Mob Difficulty

[Dinoviking]

Strong and Elite enemies need to be tuned down a little. When I fight an even level elite, with my companion out, I should not be getting completely trashed in under a minute. My build should not matter. My gear is up to date, my skills are all up to date, and my companion is up to date and her gear is current. Despite this, for some reason, there are a number of elite mobs that can just absolutely annihilate me.

 

This is not true for all Elites. Most elites are of a challenge that they could kill me if my rotation gets messed up, if I get distracted, or if I screw up somehow. They are tuned, however, so that I can and will beat them if I do it right. It takes strategy, timing, skill, and knowledge of my character. I like that. Some elites, however, are so overtuned that no matter what I do, no matter what strategy I try, no matter how well geared I am, they cannot be beaten. Period. I simply cannot beat them at all. These are not elites that out-level me. These are even-level elites and they are demolishing me in a matter of seconds.

 

This is an unacceptable level of difficulty. It's one thing for an enemy to be challenging or even deadly. It's another thing entirely for an enemy to be utterly impossible for certain builds. To give an example : There is an elite named Reiki. He is part of the BH quest "Target Rich Environment". He is level 43. I am also level 43. I am a BH, Powertech, Advanced Prototype spec. I tried to fight this particular enemy. He tore me to pieces in under a minute. I tried 4 times using a different strategy each time. He destroyed me every time. I have a friend who also plays a BH. He is also level 43. He is a DPS specced Mercenary. He fought the same enemy right after I gave up. He smashes Reiki into little pieces without ever being seriously hurt. This is the sort of thing that really aggravates me. I should not have to play a specific class and spec to beat certain enemies. They should be universally defeatable by all classes and specs, you simply have to use different strategies. I have encountered a number of elites like this. Some of them, I can beat but my friend cannot, others, vice-versa. This is, in my opinion, unfair tuning of mobs and needs to be looked into.

 

I have the same issue with Strong enemies. One strong is no problem, as well it should be. A strong and 2-3 normals are also a challenge, but are totally beatable and are only a true threat if you aren't paying attention to what you are doing, as it should be. 2 strongs will wipe the floor with most people. 2 strongs are just as bad if not worse that most elites. This can be mitigated only by playing exactly the correct class and spec for those mobs. Again, in my opinion, this is seriously overtuned and needs to be looked into.

 

Keep in mind now, I'm not asking for a cakewalk. Elites SHOULD be able to kill you. That's what makes them elite. I'm just saying that being able to kill you, and being guaranteed to destroy you unless you are either playing a particular spec, or get extremely lucky, are two entirely different things. I like a challenge. A brick frickin wall, I hate. 2 Strongs SHOULD be able to kill you. Again however, there is a difference between challenging and impossible. I don't want the game to be overly easy. All I am saying is, overtuning the enemies to be TOO hard is just as bad as being too easy.

 

As a preemptive strike, to those who will tell me I want everything handed to me, or that I should go back to WoW, I will say this.... I came here from WoW because the challenge was gone. WoW has become so casual friendly that there is no longer any challenge left. Everything is handed to you on a silver platter. That's not what I am asking for here. I am asking for enemy tuning to be looked into and adjusted. The elites and strongs are currently a little overpowered, and in some cases extremely overpowered, and are in need of an adjustment.

 

Beyond this one complaint, I am enjoying the game immensely, and have no intention of quitting or leaving over this. I am not QQing, I am not whining, I am simply pointing out what I think is an issue and asking for the Devs to look at it.

 

Thank you for listening. Keep up the good work. Have a nice day.

[Beamermichel]

No thanks.... i like the semi challenge. i dont feel like brainlessly pressing buttons and win with no effort.

 

I have a lvl 50 powertech and a lvl 35 sniper i really dont think its that hard.

 

Just my opinion though

[Dinoviking]

Boards are moving fast tonight. Not usually one to bump my own thread, but I really want to be sure the devs see this. That, and I am curious to see other opinions on this.

[Griminal]

No thanks.... i like the semi challenge. i dont feel like brainlessly pressing buttons and win with no effort.

 

I have a lvl 50 powertech and a lvl 35 sniper i really dont think its that hard.

 

Just my opinion though

 

Why are you playing this game then? lol

[Beamermichel]

Why are you playing this game then? lol

 

so you want it more brainless?

[Doamy]

-Post content removed- Edited May 6, 2012 by Doamy

[Dinoviking]

No thanks.... i like the semi challenge. i dont feel like brainlessly pressing buttons and win with no effort.

 

I have a lvl 50 powertech and a lvl 35 sniper i really dont think its that hard.

 

Just my opinion though

 

Ah, yes. My prediction has come true. As I said in the OP, I don't want this stuff handed to me. I am not asking for mindless button mashing and cakewalk fights. I am saying that, in my own opinion, which is based on personal experience, elites and strongs are overtuned. I don want to win with no effort either. I just want to make sure all classes and specs have an equal chance to beat any given mob, and currently I don't believe they do. Just because you breezed up to 50 (although I can't imagine how), doesn't mean it was that easy for all of us. The difficulty should be universal. My class and spec should not have a harder time with certain enemies than another, different one does, but I have seen first hand that this does actually happen, and it happens more often than I like.

 

Again, this is just my opinion. Your mileage may vary. I just wanted to bring it up and get the devs at least thinking about it.

[Caelrie]

How did you ever type a post that long about classes and mob strength without ever once listing your class, level, spec and what mobs these were?

 

We need CONTEXT!

Edited January 19, 2012 by Caelrie

[belialle]

How did you ever type a post that long about classes and mob strength without ever once listing your class, level, spec and what mobs these were?

 

We need CONTEXT!

 

I know, right?

 

I haven't had any trouble with this sort of thing as a DPS with a tank companion, nor have I had any trouble as a healer with a DPS companion, even when I'm doing orange quests rather than yellow. If I make a mistake against a challenging mob, I expect to be killed. That is how it should be, so it seems kind of strange to complain about it. I don't know what life is like for a Powertech though, so maybe I'm being a little unfair in my assessment.

 

So what gives, OP?

Edited January 19, 2012 by belialle

[Zalanox]

How did you ever type a post that long about classes and mob strength without ever once listing your class, level, spec and what mobs these were?

 

We need CONTEXT!

 

Try reading it.

[Dinoviking]

Difficulty felt fine for me while leveling.

 

But I leveled as a healer using a tank companion.

 

there was instances when the companion died, they pretty much amounted to:

 

Not paying attention to HP.

 

My own companions aoe breaking CC, because I was sloppy.

 

A boss / elite having some very heavy hitting AoE / melee that Companions are horrid to get to move out of, but I ended up kiting with no issue.

 

Unfortunately, Powertechs, at least the AP specced ones, don't seem to be made for kiting. I really have to be in close range to be fully effective.

 

You're right about the AoE though. The elite I mentioned in my OP did that. The AoE he hit me with was very powerful, was difficult to interrupt for some reason. and seemed to trash my companion every time. I even tried switching to a tank companion thinking that would help, but the loss of Mako's healing was to much to make up for.

 

Thank you for a positive post though. I appreciate that.

[Izorii]

I think strong mobs are more powerful than they need to be, but I doubt we will see any changes. A lot of people are already saying that the game is too easy. I find that in story arc's its annoying when I face a single elite Mob and have to use a compaion to tag team him when I am meant to be the hero.

[lollie]

OP is correct - game balance needs tuning so all enemies of same difficulty level actually are of the same difficulty (they are not at this point).

 

It's a gamble when you go to fight certain end of questline bosses and some strongs/elites etc as to how hard compared to others of same level and same rating they will actually be.

Edited January 19, 2012 by lollie

[Caelrie]

Try reading it.

 

My bad, it is buried in there.

[Dinoviking]

How did you ever type a post that long about classes and mob strength without ever once listing your class, level, spec and what mobs these were?

 

We need CONTEXT!

 

I did. 3rd paragraph.

 

Thank you Zalanox. Nice to have help.

[Zalanox]

My bad, it is buried in there.

 

I did. 3rd paragraph.

 

Thank you Zalanox. Nice to have help.

 

Cheers!

[Andryah]

I have the same issue with Strong enemies. One strong is no problem, as well it should be. A strong and 2-3 normals are also a challenge, but are totally beatable and are only a true threat if you aren't paying attention to what you are doing, as it should be. 2 strongs will wipe the floor with most people. 2 strongs are just as bad if not worse that most elites. This can be mitigated only by playing exactly the correct class and spec for those mobs. Again, in my opinion, this is seriously overtuned and needs to be looked into.

 

Two strongs have never given me a problem, to be honest (on any of my six characters). In most cases I put the companion on one and myself on the other (dps companion and me dps as well in most cases).

 

If you do enough damage quickly enough, you always win against a single elite or two strongs. I say this specifically because you mentioned battling an elite for over a minute. That is way too long IMO. An elite should be a 20-30 second fight with the exception of maybe a story line boss at the end of a quest chain. So it sounds like your putting out low dps. If you are putting out low dps, then you need damage mitigation and healing to keep you up long enough to kill the target. Personally, I prefer overpowering them with dps, rather then mitigation/healing (but that's my personal preference).

 

And once you have multiple companions, you can choose the appropriate companion for a particlarly nasty elite.

[Tralesh]

As a Shadow the only real problems I have run into is when I am not paying attention, trying to solo the World Boss (by accident!!) or soloing Heroic 2x zones.

 

I like how when I go into a fight against an Elite, I don't know if it will easy, interesting or a run away event.

 

My Shadow is lvl 31 now btw, not 50.

[JeremyDale]

No thanks.... i like the semi challenge. i dont feel like brainlessly pressing buttons and win with no effort.

 

I have a lvl 50 powertech and a lvl 35 sniper i really dont think its that hard.

 

Just my opinion though

 

I agree with you.

 

Last thing this game needs is it's challenge toned down. I can count on one hand how many fights so far have given me any challenge what so ever on this game.

[Elysion]

Mobs pre-30 need to be made harder so its not such a shock when the game actually gets a little challenging post 30

[Andryah]

A boss / elite having some very heavy hitting AoE / melee that Companions are horrid to get to move out of, but I ended up kiting with no issue.

 

Yeah, for these I kite them and keep the companion on their back.

[SkilledSeeker]

Completely disagree with OP. The game shouldnt be made easier in any form whatsoever, if anything it needs more challenge. But it's a decent balance at the mo.

[Zhakathoom]

As a shield specced Powertech myself I think I know why some mobs suddently feel so damned powerful. I think it has to do with what type of damage they deal, how they deal it, and the synergy with our shield/defence.

 

*

 

There was a lot of posts regarding this in the PT dedicated subforum of the BH section a while ago, but that was mainly illuminating the problem from a PVP point of view.

 

*

 

But like I said I play a PT myself, and I have never really had any problems until I hit Hoth. Yes, I do craptastic damage, but with Mako out healing me I sure take a lot of damage to grind down as well. Usually the tug of war pops in my favor, unless I’ve been overly reckless, like when I over confidently pulled 8 normal mobs and forgot that I didn’t have Mako summoned..

 

*

 

I’ve had little to no problem taking on 5man packs with two strong mobs in them, or elites with a guardmob or two. Or rather I hadn’t, until I hit Hoth.

 

*

 

While on a quest to defuse some bombs inside a powerplant I got roflstomped by a pack consisting of only two strong-mobs. Two talz to be specific.. Two more to add to the small horde of talz I’d already piled up in my charge. These two however just whipped the floor with me.. I didn’t even manage to off one of them before they killed me.

 

And only through use of every CD and CC available to me did I manage to down them on my second try.

 

The elite “supercommando” talz boss that spawned at the end of the mission was however a pushover.. Did I even dip below 90% hp?

 

*

 

Then I remember the exact same mob in the exact same quest that the OP mentions. And I remember that the other marks in the same questline was NOTHING of the challenge this guy was. Really odd that even the marks that I got on the follow-up questline felt nothing like how this guy felt. Heck I even plowed through a lot of the other elites around the area without loosing more than a barely visible sliver of my HP bar. That being mobs like the elite acklay and the esh’ka elites that even has guard with them…

 

*

 

Then yesterday I was on a mission on Voss, where I was supposed to gather some intel on some goodie two-shoe republic general. I was on my way through this cave, en-route to a dataterminal where I would eventually retrieve this incriminating holorecording, when I first bumped into grops that had one type of strongmob called something to the effect of “republic generic mob pyrotech”, and noticed how these mobs with their flamethrowers looked to take a huge chunk out of my HP.

 

Then, on the last pack of the cave, just before I was to confront the republic commander that was in the process of destroying the incriminating evidence I was after, I met an insurmountable obstacle: One regular mob that spawned two of these “pyrotech” strongmobs when engaged. Before I’d downed that regular mob, and we’re talking 2-3 GCDs here, they’d peeled off about 70% of my HP and despite spamming every CD, CC, medpack and selfheal I had I didn’t manage to get one of these two down to 50% before I died..

 

Thankfully I found that the two spawning mobs were tied to that one regular mob, so that when I died they despawned; thus leaving the route to the elite commander and his two guards open.

 

I proceeded to whoop their behinds in a timely fashion, while merrily humming “an der shönen, blauen Donau”, despite the annoying heals the elite was spamming and the stupid los problems of the normal mobs when they got knocked back into the tent, and then carefully avoided the now respawned mob down the slope on my way back out again..

 

*

 

I’ll admit that with a careful juggling of CDs and CCs coupled with an up-front knowledge of these two mobs spawning, I might have stood a slim chance. But on the other hand I fear I would have struggled to continue my questline without help if they hadn’t despawned..

 

*

 

-********* Z

[Zhakathoom]

So, in conclusion; I think there is something wonky about the PT mechanics that allows whole segments of damagetypes to completely ignore our defensive stats, and that resulting in us being reduced to no-dps cloth-users with a healing companion instead of a tanking one, with little to no self heals or other failsafe mechanics to resort to when our primary function of soaking damage fails.

 

It's like randomly telling a sorceror to charge packs with a healer companion out and only using his lightsaber attacks..

 

-Z

[gwit]

I have noticed that there are some Elites that seem harder to kill than Champions of the same level. I remember about level 31-32 on my smuggler gunslinger I could kill sith warrior elites without getting close to death, but sith sorcerer elites kicked my butt a few times until I figured out a way to kill them.

 

I did do it eventually, but I would have expected them to be closer in difficulty to the other sith elites hanging around in the same place. And certainly not harder than a champion level npc.