Dynamic CR scaling on spawns questions

[Sun Wukong]

That's just griefing Hundred of other ways to do it too...

You are literally the expert here.

The OOC expectation that an area is of a certain difficulty is the norm and used in BG but it doesn't mean you should just go all out carelessly with your character and not expect any perils in monster infested areas. If you want to stay alive IC tread carefully.

I took an early epic character to a CR 0 area, and I had to land 3-5 hits to finish those 'CR 0' mobs. So once gain, if an 'epic' character is already inside an area, and a low level characters goes there... What actually happens with those mobs? Is our low level character going to pitted against those 'dynamicly' spawned mobs? Not to mention that those 'CR 0' mobs were just like their old regular counterparts in their name and appearance.

The server really needed an extra spice against mobs, especially in the mid range level dungeons, and this also just makes different dungeons more usable by characters of different levels.

And potentially unusable if there is already a character of a much higher level in the area. What is worse, this higher level character could easily hide their presence in that area. Thus, someone just goes into an area, and gets floored by the 'dynamic' mobs. It is in essence what the first comments in this topic stated. Then let us not forget that previously it used to be possible to make do just by slowly gaining levels and/or finding better equipment to use, but now simply by going up a level might make things much worse for you.

Of course feel free to provide feedback and discuss possible tweaks, but personally it's awesome.

Honestly, I think you should remove either the dynamic spawns, or the experience penalty on death. One or the other.

[PaulImposteur]

Does items dropped from creatures reflect their raised CRs?

[LISA100595]

Does items dropped from creatures reflect their raised CRs?

No not that i could tell from testing.

[Theodore01]

That's a shame - random bosses need boss drops


.... or maybe not - as epic chars will probably spawn much more bosses

[Sun Wukong]

I was running the Orc Chieftain's Head Quest, and in the Chief's room/lair, alongside the chief, spawned a Orc Mystic that was not only literally BIGGER in size than even the Orc Chief, but was casting away an immense amount of spells that were just not...normal.

And that required some quick thinking on my part, as a Player, in order to survive (and some Heal potions were required...thankfully, I had them!).

As well, I received 80 xp for that eventual kill, which was almost 3x what the regular Mystics were giving for that Area and my PC's level.

80/3 = 26.6666666666666666667~ Now, what is the level of your character? Somewhere in the 15-18 bracket? Luckily you had those heal potions, which years ago easily cost 1k+ a pop when purchased from Candlekeep... Without them you wouldn't have gained that 'generous' 80 points of experience, you would have just lost 1500-1800 points of experience. And no, you probably would not have gotten the head for the quest either, so you are down another -550 points of experience.

Thus... What can I say... BGTSCC is now a 'no mobs in the area' quest grind simulator. Log in once a week, run around for less than a hour, and log out for another week.


And again, a high level character could be running a low level quest. What happens when a low level character follows one unwittingly to the area? You can hide your location in the scrying tool, or perhaps you were just in transit when the newbie checked the scrying tool.




Honestly, if you want challenge, you should just build for less power, skip passing those grandfathered items to your new character, and just actively try those way too high CR areas.





Oh well, everything on this server happens in cycles that repeat year after a year. Honestly, this is no more than yet another short lived yet cancerous time period where things are more 'challenging' - and just like before - it will drive more people to play the cookie cutter powerbuilds. Which in turn will see increase in DM dissatisfaction when 80% of players in any given party buffs up with Divine Power and turns on their Epic Divine Might. With time, those who refuse to play the cheese builds, will either lose interest on the server or just complain about the difficulty... Hence, eventually the pendelum swings back and things go back to normal, until these same mistakes to make the server more challenging get repeated again and again.







So, my suggestion simply is... Just throw away these dynamic spaws, or remove the death penalty on PvE death.

[dedude]

Sun Wukong, it is very clear that you are talking about things that you have no experience with, and very little understanding of. Only cancerous thing I see here are your posts.

That's a shame - random bosses need boss drops

Random bosses are indeed bosses, and drop loot like a boss of their CR.

Does items dropped from creatures reflect their raised CRs?

No, dropped loot is based on the base CR set on the blueprint.

[V'rass]

Should continue to build on this by adding super unique and legendary mobs like in Diablo 3.
Make them always drop the best possible loot if you manage to defeat them... would be awesome.

[Hoihe]

I do have to concur with Wukong.

If mobs are scaled flat to a character's level, it will not take into account a player's build one bit. Certain builds, even if done right and will actually become awesome after 25/27/29, can be treated like "Character level - 10" before reaching those levels for handling challenges.

Previously this was not an issue - you OOCly knew you cannot handle "equal" challenge as per your level, and had to visit weaker areas to find challenging content that's not instant death for you. ICly, your character also knew - even with 8 wisdom - their limit (If you get past level 10 IC, you gotta have some understanding of survival!).

As such, it makes me worry for the viability to do activities involving combat (grinding, looting adventuring) during low-pop hours where partying is either very difficult (Have Lawful Good paladin, only people online are Zhentarium Tiefling Necromancers) or literally impossible [Hello Darkness My old Friend (Underdark)] if you either build with weakness long-term, or have a period of uselessness in your build (say for me, level 23/25 pretty much doubles my chance to hit and also my damage - making it reach expected ranges for my level and fighting style) (even before this change, for instance, until I got to level 20, most I could do was gnoll/orc caves. Anything harder was a good chance of dying or fights taking forever).

However, unrelated, what I would love seeing being expanded upon is the SIZE of spawns depending on party. In other words, running a dungeon with a party of 5 should have a higher chance of feeling "epic", giving spawns nearing in 10s - to create the feeling of power, to balance out the powerful yellow names who ICly might not appear as powerful themselves.

[Steve]

Never underestimate the capacity for the unhappy Monkey Man!!

Anyway, the argument that low level or equal PC-to-CR soloing toons relying on the CR of an Area so that the educated Player can 100% WIN is howitshouldbemate, seems to be over!!! Hurrah! Hurrah! Hurrah!

Make the Sword Coast dangerous again!!!

[chad878262]

Make the Sword Coast dangerous again!!!

Try Thunder's Ride with PC level 11-13... I recommend you bring a party...and consumables...and raise dead scrolls....and probably you'll want some kind of 'OH @#%" button for just in case the rest of your party gets wiped and you need time to pick up there cold dead carcasses and drag them to safety.

There is something to be said for both Sun Wukong and Hoihe's posts with relation to dynamic spawns. However, I disagree with the presentation/approach. Instead, I look at this as a first iteration of what can/will be a much more 'alive' server. For example, some tweaks that could make the dynamic spawn systems better:

1. Allow for the dynamics to have a little bit of randomness not associated to character level. For example, if an area is currently CR 10, instead make the area CR 6+2d4 (as an example). Thus it could at any given time be CR 8-14. So to the points made, a PC going in to an area doesn't ever know just how dangerous it may (or may not) be. This also makes grinding more hit or miss, but perhaps encourages exploring multiple area's until you find one that fits your CR comfort zone. Might even result in running in to others along the way and grouping up, who knows?

2. Put a threshold on the dynamic spawns reading character level, similar to the old chest system. Thus, if a PC is more than 6 levels (for example) above the CR of the area, the dynamic trigger does not occur. Thus an Epic PC in a CR 0 area has no effect at all, in fact, a level 30 would not trigger dynamics in any area below CR 24. Likewise, a level 15 or higher character would not trigger dynamic spawns in Thunder's Ride, since it is CR 8. I think this is an important addition to ensure epic toons traveling from Soubar to Nashkel on foot don't end up causing a bunch of level appropriate characters to get overwhelmed.

[PaulImposteur]

So far on my low level toon, I'm having a blast. I am a bit afraid of playing my Feinting Imaskari Rogue though. He struggled before mobs adjusted to level.

Would be nice if the loot dropped was reflected by CR increase though.

Also Random-name generator for bosses?

2. Put a threshold on the dynamic spawns reading character level, similar to the old chest system. Thus, if a PC is more than 6 levels (for example) above the CR of the area, the dynamic trigger does not occur. Thus an Epic PC in a CR 0 area has no effect at all, in fact, a level 30 would not trigger dynamics in any area below CR 24. Likewise, a level 15 or higher character would not trigger dynamic spawns in Thunder's Ride, since it is CR 8. I think this is an important addition to ensure epic toons traveling from Soubar to Nashkel on foot don't end up causing a bunch of level appropriate characters to get overwhelmed.

This kind of defeats the appeal of the idea in my opinion.

[chad878262]

2. Put a threshold on the dynamic spawns reading character level, similar to the old chest system. Thus, if a PC is more than 6 levels (for example) above the CR of the area, the dynamic trigger does not occur. Thus an Epic PC in a CR 0 area has no effect at all, in fact, a level 30 would not trigger dynamics in any area below CR 24. Likewise, a level 15 or higher character would not trigger dynamic spawns in Thunder's Ride, since it is CR 8. I think this is an important addition to ensure epic toons traveling from Soubar to Nashkel on foot don't end up causing a bunch of level appropriate characters to get overwhelmed.

This kind of defeats the appeal of the idea in my opinion.

How so? Dynamic spawns do not scale all the way up (I think they are capped at ~4 CR above the base area). So if you are going through an area that is more than 6 levels below your CR it is not going to suddenly become CR appropriate anyway. The only thing that happens is you spawn stuff up to 4 CR higher and if you don't kill it all some lower level character is going to be in trouble later, especially since the increased CR spawns will not look any different when the lower level toon stumbles on them later.

[PaulImposteur]

Ah okay. I've only been on for an hour, didn't realize it capped at 4. Regardless at level 2, I ran into the Graveyard with really high CR mobs, since they had around 40-50 health. I didn't see it as interrupting my game-play, I actually enjoyed the sudden challenge. Plus if the CR scales up at Caps of four, doesn't that just mean that people that struggle with CR can simply go to a lower level area that scales up as appropriate? Doesn't sound like a huge loss.

[chad878262]

There are a lot of level 30 PC's running around the server that might use grind spots simply to get from A to B, either for RP or looting or whatever. Having CR increased in an area because a level 18 PC is in a level 14 area is one thing, but having that CR14 increased to 18 more often because it happens to be between Town X and Dungeon Y is probably an issue.

[Steve]

I guess that we should determine for sure if, the old system of mobs resetting when a PC leaves an Area, is still applied to custom/dynamic CR spawns.

Because then there is much lower worry that a higher/Epic PC will inadvertently leave +4 CR spawns around, and essentially frustrating/murdering the appropriate/equal CR PCs.

Also, if I read correctly, the dynamic spawn system takes into account all PCs in the Area, to determine the CR boost, correct? Or is that just the PCs in a local Group/Party?

Because then, if you're concerned that a Level 30 and a Level 1 in the same area for whatever reason, would by the numbers only spawn a middle ground +2 CR mob (randomly and not always). +2 still is a wonderful, random challenge.

Let's please not try and make this too mechanically determined and well understood, thus, we return to the same system as before. KEEP IT DANGEROUS!!!