{"id":294,"date":"2014-02-01T01:05:58","date_gmt":"2014-02-01T08:05:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.crabattack.org\/blog\/hawk\/?p=294"},"modified":"2014-11-30T17:48:03","modified_gmt":"2014-12-01T00:48:03","slug":"update-report-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.crabattack.org\/blog\/hawk\/update-report-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Update Report 2"},"content":{"rendered":"

Changes<\/strong><\/p>\n

You might recall the previous changes to node difficulty:<\/p>\n

\"difficulties\"<\/a> \"new_layout\"<\/a><\/p>\n

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Update 2 introduces a new difficulty per area format where difficulty zones are instead scattered throughout each area.<\/p>\n

\"newer_layout\"<\/a><\/p>\n

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Previously the difficulties were balanced such that battles within them were nearly impossible unless within the correct level range (so roughly 1 for easy, 3 for medium, 5 for hard). In the new balance all difficulties are possible at any level, but the harder the difficulty the more risky the battle for a low level character. This is accomplished by making all enemies in an area have roughly similar stats, but harder difficulty ranges have more complicated attack patterns. (Easy enemies use only 1 damage type, Medium use 2, Hard use 3- your chances of an incorrect pattern guess or not having the right types go up as the difficulties go up).<\/p>\n

Test Results<\/strong><\/p>\n

Not an incredible change. You still don’t need to think too hard about where you go. But players are no longer uncertain about whether a battle is going to kill them without giving them a chance now (there really isn’t room in the pacing for warnings-by-death). I think it’s a subtle positive change that will probably bear more fruit as we add more to the game. It’s also probably a bigger win than we realize when it comes to new players.<\/p>\n

The one major downside here is that the riskier enemies don’t pose much of a threat to even a 2 man party due to their stats. The experience splitting makes this not a huge power balance issue, but it does make the game rather boring when partied. Might still be okay in free for all where being partied all the time isn’t always in your best interests while co-op specific scenarios could have their own stronger enemies. Still, part of me is tempted to give enemies some sort of health bonus when fighting parties. It’s a delicate issue.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Changes You might recall the previous changes to node difficulty:               Update 2 introduces a new difficulty per area format where difficulty zones are instead scattered throughout each area.               Previously the difficulties were balanced such that battles within them were nearly impossible… Continue reading Update Report 2<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[8],"class_list":["post-294","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-update-report"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crabattack.org\/blog\/hawk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crabattack.org\/blog\/hawk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crabattack.org\/blog\/hawk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crabattack.org\/blog\/hawk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crabattack.org\/blog\/hawk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=294"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.crabattack.org\/blog\/hawk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":464,"href":"https:\/\/www.crabattack.org\/blog\/hawk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294\/revisions\/464"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crabattack.org\/blog\/hawk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=294"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crabattack.org\/blog\/hawk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=294"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crabattack.org\/blog\/hawk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=294"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}