>>I tend to eschew RP because being level 1-50 means you have 0 skills, so unless the event is a pure RP one, I'm just going to waste my time and die a lot, or be the annoying 'escort mission' NPC.
>>This is where someone talks about the joys of being the lowbie dragging corpses and stunned characters to safety. Although, I think 0-100 is probably a closer estimate.
Nope! This is where someone talks about how sad she is that this perception persists still, and has persisted so hard over the years regardless of what we as staff do to include a very robust range of creatures in the majority of our events that include invasion-y type encounters.
I'm not trying to discount your perceptions, but I do lament them.
Not every invasion scales from the extreme low end to the extreme high end (roughly circle 5-ish through circle 200+, for a frame of reference), but I'm being honest here when I say that outside of specific events where this isn't really feasible (the Wyvern Mountain release lead-ins, for instance, included only the range of wyverns that live on the mountain, and a little one-off invasion of a local area creature is not usually going to include critters outside of the normal range for that type) we really do try to create a very wide range of creatures that can be a functional challenge to players of a big range of skills.
Though we do shake stuff up to keep it interesting and to fit the intended dynamics of specific events, we also try to invade in either skill range waves, different skill level creatures in different areas of the fight, or other like-minded permutations whenever possible. The creatures do move around on their own afterward, so they do tend to get all mingled together eventually, but paying attention to those initial divisions can often significantly help players to gauge which critters in a fight might be fitting matches to different skill levels.
Speaking personally, when I invade I first scan the area I'm intending to invade and check out the circles of everyone around. Unless there is a strict and compelling storyline reason to do otherwise, I then match up my first few waves of critters to the ranges of the characters already around. I then spend the remainder of the invasion adjusting according to story needs and to the forces that rally against the creatures by continuously following the comings, goings, movements, and tactics of the players fighting, working to provide an enjoyable ebb and flow as much as is humanly possible for me to do.
Some invasion events really are targeted to specific ranges of PC skills. Interestingly enough, most of these are specifically for lower levels to help combat the exact feelings you mentioned! Sometimes these are purposefully super low, and we as GMs have a difficult time getting the appropriately skilled characters to stay and try to fight -- AND a hard time getting the higher skilled characters to hold back a little bit instead of plowing through all of the crunchy little tidbits. I can't even tell you how often I've had PCs run away from a single invasion critter that was 5 or more circles below them in skill without waiting to see if they could take it on!
I'm not blaming anyone who does this, because hey -- a lot of the time if you see a not-normal creature it might kill you before you can check it out too much, and not everyone really enjoys being a test subject like that. However, what usually ends up happening when few-to-none lower level PCs stick around to give it a go is that the GM(s) invading then ramp up the creatures to better match the skill levels for those PCs who did stay -- and this usually ends up being the much higher skilled PCs who are generally more confident that they have a chance against just about anything we throw at them, or at least enough of one that they might be able to get away if things turn bad.
So what's my point?
I'm not going to try to tell anyone who gets bored with possibly dying bunches that they will learn to love invasions if they just try more of them! But, if you feel like you might enjoy invasions but there is just no way anything near your character's skill level will ever invade, I encourage you to rethink that perception and maybe poke around the edges of some invasions sometime when you feel up to giving it a go.
Will you die? Well, probably at least once! Most people tend to die when they haven't found their groove yet, and even when you have it definitely still happens -- that's part of the fighting experience. But, if you stick around some, you can start to see where and when those lower level critters pop up and you can take notice of the things about them that help indicate their relative skill level.
I also highly encourage PCs of all skill levels to do recon on the critters in re-occurring invasions and to share that info that you gather! Try APPRAISING the creatures you come across. You can mitigate the danger of the time it takes for the appraise command to finish up by going around to rooms where people are already fighting the creatures and keeping them occupied while you check them out. Higher skill PCs can get together groups of other PCs of varying skill levels and gather fighting strength and special ability information about the creatures, then pass this on via gwethdesuans and other items that allow communication between and across areas in game, posting here on the forums, adding documentation to elanthipedia.play.net -- you get the idea!
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