Progression Increasing The General Difficulty From Mid-game To End-game

Apologies for the title being kind of botched and clickbait-y, any of the other titles I came up with were even worse than this one.

Let's just get straight into it.

The Problem

As I hope everyone here knows, the higher leveled you get, the stronger the items get in may different forms, but at the same time, the mobs also get stronger at around the same rate players do, I'll be calling this a Power Increase for the sake of this suggestion. (If I suggest to change something that's already in game, it's still called a "suggestion" despite being in a Feedback subsection, right?)

In the early-game of Wynncraft, the difficulty curve is relatively even, with the Power Increase between players and mobs being relatively the same, as to provide a fair challenge to a player when they face mobs that is roughly the same level as they are, while facing daring players with a pretty tough challenge when facing mobs that are at a higher level than them.

Starting somewhere around the level 60 range, the player Power Increase starts increasing exponentially, items give may more HP than previously, much more powerful weapons start to pop up (not even counting Mythic items), and upgrade-wise, your spells have been maxed out and are considerably powerful even with a medicore build, unless you go full melee of course.
This exponential growth doesn't stop either, at 70-80 the player gets even stronger with the introduction of Bob's mythics and the powerful rewards you can gain from Corrupted Dungeons, same goes with 80-90, and it just goes on from there in 90-100.

Meanwhile, while players get exponentially stronger from roughly level 60 and onward, the difficulty curve of mobs stays relatively the same despite the former Power Increase rising at high rates, meaning that most of the endgame areas are pretty easy for their level, with places like Molten Heights and Sky Islands being the biggest victims.

I've been thinking about this for a while, but never got around to posting it, I guess it took @Icy making a post about the difficulty in the Special Warning thread to make me say "fuck it" and make a thread about it. Here are the posts so you don't waste your time looking for them:

In short, the problem with the lackluster difficulty of the other half of the game is that mobs of those level ranges are really weak when you compare them to an average player of the same level, and the fact that the mobs are not capable of combating the player and the maxed out spells they got at level 66, which is quite an early level to get the final spell upgrade when you think about it. Molten Heights and Sky Islands are only difficult because of the risk of burning or falling into the void, and not really the mobs.

Instead, the difficulty of the endgame forms from short, high difficulty spikes from the various superbosses found in those level ranges, which isn't bad, per se, but it's going to cause problems when the player gets so used to mobs being easy in that same range and becoming more powerful, that when they attempt to fight one for the first time, they're going to have a lot of trouble because they're out of their comfort zone formed from the difficulty of endgame areas, and that they're not used to being in an intense environment that the endgame areas don't really offer, regular mobs in endgame areas are way too easy to deal with in their level.

Normal, non-superboss areas aren't the only suffering from this, but dungeons also become pretty easy once you reach a certain level range, though to a slightly lesser degree.
I know the dungeons we currently have aren't meant to act as super difficult raids that require 10 players to beat, and were designed with solo-only players in mind, but they should still offer a pretty tough challenge for the level range that they are located at.
To add to this, I've seen people suggest that Fallen Factory should be shorter, but buff all the mobs present in there... Moving on...

And yes, the broken builds currently present in Wynncraft doesn't help this much either.


The Solution(s)
There are 2 primary ways to fix this, along with a few extra bits that may fix this, which I will put after listing the 2 main proposals.

Buffing nearly all mobs past level 60:
This is the most obvious "fix", but I'm not referring to a simple, blanket buffing of everything, but stuff a little more complex than that. Every single non-super boss mob past level 60-70 or something should be buffed in such a way that will offer a considerable, but fair challenge to players in that level range, and will also offer a considerably tough for players under said level range. For example, since the Angel of Battle in the Sky Islands is level 99, it should offer a decent, fair challenge to players around level 95-100 or so, and should also be pretty hard to kill for players who are say, 10 levels below that range

And I'm not just referring to Health and Damage buffs, the different ways that mobs combat players should also be buffed depending on whether it's endgame or midgame.
If a mob is meant to be tanky, it should be made "tankier", if a mob acts as a glass cannon, it should be... made more of a glass cannon, and if a mob like the Balrog acts as a mini-boss in the area it's at, it should be buffed in a way so that it retains it's mini-boss title.

The only exceptions to this fix are as listed: Anything found in ToA, the Hive, Orange Wybel, Legendary Island, certain mobs and bosses that you don't kill the traditional way like Garoth, basically, anything that is already very strong for it's level.
As for quest bosses, it really depends on which one it is and whether it needs a buff or not.


Modifying the levels players get spells and/or spell upgrades so that it accounts for the levels 1-100, not levels 1-70
Of course, the player's Power Increase being higher than the mobs is a big part of the problem, but something else that plays into this is that just how early Wynncraft gives you the spell upgrades, as already mentioned, you get your final spell upgrade roughly only in the other half of the mid-game or so and are free to have maxed out spells and use them on everything level 70+, and nothing else beyond that, as the levels a player gains spells/spell upgrades were established when the level cap was 70.

I've seen many threads suggesting to add Tier 4 spells, but honestly, all they would do is make the late-game even easier than it already is. The only feasible way to approach this suggestion that I can see is nerfing every spell and their upgrades to compensate for higher tier spells. Alright, enough about theoretical tier 4 spells.

Here's the current list of all the levels a player gains a spell/spell upgrade:

Spoiler: Current spell/spell upgrade list

First spell: 1
Second spell: 11
First spell tier 2 upgrade: 16
Third spell: 21
Second spell tier 2 upgrade: 26
Fourth spell: 31
First spell tier 3 upgrade: 36
Third spell tier 2 upgrade: 36
Second spell tier 3 upgrade: 46
Fourth spell tier 2 upgrade: 46
Third spell tier 3 upgrade: 56
Fourth spell tier 3 upgrade: 66

The level range where players gain spells/spell upgrades should be modified to accommodate for the current level range in roughly the same pattern it did for the old level cap.
Using this formula, I've made a theoretical list of where the player should gain spells/spell upgrades while accommodating levels 1-100 and rounding the answer:

The spell a player gets at level 1 will be unchanged.

Spoiler: Proposed spell/spell upgrade list

First spell: 1
Second spell: 16
First spell tier 2 upgrade: 23
Third spell: 30
Second spell tier 2 upgrade: 37
Fourth spell: 44
First spell tier 3 upgrade: 51
Third spell tier 2 upgrade: 51
Second spell tier 3 upgrade: 66
Fourth spell tier 2 upgrade: 66
Third spell tier 3 upgrade: 80
Fourth spell tier 3 upgrade: 94

(If it's preferred to have the spells and upgrades be gained at different and/or equal intervals between 1-100, this can be modified)

I know there will be people who dislike the idea of changing the levels, as it is the equivalent of a nerf to people in a very very wide level range, but people who are level 70-80 won't have much to lose in terms of spell upgrades.
And remember the soul point change and how salty many people were? Now, it's basically the norm and people have gotten used to it, even if people are still salty about it, I don't really see discussion about soul points fuming in the forums anymore.
If anything, this will make the level progression more smoother, as the spells/spell upgrades can be more spread out and not be smooshed in an outdated level range, it will also differentiate the difference between mid-game and end-game. (Maybe this, along with buffing mobs, will make getting to Ahmsord as a level 1 gasp an actual challenge?!)

Miscellaneous

-I've already referenced broken builds and how they can easily sweep through many aspects of this game and that they need nerfs ASAP, though, I don't think I really need to dig into something that is already being discussed and already has a thread or 2 about it, I'll just leave it at that.

-To an extent, Intelligence/Water kind of plays a role in this as well, because of how much of a necessity it is for 95% of all builds. There's also the fact that Molten Heights, and to an extent, Corkus, both late-game areas, have many many mobs that are weak to Water.
I'm not too informed on this topic, the synopsis I gave on this topic is pretty much all I know of.

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Conclusion
TL;DR: Game feels a bit easy in late-game because of lackluster mob strength and easy to get spell upgrades, broken builds amplify this, and the only parts in lategame that are actually hard are ToA, Hive, Legendary Island, and Orange Wybel.

I hope you've had an adequate or higher experience reading this, have a nice day.

 

TL;DR nerf posion

 

Poison's extreme power is more prominent in PvP, and that's a whole other issue within itself.

 

oh when you said broken builds in the tldr because im not endgame yet and dont know much, first thing that came to mind was poison or cactus

 

Us newbies are fine with the current difficulty, most of us don't have a full build yet

 

I made a thread about this before the attacks of 9/7, and people said once I get to lv60 it'll be "hard"

They were probably using arrowstorm to grind mobs instead of arrowbomb

 

They were probably mainly referring to the heavy amounts of grinding in the level 60-70 range back in the day.

 

Let's bump this shit right up yo.

 

I am an archer and I would die super fast to stronger mobs

 

Again, they would be buffed in such a way that's not overly difficult, with keeping less defensive classes like Archer in mind.

also bump

 

I agree with this for the unrelated effect that it would make midgame builds more necessary.

 

Ooh, I never thought of that, based on what you said it would perhaps also make farming higher-tier stuff in the mid-game dungeons a little more worthwhile.
(Though, that also means we'll probably need more items for that range because I know there are level 70+ people out there who use level 50 items because they haven't found an item for their build in that level range)

What I just said may be more apparent than at first glance because based on current evidence, the first of the Gavel Dungeons(Worm holes and Castle Dullahan) is highly likely to be in the level 50-70 range.