I have a ton of classes to go. Anyhow, perspective set.One thing I notice every time I get to the East part of the game (Var'Eyal I believe?), is that the traveling Orc parties are sometimes outrageously dangerous. And sometimes complete cakewalks. And almost never give any decent treasure. This is primarily weird because when they're put up against the first few starting areas (Temple of Creation, Spider cave, Vor Armory, Briagh's Cavern) they sometimes can be far more dangerous than those, and since they're only sometimes fleeable from, it seems weird. They should be the moderate risk/decent reward option compared to entering the dungeons, just in relative flow.
Equally weird is the adventurer and zigur troops in the early game carry quite a bit of loot generally, so its a strange disconnect that the orc troops don't.
Mainly my concerns are:
1)They're very spikey in difficulty. I can encounter one orc party that's 10 orcs, no one higher level than me, and bump through them without any concern and win trivially, following by an orc party right next to them that's 12 orcs, half of them higher level elites, and have to blow most my skills to survive. It makes it really difficult to judge on the map how dangerous an encounter might be. It doesn't match with dungeons where at least you can mouse over, and then use various skills to run if you've stepped near something deadly for the most part.
2)They're generally harder than the starter dungeons of Var'Eyal, but you can run into them first, and since they chase and can't be scanned on the overworld, they can just roll over characters sometimes while you're just trying to get to the 'safety' of those dungeons to level up to compete.
3)They're delays between going to places that don't drop anything sometimes. I suspect it's to balance the Prides which have lots of ground loot, but it makes it an experience where sometimes you can have encounters of boss/unique level difficulty ("Oh, 5 mages, 2 corrupters, and 3 necromancers. Several elite. And a wide open space. I'm about to get mauled") where victory gets you nothing or 2 tier 2 swords.
4)They become more speedbumps at the very end of the game, for all they're really dangerous right when you arrive. I can't recall any of my level 40 plus characters having much difficulty with them anymore unlike the 25-30ish just arrivals, and I've not paid attention on if they scale much. Not sure how much I trust my memory here
So recommendations:
1)Tune them down in early bits, both in appearance and difficulty to be closer to the adventuring/raiding parties of the other side. Limit what types can appear then mainly as the way of it. It shouldn't be more dangerous to look around the world map than it is to enter the starting dungeons. If they're the right difficulty, then the dungeons should get buffed so it doesn't feel like its safer to go into them then to fight the random traveling orcs.
2)Give them some loot, even if its cheap crap, so at least it doesn't feel like the only reason to fight them is because they're blocking the way between you and the next dungeon you want to play. Or put a pile of junk on the map with them, if that's what's needed to not unbalance everywhere else orcs can show up.
3)Scale them up as Prides are defeated (and maybe Vor Armory, though that's kinda a starting zone for Var'Eyal). Eventually they could be the desperate remenants, lead by powerful level 40-50 types trying to survive after their main strongholds have gotten wiped out. Basically, either they should eventually get harder or vanish, since beating up groups of nothings for no treasure while just trying to travel the map to the next real challenge doesn't seem satisifying.
