Leveling up continent civilization, is there a point?

[Tegga]

I've been playing a bit, am on the second continent, I have to ask, is there any purpose to civilization level?  Increasing it just makes all the enemies stronger, much easier to gather resources at tier 1

[tigersfan]

Well, if you don't increase the tier, you can't get the higher tier spells.

[Professor Paul1290]

You usually need to reach continent Tier 5 in order to take on the Overlord. Everything else is a sub-goal of that.

Continent Tier is supposed to work against you somewhat as it means you have to pick and choose which missions you complete and what resources you get from them before the continent tier increases.

It's there so you can't just do every mission and hoard goodies from them with impunity, you have to decide which resources are worth the increase.

After the first continent this actually starts to matter more as you won't have NPCs and buildings already available. You'll have to use missions to get those as well as spell materials.

[Terraziel]

You usually need to reach continent Tier 5 in order to take on the Overlord. Everything else is a sub-goal of that.

And if you CAN take out the overlord at a low tier than you probably need to increase the difficulty.

[Toll]

To clarify: The Overlord (and the region it's in) is always tier five. The lieutenants are always tier four.

This doesn't only mean the Overlord has more health; it also deals much more damage to you if you're at tier one as opposed to if you were at tier five, since you get a damage shield as the tier increases (I think it's visible on the ESC menu). So yes, there's plenty of reasons to tier up.

[Tegga]

The game is enjoyable it just seems there is lack of 'progression' might be because I don't enjoy scale-to-your-level methods of difficulty

You advance tier, enemies become harder

You kill enemies - zero loot, enemies become harder

Best method, run around getting resources avoiding enemies,  when you have enough to kill big baddie / win

[TechSY730]

The game is enjoyable it just seems there is lack of 'progression' might be because I don't enjoy scale-to-your-level methods of difficulty

You advance tier, enemies become harder

You kill enemies - zero loot, enemies become harder

Best method, run around getting resources avoiding enemies,  when you have enough to kill big baddie / win

If it help any, making character progression feel more rewarding, be more interesting, and other stuff you mentioned is currently under review and being looked at. The awkwardness of character progression as it is now is known.

[Tegga]

To clarify: The Overlord (and the region it's in) is always tier five. The lieutenants are always tier four.

This doesn't only mean the Overlord has more health; it also deals much more damage to you if you're at tier one as opposed to if you were at tier five, since you get a damage shield as the tier increases (I think it's visible on the ESC menu). So yes, there's plenty of reasons to tier up.

Ah, I killed him at tier 2 without building a wind shelter. I think he was over tier 5.  Playing at default settings.   So overlord is a set difficulty  non-scaling?  Would be nice to have more of the game very very hard for Tier 1, give 'leveling' a meaning

[Tegga]

To clarify: The Overlord (and the region it's in) is always tier five. The lieutenants are always tier four.

This doesn't only mean the Overlord has more health; it also deals much more damage to you if you're at tier one as opposed to if you were at tier five, since you get a damage shield as the tier increases (I think it's visible on the ESC menu). So yes, there's plenty of reasons to tier up.

Ah, I killed him at tier 2 without building a wind shelter. I think he was over tier 5.  Playing at default settings.   So overlord is a set difficulty  non-scaling?  Would be nice to have more of the game very very hard for Tier 1, give 'leveling' a meaning

That would be awesome, then able to go to more Tiers too.   Bigger continents with sections of it higher tier, going up to much higher bosses.  Would soft-require tiering up, don't need  to make generic enemies scale to you, have the  zones themselves independent scaling

[Tegga]

Thank you for the replies guys, I'm enjoying the game immensely.  Perhaps I'm used to old school RPG's.  I much prefer zone based difficulty even in open world settings.  Scale-to-your-level-enemies take away from character progression in my opinion.

[Professor Paul1290]

Thank you for the replies guys, I'm enjoying the game immensely.  Perhaps I'm used to old school RPG's.  I much prefer zone based difficulty even in open world settings.  Scale-to-your-level-enemies take away from character progression in my opinion.

I think the confusion is that "Continent Tier" isn't really the equivalent to "leveling-up" or "character progression" in this game.

Enchants, Unlocks, and (to a limited extent) Upgrade Stones are more the "character progression" in this game. These are the things you keep with you and genuinely make you more powerful.

"Continent Tier" isn't really much of a form of "character progression". It functions more like "conflict escalation". It's more like both you and the enemy are gearing up for a fight and you're deciding what you need for the coming battle.

[Terraziel]

Ah, I killed him at tier 2 without building a wind shelter. I think he was over tier 5.  Playing at default settings.   So overlord is a set difficulty  non-scaling?  Would be nice to have more of the game very very hard for Tier 1, give 'leveling' a meaning

The overlord is base tier 5, any enemies in a wind storm get +2 Tiers, so he'd probably have been at Tier 7.  That means he was doing 6 times the damage he should be.  Default difficulty settings are, in my opinion, ludicrously low, I'd say change to Hero difficulty, see how you go, and adjust the difficulty from there.

As to the other assertions, there are certain areas where the tier is higher (The Deep, deeper caves), but doing it generally would require a complete philosophy change for much of the way the game is done, currently you choose your spells and then go to the required areas to get resources, if most of those resources were locked away in high tier areas then you are essentially funnelled into using whatever limited selection of spells you could get from the low tier areas.

[Bluddy]

The overlord is base tier 5, any enemies in a wind storm get +2 Tiers, so he'd probably have been at Tier 7.  That means he was doing 6 times the damage he should be.  Default difficulty settings are, in my opinion, ludicrously low, I'd say change to Hero difficulty, see how you go, and adjust the difficulty from there.

Does the wind storm bonus apply to enemies inside houses and caves?

[Terraziel]

The overlord is base tier 5, any enemies in a wind storm get +2 Tiers, so he'd probably have been at Tier 7.  That means he was doing 6 times the damage he should be.  Default difficulty settings are, in my opinion, ludicrously low, I'd say change to Hero difficulty, see how you go, and adjust the difficulty from there.

Does the wind storm bonus apply to enemies inside houses and caves?

Having just checked no they don't so it would have only been tier 5. That's what I get for avoiding wind storms.

[Bluddy]

I really think it should apply in houses and caves then. Otherwise you just need to double jump across the surface to your destination.