ones.

Player: bonopi
Tree: Karate Grandmaster
Buffs: Karate GM, Hyper Dodge, Adrenaline Booster, Power Tactic
Level: 50

Hardline: Creston Heights (South Central)
Name: Neighborhood Watch
Level: 48
Weapon: submachineguns

Comments:
Going into battle with 3 Neighborhood Watch at the same time kills me every time. By the time I can kill one of them the other two have hit me with their 2 second timers too many times. I think that the damage is pretty good when fighting one on one with them but when fighting them 3 on 1 their submachineguns go through me too fast because I don't deflect many of the shots X2.
One on one I barely loose any health...

Possible Solution:
When in interlock Ballistic Defense goes up so its harder to get hit from outsiders.
Bring up the submachinegun timers above 2 second which is too fast.

Not really sure on good solutions since one on one is pretty balanced.

**Renesis13B**

My rant

bonobi

LOL
I got pwned by the mods:smileytongue:
oops, forgot about the other sections SMILEY

**Megarittz**

Well, they're still working on it. But I'm sure our feedback will help them. I personally haven't faught NPC's much yet, I'm still running around in circles mad about missing Ghost and Seraph. /patheticwhine

**PBlade**

Ah, a place to do a writeup, thanks bon!

First, my specs:
PBlade - Level 50 Karate Grandmaster/Kung fu Master hybrid.
Buffs - Hyperdodge (levelled to about 25 -ish) and Karate GM buff.

So far, after update 5, I have battled con greys in Baldwin Heights (Mid 30s, all chevrons) and con blues in Creston Heights.

Baldwin Heights
I can hold my own against them, and plough through them relatively easily when it's one on one. Not as easy as i'd imagine it to be, but definitely better than before. As for enemies being around me, then definitely a challenge is presented. Even with Hyperdodge loaded I am riddled with bullets more often than not. I went into battle against 1 with 3 others around me, and I got slowly wasted. Not owned incredibly quickly, but definitely not what i'd expect from con greys.

Creston Heights
Understandably things are going to be difficult here, as it's the hardest area in the game for PvE. My mid levelled Hyper Dodge is hardly adequate here, but it's loaded anyway. I launch myself into battle with one, and as is the setup of Creston Heights, I am picked at from all angles by other Neighbourhood watchers. I am holding my own against the enemy I have in interlock, but it's a bit of back and forth, taking as long as I would expect it to take against a 3 chevroned level 48. However, this doesn't bode well for the fighting centred around me from outside interlock. Every other second I am getting lead poured into me by the surrounding mobs. I am defeated the first two attempts. The 3rd time I try my luck at it I manage to beat the opponent from full health to zero, but my health is too low to attempt any of the others, so I hyperjump away to safety.

1 on 1 is ok it would seem, but something NEEDS to be done about the surrounding opponents.

Solution
bonopis idea is an idea shared by many of us to avoid this calamity of sorts: A moving target is much harder to hit so it would make sense to have some sort of ballistic resistance bonus when entering interlock. I wouldn't expect it to be something fantastically high so that we NEVER get hit, but I wouldn't expect something so small that it makes no difference. Just something that would bring the chance of getting hit up to about 50/50 - That is taking into account enemies level and buffs used at the time, along with native Ballistic resistance et al.

Kayda

Kayda
Level 45 Karate/Kung Fu Master (Karate/Kung Fu Grandmaster Partial)

Mission: End of the Beginning (Zion - Hard)

Orange Con Elite Guards and Lupine Scrappers seem to kill me in roughly three hits, even taking them on as a one-at-a-time basis. Attempts at varying attributes, clothing, attack combinations, etc. doesn't seem to alter this fact by any large degree.

Creston Heights Neighborhood Watch (Con Red)

Amazingly enough, I was able to take on one of these fellows. However, it was very daunting and took upwards of 5 minutes in a teeter-totter fashion of gaining ground on one another. Sadly, he must have called out for his buddies with his dying breathe as soon after his death, three came in. I was able to get one of the reinforcements down to roughly half health before I was torn to shreds by automatic weapon fire.

=============================================================

Thus far, it seems that only the mission opponents are the ones a tad too powerful. It took 4 attempts at "End of the Beginning" on Hard before I was able to kill two Exiles, the third of which somehow vanished, making the mission unable to be completed.

More later.

**Tytanya_MxO**

Sadly the consequence atm is that all but 1 on 1 duels will mean getting tied into IL is akin to suicide! Moreover this occurs with level 48npc's with a strictly limited build how on earth would it be with the same number of players with varied builds and genuine strategies.....the effect of levelling isn't anywhere near sufficient as it is currently set, there needs to be a two pronged solution - Increase the amount of damage resistence and dodge/block gained for each level gained AND give a dodge/block bonus for players in IL.

**PBlade** · 02/10/2006 08:22:17

Please Tytanya, we know your opinions on the possible/probable increase of the zerg.

They do want some constructive feedback on where they're right and where they're wrong. Stop dragging the same horse into every thread about CR2.0

*edit* Sorry, that sounded harsher than it was intended.

Message Edited by PBlade on 02-10-200608:22 AM

**Tytanya_MxO**

I make two clear suggestions to a problem raised in the thread.... if you read again you will actually see one of these was consistent with your own.

I hope I always try and make a constructive point to my posts, but have to confess in certain instances here I feel it is a change of perspective is called for rather than a simple tweak.....it's selfish but I'm not arguing to scrap CR2.0 I am arguing for CR2.0 to work in the kinds of scenario we experience everyday.

**Symmetric**

Funnily enough, PBlade and I tested in the exact same areas, and faced the same consequences.

Con greys, while relatively easy to defeat one-on-one, are still terribly difficult when in groups. As a level 50, I fought level 36 mobs, and even the single-chevron enemies were filling me full of holes. I was able to take out two in a group of four before I had to retreat and heal up. I had lv50 Hyper-Dodge loaded and activated, as well as buffed clothing that added to Ballistic Defense and Resistance, yet I just barely survived the encounter.

I then proceeded to fight groups of con blues in the Creston Heights and Stratford Campus areas, and was subsequently pwned before I could take out the first enemy. The first enemy I fought was a two-chevron con blue (level 4 SMILEY

and he was able to take me down to almost half health in three rounds, one of which he hit me with a Full Auto Redux.

Missions...don't even get me started. A con yellow Blood Drunk (level 50, two-chevron) killed me in two hits (probably because of the bug with Intensify Attacks).

I feel that the latest NPC balance pass made little difference. I hope this isn't the direction the game is going, as it's making an already difficulty PvE environment even more difficult.

HCFrog

The direction we're headed in is to keep things approximately the same difficulty as they were before, but I'd say making things easier at low level and a bit harder at high level.

Running through an entire mission on "Hard" at level 50, and barely (if ever) being hit, is actually not "Hard", IMO, but we're not setting out to make things take way longer than they used to.
And I remember the low level gameplay being way too tough when I was a noob... pretty discouraging. We'd definitely like to change that.

Now a question: What kind of resistances do y'all have?

At level 50, it is expected that you'd have 200 points of any sort of resistance. I think if you have 6 pieces of top level (33pts) armored clothing, you'll get to 198. So say you have 160 points of ballistic resistance, your resistance is treated as you being a level 40 player. Then if you're being shot by level 50 mobs, it's as if you're actually being free fired by purples. They're going to get a big bonus to their damage until you get your ballistic resistance up to 200.

And if you can get your resistance up over 200, you'll start mitigating the damage they do to you.

At level 20, the target is 80; anything under and you'll take extra damage. Anything over and you'll start reducing the damage you take.

**Symmetric** · 02/10/2006 14:28:27

I think part of the problem stems from the fact that mobs, even grays that are 15-25 levels below, are consistently hitting us with their weapons. With a level 50's Ballistic Defense compared to a level 35's Ballistic Accuracy, they seem to be hitting me way too often, even with my Ballistic Defense maxed out, with additional bonuses from enhanced clothing.

If they missed more often, it wouldn't be nearly as much a problem, but it seems that even with maximum Perception or no Perception at all, I get hit every time.

As an example, I used an RSI Reset Hack and put all of my points into Perception (for maximum Ballistic Defense) and into Focus (for maximum Ballistic Resistance). I loaded Hyper-Dodge (at level 50) and activated it, and also wore clothing that together granted a +4% Ballistic Defense bonus and about +200 Ballistic Resistance. Even with that, level 34s were consistently hitting me with ranged attacks, whittling down my health as I fought in Interlock.

Am I doing something wrong?

Message Edited by Symmetric on 02-10-200605:28 PM

**Othinn1**

Symmetric wrote:
I think part of the problem stems from the fact that mobs, even grays that are 15-25 levels below, are consistently hitting us with their weapons. With a level 50's Ballistic Defense compared to a level 35's Ballistic Accuracy, they seem to be hitting me way too often, even with my Ballistic Defense maxed out, with additional bonuses from enhanced clothing.

If they missed more often, it wouldn't be nearly as much a problem, but it seems that even with maximum Perception or no Perception at all, I get hit every time.

As an example, I used an RSI Reset Hack and put all of my points into Perception (for maximum Ballistic Defense) and into Focus (for maximum Ballistic Resistance). I loaded Hyper-Dodge (at level 50) and activated it, and also wore clothing that together granted a +4% Ballistic Defense bonus and about +200 Ballistic Resistance. Even with that, level 34s were consistently hitting me with ranged attacks, whittling down my health as I fought in Interlock.

Am I doing something wrong?
Message Edited by Symmetric on 02-10-200605:28 PM

It might have something to do with the fact that currently both Focus and Perception are giving bonuses to Ballistic Accuracy (at least according to the Attributes and Bonuses screens). Only Focus should give bonuses to Ballistic Accuracy.

HCFrog · 02/10/2006 14:42:55

Nope, you're not doing anything wrong as far as I know... it might just be that we need to tweak some numbers. I think possibly lowering the cap for damage done by lower levels (i.e., making your higher resistance count even more strongly when you're surrounded by greys) might be in order.

[edit] unless there's something like that going on ^^ SMILEY

Also, Oar just found a problem where special abilities weren't hitting as much as they should. Once that comes out in one of the next patches, you should be able to kill the one you're working on a bit faster, plus it will be more fun than watching your specials fail way too much SMILEY

[/edit]

Message Edited by HCFrog on 02-10-200602:42 PM

**Symmetric** · 02/10/2006 14:52:26

HCFrog wrote:
Nope, you're not doing anything wrong as far as I know... it might just be that we need to tweak some numbers. I think possibly lowering the cap for damage done by lower levels (i.e., making your higher resistance count even more strongly when you're surrounded by greys) might be in order.

That would definitely help. My question still remains though...is Ballistic Defense making any sort of difference? Right now, I'm assuming it is somewhat the equivalent of Dodge Ranged - the higher your Ballistic Defense is compared to your opponent's Ballistic Accuracy (RCT?), the better chance you have of dodging their ranged attacks.

The reason I ask is that even with maximum Ballistic Defense plus Hyper-Dodge activated, I appear to be getting shot 100% of the time by NPCs that are twenty levels below me, whereas with the current combat system, I don't have to wear any sort of +Dodge Ranged or +RCT clothing (or use Hyper-Dodge, for that matter), and they will always miss.

I understand that with the new system, lower levels have an increased chance of hitting higher level players, but not on such a consistent basis...

Message Edited by Symmetric on 02-10-200605:52 PM