Level of power

[Flying dutchman]

A problem i've had with a lot of recent RPGs is the rapid progression of the players power. You start from very humble beginnings and then suddenly you don't really have any peers or superiors anymore.

 

I really dislike this and i feel that the world would feel a lot more alive if there were characters whose powerlevel you wouldn't even be able to get close to in the course of the game (like Elminster or drizzt in BG1 for example).

 

What do you guys think about this? Is the progression of power of the player characters a problem?

[Pangur]

Agreed. I don't want my character to be a superhero. Even at the end of the game.

[Zephyr Falcon]

I see your point. And I do agree, being the most powerfull person in the world get very boring very quickly.

 

Here's the problem game designers have to face: Being weak and helpless isn't fun. Killing rats isn't fun. People might loose interest if there are no big, cool monsters to fight at the start. (I'm sure about the truth of that statement).

You also can't give a player an impossible challenge - that would just be the end of the game. In this regard people always have that safety net of only getting a level appropriate challenge. And even with a quicksave/quickload botton it's bad to constantly kill the player and force a reload - it just leads to more rage quits.

 

That's why the problem exsists, now for some solutions:

 

- Like OP said meeting powerful NPCs - the difficulty is to prove to the player that those NPCs are truly powerfull, Elminster and Drizzit relied on reputation alone.

 

- Cool low-level challenges: This one mainly comes down to design (monsters have to look cool, unique, challenging), diversity (not just rats or zombies) and imaginative scenarios fighting them (not just the good ol'dungeon)

 

- Showing things the PCs might be able to do later - much later. Like stopping time, teleporting, mind-controlling a giant monster, etc. Those work best if they aren't the big baddies special tricks, but rather something that can be attained in-game at a high level.

[eimatshya]

Depends on the game, I think. In KotOR II I thought it made sense, but in, say, Neverwinter Nights 2 + MotB, I could see how it could strain credibility to go in such a short time from humble villager to challenger of the gods.

[aluminiumtrioxid]

Since the developers are thinking about sequels, I doubt we'll attain truly epic power in this game. This pleases me immensely. (Just how ridiculous was it in ME2 when you went back to lvl 1 nobody after finishing the first episode as a lvl 50 super badass?)

[Aotrs Commander]

I actually like the progression of power, and getting more toys to play with at the end, and the feeling of greater power... (Sometimes bigger numbers are more fun.) That said, it's more about relative (end-to-start improvement), than absolute power (whether at level 20 you're Superman or not) (which is easy to adjust, if you want to bring in Things the PCs (preportedly) Cannot Kill, just make 'em +50% or more of whatever the level cap is. That said, I don't it's a good idea to have high-level NPCs like Drizzt or Elminster floating around anyway, because a) people will want to kill them if they're there and b) there needs to be a really good reason for them being there and not doing the quest themselves (the Realms was especially bad for this kind of name-dropping that I think you can really do without) and c) all-too-easily leads to showing off how uber that character is to the annoyance of the player (this last doubly-applies to tabletop RPGs, but even games designers can sometimes do it too.)

 

BG 1's power curve was pretty awful, but fortunately, all the IE games thereafter were vastly better at it. A curve like Torment or the IWD would be fine, though I think at bottom level you could do with makign the characters less fragile than they were in AD&D especially. (Mind you, Obsidian have done that before anyway, e.g. KotR 2 where you got like +20 hit points at level one for being the Exile or something.)

Edited September 22, 2012 by Aotrs Commander

[PsychoBlonde]

- Like OP said meeting powerful NPCs - the difficulty is to prove to the player that those NPCs are truly powerfull, Elminster and Drizzit relied on reputation alone.

 

When you meet Drizz't he promptly EXPLODES some gnolls right in front of you. He didn't need to rely on reputation. :D

 

That being said you can still kill him if you cheese it out with ranged weapons and kiting, cause he's melee-only. But it's rough, he's pretty fast and can one-shot pretty much any party member at that point.

 

That being said, I prefer to start out decent (as in, no, my poor d4 hit point wizard won't have a 50/50 shot at getting ganked by a housecat) and get better slowly, rather than start out just ridiculously inept and within a few levels I'm sneezing and defeating 40-50 mobs.

 

One problem also with a lot of games is that you spend the first 15 or so levels investing in getting a big top-tier ability . . . and then the next 10 levels you spend picking up stuff you don't need and won't really use, because you don't have enough points to actually progress toward another big ability and all the lower-level stuff SUCKS compared to the Big Whammy you already have. I consider this poor design--you should still be using your 1st level spells at endgame.

Edited September 22, 2012 by PsychoBlonde

[KenThomas]

A problem i've had with a lot of recent RPGs is the rapid progression of the players power. You start from very humble beginnings and then suddenly you don't really have any peers or superiors anymore.

 

I really dislike this and i feel that the world would feel a lot more alive if there were characters whose powerlevel you wouldn't even be able to get close to in the course of the game (like Elminster or drizzt in BG1 for example).

 

What do you guys think about this? Is the progression of power of the player characters a problem?

 

Yeah I often find in games with difficulty settings I need to jack up the difficulty by the end of the game because once points have been allocated to a particular playstyle things just die too efficiently to be much of a challenge anymore. With maxed points in ranged skills every shot goes to the centre of the crosshair and then it's just scope in, pew pew the head and move on. Or, you jack your stats in magic, cast the same couple of spells every combat with the same result.

 

What's your opinion about games with diminishing returns on stats where past a certain point it starts to cost 2 skill points for every increase of 1 on the character sheet etc

Edited September 22, 2012 by KenThomas

[incubus9]

The biggest problem with sequels is that they tend to start each one at level 1 when the character had previously been level 99, (I'm looking at you JRPGs). Having some kind of level cap where it naturally progresses into a sequel would be wise.

[Jaesun]

(Just how ridiculous was it in ME2 when you went back to lvl 1 nobody after finishing the first episode as a lvl 50 super badass?)

 

When since you DIED, I don't see what the problem was.

[Ulicus]

As long as it makes sense within the context of the story and setting for my character to be ten or twenty stronger at the end of the game, I'm absolutely okay with it.

 

From what we've been told about the way souls work in this game -- as well as what the protagonist goes through in the opening -- I would think that Project Eternity, like Torment and The Sith Lords before it, is going to have a plot reason for the player's rapid progression.

 

Also, regarding sequels, I wouldn't take it as a given that we'll be taking one character through a series of games, here. It may well be the case that, should we be fortunate enough to get a PE sequel, it'll be focusing on an entirely different character.

Edited September 22, 2012 by Ulicus

[NerdBoner]

if project eternity is going to be a series of games starring "ours truly" the PC i'd like them to do exactly like they did in the BG series...

 

in BG1 you start out as a n00blet but by the end you are a bonafide level 7-8 badass only to promptly learn that the world is MUCH bigger than you thought it was (BG2) and there are REAL monsters of power out there (Irenicus) and you are little more than a peasant(despite being level 7) that needs to resume his quest for power or get crushed like a bug.

Edited September 22, 2012 by NerdBoner

[aluminiumtrioxid]

(Just how ridiculous was it in ME2 when you went back to lvl 1 nobody after finishing the first episode as a lvl 50 super badass?)

 

When since you DIED, I don't see what the problem was.

 

You were brought back to life, and millions of credits were spent on not only restoring your previous state, but outfitting you with the newest implants and fanciest cybernetics money can buy. Also, you didn't have amnesia and Jacob stated that your fighting skills are intact. But we're delving into off-topic.

Edited September 22, 2012 by aluminiumtrioxid

[Flying dutchman]

A problem i've had with a lot of recent RPGs is the rapid progression of the players power. You start from very humble beginnings and then suddenly you don't really have any peers or superiors anymore.

 

I really dislike this and i feel that the world would feel a lot more alive if there were characters whose powerlevel you wouldn't even be able to get close to in the course of the game (like Elminster or drizzt in BG1 for example).

 

What do you guys think about this? Is the progression of power of the player characters a problem?

 

Yeah I often find in games with difficulty settings I need to jack up the difficulty by the end of the game because once points have been allocated to a particular playstyle things just die too efficiently to be much of a challenge anymore. With maxed points in ranged skills every shot goes to the centre of the crosshair and then it's just scope in, pew pew the head and move on. Or, you jack your stats in magic, cast the same couple of spells every combat with the same result.

 

What's your opinion about games with diminishing returns on stats where past a certain point it starts to cost 2 skill points for every increase of 1 on the character sheet etc

 

I like it but that wasn't really the point i was trying to make in the OP. It was more in the lines of the player being the only compentent force in the universe (as another thread put it) and that you solve ALL of the worlds problems and kill every powerful enemy by your self.

[Aotrs Commander]

I like it but that wasn't really the point i was trying to make in the OP. It was more in the lines of the player being the only compentent force in the universe (as another thread put it) and that you solve ALL of the worlds problems and kill every powerful enemy by your self.

 

Well, to be fair, having an uber-leet NPC come along and solve the quest for you isn't very satisfying (and it's a trap that some DMs fall into with their NPCs) from a game-play perspective, and even if they accompany you it's easy to get overshadowed if they're several leagues of power above you.

 

Most roleplayers (tabletop or otherwise) are generally not big fans of some non-PC dude coming in and stealing all of the lime-light, and it's very difficult to get a balance right, outside of a purely narrative enviroment. It ain't easy to do the Fellowship of the Ring in an RPG game, really, and I don't think you should probably try.

 

So if you're going to show the PCs are not the biggest fish in the pond (not a bad idea, since you could sow the seeds for the prequels), you have to be very careful about how you do it, and it's better done narratively than via gameplay. Interacting with someone who either is or turns out to be the next BBEG is not a bad way to go about it if you must do it gameplay wise; via combat really isn't.