Lephys

What would be splendid is if the material of the money was actually the catalyst for the enchantment. "No, I didn't pay some mysterious force to enchant this, and he's going to go buy bubblegum with it next week. I literally spent those coins in the enchantment process, just like the rest of the materials I used."

Paradoxes.

Josh is so great, to spend the time to pop in and answer things like this, ^_^. This means I can have my War Scythe-wielding Wizard and still stop to cast spells without manually switching weapons! 8D! Well, I mean... if war scythes (or regular ones, even though they're horribly impractical as weapons, haha) are in. I'll understand if they're not. I'll just be sad. I'll find some other "unconventional" Wizard weapon to be weird with.

Will there be any stationary (pun totally intended) crafting stations that will allow for additional crafting options, as compared to just standing around in the woods and selecting "Crafting"? Or... maybe put a better way, do you have full access to all crafting from anywhere (as long as you're out-of-combat)?

Gee, I dunno. Critical hits are good, so let's make critical hits occur 90% of the time! 8D! Pepper's good. Let's put THREE CUPS of it into our soup! You know, because it's not like it's good in moderation or anything. Guess you've got me there.

I'm sorry. I didn't mean to! Honest. You said it better than I did (more concisely and less noobishly). *applause*

I figure for practicality's sake, someone with long hair would probably tie/braid it (just something to keep it from getting snagged in nooks and crannies), or at least wear some cloth cap/wrap thing under the helmet (if they're wearing a helmet). I'm curious how this was handled, though, in actual history/record.

The actions of: 1) Determining the specific traits of a given encounter in the first place, and 2) Determining the specific traits of a given encounter at any other point in time before that encounter actually "occurs" in the game world. Thanks for asking and not just assuming what I was talking about. I mean that, genuinely. I'm not going to laugh. Everything you've said in that quoted segment is 100% true, with the sole exception of "this is what happens when developers resort to level scaling." The thing is, you've pointed out that it would be ridiculous and easily noticeable if rats in a Level 1 sewer fought the level 10 party on equal footing. That is absolutely true. I couldn't agree more. What that fails to point, however, is how making any change to what you face in that sewer, before you actually face anything in that sewer, is somehow bad just because going so far as to make all the rats level 10-capable fighters is bad. What if there were some dire rats thrown in? If you performed actions and traveled places to attain level 10 (as opposed to miraculously willing your party to become level 10 in a single instant before simply stepping on into those sewers), then would not the infestation of the sewers go unchecked? Doesn't mean it reached level 10. But, maybe it's just a little different, not than it was (because it never was anything... it didn't "occur" because you haven't been there yet), but different than it would have been under different circumstances? You see, advancement requires time and reaction-inducing actions. So, observing changes in advancement is actually a perfectly useful way of observing the general passage of time and advancement of other things in the world. So, again, if you played through the game once, and went STRAIGHT to the sewers, and were swarmed by numerous (but admittedly feeble) vicious rats, THEN played the game another time, went about leveling up for 5 levels, then came back and actually entered that sewer (assuming there was still anything there to threaten anyone because the rest of the world didn't react to it and clear it out without you instead of just waiting on you to do it), and there were some larger rats, and/or the rats were even MORE numerous, would that be preposterous? Please, explain how that example, right there, wouldn't make sense. What about it would be fundamentally bad or nonsensical/arbitrary? Not some other one I didn't make that we both agree is preposterous, but that one. Because, you're the one arguing "there isn't a single way to do it, at all, to any extent or degree, that isn't 100% ridiculous and bad," and yet countering ONLY the blatantly horrible examples you choose to single out that I'm not even advocating. Then, again, they shouldn't have done specifically what they did. Does the fact that liches shouldn't have randomly shown up automatically render the appearance of ANY other foe in the entire game unbelievable as well? Or is the problem there specifically with liches? Developers have statistically done it problematically in the past. Agreed, as before. The difference between you and I is that you're choosing to assume that means it can't be done, while I see this as an "aren't we a little overdue for a proper implementation, then?" I'd even have absolutely no issue if you simply said "I believe, 100%, that no developer will ever actually do it right." It's the fact that you're arguing that it isn't even possible to be done right. Which is no longer subjective and can actually be determined. Whether or not you like ANY amount of it, it clearly has a purpose (unless you're going to tell me that designing an encounter with the amount of challenge it will present in mind is somehow bad), and it can be done in a sensical and not heavy-handed, blatantly stupid way. Maybe you just disagree with that, no matter what, for no other reason than that you just feel in your gut that it's wrong. But, pointing out instances in which it's been done crappily doesn't prove an inherent flaw in the method itself. Just in the individual attempts. Haha. Rriiiiight. You say there's absolutely no way to do it that isn't horrible, while I say there IS a good way to do it and advocate subtle/sparing use of it, and somehow, the developers' decision that any use of it they go with will be quite subtle/sparing (and therefore good) is somehow on your side of this issue (the side where KILL IT WITH FIRE!). That's hilarious. See, what's even funnier is, I wouldn't have come in here and childishly even brought up whose "side" the developers are on, as if that's somehow pertinent to discussion and not just a "Hah-hah! I'm better than you!" But, not only do you do that, but you're literally contradicting yourself. "Hah-hah! You think level-scaling has its uses, and so do the devs, and I hate it! Luckily they're on MY side. CRY ABOUT IT!" I fear you will forever baffle me, Stun. But, oh well. I wish you well in life, however you forge your path through it.

Among other reasons I'm sure exist and are just unbeknownst to my noobish self, I believe they can store the contextual data within the "baked" 2D resulting image. In other words, even though it's just displaying a 2D image of a boulder, the fact that the boulder was initially generated in 3-dimensional space means that the 2D image retains a sort of "paint-by-numbers" 2D topographical map of the 3D properties of that boulder. I think that's how they do the dynamic lighting, in noob terms (I know this probably isn't perfectly accurate on the technical stuff, but I'm hopefully decently close, if not overly simplified.) The thing is, they still go in and paint them, and that 3D data still stays there. The result is kind of a "best of both worlds" thing. You get spiffy things 3D can offer, while at the same time taking advantage of the amount of detail a 2D image can offer (along with the lack of hardware intensiveness to display said detail because it's not constantly-maintained 3D space).

Interestingly enough, "bull****" is a nicely balanced word. It's two syllables, which can be evenly split in half, and it's made up of two words, each of four letters in length. /jest

I personally adore Sanderson's take on magic. I know that's mostly just preference. As for the "why and how" argument, I wasn't really trying to pose some over-arching philosophical question on magic systems in general. I was simply commenting on the idea that the "why" behind the "how," specifically in the D&D spell-preparation rules, is a bit silly to me, considering it wasn't just for some story, even, but actually directly fuels an interactive game. If it's just some lore, and that's it, then I don't care if it's the most convoluted, impractical thing in the world. That's why I pointed out that I'm fine with the Vancian spell preparation from a sheerly lore standpoint (I get how it works), but simply take issue with why it was decided it would work that way (to make playing a Wizard downright annoying unless your DM always compensates for raw probability, perhaps?) Anywho, it's mostly preference-oriented, and it was definitely a bit of a tangent. My apologies. It isn't really a moot point, though, as it what sparked the comparative analysis was the fact that PoE's system is so similar: I was pointing out how significant I felt the minor differences were. For what it's worth.

With this I am in agreement. However, there are more alternatives than just nothing.

For the record, the sheer usage of level-scaling in no way requires the presence of point #1 OR the absence of point #2. Stop arguing nonsensical things. All scaling of everything to your level at any given point in the entire game (even DOWN to your level if it's tougher than you) is level-scaling, but not all level-scaling is making everything your level (or even adjusting everything in any way, shape, or fashion.) Stun. What're you doing? Stun! STAHP!

I didn't say it was level scaling. Please, please, please actually just read my words. For once. If I wanted to argue with you that making the game linear was literally the changing of things levels, dynamically, in reaction to the player's party's level, I would've said that. Do you not agree that both actions are based on the same thing (i.e. the finalization of encounter numbers based on the player party's capabilities at some given point in the game)? If not, please tell me how, specifically. I don't understand what you're saying, except for the part about settings being ruined by everything suddenly scaling to the player's level, all the time, with no rhyme or reason. What I'm saying is, if you only ever fight a specific encounter once in a given playthrough, then that instance of the game world is, undeniably, *set* for that entire playthrough. I still am not comprehending the fundamental basis for the whole "changing things based on party things is bad" argument. In essence the sheer act of saying "If you're THIS level, this encounter shall consist of X... if you're THAT level, this encounter shall consist of X + 1" is no different (again I re-iterate, in function -- it can still be overdone or done poorly, just like anything else ever) from any other mutually exclusive change to the game world. Did your main character have 20 Resolve and a huge Reputation for being Merciful this playthrough, as opposed to some other playthrough when you didn't have that? Then Encounter X actually has your foes back down from you and put down their weapons, as opposed to actually throwing all those foes against you as a definite obstacle. Guess what? An encounter just altered itself based on your party's capabilities. Furthermore, in regard to the way level-scaling is most often used, you do A before B, and thus have a great chance of being, say, level 10 instead of level 9 when you get to B (when you COULD'VE done B before A). Thus, the game says "okay, we're gonna make changes to this encounter B based on the fact that you're level 10 instead of level 9," whatever those changes might be (it could add just one hitpoint to one foe -- which would admittedly be almost pointlessly subtle -- OR it could add in 10 extra foes and increase the whole foe group's level by 3 levels; the change is not a binary 1:1 thing just because it is based on your level, just for the record). Okay, so it's "based on your level." But, what if encounter B is some kind of bandit fortress, and they hear about whatever you did in Quest/encounter A in the time it takes you to make it to their Bandit Fortress, encounter B (because reactivity and all that jazz, and word spreads, etc.). So, Fearless Bandit Leader calls back all his little raiding groups, and replaces his standing guards at the fortress with his toughest fighters (because, obviously, all bandits aren't clones, right?). Boom... Guess what just functionally occurred? You have a situation in which, had you faced the Bandit Fortress at level 9, you would've encountered lesser resistance, and not-as-tough bandits. But, because of your actions and delay that accompanied your attainment of level 10 before reaching the Bandit Fortress, the Bandit Fortress was "scaled." But, guess what? It wasn't based on your level, but you wouldn't have been able to tell even if it was." Does that make sense? If you just arbitrarily scale crap the millisecond you level up, then yes, that's dumb. But, if you scale stuff in a proper/appropriate fashion, you've done it the right way. It has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that the game's encounters are adjusted to present you with an appropriate challenge, and everything to do with specifically how it's done. That's what I'm saying, and I don't how that doesn't make sense. But the world does cater to you. Why aren't there horrific, horrific level 10 beasties on the 3rd floor of the megadungeon, and a village of peaceful Dwarves on the 7th floor? You think they just found an existing game world, and left it alone so that it wasn't tainted by the evils of... *gasp*... adjustment!? No, they said "Hmmm... when you get to this point, how do we design the foes there such that they'll provide an appropriate challenge?" I patiently await the explanation on how the sheer act of adjusting foes you have yet to encounter or even face -- thus, they don't really exist in any specific state of being, until you actually face them (We'll call them Schrodinger's Foes, ) is somehow evil, but hand-tailoring the difficulty of even static encounters in the first place, solely based on the amount of challenge they'll present to at the level/state-of-progression your party will feasibly be at that point in the game is 1,000% fine and totally different. How so? So, there are just 5 orcs of specific HP and skill, chilling in some spot in some forest, 24/7, for the entire time that passes before you actually encounter them? It's not possible that you might actually encounter some unspecified group of patrolling orcs at some given point in time, at some given location in the forest that happens to be near an orc encampment? They don't ever like... change shifts, or die to wolves over time and be replaced by other orcs? You have yet to explain why the sheer aspect of dynamics, here, is fundamentally wrong. I didn't ask for everything in the entire game to always be completely random. "Maybe the last boss is a single rat, instead of the actual villain! 8D!" I'm saying, "Why would the 'randomization' of any encounter at all be a bad thing?" The reason I ask this is, you say it's bad to base encounter adjustments on a party's level, so... as long as they're not based on the party's level, they should be fine, right? If not, then the sheer specification of encounter factors seems to be fundamentally wrong in the first place. Why is it okay to "change" an encounter from a state of non-existence, to "there will be 5 orcs here with X HP and such" in the first place, but it's not okay to simply alter that determined list of criteria for that encounter before the encounter even takes place? No. I literally just said "It's just a random seed determined at the start of that playthrough." IT doesn't matter what level you are. SOMEtimes, there are 5 orcs at that bridge, and sometimes there are 7. Then, I asked, IF that would be fine, why would the exact same change (facing 7 orcs instead of facing 5 orcs) be suddenly not-fine, just because it happened when you were more capable? What is causing a problem? Please point out the structural flaw on the blueprint, so-to-speak. Because "Because it's based on your capability now even though the result is the same!" isn't really a reason. Also, this has NOTHING to do with hand-holding. I don't even comprehend what you're talking about. Yes, Obsidian, please hold my hand by making me fight MORE orcs instead of FEWER orcs. Seriously, Stun. Seriously... You've lost me.

I personally like A Song of Ice and Fire. But, I've got to admit, it's not even nearly my favorite story/series/world. I don't think it's flat-out bad or anything. I think for what it is, it's pretty good and interesting. But, yeah, he definitely takes the "who says a good king is going to rule in a golden age?" thing a bit too far, overcompensating by making almost everyone in any position of power either a horrible person, or overwhelmed/outnumbered by horrible people. In his world, 90% of the people in the world are terrible people, and 10% are like... angels of justice. There's some good character development here and there and such, but... there's just a bit too much "dark" in there. You can still have plenty of bad stuff happen all the time without it being caused by almost every single main character you have being an arse. Even all of the horrible characters don't really come out on top, as they are constantly screwed over by one another. So, you don't even have any semblance of stability from a tyrannical rule. Annnnnywho...

But... why wouldn't they even be rogues at that point? Where is it mandated that a Rogue can't be different from a Fighter with regard to combat, with the exception of being lesser? A Ranger is balanced against a Fighter with combat, and not by out-non-combating him, right? They both are very offensively effective. And yet, The Ranger does things a lot differently than the Fighter does (namely with mostly ranged weaponry and an animal companion.) The Fighter can even also use ranged weapons, but he has completely different abilities with them and doesn't get an animal companion. Why is it against the rules of the universe for a Rogue to have significantly lesser non-combat differences than a Fighter, and simply be good at combat while being inherently/stylistically different from a Fighter with regard to combat? I don't see anywhere in the definition of Rogue "Is only sneaky, cunning, and highly skillful in everything that isn't in any way related to combat." Based on what? Why is this true? "do more damage" does not equal "is overall better than." There's more to combat than how much damage you can do. If you have 50 hitpoints and can deal 10 damage per hit, you're much better off than the guy who has 1 hitpoint and can deal 7,000 damage per hit. The second that guy has to face two things at once, or simply can't land a hit first, his damage becomes meaningless. It literally doesn't matter how much damage he does, because he's not any "better" than the 50hp, 10dmg guy at "combat." He's just better at "damage," specifically. I don't understand why sheer damage is being equated to betterness at all of combat here. The entire essence of traditional backstab/sneak attacks is that they're extremely damaging, but not able to be consistently used. Your arguments apply perfectly to the setup MMO's use. I'd agree that, in those games, it's silly that Rogues simply do more damage, across the board. You fight something for 20 minutes with a Warrior, and do the same with a Rogue, and the Rogue will always dish out more damage (if you're using them both equally skillfully, whether it be a noob behind the wheel of both, or a pro). But, here, it's not just a running tally of damage. There are so many more factors at play that can render damage pretty obsolete.

If I may ask, if this is wrong conceptually, how is it not wrong to simply maintain encounter balance by initially writing the story/laying out the world such that you encounter lesser threats while you're less-capable and worse outfitted, and greater threats when you've progressed a bit? Why does that Level-three quest deal with Trolls instead of wolves, and why is the final "boss" of the game generally the hardest fight? You play through the game with 6 Fighters, then play a new playthrough with 6 Priests. Everything else is the same, but the story now says "and then, 6 feeble-ish Priests were beset by ninjas in the prologue area." Why is everything player-controlled allowed to be completely inconsistent, but the rest of the world is mandated by the heavens to remain exactly the same in completely different instances? Because, you can't do a quest at level 2, then somehow undo that quest, level up to level 4, and come back and do that same quest again. You can't fight a combat encounter like that, either. So, who's to say what's there before you walk up on it and see with your own eyes? What if the game just randomized encounter design. Would that be bad? Sometimes, there are 5 orcs at this bridge, and sometimes there are 7. Just a random seed when you start your playthrough. Would that be fine? And, if so, why would then having the EXACT same inconsistency, but simply basing it on what kind of challenge is being presented relative to your party's actual capabilities, be somehow wrong? I don't understand what makes it conceptually wrong, and not circumstantially wrong. Either it's the inconsistency that's wrong (which, as you can see, happens without a lick of level scaling), or it's simply the basis for the change (in which case the game shouldn't even make sure you're pitted against challenges you can possibly handle at whatever given point of progression you are through the game).

#2 Actually made me think of something: I hate it when there's some guy that's all "Yeah, I totally think Group A is bad, and want to take them down at some point!", then, completely separately, you encounter Group A, and happen to find out something pertinent to whether or not they should be taken down. But, at this point, the two things aren't allowed to interact. You either help them and defaultly "fail" the "Help Dudeman Steve take down Group A!" quest, or you turn them down and/or "fail" the "Help Group A" quest. All because Dudeman Steve was just handled with a binary check: Did you agree to help him (take the quest), or did you not? The game never accounts for further development in that. Basically, yes, I agree that what you've said should come with a lot of finality, in certain circumstances. But, it made me think of when the opposite should also be true. Just because you say something, with the given information at the time, doesn't mean you can't change your mind, and/or at least try to explain why you want to change your mind to someone. So long as circumstance allows, and there's any reason for it, I think you should be able to go back to the king or whomever and say "No, wait, I know I said we should do A, but I actually think we should do B." He should react accordingly, but I don't see why you shouldn't be allowed to change a decision (not necessarily to an opposite one, just a different one) under the right circumstances.

My mistake. I didn't realize that's what you meant by "belts." While I'll say that it might not be limited to just belts, that's not really a technicality I feel is important. But, yeah, not knowing that you meant that, I was just trying to point out that the immediate "equipment" portion of the inventory might've been slightly more extensive than you thought. Sorry if that was unnecessary.

The thing about "Hah-hah-hah! Obviously that worth-a-pittance equipment is MEANT to be left behind, and actually gathering it to sell is irrational behavior!" is that: A) If the point is significant inventory management, aka "you have to decide what to take and what to leave," how is that really being enacted by having a 25lb armor worth 1 gold, or a 5lb other item worth 70 gold? It's not exactly a puzzle of merit, there, to figure out which you should drop and which you should take. So, basically, why does that stuff even exist as lootable stuff worth money, if not TO be looted and either used or sold for money? Just to give you stuff to obviously not be a wise decision to fill your limited inventory with? and... B) If everything were decently valuable, and you avoided the no-brainer situation from point A above, then what would you really have to say "Obviously you should just leave that behind and never desire to take the time to come back and get it" about? "Oh, there are TWO things on the ground worth 100gold, and you can only carry one of them? LOLZ, WHO would come back to get the other one, and not just leave it there and not worry about it, even though it's totally not a perishable item?!" I get that spending an hour making a bunch of trips to fill up your inventory with cups and silverware in, say, Skyrim, then selling it all to achieve a grand total of like 50 bucks (on top of the thousands you've made in significantly less time) is irrational behavior. But, then, why is that stuff even worth anything to begin with? If there's some use for it other than just to be sold for some magically standard sell value throughout the land, then can you not STILL have that actual significant possible use for the item, and the whole "do you grab some of these, in case someone's actually looking for cups and silverware in a story-related fashion, and deal with the inventory space they take up, or don't you?" notion? I mean, realistically, if you START the game with a stereotypical Rusty Iron Short Sword, then why should enemies 4 hours in be dropping all their Rusty Iron Short Swords? What good are those to you, if not just to be sold? I mean, maybe your group would be all "Okay, bag all this stuff up and have it sent to the stronghold, so it can be melted down. It's perfectly good metal, and we're not exactly drowning in resources there." But, even then, you wouldn't want to carry it around with you to use and/or to sell to a merchant. For realism, it's great that the stuff that physically existed upon their person during combat dropped to the ground, and can now be interacted with. But, if it's of absolutely no value to you in any way, by default, then why is it even there? There's plenty of other stuff that's there that you can't take. You can't just go around pulling all the grass and shrubs out of the ground, and selling them for 1gp. You can't just go around cutting small trees down and selling the lumber. You can't just take all the furniture in someone's home and sell it on the furniture black market. Yet, surely someone would pay much more dearly for a nice piece of furniture than they would a Rusty Iron Short Sword, which you can freely pick up, even though it has absolutely no possbility of being better than the one you started the game with, and sells for the minimum amount possible. *shrug*. I just think these are things that have to be considered when designing the loot system no matter what, and that worry over irrational human behavior can come later. If items are lootable in the game AND have a sell value, is it really any more irrational that you actually make use of that sell value than it is that they are supposed to be useless and you're not supposed to want to pick them up for any reason whatsoever, but you're making use of the one purpose they actually have?

I thought balance was just a hype word... I heard that somewhere.

To be fair, "why" and "how" are two different things. I get how that whole spell-preparation thing works the way it does. And that's fine. I just don't get why it works how it does, since the "why" in this case is "because someone decided it worked this way." It's not like there's some real-life basis for it. I mean, they could've had the system have Wizards metabolizing their spells, into little spheres/tokens they had to touch or have near them while releasing them with either the somatic or verbal components. Would've made just as much sense, and then you could intuitively say "obviously if I only have 2 Fireball tokens, I can't cast Fireball 3 times." It already works that way with material components. I think, at least in some spells, that you use those when you cast the spell, correct? So, technically, you can prepare 5 instances of a given spell, while you only have 1 instance of the material components to cast that spell. etc. Anywho... as has been pointed out, PoE's system is REMARKABLY similar, and still like so much better in some ways. Which is kind of exactly my point. I just don't get the decision to forge the lore into "you actually have to prepare a specific number of instances of a spell" on top of everything else. I understand the lore. I don't understand the choice to create that lore, in the context of the function of that lore within an actual game ruleset that, I feel, is adversely affected by it.

Except that I quite literally typed "inadvertently," and you are quite blatantly ignoring it. He caused the ring to fall (aka "drop," due to gravity) to its doom. Freak out about it all you want. It's not doing any good. It wasn't a request. We've been told how Fighters and Rogues function and you and others are simplifying this somehow to sheer damage numbers = effectiveness. I simply asked questions. Do you believe, based on what we've been told, that Rogues will consistently and effectively out-damage Fighters 24/7? See, in the context of tactics, the Rogue's ability to deal more damage in a given, focused instance is a lot more significant than some kind of general, DPS-rate number that tells "how much damage they do." How much damage they do when? They're not going to be hitting things at the same rate, or engaging things in the same fashion, etc. Not to mention that they can't cause all of the afflictions or whatever -- which facilitate the actual functioning of their Sneak Attack/Lethal Strike -- on their own, effectively. They're not going to single-handedly walk up to every enemy, bestow upon them 4 afflictions, then flank them, for their Lethal Strike damage. So, yes, Rogues will deal more focused damage. I don't think they'll deal "more damage." Let a Wizard toss a fireball at a cluster of 10 enemies, and he's just outdamaged the Rogue by far, even if the Rogue was capable of one-hitting each of those foes by himself. OH NO! A WIZARD IS A BETTER FIGHTER THAN A FIGHTER! You're the one worried about the Rogue-Fighter comparison, and jumping on the "Rogues shouldn't be Fighters!" bandwagon, so I don't understand why I'm the one actually breaking this down while you just simplify everything to "Josh said Rogues do a lot of damage, THEREFORE ROGUES ARE BETTER FIGHTERS THAN FIGHTERS ARE!" Like this game isn't designed with tactical combat in mind, and everyone just has a DPS-rating that constantly burns foes around them at a constant rate. I've pointed things out. Take it or leave it. And please... keep the chuckles coming with the exasperated "you're such an idiot, and literally everything you say is wrong and doesn't make a lick of sense!" speech. I don't understand what your goal is. To hurt my feelings? You know what, Hiro? You're an awesome person, and you don't deserve to hate the Rogue's design based on a misunderstanding. And I know you're highly intelligent, which is why I'm here taking the time to simply point out stuff you may not have seen but can easily grasp and respond intelligently about. I couldn't care less about making you feel bad. I just wanna bounce sense off other people, and take advantage of the sense they provide, so that we can all achieve a greater understanding of the topic at hand. So, just have fun with whatever response you deem fit, I suppose.

I understand this sentiment, but: A) Things don't have to scale to your level or none at all. It can be as subtle as you want it to be. B) Why is that, as stories/progression goes through games like this, you find yourself facing more and more formidable foes and entering more and more dangerous areas as you go? Why don't you fight 6 beholders outside of Candlekeep, in the woods? Because, no matter how "natural" it is, the game is designed with your party's capabilities at any given point in the linear aspect of the game's progression/story in mind. Thus, even if there's "no scaling" of any specific encounters, this entire aspect of scaling/adjustment is already inherent to the design of the game. Here's how I see it: every wolf should not have 6hp. Some should have 7, some should have 5, etc. Some should be bigger, some should be rabid, some should be more vicious. And, again, it's a game, with the progression of capabilities being an inherent part of its design skeleton. So, just like it makes sense to not really get to the beholders until a bit later than level 1, it makes sense to encounter relatively tougher things when I'm tougher. Not randomly. I don't want to go back to some "newbie" area and have all the bandits in town be level 8 instead of level 3. No, obviously that town was safe enough from law enforcement and whatnot that there weren't any major threats around terrorizing everyone. BUT, it does make sense, from a gameplay standpoint, that I MIGHT encounter tougher, more dangerous wolves when I'm level 6 than when I'm level 5, since there's already room for variance amongst wolves. Encounter scaling (adjusting the number/type of enemies) is the exact same principle. It's just got more finesse than "these 5 enemies you would've fought at level 5 actually are a higher level now because you're level 7." But, there's no difference, functionally, between encounter scaling and level scaling. They're both changes to the potential state of a given encounter based on the player's party's capabilities upon actually reaching that encounter. I understand the desire for everything's potential state to remain static. I get that. It's not at all nonsensical. However, we can't really pretend the game doesn't already make "arbitrary" adjustments based upon player capabilities. Again, the game COULD just say "Oh, look at that... turns out all your quests in chapter one are like level 7! Have fun handling those situations, little level 1 party, ^_^". But it doesn't. Why? Pretty much solely because a game wouldn't be much of a game if it didn't present appropriate challenges to you. So, yes, I'll be the first to join in with pitchforks and torches on the 1:1 Oblivion/Skyrim-style scaling. But, there is plenty of room for very subtle, relative changes (and things like encounter scaling, especially) and adjustments based on your party's level. Not in all things everywhere. Just in some stuff. And, according to Josh's comments on this, it seems they will be using any form of scaling pretty sparingly, which is good. It's definitely not going to be "Oh, you're a level higher than you could be, here? SO ARE ALL THE ENEMIES! LOLZ!"

@Kjaamor: LOLCANO! That comic is great! ^_^ Yeah, admittedly some of that stuff doesn't make much sense with the lore, but it was a pretty seamless UI choice. I dunno... maybe they had their own display on their wrist, or inside their little helmet or something, while the back display was for others to make sure people didn't go "Nah, I'm okay, guys, let's just keep working!" through some horrible critical condition? The suits were, after all, designed for utility work and not for combat, so "red" health wasn't really expected to be "YOU'RE ABOUT TO DIE!", even though it actually represents that in the game's context... so *shrug*. I guess either way, it's a pretty weird fit for the lore.