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[namer]

I realize that fine-tuning megabeast difficulty isn't a high priority, and recognize that it shouldn't be as long as combat mechanics are in flux, but I think there are some easy megabeast tweaks that could make adventurer mode more fun.  The specific problem is that adv. mode difficulty drops to close to zero after the second or third minor quest, because a medium-sized band of recruits can tackle basically any lone adversary without player intervention.  In one game, I went after two titans and two dragons without having to get my hands dirty, using a group of 7 followers, two of whom were non-military.  My own workaround has been to bump up dragon speed and natural attack skills by about 50 percent, and I think the following changes might be easy to implement and could bring back some adv. mode challenge:

* Higher-than-default speed for megabeasts.
* Higher natural skill for megabeast attacks.
* Souped-up dragonfire: it seems that one successful block saves the blocker and prevents the dragonfire from propagating. Perhaps blocking should only protect the blocker? Given more time to spend on the problem, perhaps dragonfire should be rougher on shields?

[Frogwarrior]

It also doesn't help that aimed shots can take down anything nasty. If you're fast enough, you can solo megabeasts by just keeping your distance until you get a really nice shot at the head...
But, on the other hand, I generated a large world with max megabeasts and extremely long history recently... Not One Megabeast was killed during 1050 years of worldgen...

[TolyK]

wait... how do you do aimed shots in adventurer? 

On-topic: with 5 wrestling peasants, an elf bowman and a human axeman (me) we took down 7 megabeasts with only finger injuries... except that they were all hydras 

The peasants keep it busy and they are great dodgers. just misses them. then the bowman shoots at it while I decapacitate each head. too easy unless you catch one unawares in the beginning of the game (too often... too often...)

[Frogwarrior]

Shift-A, then select an opponent, then select a body part, then select an attack. After you select an opponent, you can see if you have a good shot and cancel if you don't.

[nenjin]

I can safely say you haven't fought enough stuff yet, because there are very tough monsters out there. You just don't always get served them.

There are a few problems with some adventure mode beasties though, you're right. Titans made from a non-metal material are about as tough as wet tissue paper; it's a byproduct of the materials rewrite and the fact, currently, if you make a creature out of snow or sand, they're not any tougher than snow or sand.

Hydras, for example, can take horrific amounts of damage. While they don't attack 7 times with their 7 heads or whatever, the time it takes to keep them from being able to hurt people severely is long, and tedious. I fought a hydra with 17 companions, and only 7 of them survived the fight. It was totally Jason and the Argonauts up in there. Had my adventurer been the first one into the fight, he probably wouldn't have walked away from it alive.

Point is, rather than blanketly increasing all megabeast difficulty and giving them multiple attack per round (which several already have based on their speed values), it's just an issue of tweaking the specific creatures or the system (like the materials system) that's resulting in easy monsters. I prefer the fact that some mega beasts are easier because that's how the game cooked them up, rather than every single megabeast being thoroughly nasty. The issue is that some need to be built more intelligently by the game, not the fact they all just need to get souped up.

[ZebioLizard2]

Really, alot of issues with beasties would someday be fixed by general fixes to the fighting system. Bucklers should not block an entire firebreath afterall, and even a huge metal shield that does block it will soon begin to melt into molten metal on your hand.

Once item durabiltiy is in, we will see alot of beasties become Much more powerful, because while you could block "Minotaur Giant Halbrid" A weak shield against it will shatter, and that blade will lodge in you.

[Frogwarrior]

Of course, my demigod legendary+20 fighter/axeman can solo pretty much anything, but that's because she's a badass ^__^
turns out, hydras having seven heads just increases the chances of having a square shot at one of them each round
totally soloed a hydra in seven rounds, one per beheading

[Neonivek]

Well if Megabeasts had more of the features they had in legend (from the Hydra's almost supernatural regeneration to a Dragon's often steel like scales) rather then just being huge they would be much tougher. I could be wrong about the dragon though.

Though it is to me that there maybe should be more tiers of megabeasts.

I'd love to have Megabeasts that are more then a challenge for even fully functioning and prepared fortresses in the same way I like the "Tough but not extremely tough" Megabeasts for Adventurer mode and early fortresses.

If anything I think Semi-megabeasts are WAAAAAAAAY to easy. Honestly how the world do they justify that name? They are like ordinary enemies +1 and with enough training you can stomp them like gravy. They can be defeated by just generated adventurers solo with some consistancy and provide no fight with any adventurer with training under his/her belt.

They feel more like powerful races then powerful enemies and it makes no sense that any of them could attack any town with an active army above 5 members.

[thijser]

The main problem seems to be that in legends a fight seems to be 1 on 1. If a mega beasts attacks a village it seems like it attacks everyone in the village one after another. Say that it spends 5 round of combat on each of them and they can therefor do 5 round of fighting back then attack one by one against 20 means getting attacked 100 times. Where as attacking them all at the same time means it spends 100*20/2=1000 rounds of combat. Add to that that it's likely that it will first wound meaning that a single opnement will probably only attack with some 2,5 rounds of combat and you see why it's more effective to attack as a group. Because the legends don't seem to be doing that and the fact that most people in the legends are of very low skill combine to megabeasts beeing so strong in legends and so weak in other modes.