Trained Wolves in Encounters

We already have a few conversations/threads going on concerning screwing over the player by suddenly spawning over-powered enemies in areas they shouldn't be in... such as spawning a Red monster when every other enemy is Green.

Some see it as an interesting surprise (and I'm ready to believe that those that do either haven't experienced it themselves or can already withstand a ton of damage on their own) but a lot of people see it as a source of frustration.

The game has suffered for many years on difficulty whiplash as people have commented throughout development (including myself) that it's hard to find a cool spot to adventure in as the enemies are either too easy or impossibly hard. You can mow down a large group of Greens, but 2-3 Yellows are too tough to handle and they're hardly ever by themselves.

While before one would simply roam from scene to scene in search of a proper challenge, recent updates has put both ("too easy" and "impossibly hard") into the same scene in multiple occasions... which is why both Official Forums and Reddit have a few conversations on the matter.

I mention this to preface what I want to talk about: the Trained Wolves.

I was just experiencing a few scenes with them and I noticed an anomaly. I can mow down any bandit and their trained wolves so long as they're Green. The moment they turn Yellow, things get ugly. Like I said, when 2-3 (or more) Yellow enemies are engaged in combat, it gets way too hard.

It's always a mystery because (to contradict myself ~ because "welcome to SotA") the Kobolds at the Hilt Fortress are indeed Yellow to me and I can (sort of) handle them if I'm careful. I can handle them to a point where I can slowly over the course of an hour or so make it to the entrance of Hilt Fortress (it's too dark for me to sneak inside so I stay away).

Now, to go back to the bandits and the wolves, I can deal with the bandits in these updated encounters no problem. The Yellow ones patrol on their own for some reason (I guess they're supposed to be the big -red- boss to screw up the low level characters). The wolves, however, are a different matter.

They're Yellow and I can't kill them.

Why is it worth noting? Because my character cannot put a dent on a SINGLE YELLOW enemy. They usually patrol in pairs but I managed to get one by itself... and it's not one of those pesky Water Elementals that constantly heal themselves either.

It's just a really buff wolf that, as far as I can tell, cannot die. Multiple attempts have been done using Sneak Attack, Poison, Rend, Light Armour + Shield abilities and disabling abilities such as Trip and Blind.

I also tried using Heavy Armour and Bludgeon to no avail.

All attempts have brought them down to, roughly, 98% health.

... on a single (yellow) wolf.

I would like the colour labels and the tier values to actually mean something so that this game can be something more than an exercise in futility.

 

I agree with you. I can kill a Lich Mage (under 1000 HP) which is red to me with little problem but, I get slaughtered by a trained wolf (well over 1000 HP) that is yellow.

 

I think part of the problem is the class free systhem, an char lvl 15 is not the same as an char too lvl 15, if you invest heavy in two skillsets or all over the place, same exp but weaker, but labels go with exp.

 

They should have a different color label - they are the same color to me as an Obsidian Wolf - yellow, but should probably be orange or red.

The Obsidian Wolf has almost 700 HP and the Trained Wolf has 1,300 HP.

 

Scary larry has more hitpoints than any critter i have seen before, heals itself on players hp but attacks weakly (compared), any group who is not totally dumb can easy kill it (takes some time though)

Some critter have weaknesses one can exploit, some seem weak but are an real PITA to defeat (waterelementals for example) but have no massive hp or ac (but strong heal)

What is difficult varies depending on player and build, I would see colors as an very loose guidline, but expect that some have an easier time, some an harder time defeating them.

Are some mobs maybe displayed with the wrong farb code? Probably, but even if not, player build, tactic and so on makes it very difficult to agree on what level you need to hunt them.

As higher level you get as more that becomes clear, there are yellows i would not touch with an pole and reds i solo without breaking a sweat, where players above my adv level have trouble, with other mobs the way around.

Color code is about an average, not an scale you can see as 100% working for everyone because to diverse builds.

Somethng with high magic resist but weak ac naturally is easy for melles but maybe impossible for mages the same level.

Some make it even impossible for a certain class to attack at all (think about sieges.)_

 

The problem with SotA difficulty rating (and I've been saying this for as long as I can remember) is that this average you speak of should not make the difference between success and complete annihilation. It should just make the encounter slightly more difficult to keep us players engaged; not throw our arms up in disgust at how inconsistent the difficulty rating is.

You speak of variations in builds yet both builds I've tried yielded the same result. Completely changing from light armour to heavy (easy mode) armour, going from stabbing and blinding to crowd control with knockdowns and shield bash. When you start using consumables such as poisons and healing/focus potions to deal with a foe that, until now (after 4 years of playing), the game has labeled them as "do-able", you start to ask questions. ESPECIALLY if the best you can do is bring them down to 98% of their health pool. If the damn thing was undead, I'd understand as they're immune to Rend and Poison but we're talking about a wolf. I've actually dealt with undead with far greater ease. Heck, I've dealt with a Yellow Lich before. I struggled but I came out on top.

For Green rated enemies, some will survive my Sneak Attacks (and will take as much as 5 back-stabs to bring them down) and others will simply die if I auto-attack with the rustiest of daggers on them. The entire rating system needs to be reevaluated; the range is too wide.

Compared to the Yellow Trained Wolves that I've encountered, I've had more success against the Orange Troll in Vertas Pass. The difference being that I can actually deal damage to the Troll... without using poisons.

... They're guidelines because of "diverse builds"...


You might as well label each enemy with a random colour for all the good that it does.

I believe that if Green enemies would turn Gray after a certain point when you out-level them, that most people that are okay with how it is now will notice that the enemies they were fighting would jump from Gray to Yellow or even from Gray to Orange... and that, if the difficulty range were to be more narrow/precise, the Yellow Trained Wolves would've been more appropriately Orange.

On a similar topic: when I see people solo the Lichs (that I see as Red) that spawn during Town Sieges and I'm being told that I'm supposed to be able to compete against people like them in PvP because "the game isn't grindy" or that "levels don't matter", I really have to pause and question how the people that tell me this came to these conclusions.

That problem can be circumvented by simply giving different skills a different "power score". So a utility skill like "Light" would contribute zero points to that score... and you base difficulty ratings by adding each skill score multiplied by their levels, then average that value by the number of skills used.

 

Here's some footage of what it's like. This is a poison-less run as I ran out of poisons (I use poison religiously so it's hard to keep my inventory full in stock) but it should nonetheless give you an idea:


Notice that the Yellow Wizards has about 200 HP and the Yellow Thug has 480 HP. Let's ignore the Wizard as it's squishy.

I take out the Thug (and slice through 480 HP) in about a minute (50-ish seconds).... which is a huge difference compared to the 10 seconds needed against a Green rated variant (at 135 HP). The Green variant of the Trained Wolves also take about 10 seconds to kill. So, right from the get-go you can see that, for someone who would be lower-level than I, the Yellow Thug would be perceived as Orange. The Trained Wolf, on the other hand, took me about 1 minute and 16 seconds to shave off 200HP out of 1200+ (my best attempt yet, even compared with poison) before I died. I made a few mistakes during the fight but nothing that would usually cost me the fight in a one-on-one situation.

At its maximum output, poison would've shaved off (at best) another 250HP assuming I invested 600gold for three poison flasks for the poison to last the whole duration of the fight (and the third poison would've been a waste as I wouldn've have survived)... which would've brought the Wolf down to 750/1200 HP. That's a lot of theoretical "best case scenario" to bring the Wolf down to a point where it still has more than half it's health.

There's a ton of "would of", "could of", "should of" that can be said about my approach in the video... but what I want to point out is the discrepancy between the enemy's labels and their power output. From Green to Yellow, from Thug to Wolf.

I'm not expecting the Wolf to die easily but I not expecting to be helpless against them either considering they're Yellow.

 

AL and CR affect the game and therefor should be visible in the game's interface.

 

As i said, it is an suggestion with the colors, given they tinker all the time with critters and player formulas buggy wolf would be no surprise to me too, given our sommoned did not keep up with level either.
I never claimed the color systhem works, but bug for the wolf can be an reason too, so i hope Sota has an look see what the matter is....

Then Scary Larry is something i could solo (if i had like 10 hours to waste) and orange to me, while some yellow troll still can flatten me in seconds.

 

Yes, I hope they change the label since it is a difficult mob to fight.

I also have to be careful fighting those, but I am also used to fighting Obsidian Bears and Wolves and they are also yellow same as those Trained Wolves, but those wolves have almost twice as much HP.

Probably higher stats too, but we have no skills to be able to see anymore info other than HP and the color label on them.