BOTW #3: Creature Experience

We get a fair amount of bug reports about creature experience/difficulties, which is great! Getting experience right is really hard, especially at higher levels, and reports are a good way to look for potential problem areas. 

For example, there were some bugs about the new Ash ferals in general, particularly blight ferals due to their darkus. One intent of blight ferals was to reward people of that level who have moderate defense, but when I looked at the stats I noticed that luck hits were set to a pretty high level, which goes a long way to undermine that goal. I won't have that fixed this update, but it is on the list.

However we also get a lot of reports I don't choose to act on, at least not right away. A lot of times something can seem really hard because a certain training style doesn't fit that particular creature. Or the group doesn't have the right mix to counter it. It can be really hard for one person (the designer included) to judge what the "right" experience level is. So the feedback from lots of different types really helps.

While I'm on the topic I might as well repeat what I've said a few times. I tend to shoot for lower levels of experience when I initially design. The main reason for this is players get a lot less upset (in fact they usually don't even notice) when experience is tweaked up. But they get very annoyed when it is reduced. We can also get away with new areas being under-rewarding in terms of experience since the reward of exploring is still there. Everyone can tend to have their fun as long as things get adjusted in a prompt manner. I could do a lot better on the "prompt" part.