mob scaling seems to happen way too quickly. on norm/norm

[Mr.Pibbs]

Just because I have like 6 members, why are the mobs scaled up so quickly and have double the armor already? Makes the fights impossible almost without losing people. Not being given enough time to power level up your team, noticing this after 4.5 hrs of gameplay so far and like 3 restarted plays lol

[DropShot]

Play on Region locked. Free mode is dumb like that

[Mr.Pibbs]

thank you. I did not know about that.

[Kruppe]

in the early game of free mode DO NOT hurry to level up your mercs - spend time building krowns and developing professions - this game is not intended to be quick kill......... so you know, region locked is real real easy at the higher levels so it's worth it to go back and play free mode but go slowly to start with - it's a good idea to stay below level 4 or 5 as long as possible

[Mr.Pibbs]

actually it did not fix everything the scaling of the patrolling mobs in the first city is still INSANE. they are always 1 level higher and same number of mobs with ebtter armor and weapons. how the ♥♥♥♥ am i suppose to kill 3 squads of that to meet septelles quest

[Kruppe]

well.... wait until you're mercs get stronger but not higher level - dumping useless animals will also help - concentrate on trading and knowledge - and you can always put septelle in 'flee mode' during other combats - this game requires patience - gaining levels quickly is not the key to the game - gaining money and knowledge is - along with developing your professions like blacksmith - which is absolutely critical becuase weapon and armour drops are very limited - good wishes Mr. Pibbs...

[Mr.Pibbs]

After my initial disgust at such a bad game level design, I re reviewed my party, and yes there are about 2 underleveld chars (4 and 6, while the patrols are lvl 8, All my other chars are lvl 7) and 2 worthless sow boars and 3 decent wolves and 1 worthless horse (why even let horses be a fighter if they are so weak?, I gave them light armor, but even if I put the next lvl armor they still hit like a feather and are essentially useless because if they die on the front line). I will revamp my party by trying to capture higher level mercs as close to lvl 8 as I can get, but literally its only giving me lvl 6's as the highest i can recruit that i can see currently, which again does not help, because by the time they are level 8, the patrolling mobs will be lvl 10 or 11. it basically seems like you can only fight them with a decent chance at certain level intervals based on blacksmithing. The way it is designed currently, it is suicide and unachieveable to attack in between specific blacksmithing level intervals , such as lvl 2, lvl 5, lvl 8 etc. It just forces you have to save up gold/resources to mass produce gear at exactly the time your blacksmith hits the expertise levels to craft that lvl of gear, otherwise it is impossible to attack in between those specific levels. Do not even attempt to attack if you are at lvl 3/4/6/7, because u will not have the adequate armor/weapons because the scaling always puts them at a better armor/weapons/mob count advantage. this is such a horrible design, because even the mercs you recruit in towns or just randomly through conversations are extremely low level, unless you try to capture mercs in the field and even then its a dice roll that they are even close to the blacksmithing level needed and for some reason most of those mercs do not have skills so you have to waste even more gold adding skills to them from the place that lvls up specific named weapons. Its bad design they need to fix this nonsensical scaling of the patrols at some point.

[funkmonster7]

If you're level 7, patrols are at level 8, that is normal. But if you're level 7, patrols shouldn't be a problem.

Did you upgrade your mercs' skills? Skill upgrades are an absolute must. Some upgrades are downright broken, and they are meant to be because enemies get similar buffs later on too. The problem with enemies is their buff is static (for that battle anyway), while yours are strategic can you can combine them in whatever way you want.

For example, patrols don't stand a chance if you have a row of pikemen just spearwalling, and a row of infantrymen at the back just going into that overwatch stance. The battle will take forever to finish, but enemies absolutely can't move or even attack as long as your pikemen keep that spearwall up.

A quicker way to finish the battle is use swordsmen, give them the attack that makes them destabilize enemies, and use them to take down tanky enemies. With Riposte, swordsmen are very strong and tanky. But you will still need good gear to fight patrols though.

Rangers are even more deadly. Get them Throw Dagger (or Dagger Throw?), upgrade that skill, it makes it so that every time you activate the passive, your movement is reset. You can lock down an enemy archer and kill him easily, and still have enough movement to return to the backline of your party, completely out of reach from enemies, even archers. My rangers are practically untouchable.

If you want some decent armor, try attacking merchants. Their bodyguards have quite good armor and weapons. Then take on patrols. Patrols are actually a good source of equipment if you can beat them.

With fire damage now, spearwall is incredibly powerful, along with archers with Legion Bow. Just light the entire areas in front of your spearwall on fire, and let enemies walk in there, stand there until they die. It doesn't matter how much armor or guard they have, if they can't move they're gonna roast to death, and they can't spread the fire to you because you stopped them from moving the moment it is their turn.

I like to pair this setup with poisoners, because poison and Vulnerability debuffs... just too sick when you pair this with infantrymen with the bleed shot passive, upgraded (+35% crit damage). Vulnerability = next attack suffered will always crit. So, fire + bleed + poison = dead in a few turns even with 99% guard.

[Mr.Pibbs]

Sigh..Thanks for the post. i did not know you could upgrade the skills, I thought that was a reskill all skills book the whole time. I basically have the best gear you can have at level 7, all crafted from the blacksmith with the white leather patches for armor/str as well and oils on weapons, but that does not even matter, since the next tier of gear is at lvl 8, which the mobs are already at. I will review my company setup and take a look at those skills you mentioned. Thank you for your experience

[Kruppe]

Originally posted by Mr.Pibbs:

Sigh..Thanks for the post. i did not know you could upgrade the skills, I thought that was a reskill all skills book the whole time. I basically have the best gear you can have at level 7, all crafted from the blacksmith with the white leather patches for armor/str as well and oils on weapons, but that does not even matter, since the next tier of gear is at lvl 8, which the mobs are already at. I will review my company setup and take a look at those skills you mentioned. Thank you for your experience

Why do you have some many useless animals in your party? The more of those you have the higher the enemy levels will be.
it's almost like all you're doing is attacking guards instead of completing the quests - how many counties have you cleared?
How many tombs have you completed? Bounties? minor quests? Bandit Lairs? Tracker Hunts?
You can go through the whole game and not attack the guards unless you add Septelle to your party.
Are you always stealing? If so, have you been building up your knowledge by using a Lectern and Scholar - how many of the ergular achievements do you have? Like armour restorations, running, etc...???

[Mr.Pibbs]

haha, thank you for sharing any info. good point I didn't realize how useless the animals were going to be until well I guess right now.. 50 hrs in, I kind of kept the piggies around because of the extra carrying capacity and maybe as a expendable threat tank when doing the rat clears haha, but after hearing the generous experiences of others on this thread, I had to take a serious look at my party makeup and am working to remove them and try to find high lvl human replacements. I've only got 2 zones explored right now, 2 tombs completed, almost at 100 quests completed, have not done tracker hunts yet, always stealing, lectern is being used.. have only gotten 1 unique weapon so far from that.

i had just been doing the quests to make money to lvl up skills (just found out u could do this), buy skills for kidnapped mercs that.. have no skills except for one at lvl 6 for some reason, food and pay upkeep. I am now kind of buying the 3 special resources from each region and doin quests then travelling back to the other zone to resell the special resources and bouncing back and forth tryin to lvl up new chars atm.

I only had one polearm and 1 bow, I aim to increase it to at least 3 and 3 or more since it sounds like thats the best way to deal with these patrols.

[.O.]

Also, guard patrols I believe will always scale no matter what mode you're on. Also they are always meant to be a threat to your party.

If you capture an outlaw and then recruit them, yes they don't actually have a skill tree.