Why do we never actually get stronger?

[DJ Deckard Cain]

Isn't it fun progressing in a game to never actually get stronger? I feel like I'm playing Destiny 2 all over again. You LOOK stronger, but you never actually GET stronger.

[James]

DarthTanyon a écrit :

When I played vanilla WoW.. and went from Ashenvale to Felwood.. the enemies went from 35 to like 55.. they were skulls.. I did not get weaker.. they are a lot stronger..

that's a lot different though because you aren't even supposed to be in zones with skull level enemies in WoW

[Tanyon]

I admit it was a bit of a stretch sure but it is the same thing here only you are supposed to be there but they are harder enemies. I mean the ones in silverlight have all these moved.. the paladins will destroy you if you aren't on your game.

[weirdee]

James a écrit :

DarthTanyon a écrit :

When I played vanilla WoW.. and went from Ashenvale to Felwood.. the enemies went from 35 to like 55.. they were skulls.. I did not get weaker.. they are a lot stronger..

that's a lot different though because you aren't even supposed to be in zones with skull level enemies in WoW

you may not know this, but enemies in v rising also have skull markers and red health bars if they are higher level than you, and you can resolve this by going somewhere else and finding gear there first to increase your gear level

[James]

weirdee a écrit :

James a écrit :

that's a lot different though because you aren't even supposed to be in zones with skull level enemies in WoW

you may not know this, but enemies in v rising also have skull markers and red health bars if they are higher level than you, and you can resolve this by going somewhere else and finding gear there first to increase your gear level

right, you can be behind the curve, but you can never get ahead of it

[weirdee]

James a écrit :

weirdee a écrit :

you may not know this, but enemies in v rising also have skull markers and red health bars if they are higher level than you, and you can resolve this by going somewhere else and finding gear there first to increase your gear level

right, you can be behind the curve, but you can never get ahead of it

you can get ahead of the curve easily by looting gear upgrades. in fact, this happens very easily if you do every single boss in level order, because they usually put a handful of bosses at every level tier and every one of them is very likely to drop a book that gives you a new potion or upgrades your armor, and one spell shard that is most likely a step up from either your no slotted shard spell or a spell shard of a lower grade. the bosses also vary in difficulty even at the same tier, and you can keep wrecking one of them to roll for more chances at upgrade books or shards. other enemy zones spawn chests with upgrade books and gems in them (look for the gold chests) and you can sweep though those pretty quickly, and they're always available at your gear level, or at the very most, one or two enemies that are slightly higher that you can sneak around.

[James]

weirdee a écrit :

James a écrit :

right, you can be behind the curve, but you can never get ahead of it

you can get ahead of the curve easily by looting gear upgrades. in fact, this happens very easily if you do every single boss in level order, because they usually put a handful of bosses at every level tier and every one of them is very likely to drop a book that gives you a new potion or upgrades your armor, and one spell shard that is most likely a step up from either your no slotted shard spell or a spell shard of a lower grade. the bosses also vary in difficulty even at the same tier, and you can keep wrecking one of them to roll for more chances at upgrade books or shards. other enemy zones spawn chests with upgrade books and gems in them and you can sweep though those pretty quickly, and they're always available at your gear level, or at the very most, one or two enemies that are slightly higher that you can sneak around.

your gear is gated entirely by boss kill progress so you can't just grind to get ahead. You have to fight bosses at certain power levels unlike games were you can grind out levels to get ahead of the difficulty curve.

Games like elden ring are much easier in comparison because you can outlevel content and get ahead of the difficulty curve.

[weirdee]

i just stated how you can grind ahead, by finding upgrade books. the only thing you can't grind out is the endcap bosses that lead to the next gear tier, but if you've maxed out your upgrades for the current tier it will set you slightly above them. it doesn't follow an exp meter, but i appreciate that games can sometimes require you to take specific actions to win instead of just pressing button long enough to win.

[James]

weirdee a écrit :

i just stated how you can grind ahead, by finding upgrade books. the only thing you can't grind out is the endcap bosses that lead to the next gear tier, but if you've maxed out your upgrades for the current tier it will set you slightly above them. it doesn't follow an exp meter, but i appreciate that games can sometimes require you to take specific actions to win instead of just pressing button long enough to win.

that's not grinding ahead, that's just catching up to the baseline

[Terror]

James a écrit :

yes and if you go back to it after it isn't relevant it IS easier than when you first get there, but if you compare it to the difficulty of entering any other phase of the game you are weaker when you enter that phase than you were entering previous phases of the game.

Many places you can overlevel are still very much relevant even in endgame because you still need to farm their materials.

So yes you do get stronger.

Also you can outlevel quite a lot of bosses before having to do them.

You can't abuse the game as much as in other rpgs because it's still trying to provide engaging combat but this thread is dumb since you still do get stronger.

Even in endgame where I am right now you can either do the immaculate boss at lvl 79 or grind for an amulet and a new weapon to overlevel him and get 83 + better stats while he is lvl 80

[X-SR71]

It's a pretty silly and way too simple design, really. If you just start in a server and someone gives you full equip set you go straight to "level" 80+ and can kill every boss in the game. In that sense, yes, there's no progression and you never actually get stronger. Spells differences matter way to little in PVE and the only thing that really matters is (gear) level.

[♥Kina♥]

So, I have a solution for this, right?

A test of this here theory of not getting stronger.

The steps are simple now, follow along... you can do it!

Step 1: Start a new game, and immediately go to silverlight hills and try to kill.... well, literally anything that isn't a deer/moose/etc.

Step 2: After getting embarrassed in silverlight, play the game normally and progress through to act III increasing your gear level until you actually can take on those enemies in silverlight.

If you don't feel you've grown stronger then after those two steps, sorry (not sorry) to say that it's purely your feelings getting in the way.

I mean I get where you are coming from, but it's completely the wrong way of thinking.... You think the further you get in "levels" it should become trivial to fight enemies who are equal to you (or even higher), but if a game is balanced well then, no.... you shouldn't become STRONGER then the enemies you are gearing up to fight, you should become equals with them and then as you continue to grow in gear level, surpass them. Your issue is that you can't surpass them, BEFORE beating them (specifically bosses)... which no you shouldn't be able to do because that removes the challenge if you can just faceroll through everything just because you spent a few more hours grinding out some "levels". The design behind the game is to retain a combative challenge throughout and you were never meant to feel stronger then the enemies you are currently equal to... because that's exactly what you are, their equal.

So no, you aren't meant to feel like a god swatting silly peasants out of the way, in this game you are nothing special and any one unit equal to yourself can destroy you if you let them. Which is where player skill directly comes in to offset that and is something you gain through playing as well and you as the player feel a sense of accomplishment through finally being able to take down that boss you were stuck on because you learned how to use what was given to you more efficiently.

TLDR: It's a issue of skill, play the game and get better YOURSELF instead of relying on numbers to do the work for you.

By the way just adding that when I say it's an issue of skill, I'm not saying that just to burn people... No I'm dead serious. They quite literally expect you to have to exert a certain level of skill from your end to progress which is why they don't even give you the option of grossly outperforming your current tier enemies with stats alone... I mean it's quite literally the design.

[CrimsoN]

Get good kid. Skill gap i guess.

[Fauxsteel]

CrimsoN a écrit :

Get good kid. Skill gap i guess.

In this case it's more of a skill gape =)

[Kerrin]

I agree with the OP, you never actually feel stronger against the bosses you are fighting.
You are always fighting bosses at your level, once you beat a V Blood, there is no reason to fight it again.
On entering a new zone, you have to be really careful, and just as you are starting to feel strong in a zone, you need to move to the next zone.
And as the V Bloods get higher level, they actually get harder in real skill to do. Personally, my group only enjoys this game by adjusting the difficulty down at higher levels.
And we don't play PvP, so add that on top and this game is stupid hard.
After 160 hours, the second time through doesn't seem notably any easier than the first time. I wonder how many hours it takes to get good?

[Fauxsteel]

Kerrin a écrit :

. I wonder how many hours it takes to get good?

It takes everyone a different a amount of time to 'get good'. Maybe video games aren't your forte -shrug-