Confused about enemy levels...

[JimboTCB]

I've only been playing a little while but enemy levels don't seem to make any sense... Right from the start of the game there were level 10+ enemies which didn't seem to pose much of a challenge, and now that I'm level 20+ I'm seeing enemies in some parts of the map which are only level 6 or so but can still kill me incredibly quickly. Then I accidentally ran into a level 99 enemy when exploring a big underground cave but it didn't seem to put up any more of a fight than the regular versions?

Am I missing something here or is enemy level just completely meaningless and has no bearing on how tough an enemy actually is?

[Syngyl]

Level 1 is baseline stats for whatever creature it is and then the levels tell how much more difficult it is from the base. Its an odd way of doing it and give no hint to the actual difficulty of a new enemy.

[JimboTCB]

Originally posted by Syngyl:

Level 1 is baseline stats for whatever creature it is and then the levels tell how much more difficult it is from the base. Its an odd way of doing it and give no hint to the actual difficulty of a new enemy.

Wow, okay, that is... really stupid. Guess I'll just have to resort to the good old tactic of seeing how quickly I die to gauge whether I'm straying into places I'm not supposed to be yet...

[william_es]

It's sort of like ark. Different creatures have baseline stats. A level 1 stag beetle is still a stag beetle. A giant black armored plated death machine. It has way more health, does more damage then say a sawyer beetle or a bull ant.

[Vincont]

Every creature is defeated based on using the blocking mechanism, unless it is a group. In which case it may be as simple as using a healing patch before going into battle. The resources for heals a very abundant.

It takes more time, but you do not even have to change armor from the beginning armor or weapons, nor do you have to apply stats and you can complete the whole game this way. The stats and gear make it a lot easier, safer; quicker; and less repairs.

It is also very useful to use the correct weapon against the correct bug. Mostly this is swapping from blunt to blade type weapons.

[JimboTCB]

I was also super disappointed when I went and tamed the rare level 99 gecko I found, and then found that it was almost as useless in combat and died just as easily as the regular ones. May as well not even have enemy levels at all the way it's implemented as I've barely noticed any difference between "high" and "low" level versions of the same enemy types so far.

[Drudackus]

Originally posted by JimboTCB:

I've barely noticed any difference between "high" and "low" level versions of the same enemy types so far.

I thought the same thing with the early tames and ended up ignoring them.

On the other hand, after test-running 10 battles with scorpions, with a 7-3 win ratio in favour of the tames, (i thin this ratio was just luck), I found the wild ones have half the Health but do almost twice the damage of a tame scorpion. An un-upgraded tame scorpion has a roughly 50% chance of surviving if fighting a wild one without assistance. The survivors, wild or tame, usually come out with a thin sliver of health, less than 5%.

The tames improve with a few levels, but at 1% per level, progress is slow, and I wouldn't let it fight unassisted for at least 20 levels if I want to keep it. At 40+ levels, with all points in Health and Damage, the scorpion tame scorpion is a match for any of the wild ones currently in the game.

Tame scorpions also tank vipers like absolute champions, so you can kill them from a distance in relative safety.

I don't think the early tames are even remotely useful as combatants, even in the starting area. But, in fairness, I didn't really invest much effort into finding out.