Level scaling and its misuse

[Helm]

Because it was exploitable and easy to break, and encouraged metagaming and degenerate strategies. Not saying it was a bunch of bullcacky, mind; just that it has lots and lots of room for improvement. As game systems go, AD&D is pretty god-awful to start with, 3.0 and 3.5 are much better especially for PnP but still a long way from as good as they might be.

Oh, it was too hard, thats why. Hmmm. You can turn on super duper easy mode you know.

 

And what does the combat xp have to do with the gaming rules? Nothing really. They would be the same even with quest only xp. Think before you write dude.

 

And I don't think that the people who pledged $4 million think the same way. I think they are expecting a real IE game and not some dumbed down crap.

 

It sounds like you don't like cRPG combat much at all, then. If that's the case, then

 

(a) Why do you want to play a combat-heavy cRPG to start with, and

(b) Why aren't you overjoyed that you can avoid all that boring, tedious chore of combat by engaging in stealth, diplomacy, or other approaches instead?

 

Still waiting...

Wait, wut? Are trying to say I'm a noob because I like combat xp? LOL.

Yeah, I loved Fallout and BG and Icewind Dale and Planescape, they all had combat xp. You know, those games for noobs.

 

Not answering the question again, instead attempting to deflect it with ad-hominem. Duly noted. You're not defending your position very well.

I see you want me to repeat myself for 20th time.

 

[bull****]

What is this, some kind of psychological profiling? Anybody that likes combat + quest xp is pathalogical liar? lol

Sorry to see you run out of arguments by the way.

 

Yes, I like roleplaying and character development, which will now be pointless in this game, which is supposed to be combat oriented in the first place. Should I repeat myself another 20 times? Do you think you will understand then?

 

Well what about you? Do you like to kill everything even though it is absolutely pointless? You know, just to waste resources for something that you don't need anyway? I bet you would love to do side quests and not receive any xp (cookies, as you say), right? It's just about the quest and the adventure, nothing else matters. Right? And why do you have a problem, if this game has combat and quest xp just like the spiritual predecessors?

Edited January 14, 2013 by Helm

[PrimeJunta]

Oh, it was too hard, thats why. Hmmm. You can turn on super duper easy mode you know.

 

On the contrary: the exploitability and degenerate strategies made it too easy. That's what exploitability and degenerate strategies do. Easy but tedious and boring.

 

It sounds like you don't like cRPG combat much at all, then. If that's the case, then

 

(a) Why do you want to play a combat-heavy cRPG to start with, and

(b) Why aren't you overjoyed that you can avoid all that boring, tedious chore of combat by engaging in stealth, diplomacy, or other approaches instead?

 

Still waiting...

Wait, wut? Are trying to say I'm a noob because I like combat xp? LOL.

 

I'm not saying anything. I'm asking. You said that you wouldn't bother with combat unless you got a little nugget of XP as a reward every time. You described it as "a chore." That suggests that you don't really like combat much. I have made no statements, nor assumptions about your noob-ness or lack thereof.

 

I notice you still didn't answer the question, though.

 

What is this, some kind of psychological profiling? Anybody that likes combat + quest xp is pathalogical liar? lol

Sorry to see you run out of arguments by the way.

 

I have never accused you of lying (although I admit I derive a certain amount of pleasure from watching you squirm). I am simply pointing out some apparent contradictions in what you're saying, and asking you to address them. Which you're still not doing.

 

Yes, I like roleplaying and character development, which will now be pointless in this game, which is supposed to be combat oriented in the first place. Should I repeat myself another 20 times? Do you think you will understand then?

 

I understand that you feel that way, but I fail to understand why you feel that way. Your attempts at explaining it seem riddled with contradictions: you like combat, but you think it's a chore and would rather do stealth or diplomacy if there are no extra rewards for it.

 

The only thing that the quest-XP model changes is your motivation for doing what you do -- you'll no longer be fighting for XP (a metagame reason); you'll be fighting to achieve some in-game objective. You'll kill orcs to deliver the homesteads of Derpwood from their raids, not to get those last 1500 XP and level up. At least for me, the former makes for much more enjoyable gaming than the latter. This ain't an MMO, remember?

 

Once more: your position does not make sense to me. Something cannot be at the same time so tedious you'll only do it if rewarded, and the main reason you want to play the game. One or the other, not both. IOW, it seems to me you don't understand your own motivations very well.

 

Well what about you? Do you like to kill everything even though it is absolutely pointless? You know, just to waste resources for something that you don't need anyway?

 

Nope, usually not. Should I? Why? Do you think there will be lots of fights with no in-game reason to get into them? If so, why on Earth do you think they'd design it that way?

 

I bet you would love to do side quests and not receive any xp (cookies, as you say), right? It's just about the quest and the adventure, nothing else matters. Right? And why do you have a problem, if this game has combat and quest xp just like the spiritual predecessors?

 

I'm not dead against combat + quest XP, and no style of XP would make me ragequit, if it worked reasonably well (say, as well as BG2 at a minimum, which really wasn't all that well, TBH). I just think that system is inherently more "gamable" than quest XP alone, which makes quest XP alone preferable. This ain't Diablo or NetHack, y'know -- those are nearly pure combat RPG's with minimal or no quest XP at all, and infinite monsters to swat down. And yeah, I do tend to do all the sidequests in NetHack as well, come to think of it.

 

Summa summarum, since you're unable or unwilling to explain yourself, this is the impression I've gathered of what kind of a gamer you are: you prefer combat (except you think it's boring and a chore and will avoid it whenever possible unless it's specially rewarded) who likes to role-play good-guy smiters of evil (who will only smite evil if they're rewarded for the effort), and who feels gypped if the game doesn't reward his preferred play-style better than someone else's preferred play-style.

 

Out of curiosity, how old are you?

[Helm]

Oh, it was too hard, thats why. Hmmm. You can turn on super duper easy mode you know.

 

On the contrary: the exploitability and degenerate strategies made it too easy. That's what exploitability and degenerate strategies do. Easy but tedious and boring.

Ohhhh, so now the IE games are bad games. Why are you here again? Because you love Skyrim? lol This is getting ridiculous.

 

And god, I can't read your ridiculous messages anymore. I am tired of repeating myself because of your comprehension problems and lack of good argumentation. So now you have started attacking me personally.

 

All I can say is: Combat xp is for those who like combat, it is not the other way around. Why the hell would I want combat xp if I hated combat? Like I said, did you think that up yourself or do you have a 12 year old write your argumentation? Combat in a game that is supposed to be based heavily on tactical and strategical combat will be pointless. Thats it.

 

About the rest: Read the last 20 posts. Very, very slowly....

[ReyVagabond]

Ok, guys this is going anywhere, but ill posts again my point of view and experience at my 30. Playing games since I was 4 and being CRPG my favorite kind of game.

What I love the most in a cPRG is the STORY, not the combat, not the "character development"(character leveling up), not the good old diablo random loot.

But that’s me, I'm a player that had played every cRPG in the last 15 years, well not all but most, and despite me loving the past games the industry moved forward and backwards and to the side. And we as gamers we know what we want, the thing is we all love different things.

Because I love playing for the STORY, the characters decisions and the friendships and romances. Because of that I can play bad combat game, I don’t mind at all. Even playing the game many many times, and after the second or third time you play the game only a few games combat is actually fun for me, games like Jagged Alliance 2 turn based combat is fun turn based combat, games like the new Xcom is not as much but is a grate step back to a turn based combat game.

Again, for fun combat I say that some times a game like God of War or even a third person shooter like Uncharted are more "fun" that the good old IWD2, and not only that other games like League of Legends and DOTA con teach how to do a fast gameplay for PE.

 

For example, despite not having any tactical combat per se, the MMO style with 4 characters off DA:O was for me not boring. I could play that game and not find the combat boring, it was not the best, it had tons of problems and the AI was bad. But still I like the game. And for the story I played it many times. Or a new MMO style like Guild Wars 2 with only 10 active skills to fight or the Guild Wars 1 Magic the Gathering kind of gameplay pick 8 skills of 100+.

So back on topic, PE and XP for killing things, I hope the game has only objective based exp. I personally do not want to need to go back anywhere to fight more monsters to level up a little more to be more prepared for the next fight. I don’t like Random loot. I like hand Crafted loot, you kill that boss you get X item there only one of those so be careful what you do with it, you will not kill a rat a random purple item will be stronger that that hand crafted item you picked from that Boss.

Again removing XP for battles makes you focus on the story and that what is important; you can bluff your way out of battle or fight if you enjoy fighting or if you really want to kill that thief boss.

For me at the end of the day it’s all about the story. The only thing I don’t what is a metagame, min max punishing game that I need to save before every level up incase I crew up with a perk or feat and I cannot change it for the rest of the game. I want a game that encourage player exploration and testing not guide following, because we all know it 60% of this game playbase will follow a guide how to min max hour characters before starting out fight play trough, and I'm talking about NWN2 **** 3.5 D&D where you don’t know where the heck are you standing and why if I have 19 strength I don’t get a bonus but I have 20 I'm god, kind of ****, that 1 level bard and 10 level RDD for any warrior to get those sweet 8 stench and those other cool stuff.

 

But that’s just me, I want Quest / Objective based Experience a non punishing leveling system, grate story and a combat system that it’s fun, engaging and tactical.

[ReyVagabond]

Oh, it was too hard, thats why. Hmmm. You can turn on super duper easy mode you know.

 

On the contrary: the exploitability and degenerate strategies made it too easy. That's what exploitability and degenerate strategies do. Easy but tedious and boring.

Ohhhh, so now the IE games are bad games. Why are you here again? Because you love Skyrim? lol This is getting ridiculous.

 

And god, I can't read your ridiculous messages anymore. I am tired of repeating myself because of your comprehension problems and lack of good argumentation. So now you have started attacking me personally.

 

All I can say is: Combat xp is for those who like combat, it is not the other way around. Why the hell would I want combat xp if I hated combat? Like I said, did you think that up yourself or do you have a 12 year old write your argumentation? Combat in a game that is supposed to be based heavily on tactical and strategical combat will be pointless. Thats it.

 

About the rest: Read the last 20 posts. Very, very slowly....

 

I can say i LOVE BG games, but they have HORRIBLE GAMEPLAY, yeah i sayed it, the have horrible gameplay. if you know what to do they are easy as pie if you dont and you are kinda lost you are screwed.

they are not that fun to just combat, once you know what to do, you kitte, you retreat, and there little more that that actulay, its like a spike learning curve grab a guide read it, and thats it the game lost all his chalenge.

 

i love the game because of the story and the characters just like a love PT, and other grate games, not every game that i love and ejoy is perfect and i love that.

 

thats why i keep playing games to find new stuff i love, they dont need to be peferc even if they are horrible but i can say man this ficture was good i hope they do a better job next time, i think my money was well spend.

like Dragon's Dogma, not the best game out there but i think is good game to start a new Exiting IP.

 

And whats wrong if i do like Skyrin its a good game, its a huge game, It takes hours just to go around and looking at the good work many people put creating a world. its not perfet far from it, the combat is a joke, but that dosent make it a good or bad game or somehting not to be proud to play because its just a fun game where i love just to Vagabond around and do what ever i feel like to do when ever i start the game!

and the Having Modding tools to make it my game, thats just awesome!

 

 

SO IF YOU LIKE COMBAT, why is not combat reward enogh you are doing what you want to do thats fight stuff, why do you need a carrot in front of you to do what you like!

 

Why do you need the shiny XP at the end of it. i personaly i have exported max level characters and i have beat games like that, just for the heck of it, one time i played the game and tryed to beat BG2 not leveling past level 10. whats wrong with that, i played 30+ hours without needing the exp.

Edited January 14, 2013 by ReyVagabond

[Lephys]

Helm... the thing you're still arbitrarily assuming is that, for some reason, since there's no better reward for combat than their is for non-combat (in certain, occasional situations), that non-combat is somehow automatically better than combat. But, look at it like this.

 

You're level 20, and you've gotten 50 skill points so far. To keep it simple, you've either spent them on Swordsmanship, or Sneakery. If you spent the 50 skill points on Sneakery, and you are in a cave filled with orcs, and you need to collect the 5 pieces of the Magical Thingy, then you would probably want to use your Rank 50 Sneakery to bypass all the orcs and acquire the pieces. You most likely spent 50 points in Sneakery and 0 in Swordsmanship because you aren't fond of combat (regardless of game design). It's a preference. Therefore, you succeed and get your objective reward for that. And you potentially miss out on valuable loot (the key word being "potentially." See "sidenote" below...)

 

Okay, other possibility (again, just opposite ends of the spectrum, to keep the example to 2 simple parts, but things could obviously range anywhere in between)... You spent 50 points in swordsmanship and none in Sneakery. You get to the exact same cave, with the exact same objective/reason for even being at the cave. Well, with your Rank 1 Sneakery, you're probably not going to get past the orcs without a fight, and you, again, most likely knew this when you built your character that way, because you simply enjoy the combat (again, regardless of the game design. It has both Sneakery and Combat, and you prefer the combat build because it's more fun to you than Sneakery.) So, you kill all the orcs, and you STILL fetch all 5 pieces of the Magical Thingy for your quest reward. And you potentially gain some loot from the orcs that you couldn't get off of them via Sneaking past them.

 

Sidenote: I didn't see anywhere that you weren't going to get loot from combat ever. I think Josh specifically cited a situation in which, if you had enough combat prowess and felt it would be not-impossible for your party, you could opt to take on some scary group of foes, and you'd get the super spiffy weapon the leader of the group was blatantly wielding. The point? There's absolutely no need to assume you'll never get loot as a reward for combat, based on what's been said officially so far.

 

So, how is the above example unfair to the combat people? Is the above example impossible? If it is, I really want to know. I'm not omniscient. But, I'm fully capable of evaluating things pretty well, and I have yet to discover any problems with it. So, if there's a flaw in my reasoning, please let me know. But please do it reasonably, and don't just re-emphasize an assumption. Explain how Sneakery is always better than combat (especially considering the loot thing. I really don't know how it got decided that combat never awarded loot.)

 

Also, on the note of loot rewards, non-combat options like Sneakery and Lockpicking and Diplomacy might often produce exclusive rewards (i.e. "Thank you for not harming those plague victims, even though they were hostile and out of their minds with fever. Here, take this nice thing that I wouldn't have desired to reward you with if you had ignored my pleas and slaughtered them because it was easier," or "You know what, since I wasn't slain by you and we were able to work this out, I'm going to order you something nice from my merchant connections, which you wouldn't have gotten if I were dead, because YOU don't have my merchant connections.") This directly counter-balances the fact that people who are built more around combat choices at the forks in the road will gain some nice items from the corpses of their foes (that the non-combat people wouldn't have gotten because it's hard to loot a Magic Sword from a live person and remain undetected.)

 

In other words, various choices will be available to allow you to get past the same obstacles, but that doesn't mean nothing different happens. You end up at the same point, but not with the same switches and factors in the same positions. And you're not going to automatically be a master of both non-combat AND combat, so your non-combat is only going to be amazing at the cost of your combat skills, and vice versa.

 

So, again I ask, if you consider all that, how is the system inherently unfair to people who like combat?

Edited January 14, 2013 by Lephys

[Lephys]

*Addendum to the above*

 

Here's an even better question... If it's unfair that the sheer act of fighting doesn't reward you with XP, then is it also unfair that the sheer act of sneaking and/or pickpocketing doesn't reward you with XP (when no other objective is accomplished)? Should we be able to diplomacy our way out of a fight (XP gain), then masterfully pickpocket from every single person we could've fought (XP gain), then elaborately set up traps all over the place, then initiate combat with the people we just talked our way out of fighting, luring them into the traps and killing them? (XP gain for combat kills, XP gain for effective trap-usage)?

[PrimeJunta]

Ohhhh, so now the IE games are bad games.

 

Goodness, no. They were among the best cRPG's ever made.

 

Why are you here again? Because you love Skyrim? lol This is getting ridiculous.

 

Never played it, so I don't have an opinion on it. I liked Morrowind, though, even though the game system in it was enormously worse than that in any of the IE games. I tolerate poor game design if the game has other redeeming qualities. I just recognize that I love these games despite their flaws, not because of them.

 

And god, I can't read your ridiculous messages anymore. I am tired of repeating myself because of your comprehension problems and lack of good argumentation. So now you have started attacking me personally.

 

Where? How?

 

All I can say is: Combat xp is for those who like combat, it is not the other way around. Why the hell would I want combat xp if I hated combat?

 

Why then, did you describe combat as a tedious chore that you'll avoid if given an alternative that will give an equivalent -- not better -- reward?

 

Like I said, did you think that up yourself or do you have a 12 year old write your argumentation? Combat in a game that is supposed to be based heavily on tactical and strategical combat will be pointless. Thats it.

 

Pointless how?

 

About the rest: Read the last 20 posts. Very, very slowly....

 

You're still not actually defending any of your points. You're simply reiterating them plus demanding that I re-read them. So yeah, this discussion doesn't really appear to be going anywhere much, so it's probably better to let it drop.

 

I gotta say, though, that the difference between this discussion and the one I had with Valorian is that now I understand what Valorian likes and dislikes in a game and why, whereas with you I'm as puzzled as ever. But thanks for the effort anyway, and sorry about any feelings I may have hurt; that was not my intention.

[PrimeJunta]

As a recap, because I think it may have been lost in the noise here, here's a summary of my thoughts about the case for replacing kill XP with quest XP:

 

(1) Kill XP rewards metagame thinking and degenerate tactics, e.g. solving a quest peacefully for quest XP, then going back and killing everyone for kill XP. So you get druids killing wildlife for the levelups, instead of protecting it which is pretty much the entire class's in-game reason for being.

 

(2) Kill XP precludes respawns, because kill XP + respawns = infinite XP = grinding opportunity. What's the problem with removing respawns? Nothing fatal, but it does remove one tool from the toolkit of making interesting things in the world. Take the classic "dwarves who dug too deep" situation: a dungeon with a portal which spawns beasties from another dimension. Closing the portal is a completely feasible quest objective. With kill XP, the incentives are stacked so that the best strategy is to park the party in a defensible spot and kill everything that wanders your way until level cap is reached, then close the portal. With quest XP, the best strategy is to figure out how to close the damn thing and then close it as quickly as possible. To me, the latter represents much more enjoyable gameplay than the former. There's even a sense of urgency, without a hard "you took too long, FAIL" time limit which rarely work very well.

 

(3) Because it's less breakable and easier to manage, quest XP only makes the game much easier to balance. Don't like level scaling? Then make it as easy as possible for the devs to anticipate how strong you'll be at various parts of the game. With quest+kill XP, the possible range of character levels at any point is much broader, which means that either you have to use much more aggressive level scaling, or you'll be much more likely to find encounters boringly easy, especially if you're the type of gamer who goes after all the XP he can.

 

(4) Kill XP favors solving problems through killing than through other means. One of the things I like best about cRPG's is if they provide a variety of ways to solve problems. Favoring one of the ways over others greatly cheapens this aspect of the game. Players do respond to incentives, as Helm has so eloquently demonstrated. Kill XP rewards killing over and above solving problems, which means that it will end up as the most-rewarded and therefore most-favored way of approaching the game. We get a "dominant strategy" situation, in which the rational player will not even bother with the non-killing strategies, unless they're especially keen on role-playing aka LARPing. Quest XP, OTOH, makes the player free to solve problems as he best sees fit, without kicking him into metagame thinking about whether he picked the "right" way to do it, in terms of mechanics. Naturally, this does not preclude situational differences -- in some cases, the noncombat solution might be very difficult and/or expensive; in other cases, the combat solution might be extremely challenging. I'm kinda hoping it'll turn out this way actually!

 

Simply put, I don't see any compelling advantages to kill XP in a cRPG that's built on quest-completion as the core gameplay mechanic, whereas I see several quite significant drawbacks. Diablo or NetHack is another story of course -- they're pure dungeon-crawling with minimal questing, and kill XP is a natural fit for them. P:E however is not Diablo nor NetHack.

 

One thing I am curious about is The Endless Paths though -- that sounds like it would be a candidate for an area where kill XP would fit well. To make it worthwhile, they're going to have to place XP there much like loot. I would expect mini-quests, XP for exploration, and XP for triggering events (opening a door, acquiring a piece of loot) to stand in for kill XP.

 

Come to think of it, it could be quite interesting to play that sort of dungeon as a sneaky pacifist -- this isn't something you normally do in a dungeon crawl because the game system doesn't reward it. In all my years of roguelikes, I've never even attempted the pacifist conduct in NetHack, for example, even though the game keeps track of it, and even though it's not really all that pacifist as the only way you can survive is by training really vicious pets to do your dirty work for you.

Edited January 15, 2013 by PrimeJunta

[Helm]

Quest xp only is just for those who hate combat. Doesn't make sense in a game that is supposed to be based on tactical and strategical combat. Not to me at least.

 

But, it can be fixed i suppose. Quest xp only is definitely not the answer though.

[Valorian]

Would be nice if we could go back to the original purpose of the thread (level scaling) now that there's a topic for combat XP and why it's not degenerate.

 

Oh, I see that Lephys and PJunta are still in logorrheic rampage mode and won't stop anytime soon.

[PrimeJunta]

That's hypergraphic rampage to you, young man.

[Valorian]

I'll start.

 

There is no need to level scale even those special crit path encounters with clever design of plot pacing.

 

 

Edit for PJ:

Logorrhea: excessive use of words.

Fits perfectly.

Edited January 15, 2013 by Valorian

[TRX850]

PrimeJunta and Valorian, are you sure you're not a married couple who are only doing this to each other to "spice" things up a little?

[PrimeJunta]

Hypergraphia: an overwhelming urge to write. Fits better. So brace yourself, kiddo.

 

I'll continue: that's a matter of preference.

 

I get where you're coming from, Val. You're a munchkin. That means you play a game for the power trip -- to get your character and party to feel as powerful as possible relative to the environment. You'll go through the entire game meticulously to squeeze every last bit of XP, usable weaponry, and all-around badness out of it. You detest level scaling with a passion because it feels like cheating -- you do all that work to amass all that power, and the rest of the world just merrily scampers after you so you never end up really ahead -- or at least not as far ahead as you feel you deserve.

 

That's an entirely valid and enjoyable way to play a game, and I wouldn't want to deny you the pleasure of playing it that way. I do hope -- and I'm pretty confident -- that they won't level scale in such a heavy-handed way that they'll take that feeling away from you. Hell, I indulge in that type of gaming myself from time to time; I played through BG2 with an all-kensai/wizard party. Eventually.

 

Thing is, it's not the only way to play a game. For me, one of the greatest things about cRPG's is that they support a broad range of different styles of gameplay, and different experiences. You can play it for the story, for the combat, for the power trip, be 'good', be 'evil,' be a stealthy sneaky pickpocket, be a silver-tongued diplomat, be a badass wrecking ball of fighting. What you're asking for -- a game without level scaling, but balanced in such a way that it's not utterly boring in its ease to someone who powergames -- will make all of those other experiences less enjoyable, even unfeasible. I'm opposed to that because I also want to play the game in those other ways.

 

If the team can find a way to balance a game so that it supports all those different styles without any level scaling, then more power to them. But if they use level scaling to get there, I'm not opposed to it.

[Valorian]

PrimeJunta and Valorian, are you sure you're not a married couple who are only doing this to each other to "spice" things up a little?

 

I'm not sure about that.

I'd marry only a manly man, not a logorrheic fruitcake.

[PrimeJunta]

PrimeJunta and Valorian, are you sure you're not a married couple who are only doing this to each other to "spice" things up a little?

 

Nah. I'm really a teacher at an institution for troubled youth. Val is one of my favorite pupils -- intelligent, talented, but with a couple of social problems I'm trying to help him out with. This is my attempt to get him to understand that there are other people in the world besides him. Once that sinks in, I'm sure girls will start to like him better too.

 

Edit: Or boys, if that's his preference, natch.

Edited January 15, 2013 by PrimeJunta

[Valorian]

That means you play a game for the power trip -- to get your character and party to feel as powerful as possible relative to the environment.

 

 

Yeah, seems that all those countless hours of you observing how I play rpgs finally paid off.

 

Next time, I'll instruct my rogue to dual stab himself in the kidney with his stilettos to become less powerful.

Doesn't matter that he usually favors style over raw power, having less companions to increase challenge and limits resting/reloading/killing random encounters for the same purpose. That's simply not enough. Off with your light armor, stilettos.. and fight naked, munchkin!

[Helm]

Off with your light armor, stilettos.. and fight naked, munchkin!

You mean sneak naked.

 

True warriors always sneak for quest xp you know.

[Valorian]

Off with your light armor, stilettos.. and fight naked, munchkin!

You mean sneak naked.

 

True warriors always sneak for quest xp you know.

 

True.

[Karkarov]

Off with your light armor, stilettos.. and fight naked, munchkin!

You mean sneak naked.

 

True warriors always sneak for quest xp you know.

 

True.

You know it is pretty funny but in elder scrolls games I always play a heavy armor wearing dude who uses a two hand sword but also sneaks everywhere and refuses to ever use magic (or keys for that matter ) to get past locked doors and has to pick em all!

 

Your above post at the top of the page is actually pretty good junta. The only issue is you still seem to think it is highly unlikely or impossible to design a game without level scaling. It just isn't, it can be done and done well. The argument is still moot since Sawyer spelled it out plainly exactly how this game will work in regards to level scaling. Which was it would not have any level scaling at all over than a few encounters on the main plot line which would be tooled to a level range not full on scaling to the players strength no matter what.

[PrimeJunta]

@Karkarov, maybe I am. There are other ways than level scaling to maintain challenge, of course, but they all come with their trade-offs. The classic IE way is to split the game up into relatively manageable areas and only let players into a higher-level one after they've cleared a lower one, and to keep the amount of optional content to a level that won't produce huge spreads in party power at any given point. The Gothic way is to keep killing your character if he wanders off the intended path.

 

But that's a pretty big trade-off in and of itself. It constrains player freedom a great deal. I like big areas, lots of optional stuff, and lots of player freedom. Putting in level scaling allows designers to make those sandboxes bigger and give players more freedom. Do it too much and you end up with Oblivion, of course, but there are balances to be found between that and none at all.

 

Once more: I'm not calling for level scaling for its own sake. I just think that it's a useful tool in the box that can be applied to get desirable results, and we shouldn't discard it out of hand just because Oblivion misused it. I like what we're hearing about it in P:E so far -- the level 5-8 bracket JES cited sounds like it already allows a good deal of optional content and player freedom, without letting things get completely out of hand. But we will see.

 

Edit: dafuq? The BBS ate half my message...

Edited January 15, 2013 by PrimeJunta

[Lephys]

This is the last thing I'll say in this topic, since Valorian is allergic to elaboration and explanation:

 

Level-scaling sometimes serves a purpose, depending on the implementation and the rest of the game's design context.

 

And yes, this discussion has probably been quite thorough enough, regardless of whoever did or did not benefit from it.

[Malekith]

*popcorn bag ends*

In the devs place i would go the Torment way. Have quests give XP in the thousands and kills give 36XP for grinding fanatics. All problems solved.

Edited January 21, 2013 by Malekith

[Hormalakh]

*popcorn bag ends*

In the devs place i would go the Torment way. Have quests give XP in the thousands and kills give 36XP for grinding fanatics. All problems solved.

We do not negotiate with fanatics.