Ghouls buff

[Maloney]

Ghouls are no big thing at the moment. By the time you meet them they are easy to deal with. Controlling their movement and preventing them from getting to corpses is a simple matter too.

Could you the devs give the more advanced ghouls a better exp reward or item drop to encourage the player to let the ghouls combine for greater challenge reward. Maybe even make the biggest ghoul a bit tougher while you're at it.

[Owlie]

I like this idea. They should also drop valuable organ like the spider and harpies if butchered.

[DacianDraco]

It defeats the purpose of the tactic to not let them eat and upgrade to have a better "reward" if they do. And the bigger ones have skills and noticeably more Dodge, so that's something.

Also they are former humans, so no "organ" to be collected.

Hopefully when Maladies get developed the player may "catch" something from fighting them.

[Maloney]

Not aligned with you at all on that. Having a reason to let them combine when it would otherwise be trivial to just defeat them creates an additional tactical layer rather than defeating it.

[DacianDraco]

What additional tactic layer? Taking a free swing at it because a ghoul used it's turn to eat? And you're asking for extras (that already exist) from a trash mob. It's unnecessary, plus a reward for not caring about why ppl kill ghouls in the first place. You are not supposed to let ghouls eat the dead, and instead (likely take a hit while you) move over a corpse to prevent it.

[Maloney]

basic tier: fight ghouls without understanding they combine. be attacked and killed by bigger ghouls.
second tier: kill ghouls trying to prevent them combining because big ghouls are scary.
3rd tier: effortlessly murder ghouls faster than they could ever combine anyway.
bonus tier: kill ghouls with the deliberate intent to let them combine so that you can enjoy a decent fight with a decent reward because i'm so strong that i want a real fight and a real reward instead of just trash mob.
Bonus bonus tier: kite other mobs back to the ghouls and feed them up to get more big ghouls.

Higher risk should have higher reward. what's not to understand and like about that?

[laveley]

Ghouls are already an unique mob as is, I don't think they need to be even more fleshed out.

Devs have a long list of more pressing issues.

[DacianDraco]

They already have 3 forms and you get more XP from higher forms and it may be a "challenge" early on since they grow stronger and get new skills, which you may not expect.

As for the "bonus tiers" one feels more like a pretext and other like cheese, and i'm sure neither is a goal for the game. And definitely no need to reward this with a valuable trophy, since you are essentially feeding them when you are supposed to kill them.

If anything, and i'm repeating this, when Maladies become a thing when you fight them there should be a danger factor of catching a disease. That's all that makes sense to be added.

[Larus]

I personally I think that they should rework any enemy eventually. But they gotta finally make up their mind how the skill and attribute system works and implement the rest of the skills. Otherwise we're stuck with stub standart place holders.

One of the reason the AI performs so pooryl against higher level character is that they do not make intelligent use of abilities or don't have them in the first place.

[Owlie]

Originally posted by Larus:

I personally I think that they should rework any enemy eventually. But they gotta finally make up their mind how the skill and attribute system works and implement the rest of the skills. Otherwise we're stuck with stub standart place holders.

One of the reason the AI performs so pooryl against higher level character is that they do not make intelligent use of abilities or don't have them in the first place.

That is a great point. Mancathers was a surprise that got me good. I think the right way to go forward is to instead get a more cunning opponents instead of buffing their stats and damages. I would like to see enemies using better strategy to teach the player new strategies.
Like, give the newbies opportunities to learn about trap baiting by having some brigands intentionally bait player into walking toward a trap. Or teach ranged user about view blocking by making the melee enemies hide behind pillars. Maybe even have enemy archer place bear traps and caltrops when being chased by melee user.

[Maloney]

I'm sure neither is the goal for the game to implement large amounts of work to mean nothing to the player. Cool we've got a monster that can power up when it eats corpses. They did it the first time i ever saw them and then i never let them do it ever again. If anything it currently makes them easier to defeat because of their tendency to proc AoO. So give the player something to work with instead of another sprite with extra steps to be dealt with by killing it as soon as possible.

As to the maladies you keep rehashing the devs could just as well add it to anything and everything in the game.

Give the monster a buff in the meantime and the players a reason to care about what they are fighting.

[DacianDraco]

Or we can have new monsters that scale with player, not everything needs to get reworked with each patch. Please let progress happen and stop trying to tweak old stuff that is fine as is.

[Maloney]

The rework is inevitably coming though.

You've already mentioned Maladies.
Add to that a 'Ghoulish Tooth' or something like that to become a crafting/alchemy reagent.
And the huge amount or skills and magics currently missing from the game.
A stealth system that they now have to react or respond to differently.
A potentially faster travel system that lets you get to these thing earlier than before and like you say again, maybe cheese some strats.

Every time one or more of these system get finally implemented it'll change the risk vs reward and balance of the current game world. And while we can speculate about these all we want for the future we're essentially beta testers and when the currently observed game is already out of balance it's on us to call it out even if it isn't a top of the pile update.

[Owlie]

Coming back to this thread, My opinion that Ghouls being more rewarding stands. Infact, they have their own designated monster hunting ground so it makes Zero sense that the ghouls (as of now) gives nothing of value. They actually should drop something at least, be it alchemical ingredients or trophy item

Oh and Deathstingers. It was a disappointment that I didn't get to harvest any honey for it.

[laveley]

Originally posted by Owlie:

Oh and Deathstingers. It was a disappointment that I didn't get to harvest any honey for it.

everything is half-baked now. Theres no reason to ask for arbitrary content x over y.

Just let devs do as they plan. If this game is going to be finished at some time in the future (and theres no reason to believe otherwise), than all things will have to be put together in due time.