62 réponses à ce sujet

[Gel214th]

Do the enemies in all the various Acts level with you?

In other words if somehow I was say..level 20 in Act I...will the enemies keep pace with my characters? Or will they have limited health to make it a steamroll?

[Sen4lifE]

I think they will become stronger with you. It'd only make sense that they do.

[Cody211282]

Yes they do.

[Grand_Commander13]

Sen4lifE wrote...

I think they will become stronger with you. It'd only make sense that they do.

Define "make sense".  Most of us who preach verisimilitude hold the opinion that random enemies following the protagonist's exponential power curve is a little immersion-breaking.

[Bryy_Miller]

I tested this out the other day. Modded my guy up to max level.

Yeah, they do. I'm strong, but I'm not exactly killing them with one blow.

[Gel214th]

Grand_Commander13 wrote...

Define "make sense".  Most of us who preach verisimilitude hold the opinion that random enemies following the protagonist's exponential power curve is a little immersion-breaking.

It's....too much....big words....multi...syllables.
Fading...fast...

ack....ackkkk....

...
:innocent:

[Iosev]

Grand_Commander13 wrote...

Sen4lifE wrote...

I think they will become stronger with you. It'd only make sense that they do.

Define "make sense".  Most of us who preach verisimilitude hold the opinion that random enemies following the protagonist's exponential power curve is a little immersion-breaking.

In the end, Dragon Age II is still just a video game, and enemy level-scaling is a gameplay mechanic used to provide consistency with challenge.  For example, I enjoy playing the game on Nightmare, and in turn, I like how the difficulty typically remains consistent throughout the entire game.  Conversely, if my level and armor made the Nightmare difficulty a walk in the park, it would defeat the whole purpose of the mode.

[DungeonLord]

Yes, street thugs will still challenge your Level 20+ LEGENDARY Champion. You're nobody special, apparently. Everyone else is just as powerful, if not more so, than you are. The game never makes you feel like you actually accomplished something to make you more powerful than mere thugs.

Scaling sucked in Oblivion and it sucks here.

[DungeonLord]

Btw, there are other, smarter ways of giving players a consistent challenge rather than the cheap cop-out way of simply making enemies match your level. It's the laziest way out.

[Cody211282]

DungeonLord wrote...

Btw, there are other, smarter ways of giving players a consistent challenge rather than the cheap cop-out way of simply making enemies match your level. It's the laziest way out.

No the lazy way out if to have wave after wave of baddys pop out of tin air durring a fight.

[DungeonLord]

Cody211282 wrote...

DungeonLord wrote...

Btw, there are other, smarter ways of giving players a consistent challenge rather than the cheap cop-out way of simply making enemies match your level. It's the laziest way out.

No the lazy way out if to have wave after wave of baddys pop out of tin air durring a fight.

You're right, that's even lazier.

(and don't anyone dare talk about technical limitations. It's hogwash)

[Chaos_1001]

Gel214th wrote...

Do the enemies in all the various Acts level with you?

In other words if somehow I was say..level 20 in Act I...will the enemies keep pace with my characters? Or will they have limited health to make it a steamroll?

The most relevant encounter I personally can think of in an example of how that isnt the case , the high dragon encounter. IF that mob was just your level, it would in fact be an easy fight, which in fact ( for those of you who have done it ) is not the case at all.

[TeamRyan]

DungeonLord wrote...

Btw, there are other, smarter ways of giving players a consistent challenge rather than the cheap cop-out way of simply making enemies match your level. It's the laziest way out.

Yeah I'm gonna call you on that one, name 1 single way to keep the challenge consistent with out level scaling, or adding more enemies per encounter.

[Well]

Cody211282 wrote...

DungeonLord wrote...

Btw, there are other, smarter ways of giving players a consistent challenge rather than the cheap cop-out way of simply making enemies match your level. It's the laziest way out.

No the lazy way out if to have wave after wave of baddys pop out of tin air durring a fight.

If they are going to do it they should have parachutes or be repelliing down buildings.I want to see them doing a Australian repel.

[DungeonLord]

TeamRyan wrote...

DungeonLord wrote...

Btw, there are other, smarter ways of giving players a consistent challenge rather than the cheap cop-out way of simply making enemies match your level. It's the laziest way out.

Yeah I'm gonna call you on that one, name 1 single way to keep the challenge consistent with out level scaling, or adding more enemies per encounter.

Ok, ready? Let the PLAYER take responsibility for seeking out stronger challenges.

Let trash mob encounters become less important the more you advance in the game. Trash mobs should NOT be as challenging to a level 20+ Legendary Champion, as they are to a level 1 nooblet. If any dare challenge you at an advanced level, they deserve the ass kicking coming.

Once you reach a certain level, you may feel strong enough to take on areas of the game that are more challenging and dangerous, such as a certain keep or a deep dungeon inhabited by really nasty stuff.
This empowers the player, because they get to take charge of their own challenge. Tired of weak street thugs who should know better? Pay the Vampiric Lich at Paleshroud Keep a visit. Or go for a walk in the Forest of no Return.

By using clever design, the developers can avoid the game turning stale. There is nothing quite as boring in game play as facing the same types of enemies over and over again, that have simply been power boosted.

Also, as you progress, more powerful enemies may want to challenge you. Not through random encounters though, but as actual game play events. Design, design, design. It takes people who care about making engaging, solid feeling worlds to pull it off.

See Witcher 2 for an example of a game that will feature no enemy scaling. Or try Nehrim, the total conversion for Oblivion. No enemy scaling. Instead they rely on good design.

[TeamRyan]

DungeonLord wrote...


Ok, ready? Let the PLAYER take responsibility for seeking out stronger challenges.

Let trash mob encounters become less important the more you advance in the game. Trash mobs should NOT be as challenging to a level 20+ Legendary Champion, as they are to a level 1 nooblet. If any dare challenge you at an advanced level, they deserve the ass kicking coming.

Once you reach a certain level, you may feel strong enough to take on areas of the game that are more challenging and dangerous, such as a certain keep or a deep dungeon inhabited by really nasty stuff.
This empowers the player, because they get to take charge of their own challenge. Tired of weak street thugs who should know better? Pay the Vampiric Lich at Paleshroud Keep a visit. Or go for a walk in the Forest of no Return.

By using clever design, the developers can avoid the game turning stale. There is nothing quite as boring in game play as facing the same types of enemies over and over again, that have simply been power boosted.

Also, as you progress, more powerful enemies may want to challenge you. Not through random encounters though, but as actual game play events. Design, design, design. It takes people who care about making engaging, solid feeling worlds to pull it off.

See Witcher 2 for an example of a game that will feature no enemy scaling. Or try Nehrim, the total conversion for Oblivion. No enemy scaling. Instead they rely on good design.

Letting the player take responsibility for seeking out stronger challenges is not a way of keeping a consistent challenge.  It cannot be applied consistently, if the player may not even choose to do it making it not consistent. If it were like that then you'll have your opposite in here complaining about the game not being consistently challenging because he's 50 (cause he's so good) and the encounters are maxed out at 25.
Secondly I don't see that being all too clever either because all that would do is lead to level grinding, which in my opinion is exponentially more boring and tedious than enemies scaling with you.

Optional dungeons are a plus though can't argue with that.

[sepir]

In Act 3 I would like to see a random thug encounter in the city turn into them screaming out "Ah crap, it's Hawke!" and running away.

Apparently by then you have single handedly defeated an Archdemon, the Aarishok, and their army of blood mages and demons at the same time. Or don't these thugs ever visit The Hanged Man (where lowlifes are meant to go)?

[DungeonLord]

TeamRyan wrote...

Letting the player take responsibility for seeking out stronger challenges is not a way of keeping a consistent challenge.  It cannot be applied consistently, if the player may not even choose to do it making it not consistent. If it were like that then you'll have your opposite in here complaining about the game not being consistently challenging because he's 50 (cause he's so good) and the encounters are maxed out at 25.
Secondly I don't see that being all too clever either because all that would do is lead to level grinding, which in my opinion is exponentially more boring and tedious than enemies scaling with you.

Optional dungeons are a plus though can't argue with that.

Well it's a matter of personal opinion then. It most certainly can be applied consistently, if the game designers are good enough. There's a fixed amount of XP available in most non-sandbox games and good game designers will design with this in mind. Boosting enemies artificially is just a way of being lazy about it, so you can skip that design stage.

Having to level grind is also a failure of the designers doing their job correctly. The whole of the game should be engaging and interesting. Thus a player should be motivated to go through it all. By using clever design, you get the illusion of choice of where to go, while in reality you're guided up a ladder of increasing difficulty. It takes more work, but it's worth it. 

Turn it around and look at enemies and bosses that scale to meet your level. They convey no solidity in the world. No substance. Everything is in flux and neatly fits to your current level, making any kind of progress pointless. The ONLY thing you gain in Dragon Age 2 is additional abilities. Everything else is pretty much the same, regardless of what enemy you face. That, in my book, is boring and tedious.

Dragon Age 2 conveyed the illusion of having become stronger through segregating the game into 3 parts and saving the most impressive enemies for Act 3. It was a poor way of doing it though, since every other enemy, including street thugs, were equally stronger.
Imagine you had met a High Dragon in Act 1. Had you had the option to fight it, it would have been just as easy to defeat as it was in Act 3. Not really smart design.

[Irx]

arcelonious wrote...
In the end, Dragon Age II is still just a video game, and enemy level-scaling is a gameplay mechanic used to provide consistency with challenge.  For example, I enjoy playing the game on Nightmare, and in turn, I like how the difficulty typically remains consistent throughout the entire game.  Conversely, if my level and armor made the Nightmare difficulty a walk in the park, it would defeat the whole purpose of the mode.

And enemies scaling to your level defeats the whole purpose of levelling up mechanics.
If you want a constant challenge everywhere, you should probably play shooters or slashers, not rpgs.

And yes, there are plenty of different and creative ways to balance combat encounters, and auto scaling enemies to your level is the worst of them, even bethesda significantly changed it in fallout 3 after the ovlivion fail.

[mmatrix05]

Older games like BG1 or BG2 had different way of scaling. They changed enemies in random encounters according to your level, but goblin is always goblin. Most quest were not scaled. But you had felling of rise in power. Goblins would kill you easy at begging of BG1 (especially on core difficulty) but later you could devastate whole tribe with few spells. But at the same time fighting ancient lich was hard battle and you could be killed with one spell. So there were some areas and quests that are no-no until some level. Doing it at low yield more XP as I remember. I play DA2 on Nightmare and just encountered revenant yesterday (at level 6) and killed him with no problem while in DAO revenant was one of the hardest to beat and you would die for sure if you are not prepared. My opinion is some scaling is OK but to some degree.The felling of accomplishment is not so strong if I need to worry about bunch of tugs at lvl 20 and if i can beat powerful monsters at level 3 because they are scaled down.

[Bratinov]

I think they do, my mage is actually getting worse in the DPS department and I put 2, sometimes 3 points in magic.

[Chruptak]

Remember that auto-scaling enemies are the producers answer to players screaming for more freedom in roaming the game world. So, in a sense we asked for this.

[Irx]

Chruptak wrote...

Remember that auto-scaling enemies are the producers answer to players screaming for more freedom in roaming the game world. So, in a sense we asked for this.

Now don't insult all of us by comparing to the casual crowds.
And yes, devs somehow tend to listen mostly to the retarded casuals comlaining about difficulty spikes etc, and ignore those who like rpgs.

[Zmajc]

Scaling was necessary because there's only 1 city whole game takes place in and you progress thought it in time you don't move around discovering new maps that could be populated with higher level enemies.

If the game had multiple cities and a larger map they could leave monsters/enemies at fixed levels and further you progressed though the story the higher levels the monsters would be. 

By revisiting lower level areas you would get a sense of getting more powerfull. Here you allways feel like you're nobody special. 

Whole game was designed with a short development time in mind and they cut corners whenever they could.

Modifié par Zmajc, 24 mars 2011 - 11:09 .

[taine]

In a truly expansive game, with clearly defined cutoffs there is no need for level scaling -- a game such as BG2 is a good example of this. DA2 needs level scaling because the whole game is basically confined to 5 or 6 areas. There is no break up of lower level and higher level areas, so everything has to go up with the player. Just a design decision really. Not one that I like, but not really avoidable with the way they decided to make the game.