155 réponses à ce sujet

[PsychoBlonde]

Nope, completely disagree. Level scaling is awful and makes no sense. Why should random wolves get stronger because I killed some extra giants in a different country? What's the point in levelling up if everything else levels up? I may as well stay level 1 so the enemies are weaker too.

 

This.  I detest global level-scaling.

 

That being said, the enemy/level mechanics in DA:I left a lot to be desired, but this is due to the fact that they ALSO didn't allow for "self-scaling" because:

 

1.  The fights were designed so that you couldn't separate the mobs or otherwise use various pulling/fleeing tactics to make them easier.  If you triggered an "encounter" group, you got to fight the whole thing, unless you just outright ran away.

2.  The encounters were likewise designed so that intentional zerging was off the table, so you couldn't charge past 3 groups of enemies, gather them up, and fight them all at once for a much greater challenge.  Granted, sometimes this happened by accident when a bunch of wandering mobs all had a meetup.

3.  You got basically a 3-4 level range where fights were reasonably doable AND granted XP.

4.  The encounter levels in areas were staggered in a really weird way, particularly in larger areas like the Hinterlands.  Instead of a gradual progression, you could go from fighting level 4 enemies to a sudden pocket of level 8 enemies in the course of about 10 feet.  The areas felt like they were DESIGNED with the expectation that you would leave and come back several times.  This is a non-good game flow, IMO.  It works fine in a TRULY open world because that's just the way the game works--EVERYTHING takes place in the same overworld so leaving isn't really "leaving" and coming back isn't really coming "back".  In a world with numerous independent adventure areas, it just feels messed up, like the game is forcibly preventing you from having an orderly progression.

 

People have made a lot of comparisons to Skyrim, but DA:I is actually a LOT more like the Wilderness areas in Dungeons and Dragons Online, and the people who like those areas and play them regularly (like me) want to do ONE run where they hit ALL of the stuff.  They don't want to run it in pieces.  DA:I felt exactly the same, but I kept feeling held back from playing it the "natural" way, I was constantly leveling past where I was getting XP, and the "random encounter" wandering mobs started getting really tiresome.

 

So, my recommendation would be less "scale the mobs" and more:

 

1.  modify enemy awareness and the in combat/out of combat functionality to make it easier to pull a few enemies at a time and thus "modify" the difficulty of a higher-level encounter more actively.

2.  better pulling functionality allowing the mobs to "chase" further 

3.  kills should not have a hard cutoff for 0 xp.  By all means have a function with relative level, but it should never drop to 0.  Yes, this means that someone with patience of steel might farm low-level content FOREVER, but this part is single-player so WHO BLOODY CARES.  If it really just means that much to you, have an eventual "encounter limit" for an area where you can literally just kill the place out and not get any more spawns.

4.  Don't plop much-higher-level encounters down in the middle of a much-lower-level area.  Or even off to the side.  Build with the expectation that people will want to "finish" an area COMPLETELY before they move on.

[Sylvius the Mad]

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?

No one claimed that.

Or that wolves (same species) get stronger or weaker depending on the location in the world?

Isolated populations of animals often exhibit distinct traits.  That's how evolution happens.

All parts of the world being filled with similar creatures and enemies makes a LOT more sense than the alternative.

There's not only one alternative.  I'd like to see a stable bell curve of enemies, with the curve differing from region to region.

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.

BioWare has made no apparent effort to match the game's mechanics to the game's story.

 

That clearly needs attention.

[Terodil]

BioWare has made no apparent effort to match the game's mechanics to the game's story.
 
That clearly needs attention.

How would / should that work though?

If the elite bodyguards of the Divine or the personal mage advisor to the Empress were as powerful relatively as they should be to conform with the lore, every single one would be able to wipe out entire bandit (or bear) populations all by herself. Result: 90% of the forum population would complain that the game wasn't hard enough.

[Sylvius the Mad]

How would / should that work though?

If the elite bodyguards of the Divine or the personal mage advisor to the Empress were as powerful relatively as they should be to conform with the lore, every single one would be able to wipe out entire bandit (or bear) populations all by herself. Result: 90% of the forum population would complain that the game wasn't hard enough.

I completely disagree.  What one person could defeat groups of bears singlehandedly?  Perhaps a powerful mage, but that's it.

 

A bodyguard is merely skilled at protecting someone, not necessarily an all-encompassing juggernaut.

 

I suggest the game world overall should have a much shallower power curve, and that giants and dragons should be largely unstoppable.

[Zinho73]

In order to maintain any resemblance of challenge, you have to advance the story and go to new areas as soon as possible. The rest is filler.

 

Scaling would not work, it would make the combat take longer and the filler part would become even more tedious than it already is. The game needs variety and a more controlled advance in order to provide challenging tactical encounters.

 

Open world fetch quests and random MMO mobs are not ideal to provide continuous challenge. And they are not intended to - they are just there to make you sink time into the game without any meaningful advance. Yay!

[Terodil]

I completely disagree.  [snip]

You are severely underestimating the effect of a lifetime of combat training. Templars are formidable fighters already, and the codex says that even they are scared sh!tless when one seeker turns up. Have you ever seen how long a fight between a skilled fencer and an amateur lasts? 2s is generous. Leliana's skills lie more in subterfuge and assassination than straight-up fights, but even so, the expected lifetime of a run-of-the-mill highway robber crazy enough to engage her will momentarily plummet right down to 0. And Vivienne *is* a very skilled mage (designated First Enchanter!) and shrewd tactician. A freeze, a slash, and a burn is all she needs to prepare a 'bear haché'.

I'm not saying they could annihilate Coryphelitissimus's HQ alone, but the simple enemies you encounter in the first zones -- thieves, brigands, half-starved and crazed apostates hardly at the apex of their powers -- don't even register as a threat for our three fabulous ladies, if we're sticking to the lore.

[Sylvius the Mad]

You are severely underestimating the effect of a lifetime of combat training. Templars are formidable fighters already, and the codex says that even they are scared sh!tless when one seeker turns up. Have you ever seen how long a fight between a skilled fencer and an amateur lasts? 2s is generous. Leliana's skills lie more in subterfuge and assassination than straight-up fights, but even so, the expected lifetime of a run-of-the-mill highway robber crazy enough to engage her will momentarily plummet right down to 0. And Vivienne *is* a very skilled mage (designated First Enchanter!) and shrewd tactician. A freeze, a slash, and a burn is all she needs to prepare a 'bear haché'.

I'm not saying they could annihilate Coryphelitissimus's HQ alone, but the simple enemies you encounter in the first zones -- thieves, brigands, half-starved and crazed apostates hardly at the apex of their powers -- don't even register as a threat for our three fabulous ladies, if we're sticking to the lore.

If we're sticking to the lore, groups of mages should be a threat to almost anyone.

But I agree with you that giving us scarred combat veterans who are low-level characters doesn't make much sense.

I think games should stop doing that.

[In Exile]

If we're sticking to the lore, groups of mages should be a threat to almost anyone.

But I agree with you that giving us scarred combat veterans who are low-level characters doesn't make much sense.

I think games should stop doing that.

 

Unless "low-level" still requires implies substantial combat ability. D&D uses the correspondence between level and prowess, but DA:I needn't do it that way. It might be that low-level means substantial prowess, whereas high level means almost inconceivable levels of prowess. 

[DanniloSan]

In fact my main problem is that the Main Story quests are not scaling with my characters...So defeating the final boss wasn't a challange for a high level inquisitor...

[Forsythia77]

I'm of a split mind on this topic.  I don't think the bears/wolves/etc in the Hinterlands/insert your area of choice should level up with you.  You might get the occasional elite boss level bear but a bear is a bear is a bear.  And bears in different areas might be more robust and therefore higher level than your average Hinterlands bear.  That's fine.  I get it that an Orleasian Great Bear is a better bear because evolution.  Human mobs are more problematic.  My character learns new things.. Why can't the enemies learn new things and level up as well? Why are they static?  Can an apostate mage not get his or her hands on a new spell book to learn how to necromance?

 

Even if I leave the Hinterlands early, I still find myself far outleveling the game just in the course of trying to get enough power to do the main missions/open up new areas, and that is a damn shame.  It presents zero challenge to the point where sometimes I just let the AI take out a mob because they are level 15 and I am level 22.  And no XP?  Honestly a lot of the incentive to do stuff just gets thrown by the wayside.  I have quests left but doing them puts me to sleep because I'm just phoning it in, even on nightmare.  I don't want to phone it in.  I want to be challenged throughout the entire game.

 

I'm not saying level scaling is the answer.  I'm just saying the way one gains XP and the challenge level of certain areas needs to be reevaluated in the future. 

[KaiserShep]

If we're sticking to the lore, groups of mages should be a threat to almost anyone.

But I agree with you that giving us scarred combat veterans who are low-level characters doesn't make much sense.

I think games should stop doing that.

 

I guess the problem is, what level should a seasoned veteran start with at the beginning of the game? In ME1, Wrex has already been alive for hundreds of years, so should be a level 60 soldier from the very beginning, but that would make him ridiculously OP if we took him everywhere.

[AlanC9]

1. modify enemy awareness and the in combat/out of combat functionality to make it easier to pull a few enemies at a time and thus "modify" the difficulty of a higher-level encounter more actively.
2. better pulling functionality allowing the mobs to "chase" further

I dunno. This sort of thing always feels like an AI exploit to me when done against sentient foes. (I play DA:O with an anti-pulling mod.) Can we achieve the same result some other way?

[Sylvius the Mad]

I guess the problem is, what level should a seasoned veteran start with at the beginning of the game? In ME1, Wrex has already been alive for hundreds of years, so should be a level 60 soldier from the very beginning, but that would make him ridiculously OP if we took him everywhere.

Make the overall power curve shallower, and redefine what level 1 means (as In Exile suggests) and that problem goes away.

[Terodil]

Make the overall power curve shallower, and redefine what level 1 means (as In Exile suggests) and that problem goes away.

A little shallower, perhaps, but the core problem persists. In reality, a single robber or two have no chance against seasoned, elite troops.

I would like to expand on an idea Forsythia brought up, and that was mentioned previously as well: Why not designate particular types of mobs to have random 'elite' members? It would make no sense for a bear in the Hinterlands to level up, the same applies to the run-of-the-mill highway robber or the scrub apostate. However it stands to reason that some individuals are actually using the time to train, e.g. Rob the Robber, or Tim the Templar. Makes me think of Diablo's boss groups.

These groups would (have to) be the exception to the rule though. I'm not certain that would be enough for those requesting level scaling. And if we look at it closely, the same problem presents itself in a smaller scale now; what happens to Rob the Robber while you are away fighting Corypheles? Does he level to 15 and stop there, because realistically he has reached his peak?

[Sylvius the Mad]

A little shallower, perhaps, but the core problem persists. In reality, a single robber or two have no chance against seasoned, elite troops.

I would like to expand on an idea Forsythia brought up, and that was mentioned previously as well: Why not designate particular types of mobs to have random 'elite' members? It would make no sense for a bear in the Hinterlands to level up, the same applies to the run-of-the-mill highway robber or the scrub apostate. However it stands to reason that some individuals are actually using the time to train, e.g. Rob the Robber, or Tim the Templar. Makes me think of Diablo's boss groups.

These groups would (have to) be the exception to the rule though. I'm not certain that would be enough for those requesting level scaling. And if we look at it closely, the same problem presents itself in a smaller scale now; what happens to Rob the Robber while you are away fighting Corypheles? Does he level to 15 and stop there, because realistically he has reached his peak?

I'd rather the elite members were always level 15 (or whatever they are).  There's a level beyond which they wouldn't climb given their surroundings (because they don't need to).  Just as you can't get XP when you're three levels beyond your victims, I see no reason why they should either.

 

But elite enemies should be elite even when you're not.

 

I'd also like to see characters start at different levels (say, Cassandra is level 15 to start the game), and then have companions only gain XP when used.

[AlanC9]

I'd also like to see characters start at different levels (say, Cassandra is level 15 to start the game), and then have companions only gain XP when used.

So the PC would be substantially behind Cassie at the start of the game, and would be lower all the way if she's in the party a lot? Interesting. I would have really liked this in KotOR.

Are you planning on something like the AD&D XP tables too? Without a really progressive table everyone would feel locked-in to their primary NPCs. Unless the levels for NPCs who aren't in the active party become relevant somehow.

[Sylvius the Mad]

Are you planning on something like the AD&D XP tables too?

Of course.  I've been arguing for that since before DAO was released.  I used to fight with Georg about it.

[Rorschachinstein]

I'd rather the elite members were always level 15 (or whatever they are).  There's a level beyond which they wouldn't climb given their surroundings (because they don't need to).  Just as you can't get XP when you're three levels beyond your victims, I see no reason why they should either.

 

But elite enemies should be elite even when you're not.

 

I'd also like to see characters start at different levels (say, Cassandra is level 15 to start the game), and then have companions only gain XP when used.

 

No, personal companions should be the same level as the inquisitor. Or else you'll have a Pokemon travesty where you under use some of your companions and they become useless, or a waste of time to grind. I wouldn't mind having temporary companions that you could control similar to Tallis being at high or low levels depending on the difficulty. But not personal companions.

[Terodil]

While I think it's a good idea on paper, my personal gaming preferences would speak strongly against creating an excessive power divide between your PC and the NPCs. It creates a jarring conflict where you end up asking why you are there in the first place and why *you* are calling the shots and not that kick-ass NPC.

 

I don't know if you've played SWTOR but there is a funny situation you can run into if you've gained the loyalty of all companions in the game, which grants a permanent bonus to presence (which determines the combat effectiveness of your companions). If you take your baby lvl 10 character into the first flashpoint, basically you can stand back and watch Treek annihilate an entire dreadnought all by herself. If you try to do dps, heal, or tank hardly matters, if anything you make the job harder for your companion. I wouldn't want that as a design choice.

[draken-heart]

Actually, what is needed, in my opinion, is more content with challenge and story (particularly one that fits in with the main plot).

[Sylvius the Mad]

No, personal companions should be the same level as the inquisitor. Or else you'll have a Pokemon travesty where you under use some of your companions and they become useless, or a waste of time to grind.

With an exponential XP curve like AD&D, there would be no need to grind. Everyone would catch up in the time it took the highest level companion to gain one level. An exponential curve ensures that there cannot be a permanent deficit of more than one level.

[Sylvius the Mad]

While I think it's a good idea on paper, my personal gaming preferences would speak strongly against creating an excessive power divide between your PC and the NPCs. It creates a jarring conflict where you end up asking why you are there in the first place and why *you* are calling the shots and not that kick-ass NPC.

This is something games generally handle quite badly. It's often the case that the PC isn't the best available leader.

That said, I think both DAO and DAI handle this better than most games. While DAO allows you to lead, it also allows you to follow someone else's lead much of the time. It allows the group's decision-making to be collaborative rather than hierarchical.

DAI doesn't even try to make you a leader until you get to Skyhold. Prior to that, decision-making is driven primarily by Cassandra and Leliana, with the Herald being sent out to do things the Inquisition needs, but they don't even really seek the Herald's input.

I also dispute that level has any necessary connection to leadership skills, particularly in a ruleset where leadership skills are not quantified.

[In Exile]

This is something games generally handle quite badly. It's often the case that the PC isn't the best available leader.

That said, I think both DAO and DAI handle this better than most games. While DAO allows you to lead, it also allows you to follow someone else's lead much of the time. It allows the group's decision-making to be collaborative rather than hierarchical.

DAI doesn't even try to make you a leader until you get to Skyhold. Prior to that, decision-making is driven primarily by Cassandra and Leliana, with the Herald being sent out to do things the Inquisition needs, but they don't even really seek the Herald's input.

I also dispute that level has any necessary connection to leadership skills, particularly in a ruleset where leadership skills are not quantified.

 

I disagree with you entirely on DA:O - everyone absolutely defers to you, even if you somehow think you're doing what others want. The game doesn't support being passive.

 

DA:I is far more supportive of being passive, but it's not right to say they don't seek your input. In fact, they almost always seek your input. 

[Sylvius the Mad]

I disagree with you entirely on DA:O - everyone absolutely defers to you, even if you somehow think you're doing what others want. The game doesn't support being passive.

DAO lets you back down in the face of opposition from your companions. You're not allowed to defer to them initally, but if they object you're able to defer.

DA:I is far more supportive of being passive, but it's not right to say they don't seek your input. In fact, they almost always seek your input.

I saw that as them seeking buy-in from you. They had a plan, and they wanted you to go along with it, so they try to sell it to you.

[In Exile]

DAO lets you back down in the face of opposition from your companions. You're not allowed to defer to them initally, but if they object you're able to defer.

 

I saw that as them seeking buy-in from you. They had a plan, and they wanted you to go along with it, so they try to sell it to you.

 

With regard to DA:O, you can agree with them, but it's not really set up in a deferential manner. It's set up as following counsel. In DA:I you do get some deference - essentially only in the choice between mages and templars - where the advisors give you a veto. But that only happens once. 

 

I agree that in general you just get pitched by the advisors to run errands for them (e.g. when you go to Val Royeaux).