Will PoE have level scaling? (Please no)

[HoonDing]

Has Shank ever killed anyone?

[Lephys]

I suppose because it would be odd to put an unavoidable and insurmountable barrier, intentionally preventing the player from ever seeing the rest of the game?

Noted, but, how might one go about determining what's an appropriate barrier, and what isn't? How is the toughness of a given enemy or challenge to be determined?

 

I hope there won't be too many more. I appreciate your answers, for realsies. I'm just either correct, or mistaken, in my thinking on this, and if I'm mistaken, I'd like to know that and correct my thinking.

[Valorian]

 

I suppose because it would be odd to put an unavoidable and insurmountable barrier, intentionally preventing the player from ever seeing the rest of the game?

Noted, but, how might one go about determining what's an appropriate barrier, and what isn't? How is the toughness of a given enemy or challenge to be determined?

 

I hope there won't be too many more. I appreciate your answers, for realsies. I'm just either correct, or mistaken, in my thinking on this, and if I'm mistaken, I'd like to know that and correct my thinking.

 

 

Oh, depends on how someone wants to structure their game. Perhaps they want a really challenging beginning, perhaps they don't. Maybe they want the player character to suffer a lot (and even die sometimes!) the moment he or she steps into the big scary world.   Maybe they want the player to literally blow up enemies by merely glancing at them.

 

Alrighty then. Just for a moment I was worried you've mistaken your keyboard for a phone (free of charge), and this forum for the best friend you never had. 

[Lephys]

Nope. I'm trying to check my thinking process by asking the questions I ask and getting other people's answers to them, instead of just assuming it's all clear and presenting my resulting thoughts.

 

Oh, depends on how someone wants to structure their game. Perhaps they want a really challenging beginning, perhaps they don't. Maybe they want the player character to suffer a lot (and even die sometimes!) the moment he or she steps into the big scary world.   Maybe they want the player to literally blow up enemies by merely glancing at them.

Okay, but... I don't know how else to ask this... How do I look at level 35 enemies in the starting area (where the player party is only Level 1) and determine "that's an inappropriate challenge"? What factor functions as a basis for this comparison/decision? Is it not capability/level?

[Valorian]

These level 35 enemies would slaughter your level 1 party.

[Lephys]

^ And thus, what do we change to remedy this, assuming your party having some semblance of a chance at actually not-being slaughtered is the goal, as opposed to the game being called "Get Slaughtered"?

Edited May 9, 2014 by Lephys

[Valorian]

I don't know Lephys. You could try to kite them?

[Lephys]

No... from a design standpoint. We've already established that the hypothetical level-35 foes will crush your level 1 party. Not might crush. So how, as a person who put them there in the first place (a developer/designer) do we remedy that? Again, if our goal is not for the player to definitely be crushed by a given foe.

[Valorian]

Like I said previously, the remedy depends on how someone wants to structure their game. 

[Lephys]

*facepalm*. I give up.

 

I don't know how to address a specific factor in a way in which you understand. I don't know how to speak your language.

[Valorian]

  ...ok Lephys, if that's what you really want.

 

It saddens me that we didn't solve the mystery of level scaling due to a language barrier. If only I had known the answers to your sagacious questions... *sob*

[Lephys]

Haha. Look, it's not you, it's me.

 

It's not a big deal. It's not an insult. I seriously, honestly, do not know how to word what I'm trying to word to convey the thought I'm trying to convey. I don't know how to specify the boundary of what it is I'm after, if that makes sense. It's like I'm pointing at something across the room, and I can't step any closer to it, so I just keep pointing, and you (and others) keep, understandably, grabbing something in the vicinity and saying "What, this?"

 

So, *shrug*, I just feel like I'm wasting your time, despite my intentions.

[Valorian]

Oh Lephys, your naivety is kind of cute.

 

Of course I know that you wanted me to answer that the "remedy" is to place encounters that are appropriate for the player's level. I was just having fun with you.

But before you jump to a conclusion, I'd like you to understand that one of the many points of trashing level scaling is to not make all encounters appropriate for the player's current level.

[Lephys]

I was just trying to point out that the raw idea behind level-scaling is the same idea behind designing the game such that level 1 player parties aren't made to go up against level 35 enemies and such. No "and therefore it's great." No ulterior motives, here. Just some food for thought, from the "I don't want to burn level-scaling at the stake" faction. I want to burn some level-scaling at the stake.

 

It's hardly ever useful to the extent which it is used in games, unless it's one of those "pure gameplay" games that's pretty much based upon it (Diablo 3/Borderlands, etc.).

 

I will say this, too: Just because a developer wants you to be able to do A, B, and C in any order you wish does not mean that they inherently don't want all three to still maintain a decent challenge for you. Not the exact same challenge, but not "C is easy now because you did A and B first." Sometimes they do. Sometimes they don't.

 

I honestly feel like trying to argue that any further isn't productive here, so I'll just state my case and let people do with it as they please.

[Valorian]

The idea behind LS isn't cryptic. The cardinal problem with level scaling is how (stomping on growth etc.) it puts this idea into effect.

[Lephys]

Not to you, it isn't.

 

Also, what if there were a creature in the world that took on the form of whatever threatened it? Like a shadow-you/doppleganger. Would it be wrong for that thing to not remain some static level while you progress beyond it? Or would it be okay for lots of other stuff in the game to do that, while that creature offered a unique scenario?

[Valorian]

If that creature is able to not only emulate your appearance, but also your very being and is thus somehow capable of becoming your mirror image with copied stats.. yeah. Fighting against my character's copy isn't something I particularly enjoy though.

[Hassat Hunter]

I wouldn't mind encountering a cloned copy of your party, provided it's a one-time event.

 

Need to use your stuff properly then and maybe give your items a good use. Could be a lot of fun... for one encounter.

[Lephys]

^ See, I'd agree. I wouldn't want that thing to be anything less than a unique creature/encounter, but it'd be pretty interesting. And it's functionally just a level-scaled encounter. Not only that, but it's 100% scaled, to exactly you. And yet, even that's not fundamentally wrong, specifically because of how it's done.

 

Thus is my point.

 

Back to any notion of actually implementing such an encounter, I probably wouldn't want it to just be an exact mirror of your whole party. But, it might be cool if, say, it always copied your main character (but then was a bit more powerful than you, such that your whole party isn't just fighting exactly your main character). In the event of a solo playthrough, you'd just be fighting a more powerful form of yourself.

 

And, the thing is, just because it had all the same abilities at its disposal does not mean it would form the same tactics out of them as you would. So that would be pretty interesting. *shrug*

 

Annnnnnywho...

[Valorian]

^ See, I'd agree. I wouldn't want that thing to be anything less than a unique creature/encounter, but it'd be pretty interesting. And it's functionally just a level-scaled encounter. Not only that, but it's 100% scaled, to exactly you. And yet, even that's not fundamentally wrong, specifically because of how it's done.

 

Thus is my point.

 

 

 

If it makes you happy that you found an example of a "level scaled" (*cough* copy-pasted *cough*) encounter that one would reasonably use only once per game... Congratulations! 

[Lephys]

If it makes you feel better to label that an "exception" and hold to the rule that the act of adjusting something that's only ever going to exist in a single instance in a playthrough is somehow inherently flawed and problematic and could never be useful or feasible ever, then congratulations to you as well. ^_^

[Stun]

Except that Fighting a clone of yourself isn't 'adjusting' the enemy. It is "duplicating the protagonist", which is a completely different concept with a completely different purpose. And it is a cliché. It was used in Bg2; it was used in Nwn: HoTU; it was used in Planescape Torment: and it was used in Witcher 2.

Edited May 13, 2014 by Stun

[Hiro Protagonist II]

Clones have never worked well or provided a challenge in my experience. They're fairly easy to overcome. They were once a novelty but are now a cliché. Even Diablo 3 has them.

[Lephys]

Except that Fighting a clone of yourself isn't 'adjusting' the enemy. It is "duplicating the protagonist", which is a completely different concept with a completely different purpose.

Or, you know... it's both. The exact same entity "adjusts" itself to whatever you are. Mechanically, you're fighting the same enemy, but it's always different, based 100% upon your character's progression.

 

If it's not adjusting the enemy, how is it not? If it wasn't some person-duplicating creature, and it was just some generic orc, and it never existed because you never ran into it before, but it was always your level, what would be the difference? That it wasn't duplicating you? Wow, that seems really functionally important.

 

My whole point is that the sheer act of adjustment isn't problematic. The specific usage of it, and whether or not it makes sense, is all there is to question. A creature in the world that takes on the form of its foe? That makes sense. It's not just some randomly forced mechanic. All the guards standing around you in a town when you level up after defeating some thugs who ambushed you suddenly all also gaining a level and/or changing? Nonsensical (and pointless).

 

There are plenty of other situations/reasons to "adjust" things, and ways to do it in a sensible fashion, and they aren't "there's a thing you could possibly fight, and it's not your level." They're very specific scenarios, and a 1:1 adjustment is not always what is called for.

 

99% of any and all problems people have with level-scaling (and have brought up in this discussion) have to do with problems with the specific implementation of level scaling. It's like saying "all these games keep giving enemies way too many hitpoints... obviously, the usage of hitpoints to measure damage/life is inherently terrible."

[Hassat Hunter]

Were was it used in BG2?
I think a single clone is probably easy yes (since it wont have the profit of your potions in say, Diablo III), however, it might be a different story for a party.

How this encounter is set up for a single char though, I wouldn't know.

 

And yes, it's a one-off possibility of scaling, which still makes overall scaling... terrible.