81 réponses à ce sujet

[kevL]

.. because it takes time and it's difficult.

[Dann-J]

Eguintir Eligard wrote...

this were true (not that you said it , but it was said) then why isn't every game doing it and everyone appeased?

It takes a lot of extra work to build in that sort of flexibility. Games are developed with a deadline in mind, so placing creatures in the game at set levels (assuming the player started at level 1) is a lot quicker than producing a lot of varying blueprints (as I know only too well).

That said; quite a few games *have* tried to accomodate players of varying levels. The Diablo games come to mind, as does Titan Quest. Encounters were randomly generated in those games, with the number and level of opponents varying widely. You never knew quite what you would get each time you played - which enhanced the replayability of the games in my opinion.

By contrast; once you've played through all the plot paths of the NWN2 OCs, you know exactly what to expect, and how to beat them.

[The Fred]

Level scaling is a topic unto itself. We should probably start one, and leave this one to discussions of higher level modules.

In the meantime...
For something like NWN1's Infinite Dungeons, you kind of have to use level scaling. The game is the same but re-adjusted for your entry level. However it needn't adjust as you level up. Normally you will scale your encounters around the level you expect the person to be at - the game could do that for you, so long as it also uses the "expected" level (i.e. based off entry level) rather than the actual level.

Just because a mod uses level scaling also doesn't mean it can't have areas of greater or lesser difficulty. Yeah upgrading the goblins from L1 Goblin Slingers with 2 hp to L7 Goblin Wizards might be a bit silly, but you could populate undead areas etc with tougher baddies. Also you could have an area which creates monsters of your level - 1, and another where they're of your level + 2, for example.

I think level scaling in principle is fine, but it kind of has to be worked out.

[Eguintir Eligard]

kevL that is not why it isn't done and you know it.

[kevL]

sure it is,

this is NwN2 right? As long as ya got the time and the wits .. go to it!


Now, I agree that from a storytelling perspective things are going to go north east south west pretty quickly - there'll be gardens of forking paths, 25 variables on each creature, a journal the size of a house, and monster blueprints up the wazoo .. treasure might need dynamic scripting etc. But shortcuts can be found, corners can be cut

For example, instead of a journal entry stating "You met a group of goblins ..." it might read "You encountered resistance ..."

if i tried making a campaign-story that could be started at L1 to L30, i'd pretty quickly ask myself "what am i doing this for?"

and yah, it's possible to mix & match - some areas might be blocked off or a warning given .....


but i think one that started at a range of say, L5 to L15 is workable. I mean, are you trying to say it's technically/artistically impossible - personally, I applaud DannJ, & I'll still play Islander



( sorry to the OP, but hey a high level module just might come out of this )

[Eguintir Eligard]

No, I am saying what you said is not true. I asked why if its the magic cure that everyone likes, why everyone doesnt do it. You said the only reason it wasnt done was time and difficulty. Thats horse hockey because I wouldnt do it even if it took the same time because Im about story arc not levels.

And since I am part of "everyone" the statement is false since it is not true of me.

Modifié par Eguintir Eligard, 26 août 2011 - 02:29 .

[Dann-J]

That's the great thing about using the toolset to create your own modules - you get to make them the way *you* want to. If you start by asking people what *they* would like, and trying to please everyone, you'll be doomed to failure before you even begin. You simply can't please everyone all the time.

When I create a module, the only person I'm interested in pleasing is myself. Then again, I've practically turned self-pleasure into an artform over the years...

Anyhoo - level scaling *is* one way to accomodate the need for higher-level modules (to attempt to bring this topic back to some sort of relevance).

[kevL]

Eguintir Eligard wrote...

No, I am saying what you said is not true. I asked why if its the magic cure that everyone likes, why everyone doesnt do it. You said the only reason it wasnt done was time and difficulty. Thats horse hockey because I wouldnt do it even if it took the same time because Im about story arc not levels.

And since I am part of "everyone" the statement is false since it is not true of me.

Does that mean you like railroading a character through a plotline?

but yeah, i agree "magic cure" and "everyone" is too extreme. Although, if done right, the player would get his/her plotline - and it might change beyond the recognition of the original author


I stand by the idea that with time and effort it's entirely doable, both artistically and technically.

Modifié par kevL, 26 août 2011 - 03:22 .

[Eguintir Eligard]

kevl if i randomly changed your ethnicity and gender and size would you still act and think the same? Thats my point, story wise.

[Dann-J]

If a quest calls for you to kill a group of goblin raiders, what does it matter if it's a small group of level 1 goblins, a medium group of level 3 goblins, or a large group of level 5 goblins with a level 7 commander? You're still fullfilling the quest that is part of the story line - however you're also allowing the player some flexibility as to what level they choose to start the module at (or at least, providing some sort of challenge for someone who chooses to start at level 5 rather than level 1).

[kevL]

EE, i See your point

but i'm also stunned with the diversity of endings for MotB ..


( go Dann !! )

[kevL]

DJ et al,
the point EE is making is like this:

if you want to tell a story of a boy post puberty, start a level 1
if you want to tell the story of a young man leaving his village, start at level 5

if you want to tell of Nasher hanging up his sword and assuming rulership of the kingdom he helped carve out
start level 25 .......

[The Fred]

Well in my campaign you will be able to play your choice of a farmer starting out, a streetwise kid, a noble, a samurai, a member of the prevailant order of magi, etc... and yes it's going to take me 10x as long and at least as much effort.

As an aside, the story of the young man leaving his village starts at L1 (the story of the boy should be L0) - otherwise we would have young men leaving their village already able to cast Fireball, shapeshift, and wrestle bears.

[kevL]

Tiddlywinks

[mungbean]

I have to relearn the toolset, last time I played was right when MotB was first released and I've only just got back to it a few weeks ago.

But I DMd mid-epic PnP for several years a long time ago (menzoberranzan and planescape), and figure a lot of the same guidelines probably apply for adventure construction.
A lot of things I found out the hard way, and avoiding getting bogged down in hack and slash at any level isn't easy. You need to get creative with subplots and NPC development and tailor your gaming world for the party levels.

Nobody but nobody, no matter their levels or equipment goes running around the countryside leaving a trail of dead dragons in their wake. It's a game breaker. So it goes like this, when your party manages to down its third dragon and it's all getting a bit routine. the DM buys the dragon-PC boxed set and starts building them with class levels and develops them off camera, so that as it turns out those run of the mill dragons they've been running into are just wild rogues and actual draconic society is far more developed, and dangerous and epic, and now they're gunning for the party with special draconic magic items and class abilities and buddies.

Same venturing into the Underdark cities, gaining significant levels means House politics gets thrown in so your encounters tend to include getting poisoned in your manse just before being attacked by clandestine assassins you thought were your trusted servants and indentured staff, or the many other ways the ruling Houses ensure their powerbase. Surprise, you didn't get a chance to buff but they did.

Planescape was a total boon for epic parties from the Prime Material, it's a real balancer. Unless you've got elemental creature resistance (eg. are planetouched), half the environments are going to kill you just for being there. Your magic items lose all their enchantments, clerics lose access to spells, wizards get random effects or just attract scary predators if they cast, and everybody, even a low level tiefling rogue knows more about survival than you do.
At about the time when our gaming group (mad epic party of drow), got to the point of leaving half the prime material in shambles everywhere from spelljammer to krynn, real game breaking party we discussed retiring several times, I got planescape and quite simply handed their butts to them as DM any time I felt like it, and the gaming group never had so much fun.

Spell restrictions by plane, layers of removal from the home plane of enchantment for items, environmental elemental effects, demipowers and proxies lurking around, access to divine magic restricted or tailored, an overpowered Party gets taken right back to basic racial abilities and class skills real quick, pretty soon your dragonslayer is just a highly experienced rogue that gets eaten just about as easily as an inexperienced one if he doesn't get smart about what he does.


And that's the whole trick about epic level adventuring really isn't it? It's not higher HD hack and slash, it's a case of putting your big girl panties on and entering and entirely new scope of gaming.
I don't think a mid-level campaign can use auto-adjustment for epic adventuring without being cheap.
A 15th level character might have his own keep, but a 25th level one already has a few deities that really don't like him very much and are going to walk up to him and say so, you're kind of missing the point if you put that in mid-level gaming, or fail to at epic levels.

[Eguintir Eligard]

now that last paragraph is EXACTLY what what we are saying. You dont just sub in a level 26 for a level 6 and treat their behaviours and the quest experience like its an assembly line with everything but the HD and attack bonus being identical, because its cheap and hollow.

[kevL]

it can be scripted so the cool stuff happens for the 26th level & not the 6th ..

[mungbean]

And yet to maintain suspension of disbelief you need to change the gaming environment between those levels. If you just change the kobold dungeon crawl to a dragon slaying quest you're still just doing uber power gaming.
You need to have to cross some planes, lose enchantments, attract demonic entities or a lich king which spend half the adventure testing your weaknesses and planning a final confrontation and that's just a sidequest. Remember that higher HD monsters get killed just as easily by combined class levels than they do heroes, if it was just a dragon then a large number of mid level adventurers from local villages would've taken care of it before word got out of the kingdom there was even a problem, it'd be nothing more than a famous legend of past times by the time epic heroes even arrived there for its treasure. The cool stuff has to be way way way more than that.

The keep is different, the fields are different, the sky is different, casting that epic spell attracts the attention of a demipower, everything has to be different.

Ultimately in our PnP what happened was local pantheons took an active role in protecting the run of the mill everyday prime material by chasing overpowered adventuring parties out into spelljammer, down into the underdark or off into the planes.
And when a local pantheon says time to go, you go.

There was no other way, and yet it was utterly believable, much more believable than simply letting epic level adventurers run around acting like gods. The real gods, they don't like that.
The alternative, magically turning the run of the mill prime material into the underdark or outer planes encounter wise just because you got higher level, that's an immersion killer, doesn't matter if you're losing it's still just uber power gaming style as opposed to epic level adventuring. Even placing level-accessable portals to these places in a regular adventure for higher levels is more just a teensy epilogue to a great mid level adventure. If it was an epic adventure it would be all through the story from the beginning, and build subtlely in the back of the player's mind that something very big, very scary is coming. Clear but clandestine. Smartly done.

Modifié par mungbean, 28 août 2011 - 12:37 .

[kevL]

let me put it this way (apart from DM interventions)

A single campaign could be created with two or more entirely separate paths. When, for example, the 25 level hero goes to the majestic castle in the sky .. the 5th level neophyte goes to the mud hut in the forest clearing. If the Messenger of the Pantheon appears, well, it doesn't if you're 15th level .. instead you'd get the King's messenger saying "The royal will is that you go slay the dragon" instead of getting shot to the Plane of Fire. etc etc.


time & effort. and getting Pain to do yer scripting


but if yer arguing this can only be properly done with DMs on PnP, i won't argue wit that

[mungbean]

corelease two concurrant, entirely different modules for different party levels in the one package?
And this wouldn't be simply a linked linear level progression campaign, or released as two separate modules for different levels why?

[kevL]

because it's possible, that's all

[mungbean]

well yes but the extrapolate was merely a colinear point, like squirrels in the basement, sure they're fun and everything but rabies :/

[kevL]

mungbean wrote...

well yes but the extrapolate was merely a colinear point, like squirrels in the basement, sure they're fun and everything but rabies :/

yes, i didn't say it wasn't crazy

I jotted this down too, so here it is -------
edit, To get a bit more specific:

you could start out with a generic setting for levels 1 - 5. Then it branches out according to what class the PC is. Then areas could open and close depending on PC level; plot-paths might converge and diverge depending on an assortment of gamestates. the Thief can be routed to the Prime Material Guild, while the Paladin goes to the celestial Triad by levels 20+


A campaign would become like a tree interwoven with vines. Imagine playing such a campaign with different PCs: seeing the King's Room from those different perspectives, laughing as once you stood beside the king as his right hand man, now you're standing in front of him charged w/ murder ....

[Eguintir Eligard]

Imagine having no life or job and being immune to the need for sleep so you could do that all in under 80 years.

[kevL]

sure, done.

Imagining, as you point out, is the easy part ...