1380 réponses à ce sujet

[AlanC9]

Haexpane wrote...
Two Worlds on medium
Demon's Souls
Disgaea
-------
Everquest classic  (back in the old days of 2001)
Morrowind levels 1-15
Baldur's Gate 2

I'm sure others have more examples, I never played ultima

You thought BG2 was hard?

I didn't find MW hard either, but that's only because I played with an optimized character. Torias (whatever happened to him, anyway?) sold me on the idea that since MW combat sucks anyway, you might as well play an exploitative character so you don't have to care about the combat. Going in cold I probably would have found the game difficult.

[shootist70]

AlanC9 wrote...


But that wasn't their preferred mode of combat. Melee combat was something that they would do when forced into it or when a target of opportunity presented itself.

I don't think that's really applicable to a DAO melee rogue.

Sometimes we can take things far too literaly. As far as fantasy goes, all we need is a loose precedent that facilitates suspension of disbelief.

[AlanC9]

Sure. I don't have a big problem with leather rogues. Aesthetically, I don't want everyone in plate even if the system lets you do it.

[CLime]

Haexpane wrote...

Vanilla only, mods inserts too many variables. 

Oblivion is a class based system.  You pick a class to start the game.   It's not a "classic" class system.
Even if we consider Oblivion class-free.  That is 1 game..

Oblivion is not a class-based game in any meaningful sense.  The classes only determine which skills you rely on to level up, and even that was so backward that you were encouraged to choose rarely-used skills.  It didn't matter what it said on your character sheet; everyone could cast spells, stealth, and use any manner of equipment.

Damar Stiehl wrote...

Fewer options is always bad. No ifs or buts about it. Less options = less freedom.

If I look at my mage's talent trees and see a bunch of weapon-based talents in their, I feel like less of a mage.  Bioware recongizes this.  In the context of a sandbox game like Oblivion, that kind of freedom works because it's supposed to be a completely immersive, do-anything fantasy experience.  You can't go around murdering townsfolk in DA:O either.

Imagine if BioWare added to every class a talent tree based around pies.  All the talents were pie-related: Pie Throw, Pie Blade, Rain of Pies.  Pies exist in the world of Dragon Age, so it's perfectly possible with the aid of a little magic.  Maybe the piemancers mix lyrium into the flour.  You wouldn't have to use any of the talents, of course, but they'd always been in the book.

Now imagine it turns out that Rain of Pies is actually the best mass-AoE attack in the game.  You run across a big group of Darkspawn and try to take them out through conventional means, getting your ass handed to you several times.  "Oh man," you think to yourself, "if only I had Rain of Pies, this would be much less frustrating."  None of your characters have any pie talents, but it's only the second skill in the tree.  You have an extra skill tome you haven't gotten around to using, and a save a couple minutes back before you leveled.  Now, you've got to make that most terrible of RPG decisions, the real Ultimate Sacrifice: do you stay true to the role-playing experience at the expense of power, or do you look away from the screen as a deluge of flaming pies make mincemeat of the Darkspawn horde?

[The.Laughing.Man]

jollyorigins wrote...

distinguetraces wrote...

They made the right choice--warriors and rogues shared far too many of the same skills.

i couldn't agree more, by awakening rogues and warriors were pretty much becoming the same class with a few different spells, seriously, i made a legionnaire scout once and it was tanking just as well as my warrior was

And so do I. I started out as a warrior and gave him a dual-wielding style. After that, I made a Rogue/Duelist/Legionnaire Scout/Shadow (since I've played him over all of the DLCs) and it turned out the be the same, hell if not better... All I had to do was keep my 3 sustained buffs, put Mark of Death and/or Power of Blood in tight spots and I could clear Nightmare no problem and without using Pause (assuming I had my Wynne healer by my side)...

*IF* they still decide to make dual-wielding warriors in DA2, then I sure as hell hope they'll actually be better than in the first one otherwise it's a definite no-go.

[shootist70]

AlanC9 wrote...

Sure. I don't have a big problem with leather rogues. Aesthetically, I don't want everyone in plate even if the system lets you do it.

Lightly armoured, mobile skirmishers that are ready to quickly flank for the backstab have been there in lord knows how many RL battles, so I guess they have a justified placed in any class system. When folks start blurring the lines with class roles they lose these distinctions.

Modifié par shootist70, 17 septembre 2010 - 10:44 .

[maxernst]

CLime wrote...

Haexpane wrote...

Vanilla only, mods inserts too many variables. 

Oblivion is a class based system.  You pick a class to start the game.   It's not a "classic" class system.
Even if we consider Oblivion class-free.  That is 1 game..

Oblivion is not a class-based game in any meaningful sense.  The classes only determine which skills you rely on to level up, and even that was so backward that you were encouraged to choose rarely-used skills.  It didn't matter what it said on your character sheet; everyone could cast spells, stealth, and use any manner of equipment.

Damar Stiehl wrote...

Fewer options is always bad. No ifs or buts about it. Less options = less freedom.

And it has to be said that class-based limitations would be much more limiting in a game like Oblivion where you have no companions.  Part of the reason that D&D always had rigid class restrictions was that in a party-based game, the different character classes each had unique ways to contribute to the team.

[tmp7704]

Haexpane wrote...

I am not contradicting myself at all.  This is human nature.  Players want the challenge, but can not resist going after the most powerful toon.

Then they don't actually want challenge. They say they do and they may even believe this illusion of their own but when that ability to have said challenge is at their fingertips and they reject it for easy game then it's nothing but talk.

Or to put it more blatant, that "human nature" is actually we have no bloody clue what we really want. And when we actually get it, we whine still because the reality comes knocking and it turns out it's not what we truly wanted after all.

Balance would be, allowing the player to go after the most powerful toon/gear/spells but matching those with enemies of equal or greater power.  (greater because of AI restrictions)

That's not balance, that's treadmill. Or as the Incredibles put it, "when everyone is super then no one is". And it's also something players loathe -- consider level scaling the way Oblivion did it and how popular that feature was. Yet it does exactly what you suggest here.

If you have the choice between a wooden stick and a magic sword, 9/10 you will pick the magic sword.  no one except the most hard core Role Players would say "no my character only uses wood sticks"

So what's the problem? 10/10 players get what they like, 9 of them the sword and one of them the stick.

Look at how people play DAO, they want the best gear, and they play on nightmare.  There is absolutely no contradiction.

I don't think that's contradiction in itself. You ignore something here -- that different amounts of power available through different class/gear setups allow the player to finetune difficulty beyond what's allowed just with setting in the game menu. So the people who play on nightmare with powerful setups and gear? They are actually after limited "challenge" but one that strokes their ego with its "nightmare" label. The ones who want their game harder than that also play on such nominal difficulty level but impose extra challenge on themselves with additional limitations. Like using less powerful character builds, or limiting number of pots used, or whatever else they feel like.

Incidentally, by reducing range of available class builds you reduce also this ability of the player to finetune their experience since they can no longer push the difficulty up/down as easily with weaker/stronger character builds.

Modifié par tmp7704, 17 septembre 2010 - 11:29 .

[tmp7704]

Haexpane wrote...

tmp7704 wrote...
 

How does having more people (who combined deal more damage meaning they mow the enemies down faster) "slow you down"?

Pausing.  If the party dies off, you can stop worrying about pausing and assigning tactics.  you can just Real Time mow down most battles, pause to chug pots

Why would you pause? At the most basic level you can just order all characters to attack the same enemy with the same single click you use to order your own character, and set up the companions' tactics to take care of the details like skills or healing at appropriate levels. They won't be 100% effective this way but they will still contribute, speeding things up compared to doing it all alone.

Yes, a warrior should have to choose, do you want to be a sponge or a meat grinder.  Absolutely, being both is indeed over powerd. If you can soak dmg and dish dmg, you don't need help.  

So you are in fact advocating that characters should do no more than one thing proper -- doing two is "over powered".

Which is pretty silly, because why shouldn't character be able to be independent to some degree and why should they need help? Before you answer "because it's party based game and all should be useful" note they are useful. And consider that the game frequently puts the player through encounters with number of enemies much larger than player's own party of 4. In these situations it is very helpful when characters can be independent, because this way you can have each party member take individually on small group of these enemies and hold their own, instead of relying on the dumb "warrior taunts everyone and tanks, healer heals and dpser does damage" artificial nonsense.

Modifié par tmp7704, 17 septembre 2010 - 11:38 .

[shootist70]

tmp7704 wrote...

Which is pretty silly, because why shouldn't character be able to be independent to some degree and why should they need help? Before you answer "because it's party based game and all should be useful" note they are useful. And consider that the game frequently puts the player through encounters with number of enemies much larger than player's own party of 4. In these situations it is very helpful when characters can be independent, because this way you can have each party member take individually on small group of these enemies and hold their own, instead of relying on the dumb "warrior taunts everyone and tanks, healer heals and dpser does damage" artificial nonsense.

DAO is a trinity class based game that allows an amount of hybridisation, just as most trinity based games allow an amount of hybridisation. Simple as.

I'm not saying it's right, but it's adequate for the purpose. That's because the focus of the game lies away from letting RPG hobbyists have OCD control of minutae, and is more in a satisfactory, dramatic direction for a mainstream audience. That's definitely a good thing, because RPG purists would design the dullest, anally retentive game imaginable, if left to their own devices

Modifié par shootist70, 17 septembre 2010 - 11:47 .

[CLime]

[quote]tmp7704 wrote...

[quote]Haexpane wrote...

I am not contradicting myself at all.  This is human nature.  Players want the challenge, but can not resist going after the most powerful toon.[/quote]
Then they don't actually want challenge. They say they do and they may even believe this illusion of their own but when that ability to have said challenge is at their fingertips and they reject it for easy game then it's nothing but talk.

Or to put it more blatant, that "human nature" is actually we have no bloody clue what we really want. And when we actually get it, we whine still because the reality comes knocking and it turns out it's not what we truly wanted after all.[/quote]

Without getting to existential, it's not contradictory to powergame while desiring difficult games.  A well-executed game will provide a challenge to the player while allowing the player to take advantage of all the tools offered.  If an Arcane Warrior can wade through mobs of enemies on Nightmare mode without breaking a sweat, that's a failing of the game's balance.  It shouldn't be up to the player to create the challenge by consciously avoiding certain choices, outside of moving the difficultly slider or taking advantage of bugs.

There doesn't have to be an extremely narrow range of builds required to succeed on Nightmare mode, but neither should there be combinations that trivialize entire dungeons.  It's one thing to invest time to improve skill and tactics, the developers can't entirely account for the vastly different schedules of casual versus hardcore gamers.  Anyone, however, can click a few icons on their character sheet.

The point of the harder difficulties is to accomodate players who want to maximize every advantage.[/quote]

[quote]
[quote]Balance would be, allowing the player to go after the most powerful toon/gear/spells but matching those with enemies of equal or greater power.  (greater because of AI restrictions)[/quote]
That's not balance, that's treadmill. Or as the Incredibles put it, "when everyone is super then no one is". And it's also something players loathe -- consider level scaling the way Oblivion did it and how popular that feature was. Yet it does exactly what you suggest here.[/quote]

Scaling enemies with levels is necessary with sandbox games, where ten quests can be done in millions of different orders.  There are two alternatives: sheperding players away from the high level quests and towards the level-appropriate ones, which takes away from the exploration, or allowing players to be alternatively bored and curbstomped if they do things in the wrong order.

Scaling with equipment, on the other hand, I agree is a bad idea.  It's fine to take the equipment a player is expected to have into account at a given level, but enemies shouldn't get weaker if you're fighting nude.

Modifié par CLime, 18 septembre 2010 - 12:54 .

[Sylvius the Mad]

CLime wrote...

Scaling enemies with levels is necessary with sandbox games, where ten quests can be done in millions of different orders.

Patently false.

Scaling is only necessary if you first acecpt a bunch of other unnecessary design conventions and are unwilling to let players fail.

There are two alternatives: sheperding players away from the high level quests and towards the level-appropriate ones, which takes away from the exploration

Depends how its down.  Shepherding doesn't mean forcing.  You could allow exploration while at the same time discouraging some kinds of it.

Look at Baldur's Gate.  The characters in-game give you specific advice about where to go, and if you follow that advice you meet only level-appropriate content.  If you ignore that advice, you can easily meet content far more powerful than you.

or allowing players to be alternatively bored and curbstomped if they do things in the wrong order.

And this is only a problem if you both care about players who ruin their own game, and you have a steep enough power curve that such things are possible.

As I've suggested many times before, a shallower power curve would limit the damage caused by not scaling content because there would only be so much possible range available within the game.  Imagine if all of DAO took place between levels 6-12 - then you wouldn't need to scale content at all.

[jsachun]

tmp7704 wrote...

So you are in fact advocating that characters should do no more than one thing proper -- doing two is "over powered".

Which is pretty silly, because why shouldn't character be able to be independent to some degree and why should they need help? Before you answer "because it's party based game and all should be useful" note they are useful. And consider that the game frequently puts the player through encounters with number of enemies much larger than player's own party of 4. In these situations it is very helpful when characters can be independent, because this way you can have each party member take individually on small group of these enemies and hold their own, instead of relying on the dumb "warrior taunts everyone and tanks, healer heals and dpser does damage" artificial nonsense.

You make a very good point. What they are suggesting is almost as ridculous as saying rogue should only be used to pick locks, set traps & scout ahead, rather than contributing to actual hand to hand combat. 

Modifié par jsachun, 18 septembre 2010 - 03:00 .

[maxernst]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

CLime wrote...

Scaling enemies with levels is necessary with sandbox games, where ten quests can be done in millions of different orders.

Patently false.

Scaling is only necessary if you first acecpt a bunch of other unnecessary design conventions and are unwilling to let players fail.

There are two alternatives: sheperding players away from the high level quests and towards the level-appropriate ones, which takes away from the exploration

Depends how its down.  Shepherding doesn't mean forcing.  You could allow exploration while at the same time discouraging some kinds of it.

Look at Baldur's Gate.  The characters in-game give you specific advice about where to go, and if you follow that advice you meet only level-appropriate content.  If you ignore that advice, you can easily meet content far more powerful than you.

or allowing players to be alternatively bored and curbstomped if they do things in the wrong order.

And this is only a problem if you both care about players who ruin their own game, and you have a steep enough power curve that such things are possible.

As I've suggested many times before, a shallower power curve would limit the damage caused by not scaling content because there would only be so much possible range available within the game.  Imagine if all of DAO took place between levels 6-12 - then you wouldn't need to scale content at all.

Another approach is to make it very easy to withdraw from combat when you're overmatched.  The might & magic games were sandbox games with a big power curve that weren't scaled to level at all.  As a general rule, certain map areas were more difficult than others and that was obvious from the random encounters you hit as soon as you left the cities into the countryside.  But when you were getting clobbered, the game was very friendly about letting you run away before your entire party was wiped out.  And while it's true that sometimes you ran into stuff that was ridiculously easy, those combats were so fast and took so little effort, it wasn't a huge problem.  
 
In addition to the Might & Magic Series, I don't think Arcanum or Fallout 1&2 had level scaling and they were pretty open ended.  It's really not necessary.  Yes, in practice, you couldn't do quests in absolutely any order, but you certainly had plenty of freedom.

[Sylvius the Mad]

maxernst wrote...

Another approach is to make it very easy to withdraw from combat when you're overmatched.

Withdraw, or even avoid.

Remember the early tile-based games like Ultima IV.  There you could see monsters across the overland map, and if you didn't think you could defeat them you could change course and hope to avoid them.  If you see Orcs or Trolls, sure, they won't cause a problem, but if you're low level and you see Ettins or Headlesses, that's reason to give that encounter some thought.

Bigger more open environments with a longer-zoom camera would help a lot.

[CLime]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

CLime wrote...

Scaling enemies with levels is necessary with sandbox games, where ten quests can be done in millions of different orders.

Patently false.

Scaling is only necessary if you first acecpt a bunch of other unnecessary design conventions and are unwilling to let players fail.

There are two alternatives: sheperding players away from the high level quests and towards the level-appropriate ones, which takes away from the exploration

Depends how its down.  Shepherding doesn't mean forcing.  You could allow exploration while at the same time discouraging some kinds of it.

Look at Baldur's Gate.  The characters in-game give you specific advice about where to go, and if you follow that advice you meet only level-appropriate content.  If you ignore that advice, you can easily meet content far more powerful than you.

Perhaps I should have been more precise: "necessary if you want to avoid doing one of the following two things."

Each system has its pros and cons.  Scaling ensures you can always find a challenge, but risks making levels feel less meaningful (see Oblivion city guards).  No scaling maintains the feeling of growth relative to the world, but risks allowing the player to either trivialize content or get in way over their head.

Showing players the appropriate path without forcing them onto it works for some games.  For games like DA:O, however, where you have several major quests hubs, you can't allow players to complete them in any order AND provide a consistent challenge at every stop AND include a meaningful level-based progression system WITHOUT some degree of scaling.  It's not possible.

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

or allowing players to be alternatively bored and curbstomped if they do things in the wrong order.

And this is only a problem if you both care about players who ruin their own game, and you have a steep enough power curve that such things are possible.

As I've suggested many times before, a shallower power curve would limit the damage caused by not scaling content because there would only be so much possible range available within the game.  Imagine if all of DAO took place between levels 6-12 - then you wouldn't need to scale content at all.

The cure might be worse than the disease.  Depressing the power curve would have similar drawbacks to scaling.  You could let the environment stay the same because the player's own growth is greatly reduced.  In the end, the relative increase in power, or lack thereof, would be similar, except with fewer levels you'd have less feedback.  Players like leveling up.  I imagine some non-trivial amount of research went into properly spacing the expected pace of leveling so players weren't being bombarded with new abilities while not turning the game into an MMO-esque grindfest.

Modifié par CLime, 18 septembre 2010 - 09:23 .

[tmp7704]

CLime wrote...

Without getting to existential, it's not contradictory to powergame while desiring difficult games.  A well-executed game will provide a challenge to the player while allowing the player to take advantage of all the tools offered.  If an Arcane Warrior can wade through mobs of enemies on Nightmare mode without breaking a sweat, that's a failing of the game's balance.  It shouldn't be up to the player to create the challenge by consciously avoiding certain choices, outside of moving the difficultly slider or taking advantage of bugs.

Why not, exactly? How is this different from equally conscious choice of moving the difficulty slider?

The players appear quite content to create their own challenges if you think of it; either playing their own "iron mode" games, trying to run through the game with just one character, building or using custom difficulty mods, or experimenting with party setups which don't provide the easiest path possible. They don't seem to complain about being able to do these things.

There doesn't have to be an extremely narrow range of builds required to succeed on Nightmare mode, but neither should there be combinations that trivialize entire dungeons.

This still runs into conundrum which is that's only possible through either flattening range of power the player can achieve, or scaling the enemies to match. Both in turn rendering the point of trying to improve the characters questionable at best, and the game not necessarily being perceived any better -- consider one of major complaints about DAO was "the loot isn't epic/interesting enough", which shows pretty clear that people aren't really satisfied if the improvements they get only net them something "boring" like "just" a few percent boost to attributes or damage dealt.

Modifié par tmp7704, 18 septembre 2010 - 09:51 .

[Akka le Vil]

Haexpane wrote...

1.  If you are going to use negative descriptors to my post, like  "knee jerk" and "unwarranted" at least actually provide some exemples.

Read your own post ? You spent one page ranting about how classes are just better just because I said that not everyone like classes. That pretty much gave it away.

2. Hand waving over a detailed post with "not convincing" and then proving ZERO rebuttal is worthless, don't bother rebutting unless you are actually going to post some content.

Which part of :
"And your second rant on the"overpoweredness" of DW warrior is not convincing, as everything you listed could actually be done by a rogue, with all the perks and utilities of a rogue AND also backstab."
escape your grasp ?
Are you unable to get the meaning of a single sentence ?

Modifié par Akka le Vil, 18 septembre 2010 - 09:54 .

[maxernst]

CLime wrote...
Showing players the appropriate path without forcing them onto it works for some games.  For games like DA:O, however, where you have several major quests hubs, you can't allow players to complete them in any order AND provide a consistent challenge at every stop AND include a meaningful level-based progression system WITHOUT some degree of scaling.  It's not possible.

But that's exactly the point.  You're assuming that providing a consistent level of challenge is desirable.  I think it's stupid and immersion-breaking that common bandits are just as dangerous to you when you're a green recruit as when you're a legendary hero.   Also, without level scaling, the player has more control of the degree of challenge because he can choose to go to more or less dangerous areas.

Modifié par maxernst, 18 septembre 2010 - 04:16 .

[Mickespel]

Bad decision to remove dual wield. Just add special class restricted talents instead. For instance already now, why can rogues even take the talent to dual wield full size weapons? Things like that should be warrior only. I assume modders will revert bad choices later, they tend to do that in moddable games. That is if DA2 are moddable, if not it's a dead horse to me.



Seriously, there are lots of dual wield talents now but really, only a warrior can really make use of many of them since the rogue tree has so many important things by itself. not many points. Also some of them prevent backstabs and critical hits, something a rogue need.



Personally I would go for reducing the class options to a single one and you choices of skills will decide what you are. Add some talents that if taken will block of some other choices and you are done.

[Cigne]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

CLime wrote...

Scaling enemies with levels is necessary with sandbox games, where ten quests can be done in millions of different orders.

Patently false.

Scaling is only necessary if you first acecpt a bunch of other unnecessary design conventions and are unwilling to let players fail.

There are two alternatives: sheperding players away from the high level quests and towards the level-appropriate ones, which takes away from the exploration

Depends how its down.  Shepherding doesn't mean forcing.  You could allow exploration while at the same time discouraging some kinds of it.

Look at Baldur's Gate.  The characters in-game give you specific advice about where to go, and if you follow that advice you meet only level-appropriate content.  If you ignore that advice, you can easily meet content far more powerful than you.

or allowing players to be alternatively bored and curbstomped if they do things in the wrong order.

And this is only a problem if you both care about players who ruin their own game, and you have a steep enough power curve that such things are possible.

As I've suggested many times before, a shallower power curve would limit the damage caused by not scaling content because there would only be so much possible range available within the game.  Imagine if all of DAO took place between levels 6-12 - then you wouldn't need to scale content at all.

Comcerning the bolded parts: I've completed multiple playthroughs of every Bioware game since NWN.  As much as I enjoyed GTA3, X3:Reunion, amongst others, I never completed them because my plot progession was stopped by missions I was unable to pass.  Because of this, I haven't been interested in purchasing their sequels.

(I started gaming with flight sims, but I no longer have the reflexes)

Saleswise, DA is a successful game;given its long development, it's questionable how profitable it was. Not caring whether the players fail, or ruin their own game, is a good way to shrink the customer pool.

And about the whole more choices=better game theme, Bioware has always taken the approach that choice should have consequence, including gameplay choices. You want Liliana? Forget about having Morrigan, then. You want to sneak up behind the enemy in full plate and backstab with your greatsword? Try Oblivion. A game I really enjoyed--lots of playtime, but only one completion.

Now I don't agree with all the changes that I'm hearing about DA2, but for the franchise to be successful, Bioware seems to feel they must appeal to "casual" gamers like me.<_< I'm okay with that, since most of the hardcore suggestions I'm seeing seem like they would only work, well, on paper.

[tmp7704]

Cigne wrote...

Bioware has always taken the approach that choice should have consequence, including gameplay choices. You want Liliana? Forget about having Morrigan, then. You want to sneak up behind the enemy in full plate and backstab with your greatsword? Try Oblivion. A game I really enjoyed--lots of playtime, but only one completion.

You could actually sneak behind people in full plate and backstab with 2-hander as rogue in DAO.

Just sayin'

(and you could get Morrigan and then Leliana easily too, but that's another story)

Modifié par tmp7704, 18 septembre 2010 - 05:45 .

[Sylvius the Mad]

CLime wrote...

Showing players the appropriate path without forcing them onto it works for some games.  For games like DA:O, however, where you have several major quests hubs, you can't allow players to complete them in any order AND provide a consistent challenge at every stop AND include a meaningful level-based progression system WITHOUT some degree of scaling.  It's not possible.

If the quest is too difficult, they can back out and try something else first.  Of the main quests in DAO only the Mage Tower forced you to finish it once it began (and there at least it might make some sense for the content to be scaled to you given that the bulk of the quest takes place within your own dream).

But if you're having trouble in the Deep Roads, leave and go to Redcliffe.  Or if the Sacred Ashes quest is too hard, go fight some werewolves.  This exploration aspect - this need for the player to discover the best route (and even this assumes there is one best route for all characters - why not have different quests be easier for different combinations of party abilities?) - is part of the fun.  It's part of the journey.  It's part of the story.

The cure might be worse than the disease.  Depressing the power curve would have similar drawbacks to scaling.

The scaling drawback is purely one of plausibility.  Eliminating scaling solves that problem.

You could let the environment stay the same because the player's own growth is greatly reduced.  In the end, the relative increase in power, or lack thereof, would be similar, except with fewer levels you'd have less feedback.  Players like leveling up.

Even if we assume this is true, why not have more levels covering less of a power difference?

As it happens, I don't accept that this is true, as it's certainly not my preference.  I would much rather have large steps between levels and many fewer levels (one level-up per 10 hours of gameplay is my ideal rate).  That would give me time to learn how best to use my new abilities, and then spend some time enjoying the fruits of that discovery.

I think levelling in DAO is too fast.

[Cigne]

tmp7704 wrote...

Cigne wrote...

Bioware has always taken the approach that choice should have consequence, including gameplay choices. You want Liliana? Forget about having Morrigan, then. You want to sneak up behind the enemy in full plate and backstab with your greatsword? Try Oblivion. A game I really enjoyed--lots of playtime, but only one completion.

You could actually sneak behind people in full plate and backstab with 2-hander as rogue in DAO.

Just sayin'

(and you could get Morrigan and then Leliana easily too, but that's another story)

Keepin' them both wasn't a choice, though.

The backstabbing wasn't the best example, huh?  Look, when reading through this thread I'm getting the impression that many who consider themselves hardcore see classes as something to be discarded in gaming. Yet I think that both (classes and allowing unrestricted builds) are viable, but that using class restrictions better suits the way Bioware makes games. They involve the player by creating characters that you care about, by creating stories that engage you. Limiting builds for each playthrough encourage taking different companions along... I guess they could limit the companions to three and give them different personalities/stories/quests that you could choose each time, and give them any talents you want...

Bioware devs have always stated that character driven, story driven games combined with open world gameplay are not going to happen with the resources available today.

When the day comes that the two types can be combined (and I think that day will eventually arrive), then I'd buy into  class restriction being outdated.

[Lokanaiya]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

CLime wrote...

Showing players the appropriate path without forcing them onto it works for some games.  For games like DA:O, however, where you have several major quests hubs, you can't allow players to complete them in any order AND provide a consistent challenge at every stop AND include a meaningful level-based progression system WITHOUT some degree of scaling.  It's not possible.

If the quest is too difficult, they can back out and try something else first.  Of the main quests in DAO only the Mage Tower forced you to finish it once it began (and there at least it might make some sense for the content to be scaled to you given that the bulk of the quest takes place within your own dream).

But if you're having trouble in the Deep Roads, leave and go to Redcliffe.  Or if the Sacred Ashes quest is too hard, go fight some werewolves.  This exploration aspect - this need for the player to discover the best route (and even this assumes there is one best route for all characters - why not have different quests be easier for different combinations of party abilities?) - is part of the fun.  It's part of the journey.  It's part of the story.

The cure might be worse than the disease.  Depressing the power curve would have similar drawbacks to scaling.

The scaling drawback is purely one of plausibility.  Eliminating scaling solves that problem.

You could let the environment stay the same because the player's own growth is greatly reduced.  In the end, the relative increase in power, or lack thereof, would be similar, except with fewer levels you'd have less feedback.  Players like leveling up.

Even if we assume this is true, why not have more levels covering less of a power difference?

As it happens, I don't accept that this is true, as it's certainly not my preference.  I would much rather have large steps between levels and many fewer levels (one level-up per 10 hours of gameplay is my ideal rate).  That would give me time to learn how best to use my new abilities, and then spend some time enjoying the fruits of that discovery.

I think levelling in DAO is too fast.

I have two things to say:

First, about the scaling... When I made my dwarf noble, after I got out of Ostagar, if I had been made to go to the dwarf place last, then it would have given me anger management problems. That was the place I was most anticipating, just to see how everyone would react. (As it was, I was forced by the person who really owns the computer I played on to unistall DAO and Awakening right before I got out of Lothering so he could install his videos that could easily be watched on Netflix.... >.>) That was just for an example, but what if something like that happens in DA2? Not an origins thing, obviously... but maybe some party member quests. It's really nice to be able to do them whenever... As soon as you get them, or on your way to the last battle. And I liked being able to do the treaties in whatever order... Plus, if you don't mind my asking, what is it that you so don't like about scaling?

Second, level ups. I'm sorry, but one level per 10 hours? That's just way too little.... I completed DAO in 22 hours. I rather liked not being level 3...