18 réponses à ce sujet

[Dmasterman]

So from what I understand, depending on your level your enemies will scale to balance it.

So for example if your character does 30 damage, and your enemy has 90 health, it would take 3 average hits to kill ti right?

So let's say your character levels up and increases their damage, to 60. The SAME enemy's health will go up to 180 so it would still be 3 hits right?

Or can someone explain it to me.

[mr_afk]

sort of. their hp will scale up based on their level.

however the main consideration with enemy scaling is the item level of your weapons.
for the majority of the game you will find unique weapons to be superior to generic weapons.
unlike generic weapons, the item level of unique weapons is set. for example, this means that if you use a level 10 weapon when you're only level 5 you'll deal a lot more damage proportionally as you will be facing enemies with level 5 amounts of health. using that same weapon when you're level 10 will mean that it'll take longer to kill enemies.

This is why levelling actually makes the game more difficult in some regards. Using optimised unique armour/accessories/weapons means you will deal relatively more damage at a lower level and that your (proportional) damage will be mainly affected by the enemy level rather than your stats, although min-maxing stats is also important in every case.


for example, if you avoid xp you can end up with a much easier game.
here's a solo archer at ~level 10:
act 3 high dragon
awiergan scrolls 

on another note, the abilities which become available do favour a degree of levelling in some cases. I would think that the 'optimal level' (if you could somehow stay on it) would be level 14. In addition to access to two specs you could also use things like dual haste which could be useful.

Modifié par mr_afk, 17 septembre 2011 - 07:52 .

[spiritofretribution]

what mr_afk said

@ mr_afk:
BUT, I disagree with you, I think the optimal level is 17, just look at it, at lvl 17 you can use all the weapons + armor from the item packs and since the maximal lvl requirement is 16 you can use any item and have any ability you like. Also the extra ability points will come in handy, e.g. for a DW Hawke:

DW Hawke: 8 points into Dual Wield (everything exept the backstab upgrades), 5 into Duelist (upgraded Vendetta), 5 into Shadow (up to Shadow Veil) and Blindside + Speed, that's 20 talent points, 17 + 3 tomes.

Aveline: 2 for upgraded Shield Bash, 2 for upgraded Pommel Strike, 6 into Vanguard (to have upgraded Cleave + Deathblow + one upgraded Sustained), 3 into her personal tree (not sure if the usual passives or getting upgraded Bodyguard is better, I would say Bodyguard since Isabela is quite suicidal) and 4 into Battlemaster (to get upgraded rally + Battle Synergy, not sure if the last point is better of with a upgrade to Battle Synergy or Bolster, I would go for the threat upgrade), that's 17 talent points.

Fenris: 4 into his personal tree (upgraded Lyrium Ghost + Battle Tempo), 4 into Warmonger (upgraded Pommel Strike + Bravery), 3 into Warmonger (upgraded Rally) and 6 into Vanguard (same as Aveline but the upgrade goes for the other sustained), that's 17 talent points.

Isabella: 8 into Dual Wield (same as Hawke), 5 into her personal tree (All Hands on Deck + Sea Legs + Experienced Hands, 2 into Subterfuge (Chameleons Breath) + Blindside + Speed, that 17 talent points.

So now say what 3 talents could you remove?

[Dmasterman]

So now it seems there is even less of a point to gain XP or level up other than using armor or items that require a level, or gain new abilities, when the game just scales to you. So really, what's the point of leveling? One might as well stay a lower level, or Bioware should fix the scale

[Stoomkal]

For all the things that I like about DA2's new combat mechanic... this is really the *deal breaker*.

Of course alll games get harder at higher levels - especially adventure grinding games... but they get it right.

Anyone saying that it is better staying at a lower level just proves a system is broken.

I never felt instantly outclassed in DA:O from raising a level, and things got well easier with more abilities.

This company is *not*, and I repeat *not* about making *any* kind of reactive twitch-based action game... they are not even very good with basic number scaling.

They are about story. Focus on gaming simply shows how far they are behind, well... virtually everyone.

From Software have *two* titles and they put out Demon's Souls... this needed to be better at both fighting... and math!

[Sylvius the Mad]

Dmasterman wrote...

So now it seems there is even less of a point to gain XP or level up other than using armor or items that require a level, or gain new abilities, when the game just scales to you. So really, what's the point of leveling? One might as well stay a lower level, or Bioware should fix the scale

This is always the problem with level scaling.  It was best illustrated in Oblivion, where avoiding levelling even once was possible through most of the game.

[mr_afk]

I don't think you understand..
it isn't so much as the game gets 'harder' as you level up- it's that it gets 'easier' the less you level up (to an extreme level). and easier doesn't necessarily mean better; otherwise everyone would play on casual.

The game is pretty balanced such that if you level up normally the difficulty of fights will be pretty much the same. It's only if you avoid xp completely (e.g. avoid side-quests and run away from fights when possible) where you get to situations such as where you have access to relatively higher levelled weapons/armour/accessories and lower levelled enemies.
Based on the threads asking about final levels at end of acts etc, most people tend to hit the same levels suggesting that most people wouldn't encounter this 'exploit'.

But in fact, comparing the difference between levels for party setups usually favours the higher level (e.g. for speed run times). This is largely due to companions; Unlike hawke who can get away with equipping high levelled armour and having relatively high stats (due to +attributes, tomes and the fade), your companions are much closer to level of the enemies. Even their companion rings/etc from item dlc improve with level.

This means that firstly in order to get your party decked out in the abilities you want (e.g. dual haste, crowd control, CCCs etc) you need a higher level. As spirit of retribution pointed out, this only occurs at around level 17 (or imo, higher).

So it's wrong to say that the system is broken just because of the possibility of one exploit; and if you play in a party setup you will find it getting easier (better party synergy/CCCs) as you level up.


On another note, if you feel instantly outclassed when you raise a level you're doing something wrong.

[Sylvius the Mad]

mr_afk wrote...

I don't think you understand..
it isn't so much as the game gets 'harder' as you level up- it's that it gets 'easier' the less you level up (to an extreme level). and easier doesn't necessarily mean better; otherwise everyone would play on casual.

Yes, that's exactly what Oblivion does.  If you manage to avoid learning your class skills, you can gain strength in non-class skills and grow very powerful, but since you never level up the game scales enemies as if you're level 1.

I used to summon Storm Atronachs to kill mudcrabs.

[Dmasterman]

well I figure your enemies will always dish out the same percent of damage or take the same percent of damage to beat them. As long as it scales.

in DAO I believe the game didn't scale but rather everyone had a set stats (depending on the difficulty). So if you fought the Arch demon with a lower level you'd have a harder fight. But if your level was higher, it'd be either more balanced, or easier than a lower level.

[Sylvius the Mad]

DAO did scale, but everything scaled within a preset range for that area or creature, and the level of an area was set the first time you visited it, so you could see enemies far weaker than you if you happened to leave partway through and return later.

I understand why DA2 couldn't do this (because so much content was in the same areas again and again, even within the same act), so DAO style scaling would have locked in the level range of night-time Lowtown the first time you visited it in that Act, this making all of the encouters there laughably easy the next time you arrived.

Modifié par Sylvius the Mad, 19 septembre 2011 - 06:02 .

[LexXxich]

DA2 level scaling also makes for a frustratingly fast equipment decay. An expensive and powerful item with, say, "+fire resist" bought in Act 1, becomes literally useless after 5 level ups. Same with any non-leveled items and their bonuses.

[Sylvius the Mad]

But most players, I think, wouldn't be able to tell that +130 Fire Resistance is no longer useful, because the Fire Resistance scale is never shown.

[mesmerizedish]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

But most players, I think, wouldn't be able to tell that +130 Fire Resistance is no longer useful, because the Fire Resistance scale is never shown.

This. So much this.

WoW does the same thing, so people released addons that show the actual percentage change next to an item's obfuscated rating. But DAII doesn't allow for UI modding like WoW does.

Come on BioWare. There's no need for you to hide your rules from us.

[mr_afk]

If you check the resistances the percentages will show up there.

but yeah, the actual numbers are pretty meaningless when it's all relative to your level.

Modifié par mr_afk, 21 septembre 2011 - 06:52 .

[Sylvius the Mad]

ishmaeltheforsaken wrote...

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

But most players, I think, wouldn't be able to tell that +130 Fire Resistance is no longer useful, because the Fire Resistance scale is never shown.

This. So much this.

WoW does the same thing, so people released addons that show the actual percentage change next to an item's obfuscated rating. But DAII doesn't allow for UI modding like WoW does.

Come on BioWare. There's no need for you to hide your rules from us.

I understand that they don't want a mountain of complex numbers to frighten off potential players, so it makes sense not to put those numbers in the game.

But how about a manual?  A PDF manual would be more than adequate.  Most players don't read the manual anyway, so they'd never know the numbers were there.

[Wulfram]

What's particularly non intuitive is that if you do equip a resist item and check the resistances page, unless it's a chest piece you'll probably see that it's only giving you 6%, conclude that it's not very useful and probably give up on that sort of item. What's not at all clear until you try it is that if you equipped two items with that level of resistance, you'd get a very healthy 42%.

[Sylvius the Mad]

Wulfram wrote...

What's particularly non intuitive is that if you do equip a resist item and check the resistances page, unless it's a chest piece you'll probably see that it's only giving you 6%, conclude that it's not very useful and probably give up on that sort of item. What's not at all clear until you try it is that if you equipped two items with that level of resistance, you'd get a very healthy 42%.

Wait, what?  How in the world is a player supposed to know that without doing a bunch of empirical testing?

I certainly didn't know that.

[mesmerizedish]

I think it may be some logarithmic scale. Or something. I dunno. But it isn't linear, and it's not explained anywhere /rant

[Sylvius the Mad]

ishmaeltheforsaken wrote...

I think it may be some logarithmic scale. Or something. I dunno. But it isn't linear, and it's not explained anywhere /rant

If this is the game being transparent, I'd hate to see what would happen if BioWare decided they wanted to hide things from us.