85 réponses à ce sujet

[Paromlin]

Forest03 wrote...

The point of levelling is part of the adventure itself. Progression is the very soul of RPG's, be it for the narrative or for your character's power. What's the point in levelling? Well, what would be the point in giving a player all skill sets and all the best equipment right from the beginning? This goes completely against the concept of the adventure and the character development/growth.
 

You didn't understand the OP, obviously. Reread and read between the lines as well - he's not against levels and power progression, on the contrary; he's against level scaling.

[harlath]

I've tried creating a "static" version of Dragon Age, removing the scaling of enemies. Interested in feedback, particularly from those playing through with a high survival (so they can see enemy levels). Please see the link in my signature.

[RedSocialKnight]

spelldreamer wrote...

I think that is very flawed logic. That would be the same as saying that the more cats breed in the world the more dangerous they will be...at first like cats...but then suddenly the cats fight like lions.

and by the way the darkspawn dont get stronger as you explore areas...they get stronger as you get stronger.

Except that darkspawn aren't ordinary animals, and they are not breeding to increase their numbers. They are becoming stronger as the Archdemon's power grows.

And as I understand it, the levelling is set by area, NOT simply by your character's level.

It's not just that if you are level eight, all the enemies you meet will be level eight. It's that (and I may have the details of this wrong) at the time when you begin an area, some enemies in that area are set to your character's level (unless your level is below the minimum for the area), some are set somewhat above your level, and so on, creating a difficulty progression for that section of the story.

So, as the minimum enemy level for Dark Roads is ten, starting it at ten would be much easier than playing it at level eight since you'd be facing level ten enemies (or ten-plus for bosses) in both cases. But starting it at twelve you'd be facing level twelve (or twelve-plus) enemies, so it would still pose a challenge (although in fact, scaling or not, access to higher-level talents makes same-level fights much easier).

[xCobalt]

Gaidren wrote...

Having just finished playing two games that *don't* have enemy scaling (Borderlands, and Divinity 2), I can tell you that having enemies scale is far *FAR* better game design.

Nothing is worse than having big sections of the game trivialized because you "outlevel" it. Divinity 2 was a great game but it occasionally made me want to kick a puppy. Borderlands was a so-so game that *often* made me want to kick multiple puppies. Both games lacked scaling, and suffered for it.

DA suffers from this too. Enemies don't scale completely in this game and its obvious as you get closer to the end of the game. 

[RangerSG]

xCobalt wrote...

Gaidren wrote...

Having just finished playing two games that *don't* have enemy scaling (Borderlands, and Divinity 2), I can tell you that having enemies scale is far *FAR* better game design.

Nothing is worse than having big sections of the game trivialized because you "outlevel" it. Divinity 2 was a great game but it occasionally made me want to kick a puppy. Borderlands was a so-so game that *often* made me want to kick multiple puppies. Both games lacked scaling, and suffered for it.

DA suffers from this too. Enemies don't scale completely in this game and its obvious as you get closer to the end of the game. 

Somewhat true. Though I think the 'grunts' are meant to be a much weaker foe than the typical opponents you'd been fighting, more of a distraction than a true threat.

On the OP's point:

1) First of all, everything does not scale. There is a floor and ceiling to everything in DA. This is not like Oblivion, for instance, where when you made a level, absolutely every creature in the entire world levelled up with you. That system made leveling pointless. And introduced wonderful annoyances like bandits in full daedric plate armor hitting you up for 100gp.

2) Given the setting, the only place where I think the levelling is even truly noticeable is with the bandits. Once you see multiple AI archers with scattershot, they take on a whole new threat level. And at first blush you might wonder why they could have that. Anything else, I can't imagine enemies not bringing out better units to do their best to match the threat you represent as best they can.

3) Having played games that don't scale, as noted, nothing is worse than the challenge being removed from the game because all they do is throw more mooks that die in 2 hits at you. (Morrowind with whole armies of cliff racers that couldn't even hurt you any more comes to mind.)

[Aratham Darksight]

Try taking on the high dragon at level 5. See how it goes.

If there's no point to leveling, it should be no harder than at level 20, right?

[Paromlin]

RangerSG wrote...

1) First of all, everything does not scale. 
 

 First of all, everything does scale because every area is set to scale.
So if you're below the range the enemy will scale to the lowest level, if you're above it it will scale to the highest level - but, it will mostly be exactly your level.

Lets take Lothering as an example. Scaling range is 5-15. Lets imagine you come to Lothering at (lets stretch our imagination..)  level 4 - the enemies will be scaled to level 5. Lets stretch the imagination even further - you come to Lothering at level 16 and Lothering is still there (yeah right); enemies will be scaled to level 15.


Aratham, have you heard of ranged weapons and fire resistance? I guess not.

[moejimbo]

spelldreamer wrote...
Imagine you acquired some sort of skill, and then the whole world would more or less do the same. It would make life absurd.

When I taught calculus, I always pondered, why only ONE child learned new material while everyone else in the class remained stagnant in trigonometry. Oh wait.. they didn't. How absurd! How dare they all learn near the same pace!

3: There will never be very easy or impossible fights, they will all be
average, maybe some of them a little harder than average and some a
little easier than average...but avarage none the less.

 That statement is fundamentally flawed. If some are above or below avErage, then not all are avErage. An aggregate of all of them will be avErage, but that's what an avErage is!

I think that is very flawed logic. That would be the same as saying
that the more cats breed in the world the more dangerous they will
be...at first like cats...but then suddenly the cats fight like lions.

 Congratulations, you discovered evolution. And for the record, what RedSocialKnight described is NOTHING like cats breeding! ..logic failure.

And for everyone who says the leveling system is pointless, doesn't know what 'pointless' is defined to be. Pointless would be attaining nothing. No new mention, no new star, no new checkmark, no new ability, no new talent points, no new door unlocked, no new shoes, no new hair style, no new anything! However, since obviously something is granted on a level up, it is not POINTLESS.

The scaling leveling is an intelligent design. The FFs had no sense of this design. A player was required to grind toons in certain areas to power level in order to obtain access to new areas; that was repetitive and tedious. However, there were some interesting epic fights to engage in those non scaling genre of leveling games. DAO attempts to capture this with white, yellow and bold named enemies. Perhaps the game could introduce more higher scaled enemy difficulties, but w/e.

Modifié par moejimbo, 27 janvier 2010 - 10:04 .

[Paromlin]

moejimbo wrote...
...

Excellent, the squad of silly irrelevant comparisons and furious nitpicking has arrived.

Bioware has marvellous fans.

[Peeker2009]

While I do like games without level scaling, it has to be a more open-world type rpg than DA:O to work. DA:O is unashamedly a story driven rpg and, as has been said before, some scaling is needed for the flow of the story.

For a good example of successful non-scaling I would recommend the Gothic series. They have made a persistent world which is big enough to accomodate it. in my opinion Oblivion dropped the ball because they had a large enough "sandboxy" kind of world to accomodate it but decided not to for some reason. I have no idea why really.

One important factor needs to be taken into account when talking about this issue. A decent human player will always beat a game's AI (Chess aside). We are just smarter than machines...so far anyway. The more skills aquired, the greater the disparity between a player and foes.

To illustrate, on my favorite NWN server there was a quest where your party had to fight perfect duplicates of themselves. It was a challenging fight sure, but the players always won in the end, as you would expect. Moreover, the developers had to give the big bosses insane amounts of hit points and other stats just to keep the fights challenging: it was the only way available to counter the superiority of human players. 1 player hp was (very) roughly equal to 200 monster hps.

So even though leveling up in DA:O doesn't mean much in terms of raw power, it puts more tricks in your bag (more so for mages perhaps) and therefore makes you more powerful than the monsters you face. Add to this a party and you increase the relative power even further.

So yes, DA:O does require some level scaling, and it is worthwhile for the player to level up.

Modifié par Peeker2009, 27 janvier 2010 - 10:37 .

[TyroneTasty]

I've played enough RPGs that allowed you to go off and do things but this always ruined the game when you got back to the main story and fought the "Immortal Super Dragon of Death" and killed him in two hits because you were so over leveled. If it takes level scaling to do away with that anti-climactic experience I'm all for it. I have nothing wrong with the game cheating a little bit to keep my experience satisfying. Bioware has always been more about the items and abilities you had not what level you were vs. the monsters anyway. Levelling is just a way to give your character a controlled and logical progression.

In BG II you would fight hundreds of challenging battles and whether you were level 9 or 13 barely made a difference, it was about how your party was set up and what items you had found up to that point.

Modifié par TyroneTasty, 27 janvier 2010 - 10:51 .

[hexaligned]

I'm usually not a fan of level scaling, but by the end of the game all encounters are so trivial it actualy had me wishing for more of it in this game. Maybe "gear scaling" or something.

[Aldridgeguy]

I thought that i was the only person who thought like this...I agree totaly with the OP. I actually like games where you can outlevel certain areas it's great for a bit of stress relief ( you get your ass handed to you by a minotaur warlord so you go down the road and take it out on a few goblin raiders...brilliant !! ) Also its very frustrating to have saved your coins for ages to buy that uber sword you have been drooling over in the shop window for the last six months only to buy it and find that it makes very little difference to your adventuring because now all of a sudden, all of the lowly grunts are weilding them as well !!

[TyroneTasty]

Aldridgeguy wrote...
Also its very frustrating to have saved your coins for ages to buy that uber sword you have been drooling over in the shop window for the last six months only to buy it and find that it makes very little difference to your adventuring because now all of a sudden, all of the lowly grunts are weilding them as well !!

No.

[Aldridgeguy]

Ermm...yes !!?? lol As soon as you are able to afford the higher tier weapons or armour, veridium etc, suddenly, the mobs start dropping them as well !!

[Paromlin]

Aldridgeguy wrote...

Ermm...yes !!?? lol As soon as you are able to afford the higher tier weapons or armour, veridium etc, suddenly, the mobs start dropping them as well !!

Not only do mobs scale but items you get from containers depend on your level as well. Can it be more silly...

[purplesunset]

harlath wrote...

I've tried creating a "static" version of Dragon Age, removing the scaling of enemies. Interested in feedback, particularly from those playing through with a high survival (so they can see enemy levels). Please see the link in my signature.

How would the player know which areas were meant for lower levels? Unles the mod assumes that you're on your second playthrough  or something and already have an idea of what to expect ?

[Paromlin]

purplesunset wrote...



How would the player know which areas were meant for lower levels? Unles the mod assumes that you're on your second playthrough  or something and already have an idea of what to expect ?

Through exploring, trying..

You know, games without level scaling don't come with a map that shows where you can and cannot go; the player is expected to discover it himself. That's the point.

[Peeker2009]

Paromlin wrote...

purplesunset wrote...



How would the player know which areas were meant for lower levels? Unles the mod assumes that you're on your second playthrough  or something and already have an idea of what to expect ?

Through exploring, trying..

You know, games without level scaling don't come with a map that shows where you can and cannot go; the player is expected to discover it himself. That's the point.

Or, if that's too much like hard work for some,  the player can be warned by NPC's or signs.  Can actually be a good way to give bartenders, merchants and the like something useful to say, rather than the vague references you get when you ask about the latest rumours.

[Matshelge]

Paromlin wrote...

purplesunset wrote...



How would the player know which areas were meant for lower levels? Unles the mod assumes that you're on your second playthrough  or something and already have an idea of what to expect ?

Through exploring, dying..

There fixed it for you.
That would not be a game that sells, it would be a roguelike that might max out at around 50-100.000 players, if you are lucky.

[Peeker2009]

Anyone up for some chopped liver?

Modifié par Peeker2009, 28 janvier 2010 - 10:59 .

[Aldridgeguy]

Can I have it with flava beans and wash it down with a nice Cianti ? :0)

Modifié par Aldridgeguy, 28 janvier 2010 - 11:31 .

[isual13]

to have fun and a stronger character

[General Balls]

Mages live and die by their spell selection.



If you don't level to increase your versatility, you lose.

[Kaoschizm]

I personally like the level scaling. One of the things I hated about Fallout 3 was the game was, at first, ridiculously hard in all but a couple of areas but then became a cakewalk everywhere once you hit level 10 or so.



I prefer my game to maintain a consistent challenge throughout and not have most of my fights either dead easy or impossible. As for leveling up, it still has plenty of things going for it, you get new spells and skills to use and a well built character will still perform better than a horribly built one.



The other advantage of scaling is you can cater to both the people who like to rush through the game who'll be level 15 at the end and the people who take their time and do all the quests and will be level 20+