Maria Caliban wrote...
This is only a problem when combat is unavoidable and lethal.
Which it generally is; while Bioware totes its games as being ‘narrative-driven’, I am sorry, but the story is still basically what it always was: creating context for combat. Cases where you can avoid combat are severely curtailed (with DA2 being worse than DA:O, off the top of my hat). And I don’t think we’re going to see non-combat solutions in RPG’s becoming popular soon…the genre is, as it always mostly was, about killing things and looting their stuff. With or without a nice narrative packaging. Personally, I wish it were otherwise.
Maria Caliban wrote...
In Alpha Protocal and Deus Ex, putting your stats into non-combat skills was as rewarding as combat skills. Yes, regular combat was harder, but there was non-combat content like sneaking, conversations, and hacking that allowed you to complete goals in more than one way.
I miss Knights of the Old Republic.
Nostalgia
But I know the feeling.
Still have to play Alpha Protocol and Deus Ex (I assume you mean the original? Or HR?).
Sylvius the Mad wrote...
…without scaling the character still has the chance to defeat the level 8 NPCs eventually. Just not at level 10.
That depends on whether you get that opportunity. Static opponents are often found in linear games, and you better hope there are other opponents, or respawning opponents, out there that will allow levelling. Then there’s the problem of loot; if the loot of opponents 3-5 levels lower than your player character is basically useless (except perhaps for a bit of money), that’s not going to please players. Not to mention the fact that players are continuously being forced to ‘move around’ the opponents they actually want to take on, making sidetrips purely for levelling purposes (effectively ‘grinding’), etc.
Anyway, my whole point is not the ‘superiority’ of level scaling vis a vis static levels or the reverse, it’s about taking care about balancing the game when you allow a high degree of character customization, which is trickier in skill-based systems compared to class-and-level systems. I want that customization, but I also appreciate that it makes things more difficult for the designers. Then again, I wish they would be a bit more ambitious in this regard and not, as some people have remarked regarding Bioware lately, merely cut gameplay elements because they can’t be bothered to work at improving them.
Vaeliorin wrote...
Scaling is only a problem when there is a lack of enemy variety…Yes, it's silly when bandits, rats or what have you scale up to ridiculous levels, and yes, "beef gates" are fun, but trivial encounters are the opposite of fun for many people. For many of us, fun comes from challenge, and when you have games that don't scale (or don't scale enough, for example KOA:R, where I reached the level cap for the second region before even leaving the first), you can fairly quickly reach a point where instead of being fun, combat simply becomes tedious. Given what a large percentage of games combat has become (which is a whole other problem), having it become unfun for a portion of your players is a bad idea.
True. I don’t have a problem with the reason behind scaling: customising combat encounters to keep them interesting and challenging. Crappy implementation is its biggest enemy.
(some food for thought:
www.truancyfactory.com/articles/levelScaling.html )
One basic problem, shared by both ‘static level encounter’ and ‘level scaling encounter’ RPG’s have is lack of variety in opponents vis a vis the amount of combat / length of the game. Pen & paper RPG’s and the larger MMO’s have a huge variety in enemies, but CRPG’s are limited by budgetary and technical restraints.
DA2 and DA:O both lost credibility, immersiveness and enjoyment because they were, in a sense, too long. They had to recycle enemies, and to be honest, the world lore, so far, doesn’t support all that many different enemies anyway.
Certainly not compared to, say, most well-fleshed out pen & paper RPG settings (in fact, at least one review of the Dragon Age pen & paper RPG commented on the pronounced lack of monster variety).
One idea for Bioware might be to add some necessary variety in DA3, but also to consistently develop new enemy types for each DLC and expansion. In the long run, they might end up with a large variety of enemies, whose models, lore and behaviour they can polish over the long run. In DA2, unfortunately, they squandered precious resources on ‘redesigning’ Darkspawn, Elves and Qunari, and giving Flemeth a Gothic S&M bondage outfit.
Realmzmaster wrote...
It is not just scaling I have a problem with. One of the reason I dislike instant health and mana regeneration is because it removes part of the challenge in low level encounters….
I agree to a point. Those instances where you character or party is attacked by normally beatable opponents while they’re badly bruised and out of arrows…and still prevail, they can be golden.
They also can be frustrating as hell. Not to mention the annoyance of having to travel back to the nearest town with a healer or store to stock up on potions, or risk camping out in the wild to heal, only to be randomly attacked during the night.
What these things do, is encourage constant saving and reloading. True, there are some diehards who embrace this kind of thing, and there are also situations where the player correctly judges the encounter to be difficult but winnable, but all too often it ends up with loading the last save.
I don’t think the automatic healing is ideal, I find it sort of immersion-breaking myself. But I also consider it ‘the lesser of two evils’. I also doubt most players these days, including many CRPG veterans, would willingly embrace the old system.
Realmzmaster wrote...
Scaling has problems. No way should a wolf scale to take on a level 20 party (a pack of wolves is a different story depending on the size of the pack). Some encounters once you level up should be a walk in the park.
I agree, but this is something that a ‘smart’, hybrid level scaling system might be able to manage. Some pre-scripted encounters should remain fixed. For instance, a notorious bandit chief that is supposed to be eliminated around level 10, retains his level and is easily dispatched when your character/party has reached level 20. His stature is no longer comparable or superior to your character, but he has become relatively small fry, and dealing with him at a higher level should reflect this.
Additionally, lower-level enemies, like bandits, should also alter their behaviour when facing your character/party, especially if ‘The Champion of X/Hero of Y/Redeemer and Saviour of the Universe Z’) has become known by reputation and looks. In essence, once they get slaughtered or recognise you, they should run for it. Same with animals that get clobbered (wolves that get slaughtered should not continue to fight 'to the end', they should yelp and run away with their tails between their legs).
There’s a little scene in the first Halo, when Master Chief has entered the crashed Pillar of Autumn I think, when you hear the little Covenant guys – once they know you are there – screaming in a panicky voice something along the line of ‘My God, he’s here, he’s heeeeere!’. That is the moment when you feel like ‘an unstoppable God-King made flesh’. That is (one of) the kind of reaction(s) I think lower-level enemies should show facing you, and that’s also why you always need some lower-level enemies to remain as opponents.
But not too many; and they should not be overtly suicidal.<_<
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