Lephys

This is true. Point not-ignored. There are times when it makes sense, both in the story AND in the gameplay/mechanics, to have things converge on a pivotal situation (such as the decision of a council), and you'll have all manner of ways to get between the previous pivotal situation and the current one, and even oodles of ways to tackle the pivotal situation, itself. My only caution was that, sometimes, games tend to say "Well, we gave you 20 ways in which to accomplish this goal, so that should be good, right?", while failing to realize that the 20 different ways all lead to the exact same accomplishment of the goal. In the council decision example, this might be something like "Get the council to send the army to war." Then, you start asking "What's the point in so much variety in getting the council to make the decision when I can't even get them to do anything even SLIGHTLY different, or get the army to go to war by any other means?" That was specifically was I was thinking of in my whole "bear in mind" caution. They are two sides to the same coin.

I hear you guys. So far, I've backed Wasteland 2, Shadowrun: Returns, P:E, Tides of Numenera, AND a friend of mine got me to go halfsies with him on a tabletop strategy game called Rivet Wars. I'm about Kickstarter'd out for the time being, heh.

I think that sometimes (or... often?) dialogue gets taken on in a little too much of an all-or-nothing approach. "If you say this, they will get very mad. If you say this, they will get very happy. If you say this, they'll just provide you with info." Maybe it just needs to be more modulated, from conception to the finished product? Instead of "angry or not angry" maybe there's sort of a 0-100 scale of anger or frustration. Instead of "option A = response A, option B = response B," you could have the system check for mood level. "Option A? Frustration at 60, so load response A3 instead of A. Frustration < 30? Load Response A." Etc. You take a given character, and there's only so much they're going to do differently when you're talking an individual response to a given statement from a given person. You've already got switches like "You saved the little girl? Load 'Saved-The-Little-Girl' response settings." Kind of. I couldn't tell you exactly how they work, in code syntax, but... hopefully what I'm saying makes sense. It wouldn't be that much difference to set thresholds for a given character in terms of mood status. It would be kind of like combat status, really. "Status: Armor Broken. Physical attack deliver more damage." "Status: Annoyed. Effectiveness of provocation is doubled." Etc. You might encounter people who start out as annoyed, and you can end with them being amused, or angry, or relaxed. Etc. The effects of your statements to them would basically work just like your weapons versus armor and such. Some targets have higher armor, some lower. Some have better armor against piercing, others have better armor against slashing. Others, still, have high magic resistance but little physical armor. Some people would take more "humor" damage from your witty remarks. Some would take more "annoyed" damage from them. Etc. So, behind the scenes, you end up with a 0-100 number value. The player doesn't even need to see numbers. You'd just have to convey stages of each status. Like "perturbed," "highly annoyed," and/or "last nerve." Or "down," "distraught," and "rock bottom." Obviously the names could be better than that, heh. The whole system could. This is being whipped out of my head like a sprinkle of seeds. It's gonna need some water, minerals, and time to grow into a good system. But, back to the whole "more modular" thing, imagine talking your way out of being arrested for something. Maybe you can end up being locked up. OR, you could talk your way out of being locked up, have to pay a fine, and have your weapons taken away (temporarily, during a phase of a quest, or your stay in a city, most likely). OR, you could talk your way out of jail time AND a fine, but still have your weapons taken away. OR, you could talk your way out of jail time AND keep your weapons. OR, you talk your way out of jail time AND get to keep your weapons, but you still have to pay a fine. All that, instead of "Do you get arrested, or don't you?" And maybe the fine is based on Annoyance rather than belief that you've actually done something wrong, which is why you could have your weapons taken (a lesser suspicion that you've done something wrong) but still not have to pay a fine (you didn't annoy the guards). Etc.

I fear there's still a slight misunderstanding. Our solution isn't to limit everything so you never have to deal with the potential for annoyance. Our solution would be to deal with the annoyance. If you can't deal with it in any other way than to limit the systems, then sure, limit them. But if you can simply allow people to easily move corpses and such, then that works just fine, too. The point is, that dead thing's corpse was in no way intended to block your path. Especially not just because it happenstancically fell in front of a doorway, or on top of a treasure chest. So, in that situation, the ability to use the doorway or chest/container is infinitely more valuable than the realism of the corpse falling where it may and retaining collision-detection. Like I said, that just needs to be considered, is all, so that a solution can be found. The solution is not automatically "Just don't even put anything even resembling physics into the game. I want to run through enemies in the middle of combat and have spells and arrows go through boulders and walls." Also, as much as the idea of breakable walls rocks (it really does), that would present some problems in the rest of the game. If you could break whatever wall you wanted, what would stop you from waltzing around town, exploding the palace/castle walls? Or, what if you used explosive spells in combat, with only the intention of felling foes, but you caused the entire room to collapse? (which, again, would actually be pretty cool, but could prevent you from completing integral story content) And if it doesn't collapse, then that's not very realistic. So, if you limit it, and you can only explode CERTAIN walls, or your corridors can only SOMETIMES collapse, so as to keep them from blocking you off from the core content completion, then what's the point in your half-realism at that point? You're getting all of the cons, and hardly any of the benefit. Stuff like that... it just has to be heavily considered, is all, before deciding. It's not out of the question or anything. But you don't want to create a new problem with a solution to an existing one. Just takes some hashing out and tweaking. 8P

^ Hehe, yeah. I hear ya on the Song of Ice and Fire series. I have yet to read the 5th book. I like the others, but they are kind of... I dunno. It's almost like "Did I mention there was chaos everywhere?" every 5 pages. I mean, you've gotta give Martin credit for what he does, but that doesn't mean the books are entirely lacking. The Wheel of Time does tend to have some drawn-out/rough spots (like when Perrin goes on a 15-chapter quest, in like book 10-or-so, to chase down a group of people he's less than a day behind and rescue some people). But, I never really read anything in that whole series that could've been a little better without later finding myself thinking "Nevermind... it has been made up for, good sir." For the most part, . I, too, am a fan of the spellsword idea. I've actually seen the Legend of the Seeker television series (I didn't know about the books when I saw it), which was pretty good (at least in Season 1). I mean, it got a bit weak, and apparently they arbitrarily changed everything they could from the books, heh... BUT, the world/lore presented seemed very interesting to me. That's when I discovered the books behind it. I just haven't gotten to read them yet. The challenge with magic (and the spellsword idea even illustrates this pretty well) is in how you give a believable character in a believable world such powers while keeping them believable and "human" (they might be a different race.) If they were just ubermages who won at life, why would they even use a sword, much less train enough with it to master it? That's one thing I loved, when it happened, in the Wheel of Time world. Some people were SO powerful with magic, and they'd be facing someone else who could channel as well. When all seemed lost, the loser would do something like throw a nearby rock at them. They'd be SO unfocused on anything non-magic-related, their only instinct was to try to cut the weave controlling the rock. SURELY it was a magical attack. But, alas, the rock was controlled by simple physics at that point. Obviously, they'd be fully capable of stopping the rock in mid-flight with a weave of their own. Or simply dodging it. But, by the time they realized that, it would be striking them in the face. Basically, a super-powerful mage was defeated by an abruptly-thrown rock. Heh.

"Gelcore!" It's hard when reacting to abrupt impact/change, but soft when pressure is slowly applied. ^_^

Unlesssss... You could actually have the exact "same" response, if you incorporated moods. One thing you say might evoke the same words from an NPC while pissing them off, as another response might make them smile and relax as they speak the words. The point to that being that their mood would impact the effects and availability of subsequent dialogue choices. That isn't to say, of course, that they would always say the same exact things simply with different emotional reactions. That would be silly, 8P Obviously, if you piss them off too much, they'd just kick you out/end the dialogue/attack you, etc. Things people do when they lose their tempers. BUT, if you piss them off a bit less, you could still get all the way through the dialogue, and, at the end, still ask something like "So, how about you let me borrow that spiffy sword?", causing them to finally lose it and hulk out on you (kick you out, attack, send you away, run away screaming and pulling their hair out, etc.), even though you didn't get the dialogue cut short, really. You got through everything they were going to discuss with you, regardless of the exact manner in which the two of you discussed these things or how much they told you about each thing (on account of your pissing them off most of the duration, heh). But, it doesn't stop there. Maybe you piss them off even less than that, (at some point, that'll just be "you didn't piss them off, but you also didn't really affect them positively, either, so they remain indifferent to you") you'll get through the entire conversation, and when you ask something of them, they might consider it and bargain with you. "You want to borrow this sword? Hmm... maybe for enough collateral." Then, you start venturing into the "they like you more than they did when you started" territory. Ultimately resulting in, in this super simplistic example, their trust in you and allowance for you to borrow the spiffy sword. Of course, it shouldn't be simply that pleasant things that make them like you are good, and that unpleasant things that make them angry are bad. Maybe they'll lose themselves in their anger/frustration and say something they had been meaning to keep quiet. Maybe getting in someone's good graces causes them to give you some amulet they found, which turns out to be cursed, or maybe they turn out to be an obsessive serial-stalker friend/"lover" (in their eyes), or they simply get in the way of things at some point by trying to help you out when you didn't really need it and/or they reached beyond their abilities despite their good intentions. Hell, maybe they follow you on some dangerous task, and leap out and take an arrow for you before you can do anything about it(good for you from a "you're not dead" standpoint, but bad for you from a "you inadvertently got that person killed" standpoint), whether you were capable of handling the arrow on your own or not. Then, of course, you've gotta factor in the notion that the same thing can piss off person A, and make person B laugh and love you for saying it. Even being hostile/aggressive can garner friendship and respect in certain characters, who might see softness as rude and/or a weakness (like... isn't it Klingons, in Star Trek, who think it's rude NOT to hail a ship with your weapons fully armed? They feel it's demeaning, as if the ship you're hailing isn't a potential worthy adversary or something, and you can just fly around them with your guard down you're so unconcerned). Sorry. Your words just got me thinkin' 'bout a bunch more words.

For this no single che will do, so I shall grant not one but tou...

I'm sorry, too, JFSOCC. I'm basically an android, so my brain just takes in your perfect sense, acknowledges it, then goes straight into option-exploration mode and starts twisting it all around like a Rubik's cube. I didn't intend to hijack. Only to build upon a foundation you helped lay. If you hadn't said what you did, I wouldn't have had it as context for other thoughts and ideas regarding the topic. I will try to be more "verbal" with my actual acknowledgements of good posts and ideas before I begin androidishly erecting as many lightning rods as I can for the subsequent brain storm.

Strangely enough, a good mix of appearances would be weakened by a complete lack of any super model appearance.

What would be interesting is if gold/silver/copper (for example) had different utilities than simply being multiples of each other. i.e. Even if 1 gold = 10 silver and 1 silver = 10 copper, one merchant might charge 2 gold for something, or 28 silver, or 350 copper. So, having the actual gold piece would benefit you better, there, than just having an equivalent amount of other coins. Might even be that a merchant/person values silver more than gold, or even copper (that would be pretty rare, I would think, though, and a bit strange). OR, gemstones. Maybe a ruby is appraised at 10 gold pieces in value. well, the merchant might accept 1 ruby as payment for something, or 12 gold. Maybe he values the ruby more than the gold. Subtle things... it shouldn't be enough to make you go "Well, crap, I'd better hunt around for someone who can exchange all my copper, silver, and gold for rubies, now" every single time you want to buy a vegetable. BUT, it should be enough to make the difference in currency matter. The more expensive things would present a benefit to those who actually spend their money wisely. Did you just haphazardly trade those 3 rubies you had for some 30-gold item? Well, you could've gotten 36 gold worth of stuff from this other guy for 3 rubies. It's not the end of the world, because you can just give him 36 gold (you don't even necessarily have to buy anything from him). But, you look at how many times, throughout the game, you'll find pricey items you want, and it adds up. Alternatively, you'll run into things and say "Aww, I'm pretty low on gold right now... this thing costs 36 gold. Wait, this guy loves rubies?! Luckily, I have some rubies!" Boom... Discount. It's more interesting when it comes to various actual currencies, rather than different weights of coin, like Josh's reference to, well, faction currency, for lack of a better term, from Fallout: NV. Even though it's all got value everywhere, it might have more or less situational value. That, and the difference of the currencies not dropping down to crappy value when your Barter skill is low or the merchant's is ultra high. Those are the little details that make multiple currencies a reinforcement to the game, rather than an arbitrary complexity.

Well, one who relies upon the wilderness for his effectiveness/edge would kind of HAVE to have some degree of interest in protecting it, lest his skillset be rendered entirely moot. Take hunters, even. A hunter doesn't just go out and kill as many living things as he possibly can. Because, what happens if you kill 100% of the deer populous? Well, now you're huntless. Or, what happens if the entire forest is burned down? Well, now you have no plants from which to make salves, and no wood from which to make arrows, etc. Just because you don't hug the land doesn't mean you don't value it and care for its continued prosperity. Tyrants don't care about their people, but they care about the productivity the people provide. If a tyrant let his entire populous die, where would his power be?

True enough. A lot of stuff just tends to treat magic-users as completely separate creatures from "normal" people. How does that guy travel? He teleports, obviously. How does he kill? With lightning and death beams. Opens doors? Telekinetically. He's a magical creature, and he does magical things, all the time, with magic. He's like a weapon, or a dragon or something. But not really a person. You don't always get very much (if any) of that ambivalence regarding magic, and the casters aren't usually treated as very complex people. I mean, in Dragon Age, you've got the Mage's Circles/towers. But, even that, they reduced to simply "Oh, look, everyone with magic should be controlled. Or, you're against us if you don't believe that, in which case you should be hunted down and controlled!" And that was it. "Do you sympathize with mages? Or are they dangerous weapons and need to be controlled?" That's about all there was to it. Reminds me of the overly simplified "Do you love orphans, or do you punt kittens?" good/evil dichotomy that oodles of RPGs use. At least the Aes Sedai were actually worked into society pretty well. Extreme stances existed, especially amongst those in outlying small villages and towns who never really dealt with them. But, then, you didn't always know who was one and who wasn't. That was a thing they were very careful about, a lot of the time. And not ONLY for the reason that 50% of people might want to kill them if they knew they were Aes Sedai. Magic was a tool, rather than simply a power. But, anywho... I do need to read the Terry Goodkind books. I haven't yet, but I believe someone in my family has them. I just happen to have read the entire Wheel of Time series now, and I pretty much loved it. So, it's the thing I can most draw example from. I am very much in favor of the existence of factors that cause you to REALLY weigh the pros and cons of magic use in certain situations. Like that "enforcers" example, above. That would be rather interesting. Reminds me of the hitmen coming after you in the Fallout and Elder Scrolls games when you built up a certain reputation or crossed the wrong person. Of course, those implementations were a little bland. "Oh, has it been a week? Queue 'random' deathsquad ambush." Heh... But, anywho. ALSO, that would add some more reason to the "Should Wizards Have Swords?" thread. . If there's a city where your Wizard will be captured and locked up if he blatantly uses magic, it might be prudent for him to have non-magical skills honed just a bit.

As long as we get to ride velociraptors, everything's fine.

P:E cops: "Can you ID the guy?" "Nope. I'm sorry, officer, but I didn't get a good look at his plate."

^ My brain is toying with the idea of some kind of tier 4 bonus. ONE more layer of minor bonus, for a specific weapon that you use enough. Maybe it would rely on some kind of gauge, similar to XP for leveling up (only it would simply be a matter of filling and getting the 4th-tier bonus, or not-filling it and not getting the bonus... there would not be multiple levels). *shrug* BUT, A) I can't really think of the best way to handle that right now, and B) I'm really not entirely sure it's at all necessary. I'm not sure the added layer of complexity isn't greater than what the player would gain from that, in terms of game quality. That might just be applying a coat of chrome to an already-fine system. 8P Like I said... brain -- toying...

For what it's worth, I kinda love Naruto (and the way many animes like it tend to get QUITE creative with powers/abilities), ^_^. And, with this very good example, I just want to emphasize the fact that, in the context of Naruto, the whole "hit them with my special weapon" part is actually probably quite tricky. I mean, between illusions and speedy techniques and raw weapon skill and all manner of deception, the folk of the Naruto universe generally aren't easy to hit, even when they kinda suck. They tend to be quite crafty. Alas, most of that in a cRPG is reduced to more simple rolls. I know you already touched on that, and you're not arguing against it. And yes, just the simple idea of "you've got to manage to hit me, in melee range, in order to establish a link to utilize your ludicrously powerful effects", itself, balances things a ton. Even if a bit more is needed (depending on the difficulty and complexity of the character's capability to melee strike the target), it's an excellent start. Yeah, sorry. I tend to analyze things and elaborate to the point of seeming to suggest direct disagreement on at least some things. I was only trying to roll with what your contributed thoughts on the particulars of drawbacks and such sparked in my mind. Agreed. I didn't even think of that, but when a significant power difference is conveyed, I really don't have a problem with it at all.

You're absolutely correct. Because, when it's not your turn, your character doesn't dodge or parry or counter. Wait.. they do? Well crap. I don't think you comprehend the concept of abstraction in turn-based combat. When you're controlling multiple party members, real-time combat actually detriments you (which is why we invented a little thing called Command Queuing During Pause), because you're one person, trying to make multiple people's real-time decisions all at once. Therefore, it is necessary to either abstract that by allowing one action/phase to occur at a time, OR to simply automate all the characters save for one, completely defeating the purpose of that multi-character control and strategy in the first place. As robfang said, the pausing in real-time combat and the turns of turn-based combat serve the same function. If you want a game with neither of those, then have fun with your arbitrary chaos. *shrug*

I would just add/emphasize that, sometimes, the bottleneck should be the thing that you're using the council decision to accomplish, and the council decision should be one of a handful of extensive means of accomplishing this... thing. A good example is a trial. If the council decision is necessary to affect the trial, you could ALSO completely bypass the council decision and go through an elaborate jail-break for the person for whom the trial is being held. That's... pretty generic and simple, but I'm making a pretty simple point. You can't always just say "Well, there are a plethora of ways in which to affect the council decision, so that's plenty of variety in the game." There should be very few "chokepoints" that don't have at least one major alternative (like a secret entrance to a castle).

I'm not sure to which feature you're referring. I don't want corpses to magically vanish before our eyes, nor do I WANT to be able to walk straight through corpses. I merely pointed out that, if given a choice between walking straight through corpses and being able to get around, or having the super awesome realism of having to actually go around corpses but not really having the functionality in the game to easily do so (thus making corpses into inherent obstacles when they should simply be interactive objects), I'd go with the former any day. Functionality is ALWAYS better than aesthetics. I didn't say "aesthetics are bad, and we shouldn't have spiffy physics on corpses." I just don't want that stuff in lieu of the functional ability to not be drastically inhibited by something as simple as felling some enemies in a room. "Oh, we've felled this troll in this small dungeon room, but it just so happens he's fallen by the door! Thanks to the perfectly realistic physics in this game, we have absolutely no way of moving his 1,200-lb corpse, because they just thought it would be cool if corpses affected movement/access, but didn't make sure things worked the other way around. Guess we won't be going down THAT hallway... but hey! At least his arm jiggles when I shoot an arrow into it! 8D!" That's the type of scenario I want to avoid. Specifically. That's why it's generally better to have somewhat abstracted physics. Sometimes, by the time you've gotten your functional interactivity caught up to the detriments of your physics, extremely simple RPG tasks have become 7-minute endeavors (like having to somehow rig up an elaborate pulley system using character skills and stats, simply to move a troll that wasn't even intended to block a door in the first place).

... Maybe a little... Yes! In a lot of worlds, it's just kind of "Well, just know that the workings of magic are understood by these 3 characters, and no one else has any bloody clue about it at all. And the use of magic never presents any dilemmas or implications to the magical characters! 8D!" I mean, at the very most, a lot of them just have "Ohhhhh, the magic users can get tired. RELATE TO THEIR FATIGUE!", and they call it a day. Heh. I also loved how, in those books, The One Power was like a technology that people could actually work with and discover improvements and utility with, like working with Physics or something. "Oh, hey, I figured out if you cool this a lot, then heat it rapidly, it will cause a violent explosion-like reaction!", rather than simply "There's totally a magic spell that summons explosions when you point at things." Like how (MINOR SPOILER for anyone planning on reading the Wheel of Time books!) male channelers could actually channel Fire to extinguish flames (basically by creating negative fire), while female channelers ccouldn't really do that (it would only result in harming them) and had to channel Water or Air to extinguish the flames using regular, physics-based effects, even if those effects were magically created. It felt a lot more like a part of the world, than some foreign thing that just happens to be visiting.

No, but "50 gold" is a lot easier to make an example with than "50 units of money that are worth a lot but not quite the most that units of money can be worth in this game world." And how "realistic" the money is is simply a happenstancical, contextual trait. You can't implement currency in a game without it relating, in any way, to currency in real life, since they are both functioning as currency functions. So, why not take whatever lessons we can from currency in real life, if we're emulating currency in a virtual world?

Spells that instantly affect, yes. Spells that instantly affect to the same (incredibly high) extent no matter what? I'm just... against that, for some reason. I mean, say at level 3 you have Firebolt (generic example is generic, heh), that hits one target and deals 10 damage. Then, at level 20, you have ULTRA INFERNO-SPHERE that hits all things in a 30-foot radius for 200 damage, igniting them for 20 burn damage-per-second, AND causes them to be capable of lighting other enemies around them on fire. As crazy-powerful as that is, it can still be mitigated by fire resistance, or by not clumping together, or maybe even by some other spell that extinguishes fire, that an enemy Mage can cast in order to prevent most of the burn-over-time damage. Then, you have that spell, and beside it, you have "Summon Pebble, Coincidentally Inside Brain." Is their Mental Fortitude (or whatever the defensive attribute is) less than 40? No? Then the spell fails. Yes? Then they're dead. But what if they had good armor? Pebble to the brain still kills them. What if they had high pebble resistance? Doesn't matter. Pebbly death has embraced them. Does that not... produce some kind of schism? *scratches head*. I still can't put my finger on exactly the factor that makes this problematic. I mean, I'm not against spells that instantly reduce the target's armor, then sometimes allowing a one-hit-kill from a strong attack that normally wouldn't have dealt so much damage through the armor. And I'm not against instant effects like that at all. But "death" is a pretty potent "effect." *shrug* I dunno... I guess it feels like you're replacing all the strategy and tactics of combat (at least potentially, through the option to use this particular spell) with a single, simple "defense" check. You know... doesn't matter where you're standing, or when you attack, or how many hitpoints that enemy has, or how much damage your attack does, or what... the enemy is now a simple lock. Your success over the enemy is down to a single factor. I think that, as long as you can introduce some more factors, and somehow make it still a strategic choice, it's fine. But, then, you've gotta distinguish the difficulty in successfully pulling off the death spell from successfully battling the thing with all non-death-spell means and killing it. To oversimplify this for the sake of an illustrative example: if the creature would take 30 seconds to kill without the death spell, and you make the death spell have a 30-second cast time, then you've merely created a far-less-exciting replacement for combat. So, the challenge in pulling off the death spell needs to be uniquely separate from the challenge of using "regular" means to kill the enemy. We've already touched on some good examples of ways of doing this, but I don't know what the best combination of specific factors would be. Maybe death spells are never ranged. Maybe they have a 5-second cast time. Maybe they have a delay, which can be shorter or longer depending on the defensive saving throw. Maybe the caster becomes fatigued for 10 seconds after casting it, and is incapable of moving. Etc. It's gotta be more complex than "If Fortitude < 40, casting the spell = that thing's death, so there's no reason NOT to cast it. If Fortitude > 40, casting the spell = a useless waste of time, so there's no reason TO cast it." That's all I know. Otherwise, you end up with a very boring ability that throws a wrench into the gears of the tactical nature of combat. A good example would be a Cipher ability that needed to be channeled, and would, eventually, cause the death of the enemy, no matter what its HP/defenses/etc. So, would it be worth it to use it on a goblin with 30HP? Probably not. Would it be worth it to use it on a troll with 500HP? Possibly. It takes time (during which the troll might be more easily/quickly handled via different means, depending on other combat factors), AND your Cipher is left defenseless and incapable of offering any kind of support to anyone else while channeling the ability. If you can manage to use the rest of your party to support your Cipher during that channeling duration, then it's an effective choice to utilize the ability. If you can't, then it ends up being a better choice to seek some other means. The point is that there's a choice to be had there, and it's not a super easy one. It's dependent upon situational factors.

@Boo's Brother Hoo: Welcome to the forums! Also... *snark snark... snark!* Your two cents have splashed their way, majestically, into the Discussing Well. And you're right. It's a matter of moderation, to avoid too-much/too-little scenarios. The main thing is, if you've got an encounter/quest that you want to be available when the character is at least (but not necessarily higher than) level 7, then maybe you set it as level 7, or level 8, or whatever challenge level you want, relative to the potential level range of the player's party at the time (at least level 7, in this case). Well, it might make perfect sense for that quest/encounter to still be available when the party is level 12. But, at that point, level 7 enemies are most likely (in the event of a low-maximum-level ceiling game) going to be as easy as proverbial RPG rats. So, basically, the alternative would be to make that quest/encounter no-longer-available, and have the player simply deal with some other side quest/encounter that's level 11 or 12 or 13 or so. But, the only problem there, and reason to potentially scratch that quest off the availability list, is that it would be ludicrously easy at that point. The problem isn't that it's simply easier than it would've been had you done it first, but rather that it can get to a ridiculously easy point. You run into problems like "does this even produce a good reward now? At level 7, 100 gold was a pretty good money reward, and 1,000 XP was a pretty good XP reward. But, now, at level 12, that's piddly." But then, if you scale the rewards without scaling the challenge of the encounter, then that gets kinda silly. "I literally emptied this cave merely by coughing, but I got half-a-level's worth of XP, and enough gold to buy all-new equipment! 8D!" So, yeah... It just needs criteria in place, is all. I mean, if you can encounter a level 13 thing at level 11, and you can get as high as level 14 before fighting it, then you probably don't need any scaling at all. BUT, if you can reach level 19 and still fight it, then bumping it up to level 17 makes a bit of sense. Even then, you don't necessarily give all the enemies all new equipment and such, but the Level system encompasses a nice grouping of traits and factors, so it makes for a pretty convenient thing to adjust without having to say "Okay, how much more HP should they have? Okay, how much more damage should they do?", etc., on an individual basis. Plus, you've already got creature differences, even at the same level. A level 7 troll is most likely going to be tougher than a level 7 goblin, simply because of the differences between a troll and a goblin. So, you can scale a troll up to level 9, and he's going to retain his toughness relative to a goblin scaled up to level 9. The main point is, it shouldn't be about keeping things exactly on-par with the player characters. That's why Oblivion (the first one I know of that used 1:1 level-scaling) was so ridiculous. However, it actually had a slider (at least on Xbox 360), for the level-scaling, so that you could adjust it. It was defaultly in the middle, at 1:1, and I think you could drag it up as far as 1:2 (the enemies were always twice the level you were), or something like that. OR, you could slide it down some. I think it probably went in decimals, since it was a ratio, but, I found that dragging it down just a bit made the game QUITE fine. 1:.7 or something. So, if you were level 10, the enemies were level 7. If you were level 100, they were level 70. Etc. Of course, an across-the-board thing is still not a great implementation, but that was just an example of how easily the problems with even Oblivion's extreme, across-the-board level scaling could be significantly lessened. Annnnnywho, this thread is about so much more than simply level-scaling. 8P. It just seemed to be the hot sub-topic here for a bit.

Not necessarilyIf you have factions for which you can work, like I believe we'll have, then you can limit a player to working for just a section of these factions on any playthrough. If you base joining these factions on choice, rather than prerequisites, you'll have a significantly different experience each time you play, provided you choose different factions in different playthroughs. With all due respect, yes necessarily. I believe Amberion is simply pointing out that quests are either mutually exclusive, or they aren't. The ones that aren't include, but are not limited to, optional quests that either are or aren't undertaken by the player, purely at the player's behest. X represents the maximum number of quests that can potentially be completed, rather than the absolute number of quests you will complete in a playthrough. That being said, I certainly don't think the player should be able to join all existing factions in the same playthrough. Nor should all factions involve pre-requisites for joining. Just for what it's worth.