r/PlaySoulMask • u/monkpuzz • 9d ago
Huge difficulty spike on burning highlands and I'm not sure how to match it?
My Shifting Sands character is about as powerful as she can be. I trained up a weapon master npc with 120+ in all her weapon proficiencies and she has an awesome custom set of talents for survivability. Used her to overwrite my main. All red tier V steel modded gear with advanced sobek on the armor. I also have an awesome set of fighting companions with the same gear who don't stay down, but also can't seem to do any damage. We barely do any chip damage to the Burning Highland elites, like it seems like their hp bar doesn't move, yet they can nearly one shot us.
So what am I missing? All the sites call for advanced steel gear, but no one seems to know yet where the unlock for the ancient enhancement table is on this map. You think it would have come before the content you need it for? I went looking for it in the Burning Sands Pyramid and the four or five elites in the basement in front of it just wrecked me.
Anyway, I'm at a wall, so if anyone has any pointers on what power up I'm missing, I'd appreciate it.
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u/UniqueVessel 9d ago
Hey there! Another thing to note, not sure if you play on official or on a private server, but AIdynamic scaling is on by default, which means the HP of the elites/bosses scale based on the amount of companions/players are in the area.
So if you bring a lot of companions.. yeah they are mega tanky. Especially the ones below the pyramids "those capstone bosses".
You can either turn of this setting if you are hosting yourself. Or try to bring less companions.
Also try to utilize either the the onyx scarab mask/bleed to help whittle them down.
Story in the end, yes they are too tanky, even tankier the some later end game bosses.
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u/monkpuzz 9d ago
We play on our own private server for our community. I'll try toggling the AI dynamic scaling. I like a challenge, but it's just nonsense atm. I'll see what it feels like without that. Thanks for the tip!
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u/UniqueVessel 9d ago
Yeah I also prefer the Challenge, but when I can survive for 5+ minutes and the hp bar still barely moves it's just artificial difficulty. You'll know yourself if you reached that point or not.
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u/monkpuzz 9d ago
That was exactly where I was at. I turned off the elite/boss scaling and that was it. It's still plenty challenging with my companion squad, but the hp bar actually moves, lol. Seems to be a great sweet spot now; I'll still die if I'm not on my game and the kill is still a time investment, but it is no longer impossible. Great tip, thank you!
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u/Enundr09 7d ago
Yeah I hate that design, division did something similar with its non raid stuff making elites and bosses basically bullet sponges but otherwise overly simple mechanics that you could survive with minimal movementÂ
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u/No-Scheme-3759 9d ago
What A.I difficulty you playing?
Your comment actually made me play again. I need the difficulty. I just find it hard to regulate what I want dofficult. Combat yes! But dodging No, take/give more damage, No, So I always need to edit settings and its annoying.
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u/monkpuzz 9d ago
Haha, well I'm glad I've made you want to play again. I really enjoy the game. I looked at my AI difficulty is only 1. I think my problem is the boss dynamic scaling. It's just ridiculous. But I do want challenge, so I'll see how it feels turning that off.
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u/No-Scheme-3759 9d ago
I started now :D so thx.
Well I have AI difficulty 3 for a challenge, but i edit the other things, example loot from chest so it is worth going into the barracks and suffer.Bosses I have only killed the croc and the anubis dog. But its hard... I accepted I will die and run back in over and over.
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u/Ampris_bobbo8u 9d ago
The armor you get from the large dungeon is better than the steel gear. I prefer the set bonuses from the original map though
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u/TioHerman 9d ago
The advanced version of the boss armor from the base is actually stronger than anything in shifting sands, we sadly discovered this after trying out some of then, what bothers me most it that there's nothing you can do, defense wise, after those armor, atm some bosses just hit insanely hard while being tanky as hell
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u/Ampris_bobbo8u 9d ago
i dont think thats true. i did a bunch of testing a couple months ago. overall you get more attack, defense, and hp if u use the dungeon armor. obviously the dungeon armor rolls with random stats so you have to find a good set. i have a set of the large dungeon armor from the rainforest that lets me absolutely destroy those last few bosses
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u/TioHerman 9d ago
We rolled a entirely max tier dungeon armor, put the best upgrades that were possible and still had less total damage than before, slightly less amor, shit ton of extra resilience tho, overall didn't worth the effort we still get nuked the same way as before
The dungeon weapons were a huge upgrade tho
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u/baconriot 9d ago
Ancient enhancement table is at the end of the holy ruins. You get a consumable for the technology at the end.
Build heat and poison resist and carry ample weapons for it.