235 réponses à ce sujet

[AlanC9]

Paromlin wrote...
Clever design: The area is harder as you go deeper (into the forest/ruin/caverns), which allows exploration to a certain extent; depending on your skill, tactics, level. It's rewarding to go as far as possible because it provides your character with better items and experience. If you can't complete it on the first try, you simply change area and come back later when you're stronger (or ajdust the difficulty slider if you're one of the players that wants to be able to complete every area now, once you go there). This is done by progressively placing higher static level enemies deeper into the area.

But there's obviously positive feedback there. Get the rewards from deeper exploration and you'll be more powerful for later battles. Your final reward for all that success is an endgame that's a cakewalk, unless you're proposing to scale the endgame but not the rest of the game.

Experience from past non-linear games: Baldur's Gate, Fallout, Storm of Zehir to name a few. They're as non linear as it gets.

Baldur's Gate has some linearity, of course, since many areas don't open up until you've passed a plot milestone. More importantly, you level up very few times in the game, more exploration doesn't gain you all that much power. SoZ had one big gate in the middle, but other than that it was freeform. The advantage of the SoZ design is that you can see the RE's from a distance and so you know what's unsafe for your level. FO's a special case because it's not about mandatory combat the way that a typical fantasy RPG is.

[Tirigon]

Sidney wrote...

There's nothing linear in ME2, well nothing more than in DAO. Really any Bioware game.

It uses the same basic start - branching paths - checkpoint - branching paths- end game format. You can do all those loyalty missions in anyorder and then you come back to a Collector Attack where the plot sort of comes to a single point. In DAO you can do the treaty quests in any order and then you checkpoint at the Arl's place pre landsmeet. In BG2 you do Athkala in any order and then Checkpoint with the trip to Spellhold. At some point all the threads come together.

The difference is that DAO had really good dialogues and all - in fact I sometimes spend more time talking to Leliana than to actually "play" in the sense of kill stuff and progress in the plot.
The second difference is that the levels actually meant something, while in ME2 it was like:

"Recruit member number X"
"Oh sh*t, X is in bad trouble we need to get him out!"
*kill a lot of enemies who are not really important to the war against the reapers*
"Hi mate, Wanna join us? - Sure."
Do this 3 times, and you can access the next story mission.

ME2 felt like a shooter were you have a bit, mainly boring, dialogue in between.
Which is not necessarily bad, I like some shooters, but it´s not what I want when I buy an RPG.

[Tirigon]

AlanC9 wrote...


But there's obviously positive feedback there. Get the rewards from deeper exploration and you'll be more powerful for later battles. Your final reward for all that success is an endgame that's a cakewalk, unless you're proposing to scale the endgame but not the rest of the game.

A cakewalk endgame is not a reward but a disappointment, imo.

[Sidney]

Tirigon wrote...

The difference is that DAO had really good dialogues and all - in fact I sometimes spend more time talking to Leliana than to actually "play" in the sense of kill stuff and progress in the plot.
The second difference is that the levels actually meant something, while in ME2 it was like:

I always find this funny in that the premise of ME2 is dismissed as "irrelevant" because you are spending the entire game gathering allies and not fighting the reapers while in DAO you spend most of the game , wait, gathering allies and not battling the Blight. In both games you do the same thing for the same reason - although to be fair in ME2 your allies are a LOT more useful and meaningful at the end game that the generic soldiers from DAO and no matter what you do you get some sort of soldiers - it just varies really WHICH soliders you get.

The problem in ME2 was that there was a lot of dialog but there were, to be honest, too many squaddies 12 vs 9. I felt like the total dialog was the same but each character got a bit shorted in the mix. There wasn't a character in ME2 that rose to the Morrigan/Leli level of interest but Mordin Solus was more interesting than anyone other than those 2 in DAO. I'd put Jack and Miranda in the same mix with Allistair and Sten. While there's no one as bad as Ohgren in ME2.

[Tantum Dic Verbo]

A lot of the problems with scaling have more to do with a level-based approach to character development than with the scaling itself. If you're character is supposed to go from abject incompetence to godlike superduperness in the span of a few weeks, it creates problems in building encounters.

[FedericoV]

andar91 wrote...


I gather that some people do not like the scaling that was present in DA:O. I personally had no problem with it, as I felt that it helped maintain a consistent level of challenge without being overpowering. I'm curious as to why people love it, hate it, and whether they want it, a similar system, or a completely different system implemented in DA2.

Thoughts?

I hate DA:O level scaling. Most battles felt the same and even some boss felt pretty generic.

But level scaling is necessary if you build a game that's free in term of exploration. DA:O was not BG II or Oblivion, but it has some sandbox elements.

DA2 will be more storydriven and should focus less on exploration with the flashback narrative. So, I hope that there won't be necessity for level scaling and that most battles will be designed for the party's expected level.

[In Exile]

Paromlin wrote...
Clever design: The area is harder as you go deeper (into the forest/ruin/caverns), which allows exploration to a certain extent; depending on your skill, tactics, level. It's rewarding to go as far as possible because it provides your character with better items and experience. If you can't complete it on the first try, you simply change area and come back later when you're stronger (or ajdust the difficulty slider if you're one of the players that wants to be able to complete every area now, once you go there). This is done by progressively placing higher static level enemies deeper into the area.

But that depends entirely on the level system. If each area is anchored to a level, and if each level is a significant increase in power, then it is practically impossible to go into an area that a few levels above yours and survive. So the designers must tier the game and, to allow for choice, create multi-level areas.

I suppose what you are saying is that as you move deeper into the area, the enemies become stronger. But Bioware does not design games where you have to repeatedly travel between areas, and this is a restrictive design in general. If you have a set plot for each area that you ought to naturally follow to conclusion before moving to the next, you can get locked into a particular story progression.

Now, keep in mind, I actually like a great deal of linearity. I am just saying this is one complaint to the absence of scaling.

So we could achieve freedom without scaling: but we must then nurture the story so that it is kind to the game design, and I believe the game design should follow only after the story has been written.

Experience from past non-linear games: Baldur's Gate, Fallout, Storm of Zehir to name a few. They're as non linear as it gets. Without level scaling. With challenging and interesting combat. (In case someone wants to nitpick; BG did have a sprinkle of level scaling in a totally different form from DAO where all areas are set to scale, thus every single enemy is level scaled. In BG there are only a couple of instances of level scaling, where you'll be faced with more monsters; gibberlings or xvarts, but the vast majority of encouters, I'd say 95%, is exactly the same no matter your level. In no case does the "level scaling" in BG change the level of the enemy.)

But both Fallout and BG had the kind of design I said would be the only kind which would allow for freedom: multiple areas of enemies around similar levels. Which is effectively level-scaling by area instead of by code.

Difficulty slider: As previously mentioned, for those that wish everything served on a silver plate or simply don't want to bother with too hard/too easy areas due to the lack of level scaling; they can adjust the slider on the fly. A great variety in enemy strength is one of the things that makes us who oppose level scaling happy.

That would counter good design. You can have freedom or challenging combat, but not both.

[Paromlin]

AlanC9 wrote...

Paromlin wrote...
Clever design: The area is harder as you go deeper (into the forest/ruin/caverns), which allows exploration to a certain extent; depending on your skill, tactics, level. It's rewarding to go as far as possible because it provides your character with better items and experience. If you can't complete it on the first try, you simply change area and come back later when you're stronger (or ajdust the difficulty slider if you're one of the players that wants to be able to complete every area now, once you go there). This is done by progressively placing higher static level enemies deeper into the area.

But there's obviously positive feedback there. Get the rewards from deeper exploration and you'll be more powerful for later battles. Your final reward for all that success is an endgame that's a cakewalk, unless you're proposing to scale the endgame but not the rest of the game.

Experience from past non-linear games: Baldur's Gate, Fallout, Storm of Zehir to name a few. They're as non linear as it gets.

Baldur's Gate has some linearity, of course, since many areas don't open up until you've passed a plot milestone. More importantly, you level up very few times in the game, more exploration doesn't gain you all that much power. SoZ had one big gate in the middle, but other than that it was freeform. The advantage of the SoZ design is that you can see the RE's from a distance and so you know what's unsafe for your level. FO's a special case because it's not about mandatory combat the way that a typical fantasy RPG is.

1) Think about it. Later battles; yes, you'll be more powerful and I want this reward if I was struggling with certain areas just to get more powerful. Other than that (and the challenge factor), what's the point of doing harder areas before easier ones?
As for the "endgame", you're wrong. Endgame assumes you've done all areas so the order doesn't matter. It will be challenging/easy/normal even if you've done harder areas before the easy ones, d'oh.


2) Baldur's Gate is 100x more non-linear than DAO. If by "some linearity" you mean that ALL areas don't open as soon as you leave Candlekeep, then yes. But you're forgetting about the other 20 that do open.

Storm of Zehir. You're talking only about the overland map encounters. You don't see the challenge rating of specific places you can visit on the overland map. For example I totally avoided "farming" overland map encounters, out of principle.

Yes, Fallout is a special and very popular game, that has done just fine without level scaling.

[Paromlin]

Right. Now we'll go on and on debating level scaling.. in one of the countless threads about it.
It would be much simpler if we knew Bioware's plans regarding level scaling in DA2. If they're already set in stone. At least I'd be at peace about it. But they rarely answer when you ask directly.

In Exile wrote...

To many "ifs". If each area this, if each level that... You're assuming the worst. DAO levels are not big jumps in power. 3 levels; that's 9 attribute points; almost nothing. You'll get some new talents, sure, but how useful they'll be it's another question.

"Repeatedly travel between areas". Again an overstatement. You won't be a yo-yo, unless you're really really bad. There's nothing wrong with being faced with enemies/areas you can't defeat NOW!!

"All for the story!!" I don't agree at all. Gameplay is also a very important part of an rpg.

No, there's no such thing as "level scaling by area". Level scaling is a term used specifically for cases when enemies change level (or number, which is a better version of level scaling) based on the PC level.

Of course you can have freedom AND challenging combat. One without the other is bland in my book, for an rpg.

[Lord Gremlin]

In RPG the whole point is becoming overpowered. You start as a weakling and by the end of game becomes an unstoppable killing machine. I hate constant difficulty level. Beginning must be hard and ending should be cakewalk.

[Tirigon]

Sidney wrote...

I always find this funny in that the premise of ME2 is dismissed as "irrelevant" because you are spending the entire game gathering allies and not fighting the reapers while in DAO you spend most of the game , wait, gathering allies and not battling the Blight. In both games you do the same thing for the same reason - although to be fair in ME2 your allies are a LOT more useful and meaningful at the end game that the generic soldiers from DAO and no matter what you do you get some sort of soldiers - it just varies really WHICH soliders you get.

True, but the recruitment stories in ME don´t matter at all. E. g. Garrus and Grunt: First you ipe out an entire Blue Sun base; then, you join them, only to wipe out another base - and noone gives a damn.

In DAO, your actions affect the world around you, and the "recruitment" missions have an interesting plot - especially in the case of Orzammar, which is widely considered to be the best part in DAO. In ME2, the missions seem to take place in another world and consist 90-95% of shooting.

[Celticon]

If item scaling wasn't in the game, you'd face a lot more difficulty in purchasing advanced recipes, high end vendor weapons, and any vendor armors needed to complete a set. Unless quest rewards or money loot are improved, selling scaled items remains a significant source of income.

[AmstradHero]

Tirigon wrote...
In DAO, your actions affect the world around you, and the "recruitment" missions have an interesting plot - especially in the case of Orzammar, which is widely considered to be the best part in DAO.

Really?!!?? I found Orzammar became tedious. Lots and lots of battles with nothing in-between.  There were four really memorable fights "this is the fight that never eeeends", the (damnable!) spider queen, the "machine" and broodmother. However, the rest of it became repetitive, imho.

Level scaling and non-linearity are at the current point in time at odds with each other to some extent.  If combat are really easy for a long period of time, the player will get really bored. Yet if the monsters are constantly around the same level as the player, then players will complain it is not realistic. No, it's not but that's currently the price we pay for the ability to choose to tackle one of several stories in any order we choose.

As for how scaling is done, the only real alternatives are adding more monsters, or make each individual monster tougher. The former is a lot more work, could cause performance issues, and is very difficult to get the balance of difficult right across a wide range of levels.  So, we typically end up with the latter, which provides a more scalable (funny that) solution to providing consistently challenging combat across the length of the game.

Modifié par AmstradHero, 18 juillet 2010 - 03:09 .

[Tirigon]

The TRUE problem, let´s face it, is many player´s irrational desire to level up. Levelscaling would be completely redundant and not an issue if you simply didn´t level up during the game - which would also be more realistic. I would prefer it if you remain the same all the time. Of course, that would mean you have to start with many skills / spells instead of 2, but this, too would be good.

On account of better equipment and better knowledge of how to fight you would still get stronger during the game, thus making endgame fights easier than earlier ones, but not so much that it becomes boring but only so much that you feel like an experienced warrior / mage which, by then, you in fact are.

[Sidney]

Tirigon wrote...

The TRUE problem, let´s face it, is many player´s irrational desire to level up. Levelscaling would be completely redundant and not an issue if you simply didn´t level up during the game - which would also be more realistic. I would prefer it if you remain the same all the time. Of course, that would mean you have to start with many skills / spells instead of 2, but this, too would be good.

I agree with this. Most games don't take place over years or even months. You think about how long it takes to become a black belt and the whole leveling process is crazy and always off putting - because I hit one more Orc I now know how to swing my sword a different way.

The best part of any RPG always seems to be the middle levels. You are past the point of having to only cast Magic Missile but not yet to the rolling unstoppable god point in the game. You get the flexibility of skills and spells to be interesting but also still at a poiont where you are actually in danger in any fight.

You need to find a way to get us into that sweet spot and keep us there as much of the game as we can.

Of course given the religious nature of RPG folks I'm not sure you could make this sort of change without them having a total fit.

[Sidney]

Tirigon wrote...
True, but the recruitment stories in ME don´t matter at all. E. g. Garrus and Grunt: First you ipe out an entire Blue Sun base; then, you join them, only to wipe out another base - and noone gives a damn.

Do you really care about the outcome of DAO? So I get mages or templars at the end of the game. Heck, pick either dwarf and you get.....dwarves. The ME2 recruitment can at least result in people dying at the end of the mission. The DAO recruitment can't even result in you not getting an army from that quest.

It'd be nice if in DAO, for example, if you pick Bhelen and his radical
social policies over Harrowmont that the Dwarves can't feed you an army
because of a civil war or if you wipe out the mages the Templars can't
come help you anyways because they are busy with other things.

You liked the story around DAO more than ME2 and that is fine - and I'd agree that the big quests were better than the smaller quests in ME2. I have no issue with that but in terms of game mechanics the two things aren't that much different and in terms of total impact there is no doubt in game the ME2 "choices" matter a LOT more than the DAO choices because, in the end, the DAO choices do not matter.

[Tirigon]

Sidney wrote...

Do you really care about the outcome of DAO? So I get mages or templars at the end of the game. Heck, pick either dwarf and you get.....dwarves. The ME2 recruitment can at least result in people dying at the end of the mission. The DAO recruitment can't even result in you not getting an army from that quest.

It´s not the end that bothers me, it´s the mission itself. In DAO, for example, I had trouble to ever wipe out the mages (in fact I only did it once for the achievement and reloaded) because the whole business moved me emotionally and I couldn´t find any justification to kill people for being born with special talents.
In Orzammar, I have always troubles to decide because Bhelen is a cruel tyrant and Harrowmont a conservative weakling. It actually makes me think for a while "Which one is better?", and then I have to think "What would my Character do?", and I´m not always happy with my choice.

This immersion lacks in Mass Effect2 imo. I find myself caring a lot more about performing as many 1hitkill headshots as possible, or trying how fast I can kill everything on Insanity, than about the story.

[Sidney]

Tirigon wrote...

It´s not the end that bothers me, it´s the mission itself. In DAO, for example, I had trouble to ever wipe out the mages (in fact I only did it once for the achievement and reloaded) because the whole business moved me emotionally and I couldn´t find any justification to kill people for being born with special talents.
In Orzammar, I have always troubles to decide because Bhelen is a cruel tyrant and Harrowmont a conservative weakling. It actually makes me think for a while "Which one is better?", and then I have to think "What would my Character do?", and I´m not always happy with my choice.

This immersion lacks in Mass Effect2 imo. I find myself caring a lot more about performing as many 1hitkill headshots as possible, or trying how fast I can kill everything on Insanity, than about the story.

Again that is just a preference of the writing of one over the other. If you stuffed the DAO writing into ME2 technology and the ME2 into DAO technolgy your preferences would have remained the same. The wheel, voice acting etc have nothing to do with it.  You also are not expressing  a prefernce for meaningful game choices either because your game choices in DAO mean diddly beyond the writing.

I have no gripe with people who preferred DAO over ME2 - based on total distinct plays I did as well. I have issues with people who think the game mechanics of DAO/ME2 determined  your preference.

[Knut Are Mykland2]

In my opinon dao was too easy late game, compared to the early game.

it helps very little to use level scaleing if you get 10 levels worth of points in items on all your characters by the end game.

The endgame of dao was too easy, and the early game was much harder. Also the difference betwean easy and nightmare was tiny. the difference in difficulty betwean early game and lategame was way bigger then betwean easy and nightmare.



Also some of the spells and talents are way too powerful. The speed boosts are way too good.

2x dps with only 2 mages with haste. 1 handed weapons +2x haste was way too good in the earlygame, midgame and lategame.

[tyeomer]

Haexpane wrote...

Level scaling never works and has never worked in ANY RPG.

Make areas hard level. The deeper you go, the harder it gets.

This is very true. RPG developers still fall into this trap on a regular basis.

Worst example is of course Oblivion (which fortunately can be fixed with mods like the OOO patch).

The way it was done in DA, was a little bit more subtle, and therefore less annoying, but still immersion-breaking to the careful eye.

[coomber]

"Still like more games with no level scaling (i.e. Gothic series), going from avoiding fights all you can to beating trolls to pulp is really satisfying."



That's it in a nutshell. And Paromlin sums up the rest of my thoughts.

[MaxQuartiroli]

Sidney wrote...

There's nothing linear in ME2, well nothing more than in DAO. Really any Bioware game.

It uses the same basic start - branching paths - checkpoint - branching paths- end game format. You can do all those loyalty missions in anyorder and then you come back to a Collector Attack where the plot sort of comes to a single point. In DAO you can do the treaty quests in any order and then you checkpoint at the Arl's place pre landsmeet. In BG2 you do Athkala in any order and then Checkpoint with the trip to Spellhold. At some point all the threads come together.

Isn't this system called Linear RPG? And it's also the reason why I love Bioware games..
I don't like sandbox RPG and I know they don't do like that...

And I like leveling system too.. but I am sure they are going to modify it a bit now that the narrations system will be different.. A game which cover a 10-years period makes me think that we'll have a story split in chapters instead of a game set in a world map with 4-5 big areas where to move in the order we prefer....

[Ulicus]

Paromlin wrote...

Difficulty slider: As previously mentioned, for those that wish everything served on a silver plate or simply don't want to bother with too hard/too easy areas due to the lack of level scaling; they can adjust the slider on the fly.

You realise, of course, that people in favour of level scaling could suggest exactly the same thing to those against it?