155 réponses à ce sujet

[DomeWing333]

Again, the idea of areas having a static range of critters is silly. The spread should be organic - enemirs don't pair up with similarly difficult counterparts to settle an area. The very concept is pure nonsense.

There should be creatures in the world. They should be just as strong as they are, regardless of what level the player is or even what level the player is supposed to be.

Well it can be explained away to some extent by environmental harshness forcing animals to gain more deadly tools or be more hardy to adapt. That happens in real life.

 

But you're right that for a more realistic encounter system, there would be a degree of variance in the enemy strength outside of player level. But my concern is that this attempt to capture realism would come at the cost of balanced exploration and story gameplay. You can't have level 20 enemies lurking around every corner of a map because that makes exploration too much of a pain. And if the story is interwoven throughout multiple areas, you need to have a way of making sure that the player is always prepared for the main quest regardless of whether they do every sidequest or mainly stick to the critical path. I'm not sure how this can be done if you don't keep the enemies in a given area of the game at least somewhat consistent and around the actual or recommended level of the player.

[Terodil]

Mmmh. Yeah, you really can't overdo that or you're just going to frustrate your players. SWTOR did it pretty well with their [heroic] areas, though that was not level-related.

 

Re: Unbeatable mobs... I was just thinking of my favourite ever robot (epic rogue / shadowdancer).

 

[Fast Jimmy]

Well it can be explained away to some extent by environmental harshness forcing animals to gain more deadly tools or be more hardy to adapt. That happens in real life.

But you're right that for a more realistic encounter system, there would be a degree of variance in the enemy strength outside of player level. But my concern is that this attempt to capture realism would come at the cost of balanced exploration and story gameplay. You can't have level 20 enemies lurking around every corner of a map because that makes exploration too much of a pain. And if the story is interwoven throughout multiple areas, you need to have a way of making sure that the player is always prepared for the main quest regardless of whether they do every sidequest or mainly stick to the critical path. I'm not sure how this can be done if you don't keep the enemies in a given area of the game at least somewhat consistent and around the actual or recommended level of the player.

Or maybe the players might need to learn they can't just stroll around every location on the map like they own the place as a level 3 party?

I mean, typical PnP party spends around half a dungeon encounter sneaking, looking for traps, scouting for threats, trying to figure out ways past unbeatable foes or obstacles... there is a ton of preventive measures and taken to avoid stepping into trouble. Video games, instead, encourage players to run around as fast possible, blasting into areas and fights with full confidence that since they are in an area, they should be totally safe to attack and defeat anything that comes across their path.

It's borderline insane when you think about it.

[Eelectrica]

No it's fine the way it is. Well mostly fine, I mean sure some areas need to be tweaked such as the Exalted plains.

 

But I like seeing an enemy that can kick my ass, then after I get stronger, I go back and kick its ass - or find some other way. It shows character progression. Also If I'm in the hinterlands restocking Elfroot or Spindleweed, I really don't want to be interrupted by level 23 or 24 bears to make what's already a grind an even bigger grind!

 

Hell even the Borderlands games don't have enemies that scale to your level until you've beaten it twice.

[Sylvius the Mad]

And if the story is interwoven throughout multiple areas, you need to have a way of making sure that the player is always prepared for the main quest regardless of whether they do every sidequest or mainly stick to the critical path.

I don't think this is important at all.  Getting stronger is itself part of the critical path, even if there's no specific quest tied to it.

 

Also, this problem can be severely limited by having a shallower power curve, or by tying together the different elements of the game.  If the critical path involves finding things, build the grinding into that exploration.  That way no one needs to go out to grind - it will merely be a side-effect of advancing the plot.  Have skill progression tied to exploration, so you can't learn new abilities without finding missing artifacts or magical components or something, and then gate those behind other stuff (like hide an item in a poisonous swamp that you can't pass unless you either have high health or some other means to get through the swamp that is itself hidden being a barrier of exploration).

 

Don't point players directly at what they need, and they'll need to go searching to find it, and that process of searching will make them strong enough to deal with what they find when they get there.

 

Ultima IV handled this extremely well.  The information you needed to find things was so widely scattered that you necessarily grew more powerful just by traveling back and forth.

 

I'm not talking about strict gating.  I'm saying that the player's likely path should lead him through enough content that he'll gain levels and not be underpowered.  And if that's the case, you don't need scaling.

[DomeWing333]

Or maybe the players might need to learn they can't just stroll around every location on the map like they own the place as a level 3 party?

I mean, typical PnP party spends around half a dungeon encounter sneaking, looking for traps, scouting for threats, trying to figure out ways past unbeatable foes or obstacles... there is a ton of preventive measures and taken to avoid stepping into trouble. Video games, instead, encourage players to run around as fast possible, blasting into areas and fights with full confidence that since they are in an area, they should be totally safe to attack and defeat anything that comes across their path.

It's borderline insane when you think about it.

I don't know. I mean I don't mind it myself, but that kind of slow, cautious, hiding gameplay can be an off-putting change for fans of the series. That's not to say there can't be areas in the game that are fraught with danger. I just think it's a bit much to set up every zone like that.

 

Like I said, I think the Hinterlands is an example of a zone that provides a good mix of danger and consistency. A low level party exploring the area around the crossroads will encounter enemies that are generally at their level and do fine. If they explore too much southwest, they'll encounter bears and lyrium smugglers that serve as pretty good indicators that they should maybe save that area for later. But even in relatively low level areas like Redcliffe farms, there might be a random level 12 rift that could wipe out the whole party.

 

In general, I think sudden jumps in enemy difficulty should be few and far between so as to not overly punish exploration and players should be able to expect a certain level of enemy difficulty depending on the where they are on the map.

[DomeWing333]

I don't think this is important at all.  Getting stronger is itself part of the critical path, even if there's no specific quest tied to it.

 

Also, this problem can be severely limited by having a shallower power curve, or by tying together the different elements of the game.  If the critical path involves finding things, build the grinding into that exploration.  That way no one needs to go out to grind - it will merely be a side-effect of advancing the plot.  Have skill progression tied to exploration, so you can't learn new abilities without finding missing artifacts or magical components or something, and then gate those behind other stuff (like hide an item in a poisonous swamp that you can't pass unless you either have high health or some other means to get through the swamp that is itself hidden being a barrier of exploration).

 

Don't point players directly at what they need, and they'll need to go searching to find it, and that process of searching will make them strong enough to deal with what they find when they get there.

 

Ultima IV handled this extremely well.  The information you needed to find things was so widely scattered that you necessarily grew more powerful just by traveling back and forth.

 

I'm not talking about strict gating.  I'm saying that the player's likely path should lead him through enough content that he'll gain levels and not be underpowered.  And if that's the case, you don't need scaling.

I feel like trying to incorporate grinding and intensive exploration into the critical path seems very likely to result in a bloated, dragging plot and very frustrated players who just want to enjoy a story without having to search a cave top to bottom and slay dozens of enemies to find the Enchanted Item of Plot Progression.

 

In making these Dragon Age games, Bioware has to account for both the hardcore RPG fans who are fine with long stretches of exploration as well as the casual fan of their storytelling that just wants to know what happens next in the story. Some people just don't care about gameplay and combat and want to blow through those parts as quickly as possible so they can get to the meaty, dialogue-heavy bits.

 

Your solution also makes the game quite linear, despite the amount of exploration available since every player would be propelled from one place to another such that they always enter a given area at a certain level. I personally wouldn't mind that type of game too much but that's never been how Dragon Age was meant to be.

[Imryll]

I don't think this is important at all.  Getting stronger is itself part of the critical path, even if there's no specific quest tied to it.

 

Also, this problem can be severely limited by having a shallower power curve, or by tying together the different elements of the game.  If the critical path involves finding things, build the grinding into that exploration.  That way no one needs to go out to grind - it will merely be a side-effect of advancing the plot.  Have skill progression tied to exploration, so you can't learn new abilities without finding missing artifacts or magical components or something, and then gate those behind other stuff (like hide an item in a poisonous swamp that you can't pass unless you either have high health or some other means to get through the swamp that is itself hidden being a barrier of exploration).

 

Don't point players directly at what they need, and they'll need to go searching to find it, and that process of searching will make them strong enough to deal with what they find when they get there.

 

Ultima IV handled this extremely well.  The information you needed to find things was so widely scattered that you necessarily grew more powerful just by traveling back and forth.

 

I'm not talking about strict gating.  I'm saying that the player's likely path should lead him through enough content that he'll gain levels and not be underpowered.  And if that's the case, you don't need scaling.

I think this approach worked much better back before the Internet became so widespread, and players couldn't just look things up at will. 

 

Personally, I favor limited scaling, because trivialized content bothers me much more than seeing that a village of kobolds has gained in power. I also like shallower power curves and to feel that my character has grown relative to their in environment in the course of the game.

[otis0310]

I'm just going to be a major pain here.  But with all the bad desigin decisions, like the wide open worlds you see in an MMO, and the isolated "story areas" which resemable instances, also found in an MMO.  Not ot mentiion the bad hair, the horrible UI, lack of tactics, action heavy combat, lack of auto-attack and extremely bad AI to the point of being useless.  Well let's just say that of all the design decisions I would question, this would not be very high up on the list.

 

I agree it is a bad move, but not close to as bad as so many others.

[Sylvius the Mad]

Your solution also makes the game quite linear, despite the amount of exploration available since every player would be propelled from one place to another such that they always enter a given area at a certain level.

It would raise the minimum likely level at which content was encountered, but would only enforce linearity if there were only one way to clear each gate, and there were only one gate each.

I think you're imagining a much more rigid structure than I am trying to describe.

[DomeWing333]

It would raise the minimum likely level at which content was encountered, but would only enforce linearity if there were only one way to clear each gate, and there were only one gate each.

I think you're imagining a much more rigid structure than I am trying to describe.

That's possible. So let me try to describe the system I'm imagining from your description.

 

You have zones A, B, C, and D. You start off at A, make a little progress but then find a gate that requires a key. That key is located somewhere in zones B, C, or D but since the player doesn't know which, he/she has to search each zone for it. The problem here is that you need to make sure that when players return to the gate in zone A with the key, those who searched two wrong zones and then the right one are around the same level as those who only searched the right zone.

 

One way to handle this would be to somehow have players only explore the right zone, either by leaving explicit clues that direct them to immediately search the right zone or put in other gates at the two wrong zones that keep them from searching there. This would make the game fairly linear, which is what I originally thought you would do.

 

But from your reply, it seems that your solution would be to place different keys in each of the three other zones that can all be used to get past the gate in zone A, essentially making it so that there are no right or wrong zones to go to. The trouble I still see with this is that it assumes that players are only exploring each of the other zones for the purpose of making progress in zone A and as soon as they are able to do so, they stop searching. But if each zone has its own sidequests, optional dungeons, and even hidden bosses, you're going to have some players who enter a zone and do all of that and some players who only enter a zone to get the key they're looking for and leave.

 

From previous things that you said, it seems like your solution to this problem is to simply remove most if not all of the optional components of each zone, folding everything into mandatory tasks that progress the story. I disagree that this is a viable solution as optional and hidden side content is such a staple of the RPG genre and (when done well) makes the world seem much richer and more complex. Having sidequests and side dungeons also eliminates the need for straightforward level-grinding, which I think we both find to be unpleasant. I don't see Dragon Age dispensing with that any time soon.

[Sylvius the Mad]

That's possible. So let me try to describe the system I'm imagining from your description.

You have zones A, B, C, and D. You start off at A, make a little progress but then find a gate that requires a key. That key is located somewhere in zones B, C, or D but since the player doesn't know which, he/she has to search each zone for it. The problem here is that you need to make sure that when players return to the gate in zone A with the key, those who searched two wrong zones and then the right one are around the same level as those who only searched the right zone.

No. I'm not trying to prevent overleveling. I'm only trying to prevent underleveling.

I don't think overleveling is a problem. In fact, I think the inability to overlevel (which scaling causes) is a problem. I was offering a solution to the underleveling problem that would prevent explicit grinding without forcing linearity or preventing overleveling.

I wouldn't put keys to the gate in all 4 zones. I'd leave a hint that most players would get that the key was in zones A or B, but there might be keys to other future gates in any of the 4 zones, and there might even be other gates that could be used instead, perhaps evem to skip ahead in the story.

I don't want to force you to consume even story content in order.

Ultima VI did something interesting on this point. There was a big twist in the plot, and you would find it as you progressed through the game. But it was possible to find it early by completing a dungeon, even if you weren't supposed to yet. And from there, you could advance the plot from the twist without having to go back to finish the earlier content.

Also, quest items should exist in the game regardless of whether you've received that quest yet. Even if you've previously done something to eliminate that quest as an option, that quest's quest objects should still exist in the game world.

[DomeWing333]

Ah. Well, it seems we have a fundamental disagreement then. It seems apparent to me that overleveling is very much a problem, considering that there are all these threads of players complaining about it. Like the one we're in now, for instance. 

 

If anything, I would consider underleveling less of a problem in a game with side content because the solution is "play more of the game," which seems fine, whereas the solution to overleveling is "play less of the game," which seems backwards.

 

But ideally, I think an open world game needs to account for both underleveling and overleveling and this can only be done by restricting the level of the protagonist or adjusting the level of the environment. This is especially true if it's to account for things like sequence breaking like you talked about with your Ultima VI example.

[Realmzmaster]

I would have no problem with a toggle that allowed the gamer to select level scaling or not much like the friendly fire toggle. The change would still require proper encounter design.

 

The toggle could simply encourage the developer to take the easy way out for level scaling which is simply to increase the number of hitpoints without changing the enemy strategy or tactics.

Some gamers would find that challenging others would find it tedious. I would suggest that the toggle change the enemy's strategy and tactics. That actually would require more work on the developer's part.

 

The question becomes would enough gamers used the toggle to make it worth the developer's time to implement.

 

Maybe it would be best to forget the toggle and change the enemy's strategy and tactics in the area instead.

 

If the gamer's party leaves an area for a given amount of time the tactics and strategy of the enemies change along with the gainiing of different abilities with in given pool of abilities that match the party's potential pool of abilities. The amount of hitpoints could change but to a set amount for that particular area.

[9TailsFox]

To all who say level scaling bad. You think super dire rat just sits and do nothing.

[DomeWing333]

I would have no problem with a toggle that allowed the gamer to select level scaling or not much like the friendly fire toggle. The change would still require proper encounter design.

 

The toggle could simply encourage the developer to take the easy way out for level scaling which is simply to increase the number of hitpoints without changing the enemy strategy or tactics.

Some gamers would find that challenging others would find it tedious. I would suggest that the toggle change the enemy's strategy and tactics. That actually would require more work on the developer's part.

 

The question becomes would enough gamers used the toggle to make it worth the developer's time to implement.

 

Maybe it would be best to forget the toggle and change the enemy's strategy and tactics in the area instead.

 

If the gamer's party leaves an area for a given amount of time the tactics and strategy of the enemies change along with the gainiing of different abilities with in given pool of abilities that match the party's potential pool of abilities. The amount of hitpoints could change but to a set amount for that particular area.

I'm willing to bet that more people would use a scaling toggle than the current Friendly Fire toggle. This is especially true if the toggle allows the player to select downward scaling, upward scaling, or both. Players looking for a challenge would use the upward scaling function and players looking to have an easy time breezing through to the story would use the downward scaling function.

 

As for the toggle interacting with enemy tactics, I'd imagine that this would be very difficult to implement if the difficulty setting already influences it. Higher enemy levels could give the enemies a wider pool of abilities like you suggested, but then I feel like the people who choose not to scale their games are going to feel like they missed out on enemy attack variety.

[Sylvius the Mad]

I would have no problem with a toggle that allowed the gamer to select level scaling or not much like the friendly fire toggle.

I'm worried that would let them mail in the design of the non-default option like they did with friendly fire in DAI.

[Sylvius the Mad]

Ah. Well, it seems we have a fundamental disagreement then. It seems apparent to me that overleveling is very much a problem, considering that there are all these threads of players complaining about it. Like the one we're in now, for instance.

If anything, I would consider underleveling less of a problem in a game with side content because the solution is "play more of the game," which seems fine, whereas the solution to overleveling is "play less of the game," which seems backwards.

Make the end of the game tougher, then.

The stated problem I was trying to solve was the need for people to grind when they're just looking to experience the critical path. If we make it look less like grinding, they won't mind as much, and then we don't need to scale things down to them.

And if there's no need to scale down, we can just make the end-game content harder to eliminate the need to scale up.

Also, a shallower overall power curve (like BG1) means that we can't overlevel anything by far because we just don't get that powerful.

[Terodil]

Ultimately I think it comes down to what you want your hero to feel like.

 

I personally think that if the world looks to your hero as the saviour, and repeatedly tells him/her that nobody else could do what s/he does, then there ought to be a significant power difference between your hero/ine and a run-of-the-mill bandit. Yes, your hero/ine should be able to blow him out of his sandals with a single swing of the sword.

 

I can understand that some people would prefer the opposite; that every fight be a fight only barely survivable.

 

That brings us back to the difficulty slider. If the highest setting fails to provide challenge, then we *may* have a game design problem, with two solutions: 1- the developer fixing the difficulty; 2- the player adding specific constraints that add difficulty (play solo, equip items with no higher rank than n, ...).

 

At the risk of repeating myself, I still humbly submit that snapshotting levels is the best compromise. It eliminates the problem of overlevelling entire zones, thereby providing challenge at every point in your career, and it maintains consistency. The only problem it cannot solve is people hopping between zones a lot, but neither can any of the other alternatives, so it really doesn't matter. If zone design is okay, then there shouldn't be such a huge need to jump back and forth anyway. Can't have everything.

[DomeWing333]

Another issue with snapshotting is that it can lead to weird meta-gaming practices like players not wanting to venture into new areas for fear of "locking" them into low level states. I know Kingdoms of Amalur had this problem and it made the exploration feel really restrictive and unnatural.

[DanteYoda]

Another issue with snapshotting is that it can lead to weird meta-gaming practices like players not wanting to venture into new areas for fear of "locking" them into low level states. I know Kingdoms of Amalur had this problem and it made the exploration feel really restrictive and unnatural.

I actually preferred that to what we had in DA I, I really loved KoA Reckoning.

 

Its actually high in my list of favorite all time RPG experiences.

[IUDEX99]

Howdy,

 

I'm not sure if any of the hard defenders or attackers of the scaling mechanics really noticed, that DA:I has indeed a scaling system for the levels of the mobs.

It might be a limited system, but it is existing.

Most enemies in the Hinterlands scale between level four and seven (including exceptions like the higher level rifts and some lower level templars/mages). It's a system in wich the level of the enemy depends on the level of the player but does not exceed a specific level that depends on the region and the type of enemy.

 

This system has advantages and disadvantages.

'Here lies the Abyss' for example has a maximum of level 15 for the enemies and so has 'Wicked Hearts...'. If you play on NM and want to be close to the enemies' level (perhaps because you like to refrain from crafting the best weapons and armor but instead like to play more tactical and want to use the potions) ypu might face a dilemma:

Even if you start one of the quests close to or at exactly at level 15 you might be overleveled for the second quest.

 

The plotline and the possible acess to several areas of the map do not allow the player to be constantly in a range in wich the player's level and the level of the enemies are congruent. Ignoring the fact that a completely new player does not have the information about the soft-level-scaling and the specific level restrictions in the areas here comes the next dilemma:

Even if you have adequate information about the game-nechanics you are either forced to leave or skip certain areas (including quests, lore etc.) in order to keep a balance in your level and the level of your enemies or you are forced to overlevel yur enemies because you want to do the quests, read the lore and scout the area.

 

From my point of view the system that was chosen by the developers is suboptimal due to specific reasons. It is neither level-scaling or no-level-scaling in fact it is a rotten compromise.

 

No level scaling would more or less require a game where the player's hands are hold very tight and/or or the gameplay is quite linear. This system of linear gameplay (with more or less free decisions within a limited number of quests with a sequence that can be decided by the palyer) can be combined with carefull soft-level-scaling (has been done quite good in ME 3 as far as I remember; DA:O had similar system but did not really give any hints which of your allies you should gain first). DA:I does not give any hints (except for the main-plot-missions) to the players and in this wwy kind of forces the 'Less content / unbalanced battles'-dilemma.

 

Level-scaling requires a sophisticated system of skills, equipment and attributes for both players and enemies to neither frsutrate nor bore the players. In an environment in which the player is more or less allowed or even forced to skill his character as he prefers instead of following the minimax-principle it is very difficult to find this sophisticated balance.

 

DA:I is a kind of hybrid between open world and linear gameplay and so the scaling system is a kind of hybrid as well.

 

Regarding my experince in the game the system crosses the edge in either one way or the other in the process of playing it. At the moment I'm playing on NM (as a mage with no specialization, simply because I don't like any of them and therefore I'm playing an elemental mage with 2 Spells of each school + Barrier + MotR in the bar) and I managed having a balance between exploring and the enemies' levels so far. When I started 'here lies the Abyss' I was slightly overleveled.

But now I am up to explore the Exalted Plains and fighting becomes very boring.

 

I wish the developers would have better reviewed their idea of soft-level-scaling.

Maybe a soft scaling in the areas as they already did (i.e. as a general rule the level of the enemies has the same level as the player has), but after reching a specific level (maximum level of the specific zone) a soft-cap that is related to the level of difficulty, i.e.

Nightmare:

Enemy-level = player-level + 2

Hard:

Enemy-level = player-level + 1

Normal:

Enemy-level = player-level

Casual:

Enemy-level = player-level - 1

(Theese numbers are just examples, don't hit me because I used a specific number).

Combined with the differences in health, damage, AI-behavior etc. this might be a system that grants players either the feeling of gettijng stronger or of still having challenging battles depending on the difficulty-level they are playing.

 

Just my 2 cents

 

Cheers

Dex

[Brainfist]

The exploration part needs leveling loots much more than leveling enemies. At least "treasures" should be worth searching for and not be some crap you might could have used three levels before.Leveling monsters are normally bad, althought I think the way DA:O did it was a nice way(At least I think that the enemies leveled with you back then )

[SACanuckin Oz]

Maybe someone has already suggested this, but I would like the random really tough enemy to be somewhere in zone - remember how tough that one fade rift in the Hinterlands was ( a level 12 I believe, in a level 4-7 zone). That rift kicked my butt a few times, and I had to come back, and really think about my strategy.

 

After that, not one similar thing found in other zones I've been in. Very disappointing!

 

It can't be that difficult a design fix to make? Drop in a random level 20 rift in the Hissing Wastes, or a level 22 wyvern in the western Approach, or another high level giant in the Storm Coast (I found it strange that after seeing a giant battle the dragon, there were not even one other giant around).

 

And please make dragons no lower than level 20! I took on the Abyssal one (level 14), being level 18. And what a yawn fest. Went down with hardly a potion needed. (On hard)

 

C'mon Bioware, surely this is an EASY fix...

[Rolhir]

Because all parts of the world are equivalently challenging all of the time?

That doesn't make for a very believable world.

So instead it's more believable that all the Venatori at Haven are pathetic henchmen while every single one that's at the Well are all nearly twice as skilled? Or that wolves (same species) get stronger or weaker depending on the location in the world? All parts of the world being filled with similar creatures and enemies makes a LOT more sense than the alternative. Even more so, considering that the entire extent of the game, the Inquisitor and companions are treated as already being some of the best of the best; could you see the leading circle mage, Right Hand of the Divine, and best friend of the Champion along with the inquisitor unable to kill a lone smuggler? Because at level one, you can't handle a single lvl 14 smuggler even all together. The game gives the impression that you're all already badasses; making some enemies able to trounce you when, lore-wise, they shouldn't be able to makes the world less believable, not more.