Enemy Comparison

[Necrite]

All data in the spreadsheet below is taken from this thread. I'll be manually updating it with my own data as I get to the appropriate areas in the game.

In this thread, some discussion arose over the balance of the various monsters in the game. Specifically mentioned were a pair of snakes found in the Snake Cave - the Tough Cave Snake and Venomous Cave Snake. The claim that these creatures were better to hunt than other creatures, even at higher levels, made me wonder if some creatures were possibly giving out more or less rewards than they should. To that end, I compiled a spreadsheet of all the creatures found in Pyrizzle's Bestiary thread, and set it up to calculate certain data for me.

Before I share the spreadsheet, a breakdown of the data to be found therein:

Name: Quite simply, the name of the monster.
HP: The base hp of the monster.
HP Level: The minimum number of level up boosts a Player Character (PC) would need to invest in HP in order to meet or exceed the monster's HP. Since the PC starts with 25 HP, anything with 25 or fewer HP has a HP Level of 0. If it has 26-30, its HP Level is 1, 31-35 gives a HP Level of 2, and so on.
AC: The base Attack Chance of the Monster.
AC Level: The number of level up boosts a PC would need to invest in AC to meet or exceed the monster's AC. PCs start with 60% AC and gain 5% per level.
Min Damage, Max Damage: The lowest and highest damage the monster does on a non-critical hit.
Crit Chance: The Effective Critical Chance of the monster, ie the percentage chance of a successful attack being a critical.
Crit Multiplier: The amount by which damage is multiplied in the case of a critical hit.
Avg Damage: The average amount of damage done by a monster's attack, factoring in critical hits, but not factoring in misses.
AP/Attack: The number of AP the monster uses to make an attack under normal conditions.
# Attacks: The number of attacks the monster gets per round under normal conditions.
Dmg Level: The number of level up boosts a PC would need to invest in Damage in order to meet or exceed the monster's (Avg Damage x # Attacks), based off the PC having two attacks per round doing one damage each for a total of 2 damage. If (Avg Damage x # Attacks) is 2 or less, Dmg Level is 0, if 3-4 then Dmg Level is 1, and so on.
BC: The base Block Chance of the monster.
BC Level: The number of level up bonuses a PC would need in order to meet or exceed the monster's BC value, based on a starting number of 0% and 3% added per level.
XP: The amount of XP that the monster gives when defeated.
Skills: A numerical rating of the monster's special abilities. The monster gets one point in "Skills" for each point of Resistance it has, plus an additional point for each of the following: Immunity to critical hits, gaining HP when hitting the player, each status effect that may be inflicted by an attack and/or critical hit. I'm not entirely happy with this, as it rates all status effects equally, including varying levels of the same effect, but for now, it works well enough.
Level: The monster's effective level, calculated as the sum of its HP Level, AC Level, Dmg Level, BC Level and Skills.
XP/Level: The amount of XP the monster gives on defeat, divided by the monster's effective level.

All of the above calculations are based on a PC with no equipment. An unequipped PC should be able to meet or exceed all of the stats of the monster (with the possible exception of skills/special abilities) at or before the monster's effective level using only level up bonuses.

One final note: Some monsters are listed in green. These monsters are gone forever when defeated; they do not respawn.

Now that you've read all that and know what the numbers mean... ON TO THE SPREADSHEET

The spreadsheet can be sorted by right-clicking on the column header that you want to sort by and selecting one of the sort options from the menu. For example, to sort by XP/Level, right-click the column header S above it.

Out of 196 monsters, five have an XP/Level of less than 1.00, 36 are 1.00-1.99, 69 are 2.00-2.99, 59 are 3.00-3.99, 24 are 4.00-4.99, and only three have a XP/Level of 5.00 or greater, and two of those are boss monsters.

You'll also notice a general trend - the higher level a monster is, the higher its XP/Level is. There is a fair amount of variation, and a few exceptions, but it's often true.

Since there are only a total of 8 creatures with an XP/Level outside the 1.00-4.99 range, let's take a look at them first to see if any are obviously in need of fixing.

Below 1.00 we see the Forest Beetle coming in at 0.2. Why is he so bad? Well, he's a starting area enemy worth only 8 XP. However, he's got 150 AC, 60 BC and 2 Resistance! If you run into one at level 1, he's rated "Impossible". Even after gaining 5-10 levels, he's probably going to hit you with almost every attack, dodge a lot of yours, and shrug off a significant amount of damage. The Hunting Dog that spawns right beside the first Forest Beetle I found is rated "Very Hard" at level 1 and is worth 36 XP - even the game tells you that Mr. Beetle is harder than a foe that gives more than 4x the XP.

Next is the Stinging Wasp. He's rated 0.5 because he also has incredibly high AC and BC for something so close to the starting area. Thankfully, he doesn't have any Resistance, and only deals half the damage of Mr. Beetle. Even though he's equal or lesser than Mr. Beetle in every stat, he's worth almost three times the XP - 22 points!

Coming in at 0.6 XP/Level are the Yellow Forest Ant and the Forest Snake. Both have a fairly high level because of their high AC, but each does 1-2 or 2 damage, and only has one attack per round, so even though they almost always hit (again, they're low-level enemies), they aren't likely to kill you.

The last enemy worth less than 1.00 XP/Level is the Young Teeth Critter. A high BC is his only reason for having a high effective level. But with his 1 damage per attack and no ability to score critical hits, he's literally harmless to anyone with ANY Resistance - and you get a necklace that grants Resistance in the cave he lives in. At this point, he's just frustrating because you have to miss repeatedly as he sits there frantically chewing on you for 0 damage, five times a round.

So, what's the conclusion for these guys?

For Mr. Forest Beetle, a complete makeover is the only option. He's rated Impossible at level 1, but worth the same XP as enemies just outside the starting town. A drastic reduction to AC and a slight reduction to BC would be appropriate, I'd say setting both to 50. Reducing the Resistance to 1 might be a good idea as well. While it's unlikely, it's possible that a player could bump into one of these bugs while wielding a weapon that is literally incapable of harming them. Increasing the XP to 16 or so would probably be good too.

The Stinging Wasp could stand to have its AC reduced a bit. It should probably have its damage or number of attacks increased, or else its XP should be lowered. As stated before, it makes no sense for it to be equal or less than the Beetle in every way, but worth three times the XP.

Yellow Forest Ant and Forest Snake are OK. I'd lower their AC a bit - after all, there's some very high level enemies that have less than half their AC. It might be worth bumping their XP a little bit too. Both give 9 XP, but hang out with Hunting Dogs, who are worth 36.

The Young Teeth Critter needs its BC reduced, otherwise fights with it can be frustratingly long. Giving it a Critical Chance would make it so that it isn't harmless after getting Irogotu's Necklace. Their XP is fine - raising it would make them exploitable once you got any Resistance through skills or equipment.

On the other end, above 5.00, are only three creatures. Two are single-fight boss creatures, so this isn't really a problem. The third is the Lost Spirit.

Lost Spirit is a wimp, other than his three points of Resistance. He's also somewhere between 1/2 and 1/3 the XP value of the other enemies found in the same area, so he's probably OK as an outlier.

Other anomalies show up in the list. If you sort by Level or XP/Level, the snakes that started this discussion stand out in both cases; they're the only enemies below level 30 with a multiplier above 4.5 (other than Lost Spirit), and they (and Lost Spirit) are the only enemies with an XP/Level rating of 4.5 or higher that has less than 6 "Skills". In fact, several of the 4.5 and higher enemies have 15+ "Skills", mostly from Resistance.

And not all anomalies are XP-related. For example, the Young Aulaeth has lower stats than the Aulaeth, and the icon is smaller, looking almost child-like. But the Young Auleth has almost twice as many HP as the Auleth.
Edit: The data I pulled from the forums is old, and I'm currently in the Blackwater area fighting Aulaeths. Regular Aulaeths now have 120 HP and Strong ones have 135, so at least that part has been fixed.

Hopefully, this sheet will help the development team find some of the critters that are in need of fixing. If you find any other strange stats, please feel free to post them in this thread.

[Pyrizzle]

Very nice work here. Thank you for this, I will bring this to the attention of the Dev team for further discussion.

[Konizooka]

Is this list complete? Because u have missed some of the NPCs like shady Bandits, Irogotu, Vacor, Unzel, Guthbered... Mostly the mainland NPCs..

[Antison]

Great work! But...

...Player Character (PC) ...
AC Level: The number of level up boosts a PC would need to invest in AC to meet or exceed the monster's AC...

IMO, this is a significant mistake comparing the NPC's AC to the PC's AC as the two stats never are calculated against each other. In other words, when determining if an attack is successful, the game calculates the percentage of attack from the NPC's AC - PC's BC.

...
BC: The base Block Chance of the monster.
BC Level: The number of level up bonuses a PC would need in order to meet or exceed the monster's BC value, based on a starting number of 0% and 3% added per level.

Again, IMO this is a significant mistake comparing the NPC's BC to the PC's BC as the two stats never are calculated against each other. In other words, when determining if a NPC's block is successful, the game calculates the percentage of block from the PC's AC - NPC's BC.

[Necrite]

Is this list complete? Because u have missed some of the NPCs like shady Bandits, Irogotu, Vacor, Unzel, Guthbered... Mostly the mainland NPCs..

No, the list isn't complete. I only took the enemies that had full stat blocks in Pyrizzle's thread that I linked above. There are several holes that I plan to fill as I am able to collect data myself.
--------------------------combined posts-------------------------------------------------

Great work! But...

...Player Character (PC) ...
AC Level: The number of level up boosts a PC would need to invest in AC to meet or exceed the monster's AC...

IMO, this is a significant mistake comparing the NPC's AC to the PC's AC as the two stats never are calculated against each other. In other words, when determining if an attack is successful, the game calculates the percentage of attack from the NPC's AC - PC's BC.

...
BC: The base Block Chance of the monster.
BC Level: The number of level up bonuses a PC would need in order to meet or exceed the monster's BC value, based on a starting number of 0% and 3% added per level.

Again, IMO this is a significant mistake comparing the NPC's BC to the PC's BC as the two stats never are calculated against each other. In other words, when determining if a NPC's block is successful, the game calculates the percentage of block from the PC's AC - NPC's BC.

I'm not comparing the stats against each other for as if the PC and monster were fighting. I'm calculating what the PC would have to do to get those same stats, so we can figure out what level each is.

The list isn't perfect though. I still need to tweak how Skills are calculated, because not all the skills are of equal, one point cost. Also, Skills should be factored into the Stat calculations; most people wouldn't get an AC of 150 by spemding 18 level ups on it, they'd often use Skills as well. And, of course, equipment isn't factored in at all, either.

[nyktos]

I'm calculating what the PC would have to do to get those same stats, so we can figure out what level each is.

very clever! [check your PM box]



tek, please stop discouraging help ~ this is great!

[Konizooka]

Is this list complete? Because u have missed some of the NPCs like shady Bandits, Irogotu, Vacor, Unzel, Guthbered... Mostly the mainland NPCs..

No, the list isn't complete. I only took the enemies that had full stat blocks in Pyrizzle's thread that I linked above. There are several holes that I plan to fill as I am able to collect data myself.

That's ok.. U have done a GREAT job so far!!

[Pyrizzle]

No, the list isn't complete. I only took the enemies that had full stat blocks in Pyrizzle's thread that I linked above. There are several holes that I plan to fill as I am able to collect data myself

Is there data missing on the Beastiary?

let me know and I can update it as needed. Thank you.

[Necrite]

I only looked at the first couple posts; if there's more later in the thread, I missed it. Most of what I saw missing was really early stuff, like the Beetle in Crossglen and the Strong Minotaur in Irigotu's cave. Also, there's several early bosses missing.

[Necrite]

The spreadsheet has been updated to include the Beetles, Black Ants and Tiny Rats found in Crossglen, plus a few of the early Boss fights that had been missed. Due to a mistake on my part, Irotogu is still missing his XP value. If someone can supply that, I'd appreciate it, otherwise, I'll fill it in ASAP.

Two new anomalies showed up with these new additions: The Tiny Rats are so weak that they are effectively level 0, giving them an XP/Level value of "Division by Zero Error". I corrected this by manually setting their level to 1, giving them an XP/Level value of 3, right in the middle of normal.
The other was the Snake Master from the Snake Cave, who came in at 6.2 XP/Level. Because this is a boss fight I normally wouldn't consider this an issue. However, he's the lowest level boss on the sheet (Irogotu may be lower, since we're missing his XP value), and is in the top three for Reward:Challenge ratings.