I think I finally see why people complain about mob density.

[MasterZalm]

I joined a coop game with a person. Poor Jimmy. The stereotypical rusher.

He was still wearing the dark crusader armour. Which is not bad, but its not great. There are better armours other than that one.

He was wielding Fitzroy's Sword, which is decent for bleed, but there are much better weapons. He was also two handing it, with a standard Hallowed Knight Shield on his back.

When I joined him, he was at the vestige seed for the Bramis Castle rotating staircase room. We had to fight past the Ruinerx2, Conflagrant Seer, Proselyte, and Infernal Enchantress as well as a multitude of trash mobs. For me, an easy area, as I am on a Radiance caster build.

Except my damage was half that of normal. And grey. The game had scaled me down to his level for damage. I was doing like 100-150 a hit. He himself only did 98 to the Ruiner. If he took damage, it was anywhere between 400-700, and it always took more than half his health.

I could easily tell he was not prepared for this area. HE had rushed past so many enemies in his playtime he was probably level 70-80. I was honestly surprised he took 700, albeit was usually left with next to nothing. He clearly had no reason to be in that area. He was struggling just to survive against the trash mobs. I imagine, in his rage against the game as he DCed, that the area had too many enemies. Given, as we fought the Ruiner, it usually pulled the two seared souls. And he would usually end up backing into the Proselyte as well. While being pelted by the Seer.

The few times we did kill the ruiner, we kited the second ruiner along the foyer through the Seer area, ending up with some odd 10 trash mobs at times, trying to dodge Enchantress fireballs, Seer firebolts, and a dozen zombies. It was hectice, but sometimes, we had little choice, as the Ruiner would many time charge us and push us back and around.

The issue isnt the mob density, its players who think the best idea is to just run form point A to point B, ignoring anything along the route, then getting overwhelmed when you finally get to point B.

Moral of the story? Take your time, clear the trash along the way, and make sure you keep leveling. Unlike darksouls games, leveling in this game seems meaningful. Impressively so. Weapon scaling does wonders, and stacking to even soft caps lessens difficulty by miles. And to top it off, the actual amount of souls(read vigor) is substantially less that other games in the genre. And the amounts gained are pretty lenient. Thus, "grinding is less grindy. So go on, get those stats to soft caps. Raise your damage stat to 40/60. Make sure you get to 50+ vitality. I liked my endurance at 40. Its not that hard.

[Rain]

That's also all the people that complain about constant ganks from enemies. Yeah, you will get ganked if you just rush through ♥♥♥♥, 95% of the game everyone is able to pick their fights.

[Fresh]

this might just be me but i feel like my stamina regen rate slows down after lvl 17 endurance.
also i dont think the guys weapon was upgraded cause ive done castle bramis like three times at lvl 75 you dont get level reduction on your damage from monsters in that zone.

that only helps your theory though cause finding enough large derelium shards to upgrade a weapon is a huge pain.

[Zeon]

A large part of it is some people just don't know how to build a character.
I beat the game at level 85 & only just min maxed my itemization.

[Thunder_Pika]

amen to this post this is what i tell all the people saying this game has too many mobs and every time i tell them they are like "well i dont want to fight mobs all the time" which im like well dont play the game and complain when the issue is you lmao

[TheBlueFox]

Ehhh... Nah. There's still a MASSIVE mob density to deal with.

Sure, you can take it slow, fight off 4-5 enemies at once, but that's still FOUR enemies at once, with a lockon dark souls fighting system.

For melee, that's really rough to deal with, especially when 2 of those are ranged enemies that you have to keep wary of, because getting hit by a ranged attack inevitably means being hit by a melee attack too.

I run a pure melee agility dagger build, with AOE poison smokebombs that also deal bleeding. I can pretty much just poison a group of enemies and be done with them. But the issue is that I deal with GROUPS of enemies that I really shouldn't be.

Fighting off a Mace wielder + an armored dog becomes Fighting off a Mace wielder + 2 armored dogs + mace and shield heavy knight.

Past that it's 3 crossbowmen and 1 2 hander, protected by an invisible buff spirit.

Past that, it's 4 armored dogs and an archer, and if you get too close to the next path way it's 4 armored dogs, an archer, and 2 crossbowmen.

After that it's the 2 crossbowmen, 2 mace and shield heavy knights, 1 mace wielder, and 2 Bringers of silence (Or whatever those ghosts with dual swords are called)

These enemy groups are... Kind of a lot...

[Xero]

Originally posted by TheBlueFox:

Sure, you can take it slow, fight off 4-5 enemies at once, but that's still FOUR enemies at once, with a lockon dark souls fighting system.

I mean, it's fine now and again. But it's just so often that they throw groups at you, and if you try to pull them away, you often just get the bulk of the group coming anyway...

[TheBlueFox]

Originally posted by Xero:

Originally posted by TheBlueFox:

Sure, you can take it slow, fight off 4-5 enemies at once, but that's still FOUR enemies at once, with a lockon dark souls fighting system.

I mean, it's fine now and again. But it's just so often that they throw groups at you, and if you try to pull them away, you often just get the bulk of the group coming anyway...

And god forbid you're in the Umbral.

Add in 1 offscreen spunk tosser and two zombie nerds shuffling toward you, or a Bringer of stillness or a ugly bug person to each group

[Xero]

Originally posted by TheBlueFox:

And god forbid you're in the Umbral.

Add in 1 offscreen spunk tosser and two zombie nerds shuffling toward you, or a Bringer of stillness or a ugly bug person to each group

Yeah... Mobs constantly spawning isn't exactly a fun time, and the dread timer really works against taking things slow and steady, so mob density becomes more of an issue as you might be forced to take on more than you're exactly comfortable with because otherwise, you're getting a scarlet reaper coming to murder you.

[CrAZYVIC.]

In my opinion, there are quite a few mobs, and a strong influence from Dark Souls 2 is clearly evident.

The issue is that this is not Dynasty Warriors. Do you want to add the same quantity as Dark Souls 2?

a) First, address the game's optimization issues, the stuttering, and make it feel smooth and responsive.

b) Do it consciously and appropriately, manually placing mobs in each map as Dark Souls does. Don't rush it by using AI to generate mobs randomly and automatically.

Fix these two aspects, and you will see how people stop complaining.

[MasterZalm]

Originally posted by TheBlueFox:

Fighting off a Mace wielder + an armored dog becomes Fighting off a Mace wielder + 2 armored dogs + mace and shield heavy knight.

Past that it's 3 crossbowmen and 1 2 hander, protected by an invisible buff spirit.

Past that, it's 4 armored dogs and an archer, and if you get too close to the next path way it's 4 armored dogs, an archer, and 2 crossbowmen.

After that it's the 2 crossbowmen, 2 mace and shield heavy knights, 1 mace wielder, and 2 Bringers of silence (Or whatever those ghosts with dual swords are called)

These enemy groups are... Kind of a lot...

I know exactly the area your talking about. Path of Devotion is a moderately difficult area because of two things. One, its easily accessible early on. But its not meant for early characters. Two, its a side area, optional for anything but loot hunters and a single side quest.

If you can manage to pace yourself through the area, aside from the "2hander" Holy Bulwark, most of the enemies are easy to take on. I dont like the ranged enemies any more than you, but if you approach the area at an adequate level, most of the enemies are easy enough to handle. As in, I 2-shot the crossbowmen.

Speaking of, the area in question is most assuredly a side area. The only thing it does is loop back to Skyrest, and drop some loop all the way. Its an area needed for the end of a single side quest, in which you have already gone all the way to the Fief and Calrath. By then, your level should easily reflect a more powerful build, probably in the mid 50's or higher(I was in the 80's and the place was a breeze when I came back), and have around +7/4 weapons.

But some people are a bit nosey, save up to buy the key(which btw, you can get freely later on, just as you go to the Manse) which to be honest, is probably the more proper timeframe to actually attempt the Path of Devotion, lol. Funny how the time you get the key for free is probably the time you should be exploring the area the key unlocks.

Originally posted by Xero:

Yeah... Mobs constantly spawning isn't exactly a fun time, and the dread timer really works against taking things slow and steady, so mob density becomes more of an issue as you might be forced to take on more than you're exactly comfortable with because otherwise, you're getting a scarlet reaper coming to murder you.

I think the devs have said thats the point in umbral. You arent supposed to stay there for long, its an area where you get in, do wahtever you came to do, and get out. Your not meant to be slow and steady in it, Your meant to clear a bunch of mobs you kill quickly(with the occasional semi-tanky womb of despair) and get your rewards. The timer, the constantly spawning enemies(that get more spawns the longer you stay, btw) and the finale crescendo(red reaper) are clear indicators you arent welcome. Dont feel welcome, feel panicked and scared. Thats the point.

[D. Flame]

So you over leveled and used a broken build, but trash talk other players? Interesting.

[Weruat]

Originally posted by MasterZalm:

Originally posted by Xero:

Yeah... Mobs constantly spawning isn't exactly a fun time, and the dread timer really works against taking things slow and steady, so mob density becomes more of an issue as you might be forced to take on more than you're exactly comfortable with because otherwise, you're getting a scarlet reaper coming to murder you.

I think the devs have said thats the point in umbral. You arent supposed to stay there for long, its an area where you get in, do wahtever you came to do, and get out. Your not meant to be slow and steady in it, Your meant to clear a bunch of mobs you kill quickly(with the occasional semi-tanky womb of despair) and get your rewards. The timer, the constantly spawning enemies(that get more spawns the longer you stay, btw) and the finale crescendo(red reaper) are clear indicators you arent welcome. Dont feel welcome, feel panicked and scared. Thats the point.

And this is why people tend to run out as quick as possible but the game tends to just swarm, because the umbral enemies mix with the normal enemies and you end up with a ♥♥♥♥ show. Personally I found Lords of the Fallen felt too slow paced and boring for progression because of the enemy spawns and mob density, which do SLOW the game down, but don't make it difficult, just tedious.

[MasterZalm]

Originally posted by D. Flame:

So you over leveled and used a broken build, but trash talk other players? Interesting.

Maybe a bit over leveled, but not a broken build. I was a Str/Agi hybrid using a half phys, half wither long sword.

1. Str/Agi is...sub par. Hybrid builds usually are until you get way over leveled.
2. Vanguard Barros' Sword doesnt scale the wither damage, which means half my damage is untouched and weak. Considered the worse type of damage for PvE.

If anything my build is subpar. The only advantage I have is I stack health regen(super easy to do with the tumul runes) and simply outlast the enemies I fight. Not exactly and advantage in umbral though, since I am being rushed to kill and complete, and my health regen is slow. Also, wither damage is trash on umbral enemies.

[Weruat]

At the end of the day, defending the Mob density is pointless and silly, the devs probably won't be able to make any significant changes to it and ultimately the people complaining will move on, but to pretend it's fine and dismiss feedback as "Not playing correctly, git gud, etc." is just being mindless, this game has fundamental issues, mob density is one of them.

[D. Flame]

Originally posted by MasterZalm:

Originally posted by D. Flame:

So you over leveled and used a broken build, but trash talk other players? Interesting.

Maybe a bit over leveled, but not a broken build. I was a Str/Agi hybrid using a half phys, half wither long sword.

Originally posted by MasterZalm:

I am on a Radiance caster build.

You can't even keep your story straight.