97 réponses à ce sujet

[BLOOD LORDS]

So on my first playthrough I ended up being level 20 before I started the Grey Warden part of the story quest which as i remember recommended 13-15. This game at hard has become trivial, and the loot is awful always far behind my level. I know it's ruined for this playthrough, but I am wondering how others avoided this.

I did all of the companion quests, because I know that bioware if fond of locking you out of doing them if you do too much story. I went to most of the areas I unlocked and if I saw something cool like a tomb puzzle or a dragon, or even just something neat on the horizon I dealt with it. I only completed one of the maps, the draconology one (I forget the name) and made no effort to 'grind' or do so. I have only killed four or five dragons.

Are we supposed to not do companion quests, not kill dragons, and not explore areas fixing the messes we find? How am I supposed to be playing to not outlevel the story? It seems like I have to miss out on things and just leave it all for later.

Honestly it's just a pity the story doesn't scale the enemies and loot up if you are over the max reccomended level.

[luckyloser_62]

I ran into the same problem in my first playthough. I was level 23 when I finished the game, I killed all ten dragons, but didn't do all of the companion quests. I don't feel like I even scratched the surface of what there was to do, but I was leveling too fast for a lot of the end content to feel challenging. I am about to start a nightmare run, maybe that will help some. 

[BLOOD LORDS]

It a big oversight on Bioware's part. Did they not expect people to explore, help companions and kill dragons as they played the story?

[Sevitan7]

The only thing you can really do is go to each region in a specific order. Well, level doesn't matter nearly as much as gear. You're not really out leveling content, just out gearing it. If you want the game not to be a complete faceroll you have to put limitations on yourself in how you play the game.

 

Of course, some of us might find that unacceptable and poor design.

[Joxer]

With the amount of trashmob respawns (endless!) it's impossible not to outlevel everything at a certain point.

[BLOOD LORDS]

It's not too bad for the open world, but knowing that that awesome temple you just found will have no good loot is rather disheartening. The loot in this game seems awful in general. I only use found staffs because they often look great, and good staff schematics have eluded me thus far.

However as far as the story is concerned it is poor design. I was hardly afraid when I learnt I was to fight an army of level 15 daemons... as a level 21. Your foes become a joke.

It seems like Bioware didn't expect people to sink 60-80 hours into a playthrough... oh wait they did because they advertised the game as being really long and having a ton of stuff to do. No idea why they seemed to design the story's level system without that in mind.

[Madrict]

I agree, the main story areas at least should always scale to player level.

 

I am now 20/21 on nightmare and everything is pretty easy, absolutely no sense of threat from enemies

 

I thought I was playing on nightmare for a reason (I love difficult games), but it is not that hard later on. In the beginning it is tough, but get a few items and levels etc and it becomes easy. Enemies on nightmare at least need to scale!

[Vexed Forest]

I was UNDER levelled when I did the grey wardens. Not sure what I did different.

[iheartbob]

I'm pretty sure it has a lot to do with how involved you become in helping the various open world regions. I'm playing on Hard right now and just got to Skyhold, leveling up from Level 11 to 12. I completed the main quest-lines in the Hinterlands (helping the refugees, Redcliffe village and securing the Horse Master), I've opened two doors in the fire path of the temple in the Oasis, found the 4 Warden camps on the Storm Coast and freed the Ferelden Soldiers in the Follow Mire.

 

The assault on Haven was a sufficient challenge for me, used up all of my potions before resupplying at the supply cache right before Fiona arrived.

 

I think the order in which you explore the regions and the amount of work you put into the quests has a significant affect on how under or over leveled you are.

 

I remember feeling underleveled on Normal during my first play through when I visited Emprise de Celine, but I did that one before the Hissing Wastes and Crestwood. Consequently, when I finally got the Crestwood at level 19 ... I was way over leveled.

 

I also waited to do most of the dragons towards the end of the game, which isn't difficult to do when most of them require unlocking areas that require war table operations.

 

The key to not over leveling is probably just ... ignore that completionist mindset that has you chasing every single little objective in each region. My rule of thumb is: travel to new area, uncover the main issue (i.e. take out the Freeman Army operations in the Emerald Graves) and close all the fade rifts in the area (which makes complete sense for RP reasons as you are the only one who can do this) ... then leave the area. I generally return if I want some easier content or if I have a limited amount of time to play and just want to aimlessly explore for a bit.

[BLOOD LORDS]

Thing is, I don't have a completionist attitude. I'll be sent off to find a wyvrn heart and there will just happen to be a lot of stuff going on on the way. I'd literally run into a dragon, or a camp of undead, or a tomb complex think 'this looks cool' and deal with it. The areas are very dense, the only time I have ever gone and tried to close all the rifts is when I was farming for mats not make runes.

It's very hard to take a stroll in thedas without something eventful happening it seems. Plus if the quest looks like it offers a cutscene and/or dialogue choices I am going to do it. This is the only game I actually like the lore for. I am keen to hear what Solas has to say about the elven ruin, I actually want to know what the notes and codex entires say. The knowledge that I gather influences how I behave to the different characters in the game, I try to make informed practical decistions that conform mostly with my character's background and moral compass.

It seems that the solution really is just to play less of the game, or pay the price of the combat becoming trivial. Maybe I should just play with Blackwall. Rock it dynamic duo style. That only seems like it would take longer for encounters, not increase the threat. I guess I have just become to spoilt with PvP (mainly Guild Wars 2) and forgottern that PvE games are built to be beaten. You don't have to outplay them, you just have to figure out mechanics (not the same thing. if you can figure out how to generate guard efficiently for a warrior you will never lose. How you kill becomes just about saving time at that point.).

[AlexMBrennan]

Are we supposed to not do companion quests, not kill dragons, and not explore areas fixing the messes we find? How am I supposed to be playing to not outlevel the story? It seems like I have to miss out on things and just leave it all for later.

Essentially, yes - most of the areas a optional (you spend like 5min in the Hinterlands, 5min in Crestwood, 5min in the Storm Coast, and 20min in the Western Approach and are never given any reason to set foot in The Spire, Emprise, Exalted Plains, Emerald Graves or the Hissing Wastes), and it's mathematically impossible to avoid since the quests appropriate for level  5-10, say, will give you too much XP and take you out of that range.

 

Inherently that's not necessarily a bad thing (think about it - most of Skyrim's dungeons are optional, and you'd be utterly bored if you decided to clear every last cave)... but if you combine that with no/limited level scaling you end up with some players outlevelling content, or putting players favouring a more direct approach into unwinnable fights. 

Of these two bad options, Bioware picked the less bad one (imagine if you had to complete all the Hinterland quests before you could take on the enemies in Val Royeaux, and then all of Stormcoast quests before you could beat the templar/mage mission... Do you see anyone finishing the game like that?)

 

Simply put, if you make a game where 80% of the content is completely optional then you need wider level scaling (e.g. templar/mage mission needs to scale 4-11 because you can get there at level 4 if you rush it, but get to level 10 or so if you fully explore the areas unlocked at this point)

Edit to add: Lower bound is maybe more acceptable as long as it's reasonable (e.g. do side quests until you've gained another level or two) but ideally I'd like a in-story justification instead of metagaming like running around in the wastes killing random stuff until the hero has levelled up enough to take on the next boss.

 

If you really want a fix, you could look into using a memory editor (e.g. cheatengine) to freeze XP while doing side quests (e.g. do Hinterlands, then freeze XP whilst you do the Spire and Stormcoast), then unfreeze when you do the next main quest

 

 

 

I think the order in which you explore the regions and the amount of work you put into the quests has a significant affect on how under or over leveled you are.

But the side quests have limited enemy levelling - if you wait until you're level 20 to finish the Hinterlands, you'll still be facing lvl 3 templars.

Think about it like this - your levels are a 1l bottle, a 2l bottle, a 3l bottle and a 4l bottle. There is no way you can put 15l into these four bottles regardless of the order.

[HozzMidnight]

Epic fail Bioware.  A lot of your playerbase goes after every quest, explores every corner of the map.  Your game punishes them for doing so, in the long run.  This situation is, IMO, another consequence of developing for the console first and porting to the PC later.

[Skeevley]

Honestly it's just a pity the story doesn't scale the enemies and loot up if you are over the max reccomended level.

 

Well, a LOT of people don't like this in RPGs, I think mostly because it doesn't make sense story-wise. I don't hate it - I've seen it work OK on occasion, but mostly, for RPGs, I like it if I run into an encounter too hard to handle and have to retreat and go back later. Unfortunately that also leads to areas being too easy. Fallout 3, for example, became an absolute blast once you got the "unleveled lists" setup. Suddenly, instead of what was basically a walk in the post-apocalyptic park, you would run into situations far, far to dangerous for you to handle (yet) and had to run like the devil, or hide, or something, anything, to get out of the situation. I think that's the overall preference for RPGs (there were certainly a lot of complaints about the "world leveling" in FO3, FNV, Skyrim, etc.)

 

One thing I've found is that I can just run past fights I don't want to bother with anymore. Seems to work ok so far, and that way I can still do the plot-points in "lower level" quests without running around being forced to fight squishy things.

[lastpawn]

The only thing you can really do is go to each region in a specific order. Well, level doesn't matter nearly as much as gear. You're not really out leveling content, just out gearing it. If you want the game not to be a complete faceroll you have to put limitations on yourself in how you play the game.

 

Of course, some of us might find that unacceptable and poor design.

 

This is essentially it. The game is far too easy to over-level, but the bigger problem is over-gearing. 

 

I had to bump my first playthrough from Hard to Nightmare because the game became trivial. No, I'm not a master gamer or anything, the game got the the point where my 3 teammates -- without my help -- would crush everything for me. Nor was I going out of the way to craft or level up or buy stuff. I just explored ~80% of what was available.

 

On Nightmare I can at least die if I don't pay attention.

[Ferretinabun]

I think this is happening to me now. I'm pretty sure I'm near the end of the game, but I still haven't even been to the Hissing Wastes at all, and already I'm over-levelled. Two of my four dragon fights were a joke.

 

I suppose would could not take a full party? Start knocking ourselves down to 2 companions, 1, or even just go solo?

 

But yes, I would like the game to ramp up the difficulty a bit here.

[lastpawn]

Well, a LOT of people don't like this in RPGs, I think mostly because it doesn't make sense story-wise. I don't hate it - I've seen it work OK on occasion, but mostly, for RPGs, I like it if I run into an encounter too hard to handle and have to retreat and go back later. Unfortunately that also leads to areas being too easy. Fallout 3, for example, became an absolute blast once you got the "unleveled lists" setup. Suddenly, instead of what was basically a walk in the post-apocalyptic park, you would run into situations far, far to dangerous for you to handle (yet) and had to run like the devil, or hide, or something, anything, to get out of the situation. I think that's the overall preference for RPGs (there were certainly a lot of complaints about the "world leveling" in FO3, FNV, Skyrim, etc.)

 

One thing I've found is that I can just run past fights I don't want to bother with anymore. Seems to work ok so far, and that way I can still do the plot-points in "lower level" quests without running around being forced to fight squishy things.

 

True, true. But there has to be a balance between horrible Oblivion style scaling where you can actually get weaker as you level up, and Inquisition style static enemy levels where the amount of content turns the game utterly trivial.

 

Probably should be a bigger diminishing curve on leveling (if there is one at all).

[magikot]

The way I avoided it on nightmare was to do each story mission one level below its maximum suggested level. So, for Adamant, I went in at level 14. This would often put me below the recommended level for the next story quest forcing me to go level up in the optional zones. That was for my second playthrough. My first was a completionist run so there was no way I couldn't outlevel everything by the end of the game.

[Eldrid]

What they can do to improve here is to scale the loot and the mobs depending on your level. Then adjust the bosses based on what difficulty you're playing. This way you can still get items within your level range. If you play GW2, they have a scaling system and regardless where map you are, you are still getting the loot and exp that is appropriate for your level. If they can do that in an MMO, why not for a game like this? 

[Zenthar Aseth]

Epic fail Bioware.  A lot of your playerbase goes after every quest, explores every corner of the map.  Your game punishes them for doing so, in the long run.  This situation is, IMO, another consequence of developing for the console first and porting to the PC later.

What a joke. They're trying to give the fans what they want by doing this, because "being able to get overlevelled"/being able to go to places too soon and get demolished is exactly what the fans have been asking from them, and the lack of which caused an uproar in Oblivion. It has nothing to do with consoles. Would you rather they didn't reward you for doing sidequests (here, you killed a dragon, congratulations: your reward, nothing)? It's simply a consequence of a lot of content. If you want to get more skilled before doing the main quest, then the possibility is out there. The smart way to play is to do multiple playthroughs, there's certainly enough content for that.

 

Just can't please everyone. But it seems a lot of people don't understand this and act entitled, no matter what.

[texhnolyze]

I do agree.

I think that leveling progression in this game is too fast.

I found myself over-leveled in most zones I visited. Perhaps it's because I finished almost every single quests out there?

I love adventuring, but out-leveling the zones & mobs really killed my overall fun. I'm on hard, by the way.

Yes, I think this is a poor game design.

 

 

What they can do to improve here is to scale the loot and the mobs depending on your level. Then adjust the bosses based on what difficulty you're playing. This way you can still get items within your level range. If you play GW2, they have a scaling system and regardless where map you are, you are still getting the loot and exp that is appropriate for your level. If they can do that in an MMO, why not for a game like this? 

 

Level scaling is good. However, the game has a lot of fixed loots besides random loots.

[Zenthar Aseth]

 

I do agree.

I think that leveling progression in this game is too fast.

I found myself over-leveled in most zones I visited. Perhaps it's because I finished almost every single quests out there?

I love adventuring, but out-leveling the zones & mobs really killed my overall fun. I'm on hard, by the way.

Yes, I think this is a poor game design.

 

How can you complain about the game being too easy when you aren't playing on the hardest difficulty? Where's the logic in that? Since you can up the difficulty whenever you want, there's no excuse.

[Chaos17]

Whatever the difficulty level you're playing it won't change in the end because it's just make the ennemies harder but you will still get the same amount of exp. So you will still be able to overlel up by doing the same amount of battle.

[BLOOD LORDS]

I don't mind being overleveled for open world stuff, it's being overleveled for story that gets me. The game knows what level I am, and basically all of the story occurs in instances. It would be sensible for the game to give me level appropriate foes. How anyone is supposed to find a level 15 pride daemon challenging as a level 21 is beyond me.

What happens currently is if you get a bit too much wanderlust the game gets turned down to baby tonka truck difficulty and there is nothing you can do about it.

[texhnolyze]

@Zenthar

I think Chaos17 already explained it for me.

 

I don't mind being overleveled for open world stuff, it's being overleveled for story that gets me. The game knows what level I am, and basically all of the story occurs in instances. It would be sensible for the game to give me level appropriate foes. How anyone is supposed to find a level 15 pride daemon challenging as a level 21 is beyond me.

What happens currently is if you get a bit too much wanderlust the game gets turned down to baby tonka truck difficulty and there is nothing you can do about it.

 

You can see the recommended level range for main story missions. I actually don't have problem with outleveling story missions.

[Zenthar Aseth]

@Zenthar

I think Chaos17 already explained it for me.

Uh... no, he did not?

 

Again. How can you say the game is too easy when you are not playing on the hardest difficulty. How does that make any kind of logical sense. It's like going to a gym, picking up the lightest weights, then whining about how the gym sucks because there aren't heavy enough weights.