Rebalanced XP values
Posted: 26 Nov 2008, 18:48
After a look at the mob stats, and some experience with fighting different kinds of swarms, some glaring inconsistencies come to mind, and everyone I've talked too agrees that they could use fixing. I'm not going to commit anything yet (I couldn't do so even if I wanted to), but I'm offering up this topic as a way to discuss and eventually agree on any potential changes.
Fire Goblin (was 40, propose 50): Compare to Scorpion, doubling health and adding a modest amount of damage. The Maggot->Scorpion step-up could make a case for this being 62, but I don't think a straight two-axis linear scale would make a universal fit.
Bat (was 55, propose 30): Less HP than a fire goblin. Weaker attack (in fact it's only as strong as the maggot with triple HP). Why is it valued so high? This is probably a big reason why caves with bats are such a popular target for autoattacking.
Rudolph Slime (was 120, propose 90): This is just a marginal step up from the green slime at 80 (and even has lower agility for what that's worth). Getting a 50% XP boost over that is just too much.
Log Head (was 75, propose 125): This thing seems like it was valued for 500 HP, without taking into account that it essentially has 1000. Twenty maggots in a row might earn a 37% batch discount (particularly when you take into account that they basically take double damage from criticals), but 63% is giving it far too little credit. As it stands now, the only reason anyone fights these is for the single item it drops.
Cave Snake (was 120, propose 150): It stands to reason that this needs to go above the log head. It's still a low-level monster, but it's also still 1000 damage, and that takes a while which should be valued accordingly.
Sea Slime (was 90, propose 160): This was the blatant offender that led me to make this list. By virtually all accounts, it's stronger than yellow slime, but it's valued far less? Sure, it has a minimum hit that's 5 lower. It also has frequent criticals, unlike the yellow which can't critical at all. It really belongs up with the giant maggot, which hits a bit harder but also takes one or two fewer swings to drop.
Giant Maggot (was 180, propose 160): Speaking of that, this one seems a bit overvalued to me.
Red Scorpion (was 200, propose 180): So does this one.
Evil Mushroom (was 350, propose 300): The unique gang-up behavior of this enemy puts it a nominal step up from some theoretical enemy that's halfway between a black scorpion, and a third of a mouboo (which I see as fairly valued for its effective HP of 2000). It's the scorpion when you want to fight it, but without the risk of merely walking by when you don't. In any case, 30 might be a reasonable one-step increment for the scorpion; 80 definitely isn't.
Flower (was 375, propose 300): This one's quite an oddball and difficult to appraise in comparison to anything else. Between its fastest-in-the-game attack speed, frequent criticals...but also lack of pursuit of a player that wants to get away, the near-impossibility of mob bonus ever being a factor with these, and the fact that it's a complete sitting duck to anyone who can simply attack it from 3 squares away...that last point really gets me convinced that 375 is overvalued.
Santa Slime (was 325, propose 375): At first glance, this appears to compare unfavorably to the evil mushroom. You have one guy that's a bit stronger, while everyone else in the mob is a lot weaker, and you don't have to worry about picking them off one-by-one afterwards. However, it's that frequent critical factor once again, that brings a lot more 81s and 36s than you'd see 87s from a mushroom mob. Also, something to consider: You can often find an isolated evil mushroom and take that out 1-on-1. Santa slimes will almost never be without a mob, as they make sure to keep stocked up on reindeer whenever one of them falls, so it's a lot harder to get the 1-on-1. Even when you do, remember that's where Santa has the flat-out advantage.
Grass Snake (was 700, propose 750): The evade upping from 151 (mountain snake) to 190 is huge, and it's that high critical rate that can make even a single grass snake significantly harder to take down than a medium-sized swarm of snakes or mountain snakes, not even withstanding the ground speed differential. It's like the perfect storm: high evade stops most non-criticals from going through, and high luck stops most criticals from going through! Just as the JackO mkII and beyond seemed to emphasize the importance of vitality, this monster emphasizes the importance of luck--a first in this game--and 700 undervalues it at least by a bit.
Fire Skull/Poison Skull (was 1000, propose 5000): I would imagine that repurposing these enemies is a work in progress and could continue. But as is, once you get the one dark crystal you need, these are a complete waste of time. A hundred maggots will get you the same amount of XP in a lot less time, probably with a lot less effort, and certainly with a lot fewer misses. The new skulls are certainly at least as hard to take down as JackO was at mkIII and before, and ought to be valued at least as high. Maybe higher (most would attest that it takes longer to beat a skull than it does ten mountain snakes), but I could call it even at 5000.
Jack O (was 5000, propose 15000): So it has twice as much health as the repurposed skulls, still does a small bit more damage...and ramps up the Evade% all the way to 330, making it nearly impossible to get in with a non-critical hit no matter what you put into stats. I note that when Jack O was introduced, it was level 50, 6000 HP, and 40-100 hit (critical 124), and still gave 5000 XP. Since then, it's had three upgrades:
mkII: damage now 100-200 (critical 239)
mkIII: minimum damage upped to 150, HP upped to 10000, and luck upped to add more criticals (which now do 244)
mkIV: level increased sixfold, which is what's responsible for that huge evasion it has now
And through all those increases, its XP reward has never changed! 5000 may have been a bit high for the original form (in its first year as a holiday reward, and for the first day of its second year), but it was certainly at least fair for mkII--the current revision is significantly harder to face down than mkII, and takes more than three times as long to drop now, so tripling the XP would be merited.
Any suggestions to further tweak these proposed values, or other monsters you believe should get a treatment one way or the other?
Fire Goblin (was 40, propose 50): Compare to Scorpion, doubling health and adding a modest amount of damage. The Maggot->Scorpion step-up could make a case for this being 62, but I don't think a straight two-axis linear scale would make a universal fit.
Bat (was 55, propose 30): Less HP than a fire goblin. Weaker attack (in fact it's only as strong as the maggot with triple HP). Why is it valued so high? This is probably a big reason why caves with bats are such a popular target for autoattacking.
Rudolph Slime (was 120, propose 90): This is just a marginal step up from the green slime at 80 (and even has lower agility for what that's worth). Getting a 50% XP boost over that is just too much.
Log Head (was 75, propose 125): This thing seems like it was valued for 500 HP, without taking into account that it essentially has 1000. Twenty maggots in a row might earn a 37% batch discount (particularly when you take into account that they basically take double damage from criticals), but 63% is giving it far too little credit. As it stands now, the only reason anyone fights these is for the single item it drops.
Cave Snake (was 120, propose 150): It stands to reason that this needs to go above the log head. It's still a low-level monster, but it's also still 1000 damage, and that takes a while which should be valued accordingly.
Sea Slime (was 90, propose 160): This was the blatant offender that led me to make this list. By virtually all accounts, it's stronger than yellow slime, but it's valued far less? Sure, it has a minimum hit that's 5 lower. It also has frequent criticals, unlike the yellow which can't critical at all. It really belongs up with the giant maggot, which hits a bit harder but also takes one or two fewer swings to drop.
Giant Maggot (was 180, propose 160): Speaking of that, this one seems a bit overvalued to me.
Red Scorpion (was 200, propose 180): So does this one.
Evil Mushroom (was 350, propose 300): The unique gang-up behavior of this enemy puts it a nominal step up from some theoretical enemy that's halfway between a black scorpion, and a third of a mouboo (which I see as fairly valued for its effective HP of 2000). It's the scorpion when you want to fight it, but without the risk of merely walking by when you don't. In any case, 30 might be a reasonable one-step increment for the scorpion; 80 definitely isn't.
Flower (was 375, propose 300): This one's quite an oddball and difficult to appraise in comparison to anything else. Between its fastest-in-the-game attack speed, frequent criticals...but also lack of pursuit of a player that wants to get away, the near-impossibility of mob bonus ever being a factor with these, and the fact that it's a complete sitting duck to anyone who can simply attack it from 3 squares away...that last point really gets me convinced that 375 is overvalued.
Santa Slime (was 325, propose 375): At first glance, this appears to compare unfavorably to the evil mushroom. You have one guy that's a bit stronger, while everyone else in the mob is a lot weaker, and you don't have to worry about picking them off one-by-one afterwards. However, it's that frequent critical factor once again, that brings a lot more 81s and 36s than you'd see 87s from a mushroom mob. Also, something to consider: You can often find an isolated evil mushroom and take that out 1-on-1. Santa slimes will almost never be without a mob, as they make sure to keep stocked up on reindeer whenever one of them falls, so it's a lot harder to get the 1-on-1. Even when you do, remember that's where Santa has the flat-out advantage.
Grass Snake (was 700, propose 750): The evade upping from 151 (mountain snake) to 190 is huge, and it's that high critical rate that can make even a single grass snake significantly harder to take down than a medium-sized swarm of snakes or mountain snakes, not even withstanding the ground speed differential. It's like the perfect storm: high evade stops most non-criticals from going through, and high luck stops most criticals from going through! Just as the JackO mkII and beyond seemed to emphasize the importance of vitality, this monster emphasizes the importance of luck--a first in this game--and 700 undervalues it at least by a bit.
Fire Skull/Poison Skull (was 1000, propose 5000): I would imagine that repurposing these enemies is a work in progress and could continue. But as is, once you get the one dark crystal you need, these are a complete waste of time. A hundred maggots will get you the same amount of XP in a lot less time, probably with a lot less effort, and certainly with a lot fewer misses. The new skulls are certainly at least as hard to take down as JackO was at mkIII and before, and ought to be valued at least as high. Maybe higher (most would attest that it takes longer to beat a skull than it does ten mountain snakes), but I could call it even at 5000.
Jack O (was 5000, propose 15000): So it has twice as much health as the repurposed skulls, still does a small bit more damage...and ramps up the Evade% all the way to 330, making it nearly impossible to get in with a non-critical hit no matter what you put into stats. I note that when Jack O was introduced, it was level 50, 6000 HP, and 40-100 hit (critical 124), and still gave 5000 XP. Since then, it's had three upgrades:
mkII: damage now 100-200 (critical 239)
mkIII: minimum damage upped to 150, HP upped to 10000, and luck upped to add more criticals (which now do 244)
mkIV: level increased sixfold, which is what's responsible for that huge evasion it has now
And through all those increases, its XP reward has never changed! 5000 may have been a bit high for the original form (in its first year as a holiday reward, and for the first day of its second year), but it was certainly at least fair for mkII--the current revision is significantly harder to face down than mkII, and takes more than three times as long to drop now, so tripling the XP would be merited.
Any suggestions to further tweak these proposed values, or other monsters you believe should get a treatment one way or the other?