49 réponses à ce sujet

[Sylvius the Mad]

So you would have either

A. main quest becomes too easy for people who explore the world;
B. main quest is incredibly difficult, but good balance for people who explore the world; or
C. exploring the world does not progress your character?

D. A much shallower power curve, with exponential XP progression to help bootstrap those who fall behind the curve.

[Fast Jimmy]

D. A much shallower power curve, with exponential XP progression to help bootstrap those who fall behind the curve.

I once suggested an exponential XP curve based not on the character's level, but how effective they were in combat. If you were five levels below your enemy but still defeated them easily (with a ratio of damage dealt vs. damage taken, possibly), you wouldn't get much more experience than normal. However, if you were five levels above an enemy but were getting smashed, you would get the XP bonus.

In theory, it would encourage sub-optimal builds and experimentation, which level scaling actively DISCOURAGES, simply because it hangs difficulty solely on the level of your character. And while it would be possibly vulnerable to exploitation with players intetnionally take more damage for the XP bonus, I think DA:I's hesling system of limited potions and no full HP regen would be an effective deterent.

But back on topic - level scaling, as pointed out earlier, can be manual. Its entirely possible Laidlaw stated that they scaled the enemies' strength in the main campaign manually (and not set it to change based on the player level) based on how much side content they assumed someone may have completed.

So I think the quote provided in ths stream may be a little too ambiguous to interpret easily.

[RedIntifada]

In one of the videos Cameron mentioned soft leveling ie if you are level 20, going around killing level 5 bandits will no longer offer xp. This is important as it limits the tendency to grind low level enemies just so you can have am easy time in the story so presumably if you run around doing all the low level side quests you still shouldn't be too far in advance of the leveling range.

[SomeoneStoleMyName]

This scaling thing is kinda depressing. I really fear that as a completionist, I will out-level a lot of content.
But level scaling is bad. So it IS the lesser evil.

[Telomen]

I remember that a great part of the world has to be unlocked by advancing in the Mainquest. So at any given time there is only a well know number of sidequest and exploration the Character could do. Therefor it seems to be possible to scale all the encounters in the mainquest to a specific levelrange.

 

Out of the head example: When you reach skyhold and therefor have unlocked 2 more areas, your character can be as low as level 5 (no sidequest just mainquest) or as high as lvel 10 (all poosible exploration an sidequest done in all 4 reachable areas)

 

Maybe that´s is what he is talking about and the way scaling works in DA:I

[naughty99]

I remember that a great part of the world has to be unlocked by advancing in the Mainquest. So at any given time there is only a well know number of sidequest and exploration the Character could do. Therefor it seems to be possible to scale all the encounters in the mainquest to a specific levelrange.
 
Out of the head example: When you reach skyhold and therefor have unlocked 2 more areas, your character can be as low as level 5 (no sidequest just mainquest) or as high as lvel 10 (all poosible exploration an sidequest done in all 4 reachable areas)

I suppose that's the concern, if enemy scaling doesn't go very far for higher level characters, this would suggest either certain parts of the main quest might be too easy, or if it is as you describe, then the open world areas could be rather limited in terms of the number of emergent encounters, and how much you can simply wander off the beaten path.

When the emergent systems work well in open world sandbox games like Skyrim, you never reach a point where you have "cleared" The Rift, for example. You don't reach a point where you are wandering the entire area and everything is dead, so there are no more encounters, or none of the enemies provide experience/gold anymore.

I'm hoping there is a wide range of possible levels the Inquisitor might be at various stages of the main quest. This would mean you can get sidetracked and do your own thing perhaps almost indefinitely. One of the developers commented that if you clear an area of demons, then bandits may spawn in the same area if you go back. I've seen encounters with enemies of varying levels in the same area, as well as random encounters of bandits fighting bears, giants fighting dragons, etc., which are hopefully good signs that we won't reach a point where a zone is completely empty and there is nothing to do there anymore.

[Fast Jimmy]

In one of the videos Cameron mentioned soft leveling ie if you are level 20, going around killing level 5 bandits will no longer offer xp. This is important as it limits the tendency to grind low level enemies just so you can have am easy time in the story so presumably if you run around doing all the low level side quests you still shouldn't be too far in advance of the leveling range.

This is great news. Limiting the ability to infinitely farm weak enemies is the only way to introduce threats to the player that can't be overcome at early parts of the game.

[naughty99]

This is great news. Limiting the ability to infinitely farm weak enemies is the only way to introduce threats to the player that can't be overcome at early parts of the game.

It would be one thing if there are various lower and higher level enemies in a large zone, with some enemies respawning, different enemies moving in if you leave and return etc., and quite something else entirely if you reach level 8 and then suddenly there is nothing else to do in the Hinterlands, for example.

That's the approach Elder Scrolls Online took and it seemed quite strange when every enemy in an area suddenly stopped providing XP or loot. It makes the zones and the world feel a lot more linear.

[Fast Jimmy]

It would be one thing if there are various lower and higher level enemies in a large zone, with some enemies respawning, different enemies moving in if you leave and return etc., and quite something else entirely if you reach level 8 and then suddenly there is nothing else to do in the Hinterlands, for example.

That's the approach Elder Scrolls Online took and it seemed quite strange when every enemy in an area suddenly stopped providing XP or loot. It makes the zones and the world feel a lot more linear.

Its better than bandits being equipped woth Daedric armor. Or dragons being slayed with a half naked level 5 character. Or the character able to beat any enemy they come across in general.

[Sylvius the Mad]

Or dragons being slayed with a half naked level 5 character. Or the character able to beat any enemy they come across in general.

I think those options should be available to players.

Normally I would advocate the use of mods to achieve it, but given Frostbite there's extra pressure on the developers to accommodate different gameplay preferences.

[Fast Jimmy]

I think those options should be available to players.

Normally I would advocate the use of mods to achieve it, but given Frostbite there's extra pressure on the developers to accommodate different gameplay preferences.

Maybe I should have amended that to say "easily." In DA2, you never encountered a single enemy thaf you weren't supposed to be able to be powerful enough to kill. That isn't good design, IMO.

[Aurok]

I wish you could have this as a menu setting. I know a lot of people want no scaling at all, but if I could set it to scale UP (but never down) then I would do so every time.

 

I don't find blowing through enemies I've levelled past to be any fun at all. I also don't think it makes a lot of sense in any regard. It doesn't make sense for gameplay or for 'lore' reasons. Your companions' durability and fighting skills might improve a bit over the course of the game, but not to anything like the extent that a 'no scaling' levelling system tends to imply.

 

I don't think that giving an abstract game concept (levelling) absolute priority - to the detriment of both gameplay and world integrity - is the right way to go.

[naughty99]

Maybe I should have amended that to say "easily." In DA2, you never encountered a single enemy thaf you weren't supposed to be able to be powerful enough to kill. That isn't good design, IMO.

Don't know about the other difficulty settings, but for me DA2 had pretty good balance on Nightmare for the most part. DA:O Nightmare was a cakewalk compared to DA2. My party wiped over and over with some of the encounters in DA2.

The reason you never encountered enemies that were impossible to kill (other than the Ancient Rock Wraith), was because it was such a linear game, the devs could predict almost exactly how powerful you would be at various stages of the main quest.

With Inquisition they have introduced this open world sandbox aspect with more emergent encounters. If these work well, there will be a wide range of lower level and higher level Inquisitors at various stages of the main quest.

[Sylvius the Mad]

Maybe I should have amended that to say "easily." In DA2, you never encountered a single enemy thaf you weren't supposed to be able to be powerful enough to kill. That isn't good design, IMO.

No argument there.

[naughty99]

D. A much shallower power curve, with exponential XP progression to help bootstrap those who fall behind the curve.

 

Can you explain a bit more?

[Fandango]

I was under the impression that there would be no level scaling in the game. Could someone at BioWare please confirm?

[efd731]

there is no level scaling in the exploration areas. however the main levels have a small range that they will scale between ie 12-15. so if youre a little low levelled you'll be able to complete it without over much grinding, and if you're a little over levelled i assume they just wanted to make it so you can't simply faceroll through the campaign levels.

[Sylvius the Mad]

Can you explain a bit more?

Okay, so the exponential XP progression makes it easier to catch up if you fall behind in levels. I've often suggested it to solve the problem of unused companions gaining XP inexplicably. If each level you gain requires twice the total XP of the previous level, then you can always get amy level 1 character to your own level minus 1 by adventuring with him for a single level.

It would look something like this (the numbers are arbitrary, only the ratios between them matter):

Level 1 - 0 xp
Level 2 - 1000 xp
Level 3 - 2000 xp
Level 4 - 4000 xp
Level 5 - 8000 xp
Level 6 - 16000 xp
Level 7 - 32000 xp

So, if you're level 1, gaining 16000 xp gets you to level 7; but if you're level 7 already, it would get you only to level 8.

Relevant to this discussion, it would diminish the benefit of farming low-level enemies without the need for artificial restrictions.

For the shallower power curve, make the difference in power between the start and end of the game smaller. Imagine if you started DAO at the equivalent of level 10, but finished at level 15 (no matter how many actual levels there are between those power levels). Then, whether the game was scaled would matter much less, because you at the end of the game is only moderately more powerful than you were at the beginning.

Since I prefer low-level gameplay, I would rather the range be something more like 1-8, but I don't expect that would be popular.

[naughty99]

there is no level scaling in the exploration areas. however the main levels have a small range that they will scale between ie 12-15. so if youre a little low levelled you'll be able to complete it without over much grinding, and if you're a little over levelled i assume they just wanted to make it so you can't simply faceroll through the campaign levels.

 

Are you certain the scaling is limited to such a small range for every stage of the main quest? Was there some interview with a developer that mentioned this?

 

That very small range sounds much more appropriate for the range of levels the player might be in DA2 main quest, rather than DA:I.

 

In DA2, which has perhaps the most linear character progression among recent RPGs, when you reach Stage X of the main quest, you might be level 12, or you might be level 14, but you won't be higher or lower. The difference in level between someone who did every single optional side quest, killed every possible spawning street thug, etc., and someone who did just the essential quest lines is pretty small. 

 

In Dragon Age Inquisition, however, at various stages of the main quest there is hopefully going to be a rather wide range of where the player might be, not only in terms of level but also equipment, etc. 

 

One player might do no crafting, explore very little and just power through the story, while another player might be doing hundreds of side quests, exploring every inch of all these huge open world areas, crafting all kinds of modified armor and weapons, etc. Others might do parts of the main quest, then go back and explore huge areas they skipped, and then return to the main quest, etc.

 

And if we can continue playing the game after the main quest is over, this suggests these open world areas are not going to be cleared and then suddenly there are never enemies to fight in these zones again. I'd hope the emergent encounters and random events continue indefinitely as long as you want to continue playing the game.

[efd731]

Are you certain the scaling is limited to such a small range for every stage of the main quest? Was there some interview with a developer that mentioned this?

 

That very small range sounds much more appropriate for the range of levels the player might be in DA2 main quest, rather than DA:I.

 

In DA2, which has perhaps the most linear character progression among recent RPGs, when you reach Stage X of the main quest, you might be level 12, or you might be level 14, but you won't be higher or lower. The difference in level between someone who did every single optional side quest, killed every possible spawning street thug, etc., and someone who did just the essential quest lines is pretty small. 

 

In Dragon Age Inquisition, however, at various stages of the main quest there is hopefully going to be a rather wide range of where the player might be, not only in terms of level but also equipment, etc. 

 

One player might do no crafting, explore very little and just power through the story, while another player might be doing hundreds of side quests, exploring every inch of all these huge open world areas, crafting all kinds of modified armor and weapons, etc. Others might do parts of the main quest, then go back and explore huge areas they skipped, and then return to the main quest, etc.

 

And if we can continue playing the game after the main quest is over, this suggests these open world areas are not going to be cleared and then suddenly there are never enemies to fight in these zones again. I'd hope the emergent encounters and random events continue indefinitely as long as you want to continue playing the game.

that was the level range iirc of a main mission that was shown in a stream. when you select it at the war table it shows the level range along with the mission dscription.

[efd731]

and that makes total sense, because if you want to totally overlevel you can, but the enemies won't scale down, meaning having a recommended level to start at is pretty much a must.

[naughty99]

Anyone who has played the game able to comment on how the scaling works for main quest?

 

If you ignore the main quest for a long time do you become way overleveled for the next part of MQ? Also do you get to a point where the open world areas eventually stop spawning enemies, or all the enemies are too easy / no longer drop loot, etc?

[Lennard Testarossa]

I wish you could have this as a menu setting. I know a lot of people want no scaling at all, but if I could set it to scale UP (but never down) then I would do so every time.

 

I don't find blowing through enemies I've levelled past to be any fun at all. I also don't think it makes a lot of sense in any regard. It doesn't make sense for gameplay or for 'lore' reasons. Your companions' durability and fighting skills might improve a bit over the course of the game, but not to anything like the extent that a 'no scaling' levelling system tends to imply.

 

I don't think that giving an abstract game concept (levelling) absolute priority - to the detriment of both gameplay and world integrity - is the right way to go.

 

If the power progression curve for leveling massively breaks the lore, which does very often happen in rpgs, then the solution to that is not to arbitrarily raise the level of enemies to your own and thereby break the lore twice in a row. The solution is to make the power progression curve not break the lore in the first place.

There is no reason why what level ups should do, e.g. to give you new active and passive abilities, has to be accompanied by massive gains in absolute numbers of things like hp or damage.

 

Also regarding power progression curves in general, I find that the people who design game systems seem to fail to understand that linear attribute curves do not lead to linear power progression.

[lyin321]

...can't they simple give us a challenges that doesn't need level scaling? This way we will not have the silly things of DAO - characters that can easily kill the archdemon (Ser Cauthrien) or even worse: simple bandits or guardsmen that leave you wondering why you are even bothering and why the game lie to you that you are needed when they can go and battle (and win) vs the main disaster (darkspawn in that case)....

Basically I want my inquisitor at one point to simly stop worrying/be free to ignore when he/she encounter bandits and such. 

 

...and it doesn't really break my 'realism' of the settings since DAO is fantasy world where one man/woman can be alot stronger than the other and not just skilled (as in our world)....and that disregards mages and magic.

[naughty99]

...can't they simple give us a challenges that doesn't need level scaling? This way we will not have the silly things of DAO - characters that can easily kill the archdemon (Ser Cauthrien) or even worse: simple bandits or guardsmen that leave you wondering why you are even bothering and why the game lie to you that you are needed when they can go and battle (and win) vs the main disaster (darkspawn in that case)....

Basically I want my inquisitor at one point to simly stop worrying/be free to ignore when he/she encounter bandits and such. 
 
...and it doesn't really break my 'realism' of the settings since DAO is fantasy world where one man/woman can be alot stronger than the other and not just skilled (as in our world)....and that disregards mages and magic.

Well, there are certainly going to be some combat encounters during the main quest, and if someone has spent a lot of time exploring the world, they will likely be significantly higher level than someone who just plows through the MQ as quickly as possible.

Hopefully someone who has played the game can now weigh in and provide us with some feedback about how much you can ignore the MQ, whether enemies continue to respawn in open world areas, etc.