Valorian

Yes, dear. That's exactly what I'm saying. I commend you for your reading-comprehension skills. You're implying it Junita by bringing powergamers and "completionists" (lumping them together too) in a discussion about level scaling as an "argument" in favor of it. But I'm not surprised you don't get it because you've confused yourself with all the nonsense you've written so far to the point of completely losing the compass. Look this horror over there! A player completed many side quests and then used level ups on smart character building choices. Let's label him a powergamer and completionist! Also, easy difficulty is not enough! Players who consistenly make dumb choices (including character building choices) should be rewarded with monsters scaled down to their level! Players who do make smart choices should be punished with enemies scaled up to their level!

So doing side quests is powergaming now? Playing the game and exploring the world has somehow become a degenerashun in itself? The ridiculous in your posts keeps getting stronger and stronger with each post you make. A sports team is training for the championship, the culmination of their career as adventurers sportsmen. They start facing strong teams as they advance, but they haven't really trained much. Suddenly, they lose 10:0. "OMG! Powergamers and completionists beat us! Quick, let's contact Junita for an advice how to deal with it." "Ah, k, we should just ask the teams to scale themselves down to our level and problem solved." And actually I'm not quoting/responding to big chunks of your posts because the vast majority of it is not worthy of a response and I just fast scroll/read through it.

Oh, and one more thing, because you've confused yourself with your own nonsense. Your points about "scaling up" instead of "scaling down" are completely irrelevant because it's a matter of in-game perspective - if you're a level 5 character facing a crit path monster that scales from level 6-12 it would be scaled down to level 6. If you're a level 11 character it would be scaled up to level 11. Level scaling always accomodates the knoodle because it makes life for the knoodle easier by keeping monsters at a lower level and makes life harder for the higher level player by making monsters tougher.

I always find it amusing how people who argue the least sensible points have the hugest stamina ever when it comes to dissecting posts, sentence by sentence, and then spewing nonsense over and over again after each paragraph. PrimeJunta, I had hoped you'd stop with the nonsense by now, but you've doubled it. Let's reiterate some facts, just for you: A) Finishing the crit path in a GAME, especially a game heavy on choices and consequences, is not a God-given right. B) It's especially not a God-given right for those who don't want to work on improving the character they're playing, for those who have mistaken rpgs for interactive novels, and for those who can't find the difficulty slider and silde it down to "easy". C) Silly classifications aside (knoobs, knerds... knoodles etc.), rpgs are not rocket science, every player should be able to grasp the basics and face challenges without mommy Levylla Scallyng staying by his/her side and breastfeeding when baby Junita starts crying hysterically - because, it's a GAME. In a game, people can lose sometimes. It's a shocking concept, I know...

Strawman much? How is it a strawman when you said this yourself: "That without level scaling, the main quest would be so easy it's boring for the most enthusiastic players. Why wouldn't you want it scaled up to your level?" Instead of misusing terms you clearly don't understand (strawman), you should try using some coherency. It helps when posting. Where's the problem? Respec is confirmed. Easy difficulty is confirmed. Adventurer's Hall is confirmed. Awww, poor player - he chose a (much) less than optimal build and missed side quests because he didn't bother to explore or tried a bit harder. Let's scale the crit path to his level so he can finish this BOOK without any inconveniences. Oh, but it's not a book, it's a GAME. A game where choices matter, where you need to level-up your party to be good combatants or diplomats or sneakers or good at something. If you fail to do so you have: Respec is confirmed. Easy difficulty is confirmed. Adventurer's Hall is confirmed. And you can always backtrack and try to finish more side quests. As for content "not being optional/the game being linear" if the crit path encounters are hard and not scaled down to the player's level. Come on, you can do better than this.. The game doesn't need to be linear at all if it's not level scaled. There can be several areas with level 1-2 enemies, several with level 3-4 enemies, some mixed areas.. etc. If the power curve is not too steep you can defeat even higher level monsters if you use good tactics. Mutually exclusive content is also optional content. With the crit path not being scaled you can choose to ignore most of the side quests but that will result in the crit path being much harder.. So you can opt to ignore the majority of the game if you so wish and then turn the diffculty down to finish it. What about the player who finished most of the sidequests and the crit path becomes harder as a result? That's a slap in the face. Or even a worse scenario, what if he plays ironmode or with limited reloads? Doing side-quests is like shooting yourself in the foot for this kind of playthrough.

So much confusion in your head, Captain Innovashun, which is reflected in your posts. Let me break it to you, your proposed level scaling system is no less ****ty than, for example, Oblivion's level scaling. Alright, your level scaling innovashun has a cute bow tie on it. Good, but is a feces any better with a bow tie on it? It has already been explained to you and you chose to vehemntly ignore common sense.. Enemies had already leveled up when you first meet them; it's assumed that they had done something in their lives prior to that point when they meet the player. The problem arises when their level is tied (range or not) to the player's level.

Nah. I think it's more the opposite. That without level scaling, the main quest would be so easy it's boring for the most enthusiastic players. Why wouldn't you want it scaled up to your level? No, it's not the opposite because you ridiculously assume that the crit path would have a-walk-in-the-park non-scaled enemies, when in fact it's only logical to assume that devs would design the critical path having in mind a player that has grown in power by doing side quest and exploring the word. You know, designing the game for someone who plays the game to feel the world and not just run straight through the plot. This means that the crit path would include some of the hardest enemies in the game which would be challenging even for a person who completed the majority of side quest and slain many enemies in the process. And frankly, I don't see why Joe or Jane who are spoiled with Bio hand-holding straight through the movie-style plot shouldn't be disintegrated when they try to finish the game at level 5.

Oh look another one with reading skills deficiency. And one question how come that the world where only the player and his party gain strenght and level up is not damaging the internal consistency and common sense in a world? It's ironic that you mention reading skills since you obviously need posts scaled down to your level to understand what is being said (including your own posts). Let me scale it down your level, Captain Innovashun, "a certain level scaling range" is also a level scaling system where enemies magically adjust themselves according to the player's level. If you're within the range, and in DA:O for instance it was a very elastic range, the enemy will be scaled exactly to your level. This "innovation" doesn't eliminate the abomination from level scaling, as the concept remains the same. As for your question.. First and foremost, having enemies with a set level of power doesn't damage internal consistency - why would enemies, in this specific time interval, be required to have a campaign of their own and get wild with solving quests? Also, it damages common sense much much less than having their level dance to the tune of the player's level.

Thanks for your post Valorian, I was beginning to wonder if I really was the only person on the forum who didn't get why level scaling isn't always a good thing. Level scaling is never a good things. And you're far from being the only one. http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/60248-level-scaling/ Out of 600 people who voted, 94% is against level scaling. Now, I hope I don't need to explain to sharp_one why dinamically and artificially adjusting enemies to match the player's power as he levels up is an abomination which damages the internal consistency and common sense in a world. Yes, it's not only about the problem of hand-holding the player with level-scaling as a safety net, but also about throwing verisimilitude (hey, I advanced a level - now this combat encounter is tougher) out of the window. "A good level scaling system" is an oxymoron. It's like saying "he's a lawful criminal". All that said, an Obsidian dev stated they plan to use minimal level scaling and almost exclusively for the critical path ("because players can go through the crit path at different times", is his reasoning for including l.s.). I wonder if it is really that hardcore to have non-level scaled enemies on the critical path (as with the rest of the game) that are hard to beat so that players actually need to become more powerful by exploring the world and solving side quests to be able to defeat them? Do they really need to accomodate those who want to rush through the crit path by scaling enemies down to their level? Now, if this "minimal level scaling" for the crit path consists of occasionally including additional monsters (encounter scaling) instead of changing the existing ones.. I can live with that, I guess.

We have no problem with that, we want that. Why do you have a problem with using a good level scaling system to achieve that? Bolded part. Level scaling achieves the opposite. "Good level scaling system". R0flcopter

No, the fact that you're giving the example of a game that had MINIMAL encounter scaling in a few specific places is a testament that you have no idea what you're talking about. We didn't notice it because there was nothing to notice.

Josh Sawyer posted an excel spreadsheet with various PE weapons and their effectiveness against different DT ranges. http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3506352&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=323 Too bad you need to be registered to see post attachments and registration costs 10 dollars.

Attacking faster with a small accuracy/damage/penetration penalty which depends on the size of the weapons and feats you have. Penalties would be higher with larger weapons. For instance, if you use a single dagger you'd attack every 2,5 seconds, with 2 daggers - every 1,5 second. With a single long sword every 3,5 seconds, 2 long swords - every 2,5 seconds etc.

If we put on a scale the positive effects of level scaling on one side and the negative effects on the other to weight them against each other, the positive effects would be catapulted into outer space. Therefore, level scaling when used, is always misused. Even if it's just sprinkled across the "main quest".

There's the possibility that piercing weapons have generally a faster attack speed or a higher crit chance, for example, so it balances things out.

Great update indeed. I like that they chose to make spells per-rest --> per-encounter rather than per-rest --> cooldown. I also hope this applies to abilities, such as "Surge". If my assumption is correct, stamina doesn't actually regenerate on its own in combat (hopefully), but you need to use active abilities like Surge and you can use them only a set number of times before locking them, like spells. Regarding swapping weapons... I prefer having my warrior fight with specific weapons. You mentioned you're not going to have specialisations for specific weapons. I wonder if you plan to have specialisations for groups of weapons like slashing / crushing / piercing weapons, small / medium / large weapons etc.? With armor your plan is to offer a persistent benefit if you wear lighter armor (executing actions faster than with heavier armor), but what about weapons? For instance, I'd like to specialise in piercing weapons so that swapping to two flails wouldn't be a no brainer when I see a heavily armored opponent. Weapon stylistic choice is no less important than armor stylistic choice, for a character concept. Also, swapping weapons in the middle of the fight is no easy task, there should be a negative effect for doing so such as a penalty to accuracy/defense for a period of time.

I wonder if ther position of avoiding degenerushon in player behaviour is because they plan to have endless respawns, like in F:NV for example or endless random encounters like in Arcanum or Fallout. The sad thing is, as a player, it's hard to avoid this xp degenerushon when you want to explore a world with respawning enemies; you'll get attacked by the same bunch at the same location and well, you'll have to kill them again on most occasions. I tried installing a mod that would get rid of respawns for F:NV, but it didn't work. In Old World Blues it was ridiculous how often they respawned and I had no choice but to kill them over and over again when going from place to place and exploring, getting lots of (unwanted) xp in the process... That's degenerate design. Of course, the logical solution would be to get rid of respawns and endless random encounters so that (ACCIDENTAL) grinding isn't possible.

The thing that I'm trying to point out myself is that not every monster will be tied to quests or "objectives" because it really wouldn't make sense. And I don't think I'm far off if I say that probably most enemies won't be tied to quests where you can sneak/parely/otherextravagantoption to overcome them.

Sure -- but you do get XP for killing those (I think this is the third time I tell you this). If you stumble on a hostile creature which doesn't do anything except fight you, you should get XP for killing it and making the world a safer place for civilization. Such mindless encounters generally don't matter much in any case as there should not be many of them Well, yes, that's nice and all.. except for the fact that they stated there won't be any kill xp. Not many of them? All the wilderness areas with various crypts and caves... I bet there will be plently of such "mindless" enemies, as you describe them.

Only if you define quests very broadly. For example, suppose you are stopped by a bunch of bandits who tell you "Your money or your life". I would not really call that a quest, but you do get XP for killing them. In fact, you usually get XP for killing stuff if that's the path you want to take. The only exception is psychopathic behavior on the part of a player who randomly slaughters non-hostile, non-quest NPCs --- but you never got much for those anyway, even in the Infinity Engine games. You're mixing apples and oranges. I'm talking strictly about hostile encounters and not "psychopathic slaughtering of non-hostile non-quest NPCs". You won't be able to persuade zombies and ogres, for example. Captain's log, stardate 12345 Wait, wrong game. Quest log: "Dealt with an assassin attack: +100 XP You were able to defeat the assassins sent after you. You have killed them without mercy, but were left to wonder about who and why would pay for your death. Perhaps you should keep the sword nearby during sleep, just in case." Funneh. Yeah, better to bribe them.. so they can come later for more. 1) Because it's not just discovering that will grant xp, but exploring it and solving the problems inside. 2) But most importantly, because xp on kills promote one playstyle over the others, even slightly, while discovering a secret door is not. 1) Removing the immediate threat to your life (killing the opponent) is generally more valuable than discovering a secret dungeon. This should be reflected in xp rewards. 2) Giving xp for discovering secret doors, but not for defeating enemies promotes one playstyle over another, more than slightly.

This should help not putting 100.000.000 of bloody trash mobs in the game. And, as has been previously pointed out, murdering umptillion of gobbos helping you become more persuasive is equally retarded, because the system is only a abstraction of reality. How about being better at taking the specific enemy down? By taking down 15 Goblins you get +1 to "thaco" towards that specific creature. How about putting learn-by-doing TES style where it belongs... in the trash bin.

It's called 'loot'. Not every enemy will have 'loot'. What would you loot from a zombie? The rags?

This should help not putting 100.000.000 of bloody trash mobs in the game. And, as has been previously pointed out, murdering umptillion of gobbos helping you become more persuasive is equally retarded, because the system is only a abstraction of reality. I'm amused at what lengths and stretching of the mind some people go to equate killing of enemies and exploration in a single-player rpg (not MMO) to grinding... Why would this help not putting a billion of trash mobs in the game? Wouldn't they actually care more to not put a billion of trash mobs in the game if they actually handed out xp?

"Trivial" is relative. For a level 10 party fighting a zombie would be trivial. For a level 1 character this encounter wouldn't be trash or trivial. Not necessarily. It doesn't mean that every single enemy group will count as a "progress point". Instead, getting inside a guarded area might count as a progress point. You can sneak in, disguise/talk your way in or simply kill the guards. You get the same XP amount in either case. This is just one example. There are many examples where "same xp for every solution" wouldn't be logical.

Does anything prevent you from doing just that? Then again, if we're talking about the guild of assassins for hire, perhaps paying them to put you on a "no kill" list would be a better idea than just killing the first team and then having 3 more hunting you. It doesn't. But I want xp awarded for this objective. I killed them I completely removed the threat and I want an xp award to further hone my (combat) skills. I'll kill the next 3 hunting me as well. That's exactly the type I was talking about when I mentioned mindless animals and such -- you get XP for killing those. Yeah, because outside quests you can only kill mindless animals and such.. Objective does't necessarily means "quest given buy an npc in the inn". If you stumble upon a secret dungeon (or basicly anything beside random trash encounters) while wandering around, obviously you'll be rewarded. Why would discovering a secret door/dungeon give xp and killing an enemy not?