Biome difficulty opinions

[Soulstinger]

In a hopefully nice change of pace; this post is designed to encourage feedback and debate rather than rant or complain.

What does everyone think of the current biomes?

Meadows seem fine as they are; entry level zone with plentiful content and food. Wood stone flint resources, with bees and berries and meats. Very low threat between boars necks and greylings. Night time is fine, skeletons feel out of place (when unlocked through progression)

Black Forest also feels good so far; slightly higher enemy saturation, new berries and wood, first ore deposits, nice difficulty curve with trolls and skeletons, plenty of new greydwarf enemy types. Night time in Forests is a tide of greydwarfs, but handleable.

Swamps, I feel, could use some work. Third wood type (but isnt used often) *but no new berry/ground food source, only thistles which seem rare and slightly out of place. New metal which is extremely usefull, good difficulty curve, introduction of elemental damage. Can be dangerous to land ships here due to leech spam. Night time in swamps isnt too bad.

*edit* oh yeah; turnips. Woops

Mountains seem barren in my opinion. True it is thematic, but it feels a bit empty and anticlimactic after the density of swamps. No new wood type, no new food source, new metal that is quite usefull, obsidian which is...odd and underused. Golem crystals currently do nothing. Difficulty curve is appropriate, might even say Drakes could hit a smidge harder. Star/2star wolves are exceedingly deadly. Fenrings are rare and surprisingly useless, they could use some sort of usefull drop and some reason to hunt them. Night time in mountains can be shockingly deadly at times.

Plains are ... more or less okay when properly geared. New farming options, new berries, new metal, no new wood, sharp difficulty curve AND monster density, plus biome restricted vegetables. Lots of content. They feel empty untill suddenly you are swarmed. Star/2star fulings are incredibly lethal. Lox could use some hitbox/pathing work as they bug out and end up on top of each other. Extremely risky to land ships here due to skeeters and pound-for-pound the deadliest enemy in the game; 2star fuling spear throwers. Night time in plains is often a death sentence.

I wont comment on Ocean/North/Mistlands/Ashlands as they arent complete.

So! Discuss.

[Rantzas]

swamps have turnips seeds. but i do agre with most of what is written but its also in EA so its likely to change

[Soulstinger]

Oh yeah, turnips. I forgot they came from swamps. Fair point.

[jonnin]

all enemy have pathing problems and the larger the enemy, the worse it is. They probably know that needs work.

I would see more uses for the things we pick up as well. ancient wood building of some sort, black iron support beams and nails etc.

the meadows is too easy. There is no hint of what is to come, it should be a little more dangerous so you are a little more prepared for the BF enemy spam and variety.

swamps are fine. Wood could be more useful, as noted, but the amount of stuff you need from the swamp is large -- you need turnip, guts, bloodbags, iron, guck. The iron, guts, and bloodbags are useful through the plains and you need them in bulk. I don't think it needs a berry or new meat.

obsidian is used a lot if you use your bow a lot. There should be some other options though; the stuff makes awesome knives and tools as well as artistic value. The drake problem is they miss too much, not the damage itself.

All in all I would bet on NO biome being 'finished' just yet. I bet they do a pass to add more uses for materials, more materials, and some polish on all the areas at some point before or after release.

[Holo]

Meadows: Does their job well, can't really think of any ways to improve them honestly.

Black Forest: Seems pretty fine to me, I wish that there was more of... something in it though. For now its just trees and dungeons, and with some luck you might find a troll to troll.

Swamp: Pretty useful since sosig and iron but outside of that they're pretty useless. I won't complain though, I'd rather spend my time elsewhere and not in that gloomy hell filled with poison :)

Mountain: Yeah I actually agree on that one, its just wolves, drakes, and eggs. Obviously there's also silver but in the end that's about all there is. I feel like there should be more of something there, but not really sure. Obsidian is nice for arrows though, you can get lots of it very quickly. Drakes should definitely be harder, I think their attacks should be telegraphed differently in general as fighting them is a boring sidestep-shoot cycle. Wolves... I want to tame them but they can't even teleport, and might just die from a single hit randomly once I go to my plains farm, so not sure tbh. More enemies here would be nice, and more use for drops would be nice as well.

Plains: Not bad, but outside of villages and Lox there's literally nothing. The only reason to raid villages is to get blackmetal and harvest barley and its rather boring. The little bastards hit very hard for literally 0 reason, and I think that their global damage should be lowered and the Brutes' damage should probably be heightened, because once you meet them, you can still take on a hit or two, which is the same for all fulings which in my opinion makes no sense.

Honestly I think more needs to be added but at the same time I can't really think specifically what must be added....

[Soulstinger]

@jonnin Quite right; the point of the post is hopefully to give feedback and opinions to shape said polish.

@habibi good point on fulings and berserker damage tweaks. Just a slight tweak, for sure though. I pretty much skipped obsidian arrows and went straight to needles tho

[sibbs]

@ soulstinger : some really good points you have made.

I would like see:
End game items are not balanced at all, shields are way to op, they need to use 2 x as much stamina, Bows need nerfing but i don't know how the devs will do this without making them useless.
Greydwarfs need a massive buff to their damage.
Monster pathing needs a total overhaul.
More 2 star monsters are needed and maybe introduce 3 star monsters to spice things up, currently the plains monsters (end game) are way to easy.

All the games Biomes look beautiful, i am lucky that i can play this game on my g9 monitor with all graphic details maxed, the gameplay is very smooth and stable.

I look forward to more base game content and future expansions.

[Soulstinger]

@sibbs remember when discussing monster difficulty to consider how hard they hit when you first enter their biome and when you are geared properly (or overgeared)

[Combat Wombat]

Meadows can spawn Draugr camps.

Wolves can roam from mountains into meadow and forest, same for plains with skeeters and fulings.

Love to see more of this where mobs can appear in other biomes, keeps it interesting.

[sibbs]

Originally posted by Soulstinger:

@sibbs remember when discussing monster difficulty to consider how hard they hit when you first enter their biome and when you are geared properly (or overgeared)

The only time i have had a wtf moment in a biome was when i first went to the plains and met fulings and mosquito's, but with those two deaths I had learned that care was needed, now with 600+ fuling kills and even more mosquito kills the plains are to easy, like i stated "there needs to be more 2 or 3* fulings with more berzerkers too" (these can be implemented after the boss kill or with 4+ totems) so as not to hamper those players new to the area.