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[devSin]

Level scaling has always been fairly effective in the DA games, no? (Maybe not DA2 as much as Origins, but that was tougher because of the waves.)

In Origins, scaling is determined when an area is initialized, and locked to a certain range (a minimum and maximum level). Afterward, it never updates, so if you leave and return, everything will still be at that initial level. Additionally, there was a separate limit for individual creature types (so a critter rat could never be very high level, even if you first loaded an area at Level 20).

Consequently, in Origins, what they said about leaving and coming back would have also been true (if you go to an area and find it's too tough, leaving and returning doesn't cause any of the encounters or treasure to scale again).

[Rawgrim]

Level scaling usually dumbs games down. Hi hope they exclude it from DA:I.

[LinksOcarina]

Ziggeh wrote...

LinksOcarina wrote...

Mechanically level scaling is actually a big issue in RPGs in general. From a design standpoint, if you are doing 20 DPS to a monster at level 1, then doing 200 DPS to that same monster at level 10, and it still takes around the same amount of hits to go down, what progress is gained?

You want difficulty to remain roughly consistent throughout, so arguably progress is mostly illusion no matter what you do.

If we were all on the same page about that I would agree.

The problem is people expect to do more damage and to kill something that gave them trouble ten levels earlier. Instead, that deepstalker you fought at level 1 is still taking 3 hits to kill at level 10. The numbers become artifical and unecessary, so damage output and switching weapons and armor then becomes meaningless, in a broader sense. 

Trading your weapon that does +2 more damage doesnt change what happens. The illusion is the fact you made little progress against the deepstalkers then.

Again, sometimes this is fine, but the big issue with scaling is that since its designed to be on par with the players at all times, the players never gain pure advancement. 

The only way to work around this is to increase the DPS on the players as they level up, while maintaining or adjusting HP/Armor values for enemies. That would change it up and make it a hybrid version of scaling. 

Modifié par LinksOcarina, 14 août 2013 - 10:13 .

[Ziggeh]

LinksOcarina wrote...

If we were all on the same page about that I would agree.

The problem is people expect to do more damage and to kill something that gave them trouble ten levels earlier. Instead, that deepstalker you fought at level 1 is still taking 3 hits to kill at level 10. The numbers become artifical and unecessary, so damage output and switching weapons and armor then becomes meaningless, in a broader sense.

True, but scaling tends to be a bit more dynamic than that - simple variation (these orcs wear hats), upgrades in mob type (at level 20 they become alphas, until you're facing down a room full of Bandit Kings) or increase in numbers on spawn.

[Wulfram]

EntropicAngel wrote...

cJohnOne wrote...

But no level scaling should limit the zones you can do first instead of being able to pick and choose which treaties you could do.

How so? It only means that they are harder--tougher. It doesn't mean you can't do them.

Well, that depends on how they set things up.  In SW:tOR, say, you can go about 4 levels ahead, but go to 5 and you basically miss all the time.  Hard to assess for DA2 since we never played it without level scaling, but I'd think it would be crazy difficult to fight more than a few levels behind in that, since stuff like damage scaled quite dramatically there. DA:O, well I know I bounced off the Dalish quests when I went there first in my first game, which I'm not sure is desirable - particularly since there wasn't much to tell me that this was a case of it being for higher level characters rather than just my character's build sucking.

I'd also say that even if it's possible to do something "out of order", it can be rather unfun since you're going from difficult slog to ridiculously easy.  Though if they're smart they'll give you (for example) two options of level 10 quests, rather than one option of 8 and one option of 12, which would mitigate that issue a bit.

Ideally, they'll keep the power disparity between levels to a minimum and in that case the lack of level scaling can be excellent.  But it could also be just annoying if they don't.

Modifié par Wulfram, 14 août 2013 - 11:00 .

[Lokiwithrope]

I heard that monsters, or at least dragons, will not scale and will be much more powerful than you at the beginning of the game. They made the example of a level 13 so-and-so fighting a Level 99 High Dragon, you just can't do it.

Which raises two questions, how high can we level and what classifies as a monster?

[LinksOcarina]

Lokiwithrope wrote...

I heard that monsters, or at least dragons, will not scale and will be much more powerful than you at the beginning of the game. They made the example of a level 13 so-and-so fighting a Level 99 High Dragon, you just can't do it.

Which raises two questions, how high can we level and what classifies as a monster?

Probably only level 25-30 like the other games. As for how high the enemies are...id assume it would be similar to the dragons in origin and dragon age two, which are always higher levels than you are to begin with.

That is honestly nothing new. The difference here is the possabilitiy of enemies being higher levels and "roaming" in the sense of being on the map for you to fight. That throws a wrinkle in things in a good way. 

[Maria Caliban]

As a completionist, I prefer limited level scaling. Even if the general world doesn't scale, I'd like 'important battles' to have some challenge at the end of the game.

That's difficult when the game has to accommodate people who've picked up every codex, done every side quest, and explored every random ruin, as well as people who do almost no exploration or side quests.

[crimzontearz]

it will not bother be if there is NG+


But at this point is less and less likely....sighs

[Zjarcal]

fchopin wrote...

I want to control how my character levels up, if i want to fight a monster that kills me every time that should be up to me.

I don’t want to play combat like DA2, ME2 and ME3 where you just point a gun and shoot everything with your eyes closed. Any 5 year old can do that.

DAO was just as easy as those games.

I hate roflstomping through areas, which is why I didn't like how it was handled in DAO. Leave some areas for last (Redcliffe, the Circle, or Haven) and they are so painfully easy it's not even funny.

Personally I would prefer something like, dynamic scaling but with certainy areas having a minimum level requirement, just so that there would still be that sense of "oh sh!t, this area is probably too hard for now".

However I NEVER want to be overleveled, ugh.

Modifié par Zjarcal, 15 août 2013 - 11:03 .

[Sylvius the Mad]

Maria Caliban wrote...

As a completionist, I prefer limited level scaling. Even if the general world doesn't scale, I'd like 'important battles' to have some challenge at the end of the game.

As a completionist, I prefer no level scaling.  If I've scrounged every last XP in the game, I'd like to be rewarded by having 'important battles' be less challenging at the end of the game.

[In Exile]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

As a completionist, I prefer no level scaling.  If I've scrounged every last XP in the game, I'd like to be rewarded by having 'important battles' be less challenging at the end of the game.

The problem with that is that the world stands still while you do it. 

[Sylvius the Mad]

Zjarcal wrote...

I hate roflstomping through areas

That can easily be avoided just by having a shallower overall power curve (like BG).

Leave some areas for last (Redcliffe, the Circle, or Haven) and they are so painfully easy it's not even funny.

I personally really enjoy that.

However I NEVER want to be overleveled, ugh.

I want ALWAYS to have the opportunity to be overleveled or underleveled, based on my previous decisions.

The in-game reality should not warp to suit me.

[Sylvius the Mad]

In Exile wrote...

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

As a completionist, I prefer no level scaling.  If I've scrounged every last XP in the game, I'd like to be rewarded by having 'important battles' be less challenging at the end of the game.

The problem with that is that the world stands still while you do it.

Shouldn't it?

The distribution of levels within the population of bandits should be roughly static.  Sure, some will grow stronger, but others will die or retire, and new inexperienced bandits will enter the ranks.

Modifié par Sylvius the Mad, 15 août 2013 - 11:19 .

[Sylvianus]

It depends how it is done. It can be bad. Dragon dogma was unplayable. There were many areas where monsters were thousand times better than my hero. Even after I trained him a while, it wasn't enough.

How many times I wondered : " How could I achieve my mission, if can't even travel this plain ? How can I reach my destination ? "

" - Okay, I will try another mission then. What the hell ? Here too I am too weak compared to the monsters. "

Yeah. No. Not really good.I quickly gave up the damn game, besides quite uninteresting.

Modifié par Sylvianus, 15 août 2013 - 11:20 .

[In Exile]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...
The distribution of levels within the population of bandits should be roughly static.  Sure, some will grow stronger, but others will die or retire, and new inexperienced bandits will enter the ranks.

I don't mean the enemies - that makes sense. Rather, the problem is that the antagonists stay fixed in time and wait for you to get stronger by murdering wild boards, for example. 

In an RPG, more strength = more time off the beaten path to explore, find treasure, etc. but that nebulous amount of time doesn't actually translate back into things changing for the antagonist. 

Any rational person would take the time to do all of the quests to reduce the difficulty of the main encounter, because the game stands still. 

[In Exile]

Sylvianus wrote...

It depends how it is done. It can be bad. Dragon dogma was unplayable. There were many areas where monsters were thousand times better than my hero. Even after I trained him a while, it wasn't enough.

How many times I wondered : " How could I achieve my mission, if can't even travel this plain ? How can I reach my destination ? "

" - Okay, I will try another mission then. What the hell ? Here too I am too weak compared to the monsters. "

Yeah. No. Not really good.I quickly gave up the damn game, besides quite uninteresting.

Gating is a very old technique. I think it's comical because of how linear it makes the game (depending on how extreme it is), but I can't see why it makes the game uninteresting. 

[Sylvianus]

In Exile wrote...

Sylvianus wrote...

It depends how it is done. It can be bad. Dragon dogma was unplayable. There were many areas where monsters were thousand times better than my hero. Even after I trained him a while, it wasn't enough.

How many times I wondered : " How could I achieve my mission, if can't even travel this plain ? How can I reach my destination ? "

" - Okay, I will try another mission then. What the hell ? Here too I am too weak compared to the monsters. "

Yeah. No. Not really good.I quickly gave up the damn game, besides quite uninteresting.

Gating is a very old technique. I think it's comical because of how linear it makes the game (depending on how extreme it is), but I can't see why it makes the game uninteresting. 

I only found it uninteresting because of other factors like the story for example, but I have nothing in particular against no level scaling. I just want it to be done carefully.  But the fact that I felt it was unplayable was still the source of my will to give up, taking into account the other factors as well. 

Modifié par Sylvianus, 15 août 2013 - 11:31 .

[In Exile]

EntropicAngel wrote...
It could be argued that the antagonist has no reason to improve, at least in games where the antagonist underestimates the protagonist or doesn't know about them (DA:O, DA ][).

I apologize if I wasn't clear. I didn't mean that the antagonist should get stronger. I mean that the antagonist should advance his plan.

If I spend all of DA:O murdering bears in the Brecillian Forest so I can get to level 100, Loghain should be winning the civil war and massacring his enemies while the Blight ravages the land and the mages get turned into abominations. 

[Milan92]

No level scaling please, none what so ever. Let me be the overpowered overleveled character that beats everything with a click and a whistle.