Feedback: Level 1 Weapon Power Creep

So it seems that the Level 5 weapons you can create with an anvil from Iron ore are SUPREMELY stronger than pretty much ANYTHING you'll find on a level one planet. I've gathered many weapons from chest and mini bosses on the initial planet only to find they are all rather underwhelming compared to the ones you can simply craft with iron.

Now if these weapons required some gold bars or some other items along with the iron i'd probably see it as balanced but as of right now as soon as i obtained the 2 handed swashbuckler i was DESTROYING most things on the planet in 1 hit except for the level 5 monsters underground.

 

This is the case with any weapon 2-3 levels above the monster level. Armor penetration seems to act as a multiplier.

Weapon > enemy level: Damage = level gap * weapon damage
Weapon < enemy level: Damage = weapon damage / level gap

This applies to enemies to, so if an enemy is a few levels above your armor level you will be one shot.

 

I think it's a bit odd that they try to make armor tiers very linear, but weapon power jumps incredibly easily just with the forged stuff. I've found AP 2-3 weapons on some of the planets I've visited, but they were already surpassed by the AP 5 weapons I'd forged.

 

Armor penetration is applied before damage. This means threat level 7 mobs will have negative armor during damage calculation when you hit them with 10 armor penetration, resulting in largely increased damage from a weapon with an otherwise lackluster attack stat.

 

So the way Weapons actually work out is that they have a level and then their Armor Penetration.
Armor Penetration seems to actually be the level and if you have a level 5 weapon and you attack a level 4 or lower monster, when you attack you'll do FULL damage. Once you start fighting level 5 monsters with said weapon their defense will reduce the damage.
It also seems that your Armor value is essentially your LEVEL when receiving damage.

 

I think it's actually full damage for same level. So an AP 5 weapon with 28 damage would do 28 damage to a level 5. I believe damage doubles/halves for every level difference, so that same weapon would do 56 damage against a level 4 and 14 damage against a level 6.