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On June 09 2011 00:49 Polis wrote:Show nested quote +On June 09 2011 00:34 deathly rat wrote:Also, the scaling of monsters levels was to make sure the game continued to be challenging, not to make the game easier to play. They have since refined the system such that new areas are scaled but areas already discovered are set, this is so you can feel you power growing. All this has been innovative stuff from Bethesda. I really think you are missing out on the context here. That sucks because there should be areas that are above your level, heck play Gothic2:Notr, and tell me how the feeling of danger, and planning forced by good hand placement of enemies can be archived with level scaling. Level scaling also makes gaining levels pointless.
The level scaling system I think will give the player the illusion of progression, while still giving them the freedom to choose where they want to explore next in the game world. One thing I hate about games with higher level areas, and lower level areas, is it feels like I'm being guided down a strait path with little choice of where I can go next. As long as there is the illusion of progress, then I should be fine.
Now the only thing I'm hoping isn't scaled are the dragons. I want them to be a real challenge, or something I run from if I'm not high level enough.
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On June 09 2011 01:11 FeUerFlieGe wrote:Show nested quote +On June 09 2011 00:49 Polis wrote:On June 09 2011 00:34 deathly rat wrote:Also, the scaling of monsters levels was to make sure the game continued to be challenging, not to make the game easier to play. They have since refined the system such that new areas are scaled but areas already discovered are set, this is so you can feel you power growing. All this has been innovative stuff from Bethesda. I really think you are missing out on the context here. That sucks because there should be areas that are above your level, heck play Gothic2:Notr, and tell me how the feeling of danger, and planning forced by good hand placement of enemies can be archived with level scaling. Level scaling also makes gaining levels pointless. The level scaling system I think will give the player the illusion of progression, while still giving them the freedom to choose where they want to explore next in the game world. One thing I hate about games with higher level areas, and lower level areas, is it feels like I'm being guided down a strait path with little choice of where I can go next. As long as there is the illusion of progress, then I should be fine. Now the only thing I'm hoping isn't scaled are the dragons. I want them to be a real challenge, or something I run from if I'm not high level enough.
Having highlevel and lowlevel areas doesn't force you down a certain path. It just makes some places harder than others. You will have to be smart and take risks if you want to reap the reward from the harder areas early on.
I don't want the game to trick me. I want to trick the game.
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On June 09 2011 01:11 FeUerFlieGe wrote:Show nested quote +On June 09 2011 00:49 Polis wrote:On June 09 2011 00:34 deathly rat wrote:Also, the scaling of monsters levels was to make sure the game continued to be challenging, not to make the game easier to play. They have since refined the system such that new areas are scaled but areas already discovered are set, this is so you can feel you power growing. All this has been innovative stuff from Bethesda. I really think you are missing out on the context here. That sucks because there should be areas that are above your level, heck play Gothic2:Notr, and tell me how the feeling of danger, and planning forced by good hand placement of enemies can be archived with level scaling. Level scaling also makes gaining levels pointless. The level scaling system I think will give the player the illusion of progression, while still giving them the freedom to choose where they want to explore next in the game world. One thing I hate about games with higher level areas, and lower level areas, is it feels like I'm being guided down a strait path with little choice of where I can go next. As long as there is the illusion of progress, then I should be fine. Now the only thing I'm hoping isn't scaled are the dragons. I want them to be a real challenge, or something I run from if I'm not high level enough.
You don't seem to understand one thing: freedom of choice doesn't mean ANY choice you make should be viable; Just like in real life, sometimes it's easy, sometimes it is not. The way it was in Oblivion you just couldn't make a mistake no matter how hard you tried. You could easily finish off the main plot (read: stop a demonic invasion) at level 1.
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On June 09 2011 01:11 FeUerFlieGe wrote:
The level scaling system I think will give the player the illusion of progression, while still giving them the freedom to choose where they want to explore next in the game world.
To me it kills the point of exploring when everything is scaled, only the different view is left then.
If all choices are the same then what is the point of having them in the first place?
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It looks really promising :D!
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Why can't games incorporate DYNAMIC level scaling?
Certain areas are designated low-level areas and certain ones are designated high-level. The low-level areas scale with the player upon first entry so that they are not too easy on the outset. They player can out-level these areas however, at which point the level of monsters in the areas stops scaling giving the player a sense of accomplishment and openness because he has surpassed the difficulty of the area.
This applies to levels of higher initial difficulty as well. They have a certain minimum level that, once reached by the player, they scale with the player until the player out-levels the area, again giving them a sense of accomplishment.
It is natural wandering into areas you know to be dangerous and experiencing super-hard enemies. I don't think it is natural to return to an area you used to frequent when you were low-level and now encountering the hardest monsters in the game because you are now high level. It doesn't make sense.
If the area outside Megaton first had Blowflies and Mole Rats I should not come back to it at level 20 and find Yao Guais and Deathclaws, unless of course it is explained by the story (i.e. the Enclave having soliders everywhere to make previous areas more challenging since you have to return there so often).
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On June 09 2011 01:28 TheGiz wrote:
Why can't games incorporate DYNAMIC level scaling?
Certain areas are designated low-level areas and certain ones are designated high-level. The low-level areas scale with the player upon first entry so that they are not too easy on the outset. They player can out-level these areas however, at which point the level of monsters in the areas stops scaling giving the player a sense of accomplishment and openness because he has surpassed the difficulty of the area.
This applies to levels of higher initial difficulty as well. They have a certain minimum level that, once reached by the player, they scale with the player until the player out-levels the area, again giving them a sense of accomplishment.
It is natural wandering into areas you know to be dangerous and experiencing super-hard enemies. I don't think it is natural to return to an area you used to frequent when you were low-level and now encountering the hardest monsters in the game because you are now high level. It doesn't make sense.
I think this is actually close to what Morrowind did (though some areas would have easy areas turn into harder ones I think, but they tended to be wilderness areas), I'd always prefer no scaling at all but I'm sure it could work if done properly.
The Dragon Age (1) devs said this is what they did too I think.
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On June 09 2011 01:34 ChinaWhite wrote:Show nested quote +On June 09 2011 01:28 TheGiz wrote:
Why can't games incorporate DYNAMIC level scaling?
Certain areas are designated low-level areas and certain ones are designated high-level. The low-level areas scale with the player upon first entry so that they are not too easy on the outset. They player can out-level these areas however, at which point the level of monsters in the areas stops scaling giving the player a sense of accomplishment and openness because he has surpassed the difficulty of the area.
This applies to levels of higher initial difficulty as well. They have a certain minimum level that, once reached by the player, they scale with the player until the player out-levels the area, again giving them a sense of accomplishment.
It is natural wandering into areas you know to be dangerous and experiencing super-hard enemies. I don't think it is natural to return to an area you used to frequent when you were low-level and now encountering the hardest monsters in the game because you are now high level. It doesn't make sense.
I think this is actually close to what Morrowind did (though some areas would have easy areas turn into harder ones I think, but they tended to be wilderness areas), I'd always prefer no scaling at all but I'm sure it could work if done properly. The Dragon Age (1) devs said this is what they did too I think.
Yep, his description is exactly how its been incorporated in these games. You don't see a level 1 Deathclaw, and you don't see a level 25 molerat. Same with DAO; there are areas where if you go there first (Deep Roads or the dragon mountain place I forget the name of) you're gonna have a bad time because the minimum level of the mobs there are still much higher level than you are at the time (so everyone just ploughs through the Circle tower and all of the DLC first).
Of course, as he says, the drawback to FA was that you would eventually see the big-bad monsters in the starting area, and the drawback to DAO was the things like Genlocks and Hurlocks had no minimum/maximum level; they'd always be exactly the same level as you offering the exact same (no) challenge. I'm pretty sure that's how they handled it in DA2, also, with everything just being the same level as you no matter what, although the difficulty of each encounter was primarily based on the abilities of the creatures you were fighting, rather than their scaled-up base stats.
I have a hard time seeing the value in picking an area, getting your ass kicked and having to come back to it later, though. It just seems like a big, frustrating waste of time for the player to get so far, only to have to stop and turn around. Now if that area was simply locked off until you'd accomplished some challenges (e.g. get high enough level to get an ability that smashes those boulders out of the way so you can access the deep dark dungeon of death), I think that achieves the same effect, without getting on anyone's nerves.
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On June 09 2011 01:14 DrainX wrote:Show nested quote +On June 09 2011 01:11 FeUerFlieGe wrote:On June 09 2011 00:49 Polis wrote:On June 09 2011 00:34 deathly rat wrote:Also, the scaling of monsters levels was to make sure the game continued to be challenging, not to make the game easier to play. They have since refined the system such that new areas are scaled but areas already discovered are set, this is so you can feel you power growing. All this has been innovative stuff from Bethesda. I really think you are missing out on the context here. That sucks because there should be areas that are above your level, heck play Gothic2:Notr, and tell me how the feeling of danger, and planning forced by good hand placement of enemies can be archived with level scaling. Level scaling also makes gaining levels pointless. The level scaling system I think will give the player the illusion of progression, while still giving them the freedom to choose where they want to explore next in the game world. One thing I hate about games with higher level areas, and lower level areas, is it feels like I'm being guided down a strait path with little choice of where I can go next. As long as there is the illusion of progress, then I should be fine. Now the only thing I'm hoping isn't scaled are the dragons. I want them to be a real challenge, or something I run from if I'm not high level enough. Having highlevel and lowlevel areas doesn't force you down a certain path. It just makes some places harder than others. You will have to be smart and take risks if you want to reap the reward from the harder areas early on. I don't want the game to trick me. I want to trick the game.
When I wrote my post I was thinking about Dragon Age Origins, one of my favorite most recent RPG's. I noticed while playing the game that some of the areas were much harder than others. For instance after doing the quest in the Circle of Magi tower, I decided that next I would go to Denerim, where I found the thieves of the town almost impossible to beat, even after tuning the difficulty down a bit.
Orzammar was another place I tried to visit before my level was high enough, and I found it too frustratingly difficult, so I went on to do the other quests. What the area levels created was a much more linear way of triggering the events in the game. I had to go to a set of other areas first and gain levels before I could go to these higher level areas. One could still go to these areas if they wanted an extreme challenge, but it would be so much more lucrative to do the areas that are more at your level first. And Bioware did make those areas plenty challenging, especially within the higher difficulties.
Now in Dragon Age the area level system wasn't a problem for me, but in Skyrim, where it's an open world, I would like to be able to explore were I want to explore, when I want to. I definitely understand the possibility of the level scaling system making gameplay too easy (which I don't want either), but if the level scaling system is able to scale to your level while still keeping a good challenge, then I will be satisfied. (and it would be nice if there was a way to toggle the overal difficulty level, much like in DAO as well).
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A dragon, for example, should always feel tougher than some random animal off the side of the road. 1 shotting a dragon while getting stomped by boars is quite problematic as seen in some other game...
I am fine with running into the wrong place and paying my life for it. I think it is one of the features of an open world.
Leveling up does not necessary have to be "rewarding" in a way that it makes the game easier. It opens up more customization. In fact now that you are more familiar with the game, it should get harder!
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On June 09 2011 01:28 TheGiz wrote:
Why can't games incorporate DYNAMIC level scaling?
Certain areas are designated low-level areas and certain ones are designated high-level. The low-level areas scale with the player upon first entry so that they are not too easy on the outset. They player can out-level these areas however, at which point the level of monsters in the areas stops scaling giving the player a sense of accomplishment and openness because he has surpassed the difficulty of the area.
This applies to levels of higher initial difficulty as well. They have a certain minimum level that, once reached by the player, they scale with the player until the player out-levels the area, again giving them a sense of accomplishment.
It is natural wandering into areas you know to be dangerous and experiencing super-hard enemies. I don't think it is natural to return to an area you used to frequent when you were low-level and now encountering the hardest monsters in the game because you are now high level. It doesn't make sense.
If the area outside Megaton first had Blowflies and Mole Rats I should not come back to it at level 20 and find Yao Guais and Deathclaws, unless of course it is explained by the story (i.e. the Enclave having soliders everywhere to make previous areas more challenging since you have to return there so often).
this has actually pretty much been done in Morrowind.
You had your outside territories which to a certain degree scaled a bit with the Character and then you had your Dungeons which did not scale at all. This made it pretty awesome when you started to go into a new dungeon and ran into all sorts of enemies. To find some hidden treasure which often was pretty good.
In Oblivion everything is the same, the only thing that doesnt make it completely boring is that some enemies are bound to certain areas.
On June 09 2011 02:03 Hikari wrote:
Leveling up does not necessary have to be "rewarding" in a way that it makes the game easier. It opens up more customization. In fact now that you are more familiar with the game, it should get harder!
this is another good point. The last few RPGs I palyed always felt like the hardest part was the beginning and after that it just got easier. But it should be tough on the start and keep getting harder until the end.
I mean I am certainly not the only one who felt like some early level boss was actually tougher than most endgame bosses and this just cant be right.
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I'm not surprised at all.
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On June 09 2011 02:03 FeUerFlieGe wrote:
Now in Dragon Age the area level system wasn't a problem for me, but in Skyrim, where it's an open world, I would like to be able to explore were I want to explore, when I want to. I definitely understand the possibility of the level scaling system making gameplay too easy (which I don't want either), but if the level scaling system is able to scale to your level while still keeping a good challenge, then I will be satisfied. (and it would be nice if there was a way to toggle the overal difficulty level, much like in DAO as well).
See for me I found that in Oblivion the level scaling actually made the game more difficult. I understand that the Oblivion gate areas were supposed to be hard, but any time I was fighting daemons I was just running away half the time and trying to get to the end. Daedra fights were near impossible and many times I would just run my way to the end. It wasn't until much later in the game that things started to ease up a little. I obviously still had fun - hell, I played Oblivion for 10 hours a day for a month! - but the battles took very long sometimes.
Fallout 3 was a little better as the initial monsters get easy pretty quickly. There was a point in the game though that I had extreme difficulty killing anything (like FIRE ANTS). Battles were really hard until about level 14-15 at which point they eased up. Finally, by about level 18 my Sneak and Small Guns skills were so high that I could one-shot Super Mutant Masters from a distance. Half the time though Faux would just run in with his Gatling Laser and mow everything down. Is it so hard to make an AI assistant hang back because he knows you're sneaking around?
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yea, i wish these new games would be a little bit more like nethack (i know difficulty would be a problem, so they cant be as difficult) in that there are great ways to screw yourself over. all your armor gets disintegrated ... pick up a cockatrice corpse ... eat the wrong things ... make the game unwinnable ... etc.
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^^ This reminds me of the other main thing that really really really gets on my nerves with newer releases - the lack of mutally exclusive quests / factions.
If the Dark brotherhood hates the thieves guild, I should not be able to to become grandmaster of both (unless i do something clever to manipulate the situation).
The trend seems to be 'players must be able to access all content in one play through'
Same applies to being able to max all skills, it just continues to remove interesting choices.
Morrowind got it right, New Vegas to some extent too.
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On June 09 2011 02:10 Skilledblob wrote:Show nested quote +On June 09 2011 01:28 TheGiz wrote:
Why can't games incorporate DYNAMIC level scaling?
Certain areas are designated low-level areas and certain ones are designated high-level. The low-level areas scale with the player upon first entry so that they are not too easy on the outset. They player can out-level these areas however, at which point the level of monsters in the areas stops scaling giving the player a sense of accomplishment and openness because he has surpassed the difficulty of the area.
This applies to levels of higher initial difficulty as well. They have a certain minimum level that, once reached by the player, they scale with the player until the player out-levels the area, again giving them a sense of accomplishment.
It is natural wandering into areas you know to be dangerous and experiencing super-hard enemies. I don't think it is natural to return to an area you used to frequent when you were low-level and now encountering the hardest monsters in the game because you are now high level. It doesn't make sense.
If the area outside Megaton first had Blowflies and Mole Rats I should not come back to it at level 20 and find Yao Guais and Deathclaws, unless of course it is explained by the story (i.e. the Enclave having soliders everywhere to make previous areas more challenging since you have to return there so often).
this has actually pretty much been done in Morrowind. You had your outside territories which to a certain degree scaled a bit with the Character and then you had your Dungeons which did not scale at all. This made it pretty awesome when you started to go into a new dungeon and ran into all sorts of enemies. To find some hidden treasure which often was pretty good. In Oblivion everything is the same, the only thing that doesnt make it completely boring is that some enemies are bound to certain areas. Show nested quote +On June 09 2011 02:03 Hikari wrote:
Leveling up does not necessary have to be "rewarding" in a way that it makes the game easier. It opens up more customization. In fact now that you are more familiar with the game, it should get harder! this is another good point. The last few RPGs I palyed always felt like the hardest part was the beginning and after that it just got easier. But it should be tough on the start and keep getting harder until the end. I mean I am certainly not the only one who felt like some early level boss was actually tougher than most endgame bosses and this just cant be right.
Well, ideally, you want a difficulty that constantly peaks and troughs, giving the player a difficult encounter every so-often and then giving them some cooldown time to just plough through stuff, go nuts and have some fun. But, you want the height of those peaks and troughs to keep going up over-time and, you're right, too many games follow the peak-trough model, but they just keep going down, down down to the point where the later bosses are easier than the earlier ones.
On June 09 2011 02:36 ChinaWhite wrote:
^^ This reminds me of the other main thing that really really really gets on my nerves with newer releases - the lack of mutally exclusive quests / factions.
If the Dark brotherhood hates the thieves guild, I should not be able to to become grandmaster of both (unless i do something clever to manipulate the situation).
The trend seems to be 'players must be able to access all content in one play through'
Same applies to being able to max all skills, it just continues to remove interesting choices.
Morrowind got it right, New Vegas to some extent too.
Totally agree there, too. It's very tempting to look at all of the work you did on a game and want the player to see all of it, but there's a lot of gameplay, fun and replayability to be given to the hardcore gamer by adding additional content that is either mutually exclusive with other content, or simply hard to find. I think a lot of developers want to do stuff like that, but as the process gets more streamlined they find it harder to justify spending development time on content that only a handful of people will ever see.
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On June 09 2011 01:03 deathly rat wrote:Show nested quote +On June 09 2011 00:39 Jswizzy wrote:On June 09 2011 00:34 deathly rat wrote:On June 09 2011 00:22 ChinaWhite wrote:
It being a console port can only excuse so much though, graphics (being less than optimal) and interface are usually the main problems. This looks great so that isn't an issue, and the UI will be fixed pretty quickly by modders (if needed).
The main problem is their tendancy to simplify everything from mechanics to difficulty.
Oblivion completely lost any sense of 'risk and reward' that was present in earlier tes games. They dont want people getting killed, so they level scale areas removing any sense of danger and achievement with it. If you wander too far from your starting location without being clever / careful about it you should die, simple as.
If they learn from oblivion though and actually put back a depth of lore into the environment I'm sure everything else will be fixed. It's a shame it has to be but there's no getting round it. PC gaming snobbery much? I'd have thought the last thing that someone on a Starcraft site would be concerned about is graphics. Anyway, it won't be a console port, even though they will have designed the game to most optimally use limited processing power (which is great for people using PC as well). Oblivion had significantly higher graphical resolution for those people playing on PC than on XBOX360. Also, the scaling of monsters levels was to make sure the game continued to be challenging, not to make the game easier to play. They have since refined the system such that new areas are scaled but areas already discovered are set, this is so you can feel you power growing. All this has been innovative stuff from Bethesda. I really think you are missing out on the context here. Maybe Heart of the swarm should be developed first for 360 since the platform a game is developed for doesn't matter? It would be amazing if they could get SC2 working on consoles, but RTS games only really work in PC due to mouse/keyboard working so much better for this than console controller.
Right, so imagine if they simplified the controls in order to make an RTS easier for the consoles, then left those simple controls in the PC version. So, instead of individually selecting SCV's, lets say pressing A brings up a build menu, then you select the building you want and an SCV just automatically goes and builds it in a preassigned space. Then in battles, you can't micro individual units, but your units are grouped by type and you can only control the entire group. Imagine if changes like this were made for every aspect of the game that was "too complicated" for consoles and then those changes were ported into the PC version. That is what happened in Oblivion. I couldn't even play that game without spending a few hours finding and installing mods to fix it, first.
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Sorry but what does this mean? I have traditionally only played games on console but sc2 brought me into the PC gaming world. I plan on buying a nice PC this summer, probably alienware, so I'm not sure what to buy skyrim for? 360 or PC, any help?
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EPT
