Crit-Path Encounter Scaling - Do you want it?

[PrimeJunta]

@Stun, I'm fairly certain everybody expects tangible results from a completionist run. The disagreement is about how dramatic the impact of those results should be -- like turning down the difficulty from Heart of Fury to Easy, or from Hard to Normal, or something in between. I prefer a moderate impact; i.e. I'd rather not just coast through the endgame even if I did complete everything.

 

There's also disagreement on what the game is allowed to do to produce those results. Personally I don't really care what happens under the hood, except that I like it if it's subtle. Any of the methods discussed here can be done well or cack-handedly. If content gating is a door that won't open because reasons it irritates me, but if it flows naturally from the events, it's great. If level-scaling produces bandits loaded up with magic armor and weapons worth a king's ransom, it's incredibly irritating, but if it's a matter of subtle changes in group composition I won't even notice. If the level cap is set so that I hit it halfway through the game I'll probably stop playing, but if it's near the endgame I don't mind. And so on.

[constantine]

I would like to hope that being Lv 9 with medium Tier gear or Lv 12 with best Gear won't make that much of a difference in the endgame encounters. If it does, then I am hoping for some difficulty scaling like adding more mobs/spellcasters.

 

All I'm interested is the endgame. I'd hate to have disappointing fights during that time in the game.

 

As for 'chapter gates' & controlled area access, I hope they don't exist. However, judging from developer feedback all these years, I am certain they too do not want that kind of game.

[Messier-31]

It's all fun and games, until someone says "that last boss fight, oh man he was such a wuss".

 

I believe that this will not spoil the gameplay just as there was a tidbit of level scaling in BG2. You did enjoy it, did you?

[Lephys]

Then by all means, find a way to gimp your high level party. Or up the Difficulty setting or something. Maybe Dump your Vorpal Holy Avenger +5 and use the Iron Dagger you found in the tutorial against that boss.

 

Some of us expect tangible results from doing a completionist run. Otherwise, what's the point?

Yes, because my love of exploration and quest interaction should be punished by forcing the obligation to maintain difficulty in particular encounters that the story, itself, designates as extraordinarily threatening upon me.

 

Also, how many times are you going to oppose a complete void of tangible results from leveling up in response to my not even advocating that in any way, shape, or fashion? Having certain encounters scale neither denies you tangible results from your party betterment, NOR requires that even those encounters scale 1:1.

 

Again, it can totally be an option -- to scale or not to scale -- as it's very much related, functionally, to the adjustment of things via difficulty settings. Much like Expert Mode options and such.

 

 

It's all fun and games, until someone says "that last boss fight, oh man he was such a wuss".

 

I believe that this will not spoil the gameplay just as there was a tidbit of level scaling in BG2. You did enjoy it, did you?

Exactly. "Yeah, once my Wizard had such-and-such spell at-will instead of per-encounter, and all 6 party members snagged a 4th Talent, the boss really wasn't so bad."

Edited June 5, 2014 by Lephys

[Stun]

Yes, because my love of exploration and quest interaction should be punished by forcing the obligation to maintain difficulty in particular encounters that the story, itself, designates as extraordinarily threatening upon me.

Well, that's an interesting assumption. Do you know something about PoE's story that the rest of us don't?

 

In any case, there's the Level cap --- which is the solution to your little personal problem here. If the story dictates that a particular enemy is supposed to be extraordinarily threatening, then the intelligent thing to do would be to create that foe to be...you know, 12th level... or whatever level they determine to be a challenge to a party who's hit the cap.

 

Of course, this won't solve the ever present whines/gripes you might have of "wait! what if I want to skip everything and just race to the end?! My party is only 5th level, how am I supposed to beat a 12th level Boss?" ::::waaah:::::

Edited June 6, 2014 by Stun

[PrimeJunta]

If you have to complete the optional content in order to beat the end boss, how is the content optional anymore?

[Namutree]

Is your definition of Hard an obligation to do more side content to pass story line bottle necks?

 

I consider difficulty of the game to be more complex than just you need level 5 to pass this creature on normal but level 8 on hard. I consider a difficulty as a need to use more tactical approach in battles, party formation, skill use etc. Not just buff yourself and you'll be fine.

 

What you propose isn't different than grinding in MMO or jRPG to be able to move to next area which I consider tedious .

It seems to me that you don't want leveling to be a major factor in determining whether or not a party can overcome a challenge. In which case; why even play an rpg? Levels matter, and should be a major factor in determining success or failure. There are plenty of strategy games that don't have leveling so you won't have to worry about grinding.

[Namutree]

If you have to complete the optional content in order to beat the end boss, how is the content optional anymore?

You COULD just make only a minor portion of it needed. Since there would be a lot to choose from no particular task/quest would be considered "critical", but instead optional.

 

Not that I'm saying Obsidian should do that.

[Namutree]

 

No, I'm demanding that a game, who's developer-stated focus is on exploration, bestow significant advantages to those who take the time and effort to explore.

I'd rather not be forced to take the definition of "advantage" that someone else bestows.

 

Maybe I want to explore everything for funsies, and/or because all that optional content is just plain good, and simultaneously do not want that last boss fight to become significantly easier (for example).

 

I'll not say the scaling shouldn't be an optional thing, but, whatever the basis, I'd rather like it if the story decided I'm going to face a really tough encounter no matter what I do, with certain integral encounters, rather than "Well, the Dark Wizard Blegmar WAS really tough, but, luckily, our heroes found all the +5 equipment in the land, and practiced extra hard with their abilities, so that this world-ending threat amounted to simply a moderately tough challenge."

 

That's what some people don't seem to get. Just because I want to complete more content doesn't mean it's expressly so that nothing will be a match for me anymore.

 

Then don't play rpgs. The whole point of an rpg is leveling up to become more powerful. Plenty of non-rpgs with exploration, but me: I want an rpg.

[Namutree]

 

 

 

If you have to complete the optional content in order to beat the end boss, how is the content optional anymore?

You COULD just make only a minor portion of it needed. Since there would be a lot to choose from no particular task/quest would be considered "critical", but instead optional.

 

Not that I'm saying Obsidian should do that.

 

Then what are you saying? It seems you want to be politically correct and say something without saying anything.

 

 

 

 

 

Im only saying that some optional content could be needed to complete the critical path, but still be considered optional.

[Messier-31]

Im only saying that some optional content could be needed to complete the critical path, but still be considered optional.

 

Prime is right - if optional content is needed to go further, than its not longer optional.

 

YOU CAN'T HAVE YOUR CAKE AND EAT IT AT THE SAME TIME.

Edited June 6, 2014 by Messier-31

[Namutree]

 

Im only saying that some optional content could be needed to complete the critical path, but still be considered optional.

 

Prime is right - if optional content is needed to go further, than its not longer optional.

 

YOU CAN'T HAVE YOUR CAKE AND EAT IT AT THE SAME TIME.

 

I disagree. If there were three cookies; raisin, chocolate, or oatmeal. If beating the game required I eat only 1 cookie; I could say, "Chocolate cookie is optional." And still be right. 

[Sabotin]

Non-optional optional content would be non-linearity I guess. The BG2 2nd chapter also comes to mind.

 

Stuff scaling... I can't really point to any good examples, but I don't think it's an inherently bad idea. You ideally have a bunch of play styles and options (which I think are defining traits of an rpg) and I don't see people changing difficulty settings every other encounter.

If it has to be there I'd use the same mechanics as difficulty settings, since they're there already, manipulating stuff on a per-encounter basis instead of the whole game at once. And I think it's also important to keep it nicely under fluff wraps, so it doesn't feel like the game cheating.

For example if you're fighting a certain boss early you have some npcs to help you, but if you come later they're unavailable. By the same notion a lord could have some extra guards around after he'd heard some of his friends got burgled. Scaling like this could be turned into a strength if done properly I think, with people calling it world reactivity instead.

[Hiro Protagonist II]

Maybe Obsidian should reward experience by Chapter. So by the end of Chapter 1, you're level 3. By the end of Chapter 2, you're level 5 and so on. This would satisfy the people who only want to do the crit-path and those who want to do every side quest in each chapter. And by the end of the game, both the bare minimum crit-path player and the completionist can go in the end fight and neither is disadvantaged. Because the optional content is just that optional and is not required.

 

The player who does the absolute bare minimum in the game shouldn't be disadvantaged because they don't want to do things like exploration, roleplaying with different factions, going off on side quests, none of all that optional stuff. The bare minimum player shouldn't be disadvantaged at all. This solution solves balancing and players can decide how much optional content they do, whether they don't want to do any, or just one side quest or a hundred side quests and at the end of each chapter, you're always at that particular level regardless.

 

I can't wait. I'm excited for this.

[PrimeJunta]

Im only saying that some optional content could be needed to complete the critical path, but still be considered optional.

 

I believe this is how it's going to be. I remember the devs mentioning that you'll need to do stuff for faction reputation in order to progress, but what you do is largely up to you. I.e. you have to eat a cookie but you get to choose which one to eat, and they won't make you eat all of them.

[Randomthom]

As a sound engineer I see a solution to this problem.

 

Compression

 

I won't explain it because it's boring and won't help me make my point. If you're interested then go wiki dynamic compression.

 

Here's my idea...

 

X boss is level 7. With no scaling he stays like this regardless of player party level.

X boss is level 7 or 7+ (3:1 ratio over threshold, always rounded down)

So, if you meet X boss when you are level 7, the boss is level 7 too. If you meet the boss when you are level 13, the boss is level 9. This is because you are 6 levels above the threshold of 7. Our ratio of 3:1 means that those 6 levels you possess translate into 2 levels for the boss, thus 7 becomes 9.

 

This means that extra levelling both benefits the player without completely trivialising the encounter.

 

Obviously the ratio can be adjustable to fit the actual level range of the game.

 

I'll also add that plain 1:1 scaling makes my skin crawl. I'm very good at "seeing through" a game to it's inner workings. Even more so when so much information is presented as it is in cRPGs. It sucks the fun out of the game for me to know that no matter what I do, the next boss will be the same level as me. An RPG has to show progression objectively and relatively.

[Stun]

If you have to complete the optional content in order to beat the end boss, how is the content optional anymore?

I've never in my life played an RPG where you had to complete optional content in order to beat the end boss. But then again, I understand that some players are simply crap gamers who think that since they can't beat the end boss with their underleveled party, then it must be impossible by design. Consequently, they blame their inability to beat the end boss on "bad game design" or something.

 

You can't debate with such people. You tell them that Serevok can be beaten with a level 1 Fighter, and they call you a liar. Even though he can, and even though BG1 is one of those games that can be beaten without even doing some of the REQUIRED content.

Edited June 6, 2014 by Stun

[Lephys]

Well, that's an interesting assumption. Do you know something about PoE's story that the rest of us don't?

Do you? I'm emphasizing a possibility. Are you suggesting it's impossible?

 

This is what I don't understand. I say "this should happen under the proper circumstances," which is a conditional "should," and yet you want to argue "Nuh-uh!" to that, based on the fact that those circumstances won't necessarily occur.

 

Also, an entire fantasy RPG story (involving magic) in which there's NEVER -- not even once -- an active "Actively engage these people at an opportune moment" encounter? Not impossible, but highly unlikely, if you really wanna get into probability here.

 

Even if it's one encounter the whole game, that one encounter should be "scaled" (a game term... in the game world, it would simply happen differently for sensical reasons.)

 

In any case, there's the Level cap --- which is the solution to your little personal problem here. If the story dictates that a particular enemy is supposed to be extraordinarily threatening, then the intelligent thing to do would be to create that foe to be...you know, 12th level... or whatever level they determine to be a challenge to a party who's hit the cap.

 

Of course, this won't solve the ever present whines/gripes you might have of "wait! what if I want to skip everything and just race to the end?! My party is only 5th level, how am I supposed to beat a 12th level Boss?" ::::waaah:::::

It's not really the solution to "my" problem. It's the solution to the one you want to keep pointing out because you apparently frown upon people who don't want to do enough stuff in a playthrough to reach the level cap. It's been brought up oodles of times already, but "optional" content is called that for a reason.

 

Besides, that's easier said than done. Again, 6 characters gaining even ONE additional level can make a HUGE difference in the tools at the player's disposal, depending on exactly what that level entails (spell frequency changes -- at-will instead of per-encounter, or per-encounter instead of per-rest, etc. -- talents, etc.). If the encounter in question is STILL that tough, even for that party with all that additional stuff, then telling someone "You can be a level or two below that, if you want. These quests and such are totally optional..." is a bit of a technicality. "It's not impossible to beat that encounter without doing more stuff, if you're lucky."

 

Also, for the record, I'm not saying it's the game's obligation to make things easy on everyone. You seem to keep focusing on that whole "scale it down for the little guy" factor, but I'm more looking at scaling it up for the "big" (higher-leveled) guy approach. Again, where appropriate. There are more criteria than "Is it an encounter? Are you a higher level? SCALE! 8D!"

[Tsuga C]

If you have to complete the optional content in order to beat the end boss, how is the content optional anymore?

Nice. Optional content should always remain just that: optional. I'd say it should be more a case of Completionists (best gear, Level 10) beating the final boss in 2 or 3 attempts and Crit-pathers (good gear, Level 8 ) needing 9 or 10 attempts to achieve victory.

Edited June 6, 2014 by Tsuga C

[Namutree]

In any case, there's the Level cap --- which is the solution to your little personal problem here. If the story dictates that a particular enemy is supposed to be extraordinarily threatening, then the intelligent thing to do would be to create that foe to be...you know, 12th level... or whatever level they determine to be a challenge to a party who's hit the cap.

 

Of course, this won't solve the ever present whines/gripes you might have of "wait! what if I want to skip everything and just race to the end?! My party is only 5th level, how am I supposed to beat a 12th level Boss?" ::::waaah:::::

It's not really the solution to "my" problem. It's the solution to the one you want to keep pointing out because you apparently frown upon people who don't want to do enough stuff in a playthrough to reach the level cap. It's been brought up oodles of times already, but "optional" content is called that for a reason.

 

Besides, that's easier said than done. Again, 6 characters gaining even ONE additional level can make a HUGE difference in the tools at the player's disposal, depending on exactly what that level entails (spell frequency changes -- at-will instead of per-encounter, or per-encounter instead of per-rest, etc. -- talents, etc.). If the encounter in question is STILL that tough, even for that party with all that additional stuff, then telling someone "You can be a level or two below that, if you want. These quests and such are totally optional..." is a bit of a technicality. "It's not impossible to beat that encounter without doing more stuff, if you're lucky."

 

Also, for the record, I'm not saying it's the game's obligation to make things easy on everyone. You seem to keep focusing on that whole "scale it down for the little guy" factor, but I'm more looking at scaling it up for the "big" (higher-leveled) guy approach. Again, where appropriate. There are more criteria than "Is it an encounter? Are you a higher level? SCALE! 8D!"

 

I'm worried that if I do extra content I'll be denied my reward of being more powerful. (Power being a relative term.) If you're playing on hard mode then the boss should be ready for a level 12 team by default.

[Stun]

^and even without playing on Hard mode, If the level cap is 12 then the final boss should ALWAYS be designed to challenge a level capped party. Not sure why any developer needs to resort to something so vile as level scaling the final boss in a game that has a level cap.

 

This is what I don't understand. I say "this should happen under the proper circumstances," which is a conditional "should," and yet you want to argue "Nuh-uh!" to that, based on the fact that those circumstances won't necessarily occur.

Lephys, stop pretending that your moronic arguments haven't been seen and thrashed countless times to the point that we ALL already know where they're going to lead even before you finish making them.

 

The Bottom line is that your so-called "problems" and 'issues' aren't. When a game has a level cap, and it's also an RPG that promises diverse gameplay and choices, then encounter level-adjustments are not needed. If we're discussing how to make a final boss challenging, then the solution is to design that final boss to challenge a level capped party, since that will effectively guarantee that it will be a challenge to everyone.... without requiring the devs to Gimp that final boss and scale him to minimalists who didn't enjoy the game enough to bother playing more than half of it.

 

On the other hand, if we're discussing non-critical path bosses then devs don't need to worry about what level the party is, since anything that's non-critical pathed is optional by definition, thus all of the whines from the little Lephys of the world are easily addressed with a simple: "if you don't like this encounter, then skip it".

 

Of course there's also the issue of true story based RPGs, where it doesn't matter what level the bosses are, since the option to NOT HAVE TO ENGAGE THEM IN COMBAT ANYWAY will be there. Ever play Planescape Torment? In PS:T, does it matter, at all, how "tough" TTO is? Nope, because only a clueless idiot gamer would ever resort to engaging him in combat.

Edited June 6, 2014 by Stun

[Lephys]

I'm worried that if I do extra content I'll be denied my reward of being more powerful. (Power being a relative term.) If you're playing on hard mode then the boss should be ready for a level 12 team by default.

And if you outfit everyone with heavy armor, and some of the human foes, upon seeing you, happen to sheathe their shortswords and pull out maces and mauls, do you feel like you're being denied all the hard work you put into purchasing/finding that armor, and the higher damage protection it offers?

 

Just because you could be faced with an opponent who matches you doesn't mean you've been denied a power increase. For you to be denied your reward, everything would have to become just as additionally powerful as you had. It isn't reasonable to expect that your increased power applies to anything and everything. If you gain 10 new spells and boost your Intelligence, and you come up against an enemy who's magic immune, the same happens. Just like the armor example.

 

Besides... being powerful refers to what you are capable of doing to your foe. Just because a harder foe shows itself to you doesn't necessarily mean he gains armor and HP equal to your increased damage output. Maybe he just has a couple extra spells, etc. The difficulty comes from not-dying, not from being incapable of harming him. It says nothing about your "powerfulness" rating.

 

And, again, if a particular foe/encounter never existed in the first place, then it's not really "changing." It's only a perception. "If I had gone to that place and been attacked before I did all this other stuff, I would've faced a different opponent." That's two different realities. If there's just a dragon in a cave, and that's where it lives, and it's been sleeping the whole time, and you fight it whenever you fight it, then there's absolutely no reason it would change at all. If there's a cave with some treasured artifact in it, and, when you step on some switch, it triggers a dimensional alarm, and Baddy McBadderton and his henchmen go "A-HAH! Got them!", and teleport into that room to fight you, they can actively send through whomever they want. I doubt there's just one guy and his conveniently appropriately-numerous henchmen in all of existence, and he just happens to send everyone in his army through no matter what. He, being an intelligent, sapient being, can decide who to send and/or what tools they should have at their disposal.

[Hiro Protagonist II]

This is turning more into a quasi-Diablo clone without the emphasis on things like xp and a feeling of levelling on side quests, and all about the loot and variations of level scaling. Because we have to protect those gamers who are just plain bad at playing games. We can't have players unintentionally making bad characters in their party, not being able to get past encounters, lay out loot along the way so by the end, there are no 'hard' encounters for the player. We need to hold the hand of those gamers that need hand holding. While some gamers find encounters easy, it's the gamer who doesn't have a clue, that we need to make sure can get through the game with enough hints and information for the player to prepare for that encounter. Otherwise it's a 'hard' encounter.

 

The dev's also need to be careful with their naming of spells, because we can't have players who don't understand technical words like 'dispel' (area effect spell including your players) and 'remove' (enemy only effect spell not including your players) and don't comprehend spell descriptions when this is explained in the spell descriptions. We have to protect those players that don't comprehend this sort of stuff. We also have to make it easily accessible so it doesn't take more than two clicks to find those spell descriptions, because it's all too hard.

 

I can't wait for the game to be released.

Edited June 6, 2014 by Hiro Protagonist II

[Namutree]

This is turning more into a quasi-Diablo clone without the emphasis on things like xp and a feeling of levelling on side quests, and all about the loot and variations of level scaling. Because we have to protect those gamers who are just plain bad at playing games. We can't have players unintentionally making bad characters in their party, not being able to get past encounters, lay out loot along the way so by the end, there are no 'hard' encounters for the player. We need to hold the hand of those gamers that need hand holding. While some gamers find encounters easy, it's the gamer who doesn't have a clue, that we need to make sure can get through the game with enough hints and information for the player to prepare for that encounter. Otherwise it's a 'hard' encounter.

 

The dev's also need to be careful with their naming of spells, because we can't have players who don't understand technical words like 'dispel' (area effect spell including your players) and 'remove' (enemy only effect spell not including your players) and don't comprehend spell descriptions when this is explained in the spell descriptions. We have to protect those players that don't comprehend this sort of stuff. We also have to make it easily accessible so it doesn't take more than two clicks to find those spell descriptions, because it's all too hard.

 

I can't wait for the game to be released.

That post seems very negative. =(

[Namutree]

I've thought a bit more about this issue, and I have to say: Encounter scaling is a bad idea. IMO the core idea of a rpg is to create an illusion of power. That's why you start off weak; to make you feel stronger when you become strong, and why they use numbers to represent your power. If the final battle does not get easier for a higher level team, then the game has contradictory mechanics. Even if it's not done to an extreme; it still doesn't really contribute to anything if the boss was balanced around a level 12 party to begin with. I'm not saying that a team should have to be level 12 to win, but it ought to be a lot more difficult. Otherwise, the optional content won't contribute much to the theme of the mechanics, and will feel much less rewarding.

Edited June 8, 2014 by Namutree