Will PvE be trivialized by the high number of multi-target skills?

My ideal is C, with maybe a slight tilt toward D. I want individual mobs to be interesting and challenging. I want to be able to handle a second or third if I'm playing well, but got unlucky with aggro, but don't want bulk slaying to be a main mode of operation. But I've pulled two extra enemies that are a disfavored enemy for my build, or I'm already relatively beat up, chances are I don't manage unless I'm an absolute badass, and relatively lucky.

In my ideal world, you can vary the difficulty and survivability of this sort of experience by fighting lower or higher level enemies, allowing you to have a range of experiences based on your choice of grind location. A few levels lower, I might be able to take those extra enemies without as much trouble. A few levels higher, I can hunt my build's favored enemy for a good exciting fight.

I'd probably prefer a downscale up the levels. Go from A at lower lvls to D at top lvls. Hook in new players and casuals with fun "I'm a fucking superhero" combat and then bring in harder and more complex mobs, while decreasing their numbers.

A sprinkling of reverse population would be nice too. So that there's a few locations with hard singular mobs at low levels and then a few locations with easy group mobs at top lvls. With mid lvls having the most of both sides, which might limit the "mid lvl burnout" feeling and have a way to test your newly acquired class augments on a wide variety of mobs.

NiKr wrote: »

I'd probably prefer a downscale up the levels. Go from A at lower lvls to D at top lvls. Hook in new players and casuals with fun "I'm a fucking superhero" combat and then bring in harder and more complex mobs, while decreasing their numbers.

This is generally a bad idea in any field. You want your lower level gameplay to accurately represent the general form and concept of higher level gameplay. If you don't, you'll get all the "mass carnage" people joining, loving it, and quitting as they get to endgame, and you'll have all the "challenging single-target enemy" people quitting out at low levels due to the appearance that this isn't their type of game. Some players in both groups will investigate higher level gameplay, but that just means you lose a few of the first group faster, and force the well-informed members of the second group to slog through something they dislike. No-one wins. You have to make your game's intended audience clear and honest at all stages, or you'll end up with the wrong people, missed opportunities, and high attrition.

SongRune wrote: »

This is generally a bad idea in any field. You want your lower level gameplay to accurately represent the general form and concept of higher level gameplay. If you don't, you'll get all the "mass carnage" people joining, loving it, and quitting as they get to endgame, and you'll have all the "challenging single-target enemy" people quitting out at low levels due to the appearance that this isn't their type of game. Some players in both groups will investigate higher level gameplay, but that just means you lose a few of the first group faster, and force the well-informed members of the second group to slog through something they dislike. No-one wins. You have to make your game's intended audience clear and honest at all stages, or you'll end up with the wrong people, missed opportunities, and high attrition.

But that's why I said that you should still have a taste of the other side at all times. The Yin and Yang approach. And this is just in the context of solo pve. The game will be mainly designed for party play, so it's not like solos are even the target audience. I just suggested a way to hook them into the game more, because they'd still be able to farm easy group mobs at top lvls, but would still have to group up for more difficult content, same as they probably would have to do to kill hard singular mobs at low lvls.

I see it like this. Quite a lot of people will probably start the game alone and they might not like if the game is super hardcore right off the bat. But if they enjoy the game enough to get to higher lvls, to a point where you kinda need to find people to help you - there'd be more chances that by that time they would've met a guild they like or just a group of people to play with. And at that point that can try out the more difficult content, which would mainly be solo mobs (in my preference that is, I dunno how it'll be in Ashes).

If they don't like that gameplay, they can still go farm group mobs, but now there's fewer places where they can do that. So they might still have to group up at least with 1-2 people to defend themselves from other people farming those locations who might want to pvp them (that is, if the player in question doesn't want to pvp). So the difficulty of the overall gameplay still goes up. The risk vs reward equation stays the same. And this pushes people towards guilds/groups, which is the semi-final goal of the game because there's a tooon of group/guild gameplay, but you gotta be a part of those groups to experiences it and unless you push people into that situation - most people won't even try.

I might be wrong in my proposition of how things would go with my suggested mob balance, but I personally feel like it would be good, which is why I'd prefer it to be done this way.

@NiKr , My complaint isn't with the concept of having some degree of level variance in what's available. I've even implicitly 'required' it in my own post. The ability to go up or down a couple levels by fighting in an easier or harder area is important to being able to support multiple player skill levels and party sizes. I agree with you that this should be available even at the lowest and highest levels, where you might otherwise 'run out' in the natural "fighting higher of lower level areas" progression. There should absolutely be areas on the top end that challenge the heck out of well-organized groups, and some areas on the bottom that let players have a "level -1 enemies" experience. (That's how at least one other game I've played handled this. The starter areas had a few level -1 enemies. You could fight below your level, even at level 1, to get you started if you needed that.) The point where my objection comes, is when you start to shift the style of the game (e.g. more lower-level AoE to make A or B the intended gameplay before you level into C or D), or do anything to capture an 'falsely intended' audience. It is at that point that you're shooting yourself in the foot in the way I described. Otherwise, I agree with you that the top and bottom ends need to still have the same spectrum available to them that you could get by fighting above or below your level in the midgame, which is how I understood your main point.