I need to vent from this game and take a break. Several pages of ranting in a multiple paged thread seems a good place to hide it.
Level scaling sucks, it's actually killing all CRPGs. But it's what everyone expects now to be in their video games. When you post about it a game's forums mostly everyone will be biased towards the game and not defend any creativity or reasonability. I've excused it until now, but due to a quest event this scaling won't let me proceed as I'm fighting a scaled full party encounter with no option for having all four members. Reloading the save over and traveling again and again would not avoid the random encounter. I found a non-roleplaying work around by traveling to my camp instead of the destination the story pressed. Yes, I found a way to weasel around it, but I hate having to break roleplay elements every time the game has some flaw.
Leveled encounters with no plot element completely defy what a roleplaying game should be to me. You kill the quest boss in a challenging and rewarding battle. Next is a random encounter that turns out more difficult than that boss battle. Too many games do this thing where the story goes “oh there are no NPC warriors that can match the doom we face, we need the protagonist to save us.” Yet whenever you have to fight the rogue guardsmen or the random bandits they always end up being overpowering and annoyingly catch you at a point where you weren't ready and don't have a convenient load point. Sure, just say “oh you suck at video games, quit whining” but if there are ample challenging opponents like this how is that convincing me about the plot where I'm the saviour protagonist warlord?
In Dragon Age when I analyze the numbers the game gives you such as 'damage' and 'hitpoints' then look at the opponents it makes me wonder why it was even designed this way. If Morrigan dies in a couple hits, why do enemy mages take at least a dozen? The numbers pop up saying how much damage they take. So those enemy mages just get to have nearly a thousand hitpoints just because I'm a particular level in the game? Opponents aren't created as "characters" using the same restrictions and rules that yours faces, something DnD games did. A boss warrior will still be a warrior, but probably have thousands upon thousands of hitpoints to simply be "oh, a challenge."
The DnD ruleset of the Baldur's Gate games made a bit more sense. Rather than "diablo-ize" all the stats and items where they just increase to no end, it had chance to hit and hit points as the reward for higher levels. Its quantizing of abilities like strength and dexterity as fixed values let you compare characters to each other in a more "realistic" way. An obvious example of how Dragon Age has followed all the other “CRPGs” would be when I first got Shale my dwarven warrior had much higher strength and constitution at around the same level. In BG it would be just like 18/91 vs 23 or something. The golem should clearly always be stronger by its nature. In Dragon Age to me it feels like none of the statistics really define your character, they're all just numbers to show off your combat prowess. If my warrior's strength is higher than Shale does that mean I could beat it in a wrestling match? Or why do swords of certain materials only need 18 strength, but another will need well over 30? So you have to become twice as strong to use it? It sounds more like you just need to be skilled enough to handle that sword and not tire from it. The superior materials are supposed to lessen its weight anyhow. It's sounds like strength (like all the others) is just a stat for “we don't want you wearing that armor or using that weapon yet because it would be over powered and rather than having you not discover it yet or a having creative story we're simply going diablo on you because it makes game design easy and appeases the casual gamers with abundant new goodies.” I remember when it was like “a +2 longsword!? Kick ass!” and then you either got tons of gold selling it or used it. Alas, even DnD now has strayed from a fixed ability system with later editions. I guess the more you can boost various numbers around the more a general audience can find appeal. +1 to dexterity in BG meant quite a lot.
“It's just a game. It's just a game. It's just a game. It's just a game.” That's telling me “what is so should remain so simply because it is so already.” I know that's some form of fallacy but can't say which. “Fallacies? It's a game.” Yes, I heard that already, I guess you don't have the intelligence to consider game design or even be willing to ponder it a moment but will speak on it anyhow. Having pride over how easy the game is for you no-matter-what won't excuse the point I'm making about the roleplaying portions.
Dragon Age has rough design for a wider appeal (like all games co-released on PC and console now) but is still a solid well polished game worth playing. I blame all of Dragon Age's faults on what the times today have done to all video games. Remember when they were involving enough that you cared about memorizing people and places that there didn't need to be big glowing markers floating around? Oh you can turn it off, but the game was designed around those, it would be going out of spec with it and make it more frustrating. I'm criticizing it because I thought about it, not that I'm lazy. It's still a game and has to be played the way it was designed. Chests don't have to sparkle, but there's no “search room” button that has you proceed to open every possible container in the room and display animations for all of it so you're actually doing it. Even if there was the game still has no time constraints for doing that. You could spend days glancing at all the book bindings in the mage tower if you wanted to role play that as a thorough search. Books were done well though, you have to “look around” with your mouse cursor as if you're actually browsing the covers and pages since they don't sparkle.
I'm hoping this shows some of us actually do have a great deal to discuss when we say “leveled encounters suck.” Even though I'm intelligent enough to scratch the surface by expressing myself about it, I still know I'm being foolish thinking everyone else would care or have the attention span to even bother with my details as well as agreeing with me. That is why from the start I admitted I am venting and not really engaging into back and forth conversation about this. I'm aware most people will not care to agree, understand, or even read my over analytical opinions probably because they don't want video games to require them to think anymore. If I can't change the path “rpg” labeled video games have taken I can still **** about it at least. Point whoring with spells, swords and story is what they really are.
I feel like I should be mentioning again I do like this game Dragon Age, but the experiences in it that have brought me the most enjoyment are all possible within the infinity engine.
Modifié par Auzner, 31 décembre 2009 - 10:00 .
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...and the sides qusts)....or incredibly stupide easy games like Assasin creed 1 and 2....does games (even if graphics are top and gameplay is good) are a total joke!
but this stands out to me. It's like old/er people saying: "These kids today! In my times, when I was young .. " which maybe "true" from their point of view, but does have a little chance of stopping the world from rolling. 
