I've played all of RPG's in my life but this game Im so lost. I have no clue where to go have the time cuz quests don't show on map and you walk so slow if I went wrong way takes foever to go back. I'm level 3 and have no clue where to go everything kicks my ass I have party of 4 and we get wiped every where I go mobs are lv3 or lv5 and theres like 6-10 of them!
If im ahead of party and mobs attack I keep walking right in to them and get killed or I go to attack and icon doesn't show up and I just move pass the mob and lose turn points.
I cant find anyone to buy or trade with I don't know how to make spells or potions. Cant find hammer to fix weapons or any clue how to craft.
Everything I touch either sets me on fire or posions me. I have no clue what these stones do that warp me places.
I cant find anyone that sell weapons or armor or potions.

I started over 5 times cuz game doesn't auto save ever.I give up!

Not sure if this is real or not but it made me laugh. Thanks.

It is a tricky game however. That's half the fun though, IMO.

Esmeralda sells weapons (shop north of the market, east of the King Crab inn). The market can be found after you take the stairs up and north from the west side of the harbour.
After you get to Cyseal the easiest opponents are in the tunnel under the city
The open gate west of the inn is the safest way to leave the city.

You can right click on a teleporter stone to teleport to the character with the other one. If you separate the group (left click a portrait and drag it to the right to break the chain), one character can sneak past some opponents or around a dangerous surface, and then the others can teleport to that character. Alternately, one character can go shop, and then teleport back rather than walk.

You can quicksave (F5; F8 is quickload) or make manual saves periodically.

First, create archer and wizard. Archers got op skill that fires like 20 arrows in a cone, wizards can use fire spells to ~nuke enemies/heal allies/debuff(need witchcraft)/buff/summon/whatever~. Second, for both heroes pick Bigger and better and All skilled up talents, you'll get 1 attribute and 2 skill points for that. Next time you get a talent, pick Comeback kid, nice lifesaver. Third, complete a tutorial, it's under development, but it helps. Fourth, hire party members. Jahar in the library (support mage with nukes) and Madora (2h weapon tank with rush, round attack and knockdown) in the Crab Inn. West Cyseal is ideal (rhymes) for leveling (u can make it at lvl 2 with 4 party members), then go to the north gate, unchain your archer, hit a zombie and run to the gate. Guards will help you kill them at lvl 3, you'll get xp. At lvl 4, go to the lighthouse. then to the south (Statues). You'll be fine, level up Way of the warrior and armor spec, Madora can tank well.

No it isn't. Finally after a long time we get an RPG that doesn't hold your hand every step you take and people are whining before it's even out.

Most of the criticism by the OP is exactly why I think this is shaping up to be one of the best RPG's in recent memory.

I would agree with him on one point though, sometimes in combat it is easy to move too far, however, the ranges and movement are something you should be able to get used to relatively easily.

As for why there is no clear indication where to go, that would be because each quest has about a dozen different ways to solve it. Also, it is not like there is absolutely no markers, however, they only appear if you are explicitly told to go some place and disappear if you decide to do something else instead. At least this is how it was in the alpha, haven't had a chance to play the beta yet.

Read your journal and think for yourself is the best advice that can be given, also map the world with custom map markers if you need it.

Have to agree. Thank god (Larian) that there are no "!" and "?" indicators on the NPCs. All thanks that there are no map markers.

The game is all about exploration, and that's fantastic! This kind of freedom shouldn't be downgraded to a more mainstreamized format, especially not, when features like NPC schedules / proper world simulation are kicked.

But I do agree that the combat still needs some tweaking. But I highly suggest a difficulty slider to please all kind of gamer groups.

Ah Swen was right, people are not used to struggle anymore in any game, they want a highlight path to the goal...
I don't really know if it is a troll or not, but if not, try to play a real RPG (with dices and books) with a sadistic GM ^^

Aside from the combat bugs that the OP has, everything else he said was a very subjective thing when it comes to enjoyment. This game is looking far better to me now that the combat is actually somewhat difficult, though admittedly there are some spells that can just chop enemy mobs in an instant still. Coming off of playing games like Morrowind, Planescape: Torment, and Baldur's Gate II played with permanent character deaths, this is not that difficult. Though I have to wonder just what RPGs has the OP played in all his life that he has never encountered what I would consider some of the greatest RPGs that I've ever had the joy of playing.

Well, it rather depends.
If went east first, lvl 6 skels. Lower west, lvl 6 orcs. Only 3rd time was the charm with easy lvl 2 and 3 (who I crushed) enemies in the upper west.
While the lack of markers, ! and ? is refreshing (yay for that! Down with questmarkers!) the crafting and enchantment system still eludes me. I'm playing to find out, but I assume there are enough players not that patient.

There's no harm retreating and trying another path if you fail. That's something really refreshing not found in most modern games...

I love not being told what to do. I like making my own solution and I like my ability to enact my solution on my terms.

I also don't think the combat is very difficult, so we need difficulty options for those who can't seem to figure out how to do it on the current difficulty and for those getting bored by lack of challenge sometimes.

Game is not "to" hard. Most other games are too easy and hardly qualify as games, more like slightly-interactive films.

Are you kidding this is the best game ever for the struggle. You think that's hard try taking on the flaming Level 7 skeletons and their idol at level 5. :p

Please Larian DO NOT CHANGE A THING! (in terms of difficulty)

I think it is a lack of tutorial that makes the game seem so difficult.
And I also sold a lot of things for 0 gold =(
And my sword has 4 durability left and I can't find anyone to repair it =( All the merchants in Cyseal can't do that. Or am I supposed to have lvl 5 repair when my characters are only 6?
I like the game but really hope for expanded tutorial. At the momemt it is all about intuitive learning and I feel lost and stupid wondering around because I have no idea how to proceed on the main quest but there is still some exploration left for me.
I don't feel like "I'm making my own solution and enacting my solution on my terms" which is quite sad right now. Hope I get better.

The repairing issue isn't a function of you being lost and stupid, don't worry. I've posted in another thread about repairing in general being a not-so-good system, at least as-is.

If you've got mechanical questions in general, I can probably answer them. Or Stabbey or Gyson if they're around. They're usually pretty knowledgeable/insightful too.

To play devil's advocate, if the game is all about exploration, then D:OS doesn't reward said exploration very well in its current state. It doesn't take much wandering in any given direction outside of town before you run into mobs that quickly one-shot you. Tweaking the game in such a way as to where the player can easily see if mobs are way more powerful than they are - and avoid them before combat kicks in - would be a really good addition.

Also, I second (or third, or whatever) putting in a difficulty slider.

You already see foes way before they do you, and have level indicators.

If that somehow STILL fails, there's flee.

How much easier does it need to be/get???

EDIT:
(By that I mean easy to avoid enemies you do not wish to fight. Just figured I needed to make that a bit clearer)

It's hard, and frustrating at times. And the more I fight, the better I get. It's been a while since I played a game where fighting becomes easier only when I learn (painfully) how to make it so. None of this "Oh, I leveled up automatically and I am now much more powerful and can update my skill tree which is actually just a straight line" nonsense.

To be fair, there are some surprise ambush encounters. Also, the mail/plate helmets have negative sight modifiers on them which reduce how far the characters wearing them can see (and, at least with me, those generally are the characters up front leading the group around). Blind leading the blind and all that.

I'm finding the game pretty easy. In the beggining it's a bit hard, but after you get the hang of it and go up a few levels, it becomes really easy. At least with my two "lone wolf" characters i'm not having any problems. Actually i think the developers still need to do some balancing in the game, because there are some battles that are a little too easy in my opinion, but they're on the right way. I wouldn't mind if it continues this way.

Yeah, some skeletons appear out of the group, but since those are lvl 3, they generally aren't fights that need avoiding unless you immediately run out of the city without doing any quests at all (which would be silly).

I encounter the same "issue"

It depend of your group. I mean, I have an enchanter, and for the moment I have the only attack spell : using my staff. I have a low level staff (the one from the begining) and I make 2-4 damages.

Hopefully I have a ranger, but it's frustrating that the ranger do all the job

You have in town 2 characters (a warrior and an enchanter) for completing your group ; I don't take the enchantor this BIPPPPP had attack spell and not me

But I want to keep this group even if it's hard (it makes me think about the way to win with this team)

If it can give you hope, I try with 2 teams (cleric and the archer which do magic I don't remember class name ; and ranger and enchanter) ; honnestly, some battle were easy with one group and hard with another.

If you want easy way , take a good tank with a fire caster. But maybe after it will be hard too

I have to agree that the game currently seems to hard. i play with a group of ranger and shadowblade. The ranger has one skill that seems a bit overpowered. all the other skills (ranger & shadowblade) seem underpowered.
What i find especially frustrating is that the game forces me follow a certain path by how the enemy levels are spread out.

So far it seems, as soon as i go somewhere or do something the game designer hasn't thought of or did not mean for me to go or do, i will die. i find this very limiting.

As long as monsters have fixed levels (rather than levels which scale to the player character's level), that really can't change. You have the freedom to go anywhere, but survival isn't guaranteed. There are just going to be directions/areas that are more dangerous than others.

I prefer when encounters scale to the player character's level (mainly because I hate, hate, hate out-leveling content), but that can create a whole different set of challenges for both the players and designers.

The game is wildly imbalanced, and difficulty is purely based on what you start out as.
If you make a wizard + tank you will faceroll the entire game.
If you make a str fighter + crit rogue, things might not go as well.

There are plenty of options to go at lvl 6. Probably a bit guided at the start to learn, but after that it opens up.

So I don't quite agree. Maybe once mage AI is fixed it will be harder though.

Which actually means i don't have the freedom to go anywhere. Or in other words, i can go somewhere else than the predfined path until i enounter the first enemy npcs.
Having areas with different enemy levels seems ok to me per se, but the problem with dos in its current state seems that the number of "paths" with enemies at the same level is very limited and thus the player has almost no options in where to go imo.

That's the cost of having exploration.

You could also do the Oblivion way, and make exploration so boring, since everything's the damn bloody same.
I prefer option #1

i think its a simple matter of balancing the level-up speed with the npc-level distribution. Reducing the level-up speed enables to have more areas with the same npc level strength. Another option would be a simple difficulty setting. Simple in the way that all it needs to effect is the player characters hitpoints.

I'm really pleased most RPG devs these days are avoiding (Oblivion-style) level-scaling. Beyond making no sense whatsoever (the entire world changes because the player leveled up), it's incredibly boring to have the exact same challenge level throughout a game. Made Oblivion completely unplayable for me - so thanks Larian!

Wow, I'm surprised at the reactions to level scaling, particularly as the lack of level scaling has completely killed so many MMOs for me.

I gave up Bioware's SWTOR MMO because you couldn't even do half of the content in that game without completely out-leveing the content as I progressed through my character's story - and that's really frustrating for a completionist type of gamer. I spent most of my time fighting MOBs that were so far below my level that there was absolutely no challenge or fun to be had in fighting them.

I started losing interest in Skyrim after I started one and two-shotting everything, including dragons. Again, due to a lack of level scaling.

On the other hand, I actually started playing Diablo 3 again because (among many other needed changes), monsters in that game now scale to the players level - meaning it's impossible to out-level the content and just mow through everything. Not having to worry about leveling faster than the content around me is a dream come true.

You can still have challenges ranging from easy to nearly impossible with level scaling. What you don't have is content becoming obsolete because you out-level it.

I'm enjoying the difficulty

I think the key is to avoid a situation where every single encounter in the game is going to be pretty much at your same level. Otherwise, for me at least, the fun of actually seeing your character(s) develop and be able to take on encounters that were previously impossible - i.e. the core of the CRPG experience, IMO: character growth - doesn't exist, because every encounter becomes bland. Hard level caps - as usually implemented, at least, where your character growth maxes only about 2/3 of the way through a game - also kill that sense of fun.

That said, you also don't want to have a super-god character one-shotting everything in the world during the last half of the game - the other extreme. You just want to have something challenging available somewhere in the world at any time, no matter your level - but Oblivion-style bandits in glass armor? Yeah, pass.

The way to handle that is to scale monsters up to the player's level, but not down. Thus, a group of bandits that were impossible earlier in your career eventually become doable, but never trivial. I hate trivial.

Ah, so you mean scale the enemies up to the player's level only the first time the player encounters them, but no further? I could almost tolerate that - it still wouldn't be ideal IMO, but it would be better than "the rats in the starting dungeon now become level 500 just because your character is near the end of the game"-type garbage.

...but I still prefer the D:OS "no level scaling" system myself - at least as they've implemented it in the beta area.

That's how Fallout 3 and Skyrim do it, I believe. They scale to your approximate level range the first time you enter a sector, and stay that way.

But it's not happening in D:OS this late into development, so forget it.

Yeah, I was thinking that about Skyrim, Stabbey. But I personally am very happy to forget it - I like the system already in place. Level scaling (and hard level caps) should be killed with fire. (Rant over)

Look there is no perfect answer. Everyone has their ideals for what is right or wrong. Hell, Borderlands was a terrific game but eventually you would get to a point where some missions were available and they were basically in the way. Unless you were a completionist (blush) there was no reason to go through them as the rewards and challenges were nearly non-existent. The way this game is moving forward I am more than happy with a higher difficulty. It only allows me to learn. I get to replay things. I get to be in the game longer, learn its intricacies, feel immersed.

Keep things going the way they are IMO.

It is too late in development, but it is something that can be introduced post-launch.

I do feel like the developers are setting themselves up for a lot of headaches with fixed levels. For example, let's say Divinity does well enough to justify an expansion that allows players to continue adventuring with their old characters, going as far as pulling information from your old save file (games have done this in the past).

What level range does the expansion adventure start at? Is it aimed at Divinity : OS players that have completed every quest available in the original story? Or is it aimed at the players who focused only on the main storyline and skipped all the sidequests? What about the fellow who obtained a really high level by killing almost every NPC in the game?

Level scaling makes that challenge easy to address. Without it.. it's easier to make everyone start off with new characters.

That's not even touching on user generated modules.

Overall, I don't mind the challenge, and I do appreciate that even the first orc incursion on the beach can lead to failure if I let my PCs go blundering in headfirst.

On the other hand, I would not complain with the run animations being sped up a bit. The speed at which my two hardy adventurers "run" could better be described as a "brisk amble." The major attractions in Cyseal are not so far apart, but I did find my mind wandering while I waited for my heroes to cross between them once or twice. Can't imagine what traversing a large city would be like.

Ditto as well with the crafting/repair/enchanting systems being pretty opaque right now. Finding out how to do something useful within them feels more like an Easter Egg than a core part of the game so far.

I would prefer to see more waypoint portals, to keep it optional. Earlier in the development the characters moved at a faster pace and it looked out of place (in my opinion).

I wouldn't argue if this is the solution we get, but I actually do enjoy traversing an area if it's not uncomfortable to do so. Relying on fast travel tends to chop up carefully-designed zones to disparate NPCs/buildings directly situated around each portal. It works, but it can break flow. It also seems like it would be limited in dungeon areas, where we'd be back to our ambling.

But to be fair, I don't recall a different run speed in alpha. I may have missed that phase, or just had the memory replaced with the current approach. So I at least appreciate that Larian is experimenting with it.

Level scaling (and often associated grind) is one of the worst things that happened to RPG's, inline with the Mass Effect wheel or *ugh* questmarkers.

So yes, I am glad that this is a RPG again with fixed levels, where exploring is fun, it's possible to meet enemies that beat you, but if you really overlevel it's also possible to roflstomp opponents rather than having a huge task doing that quest you forgot 30 hours ago and is still in the starter area where suddenly lvl 25's risen and kill all NPC's by staring at them.

How does level scaling = grind?



Basically, you can ask a player the following question:

Would you prefer to have..

A) ..opponents that offer challenging battles all the time?
B) ..opponents that may or may not offer challenging battles, depending entirely on when you happen to bump into them?

For some reason I imagine most people choosing "A", but going by some of these responses it's becoming apparent some people are really into the ability to "rolfstomp" their opponents! Who knew?

Respawning foes.

Both the cause and result of using level scaling.
But if you have no respawning foes, you can allow more control, ie. not need levelscaling to do the job for you.

The way Original Sin does.
It seems like a real loss to ruin all that effort for such a horrible system as level scaling. And if it does what you want (only scale down) it doesn't even change GuntiNDDS complaint about being forced on one specific path out of Cryseal.
So, again, what's the point again?

...?

You can have respawning foes without level scaling. That's how, for example, most MMOs work. The decision to offer respawning or finite challenges has nothing to do with level scaling.

There are some odd impressions of level scaling in this thread. Level scaling sets your opponent's level to match your level (there's a bit more happening behind the scenes than that, but that's the most important part of it). The result is that an encounter is always challenging regardless of when you run into it during your adventure. What's so awful about guaranteed challenges? I'd like to think nobody sets off on an adventure thinking "I hope I can just win fights by rolling my face on the keyboard..".

Now, that doesn't mean an orc and a dragon have the same stats and end up feeling like exactly the same fight. Huge variations in difficulty between opponents can still exist, to the extent that (despite being the same level) an epic opponent can outclass you until you've advanced to the point where you have enough tools at your disposal to get on equal footing. The best part is this hypothetical epic encounter remains challenging even if you don't run into it until you've advanced well beyond that point.

People tend to point out how (due to level scaling) it's odd to run into a rat that can challenge your max level character. But the flip side of that is not having level scaling and then one-shotting a dragon encounter that had the misfortune of being half your level. Between the possibility of being plagued by super vermin or ridiculously easy dragons, I think I'd rather be faced with the former dilemma. That said, if your designers are up to snuff they're aware odd scenario like this can exist, and so they avoid using things like rats as opponents in the game. Then you just have to worry about running into, say, super orcs instead of super rats.. which doesn't seem nearly as odd.

How any of that makes level scaling "one of the worst things that happened to RPG's" is beyond me.

Level scaling doesn't necessarily mean "guaranteed challenges." It usually actually means "bland/samey gameplay." In contrast, with a well-balanced non-leveled system (not easy to do, but very much worth the extra effort), the game world feels more real (as the entire world doesn't match itself to your current level for some inexplicable reason), while a wide variety of challenge levels - including as well, at all times, challenges roughly equal to the player's level - are available throughout gameplay. This can also free the player to actually choose a path that may be a little more difficult earlier on, but win a tough (i.e. slightly "over-leveled") fight through strategy. In my opinion, that feeling of satisfaction and accomplishment is core to a good RPG.

But I've seen this argument devolve into endless back-and-forth on too many forums... suffice it to say I'm very, very glad Larian is taking the more work-intensive but much more rewarding non-level-scaling route with D:OS. Though the industry finally seems to be moving past the level scaling system, there are plenty of other games out there that still have it. But this ain't one of 'em.

Get level 1 fire on all characters
Get wildfire on all characters
Get level 2 witchcraft on all characters
Get resurrect on all characters
Win game

Right-on Mikus.
Morrowind, want a challange, go to a higher-level area.
Oblivion... well, you're screwed, there are no 'x areas' all and everything is the same. Progress they call it.
Thus I am glad with the 'de-progression' I've encounted in DOS. Things feel quite easy, but I am sure once AI kinks got worked out that's improved too.

Yes, but MMO's are about *the* example how not to do RPG, so if desinging a SP RPG we can savely and compeltely ignore them.

And yes, this may surprise surprise you but I actually prefer that if I enter a low area I can get around it unscathed. I just hate games who to make you 'always challenged' (as you call it) keep fighting the same monotoneous fights in areas you've already long cleared and just pass by to go back for one reason or another (usually a quest). Sure, a higher opponent for that specific quest that you got beyond the areas level makes sense. But just the same stuff you got before, but NOW the have MORE HP! ("Oh, I am so challenged and intrigued and I love this!" (gamedev thoughts player things!) "Oh, joy, more contentfiller combat to artifically stretch gametime on a cheap way rather than an interesting way" (I would actually think).
This may surprise you, but always meeting foes your level is mindbustingly boring and grating on a player. Variety is the spice of life, and if you're 22 you get 22 foes and you just leveled up to 23, and as response the game gives you 23, well, the game loses all point playing anymore.
And I don't WANT to do that about a game, so yes, I would support not making it actually a developers goal to make me not want to play.

To answer that; Play Oblivion.

Listen to what you're saying here. For this to actually be true, you're essentially saying that fighting opponents who have stats appropriate for your level (and modified for the difficulty intended) can only be described as bland. Because that's mainly what level-scaling is.

And that's simply ridiculous, because you can have a game that doesn't use level scaling, yet plays out exactly the same way assuming you run into encounters *at the level for which they were designed*.

And if doing that results in a bland adventure, then someone has really dropped the ball and it has nothing to do with whether the game uses level scaling or not.

The reason most people hate level scaling is because the formula for it is usually terrible in most games.

@ Gyson;
Please actually play a game with levelscaling. Did I mention Oblivion? I think I did. Play it.

And if you return saying it's still a good thing and not bland, well... I will be dumbfounded...

EDIT:
Okay, sure, it's the worst levelscaling ever, but other games that use it not that bad still aren't doing much better...

If you want a challenge, why not just alter the difficulty setting of the game?


Also known as "wasted content".


You seem to be referring to respawning mechanics, which has nothing to do with level scaling. The two designs are not joined at the hip.


You're acting like this exact scenario does not exist outside of games that use level scaling, when it very much does. Again, that is not a design choice brought on by the decision to auto-scale MOBs to the player's level.



Because it's somehow so much more interesting to suddenly be one level above the MOBs? How so? Were you fighting them the whole way through 22 thinking "this is just boring.. but wait until I get to 23, then it will be the bee's knees.."..?

I feel like you're basing your entire level scaling experience on Oblivion. Have you actually played any other games that use level scaling?

I have. In fact, Diablo 3 just switched to a level scaling system with their recent Reaper of Souls expansion update. It's a great improvement. No matter how many sub-dungeons I visit I don't have to worry about out-leveling content to the point where it becomes faceroll easy.

Cause there's nothing higher than the highest. Levelscaling games are usually well-known for being utmost broken.

Also known as "feeling like a real world" rather than your personal playground. If that's a waste, then so be it. I personally feel the entire game called Oblivion a "wasted content"

If there's no respawning, there's also no need for levelscaling. You can just handcraft all enemies you encounter, and then balance XP on that allowing people a perfect progression. See; This game. Auto-systems that do levelscaling suck in comparison to it, *always*

True, extreme HP bloat doesn't always have to do with levelscaling. But it generally does, as it does with levelbloat. HP's do seem to increase rather rapidly in D:OS too, but I've seen enough levelscaling systems (like Dragon Age: Origins) that HP-bloat can be much, much worse. And I don't want that.

Nope, but after 23, there's 24 and 25 and there are new enemies to find, and old enemies to be crushed.
But in your levelscaled game the joy of new enemies is gone (since they're just your level) and old enemies are upscaled so you don't feel like you made any progression at all. And you get into a stale deadlock of 'what am I doing all this for'...
A good smashing of low enemies can remember a player exactly how much he's become better, that's fun, that makes you feel good. If that's taken away due to levelscaling... that feeling will never be called upon. And it will make the game weaker for it.
You may not realise that, but I have often enough, and thus don't want this game, this callback to good old times, to be tainted by the modern poison that made us back old-school kickstarters im the first place!

Ew, yeah, even as a big fan of Oblivion, the scaling made gameplay really very dull. Which was a pity because the game engine offered so much more; it's fortunate that there were numerous overhauls available to fix it and make it a much more interesting place to be, but a shame it wasn't like that from the outset.

Though I guess it serves as a warning since it was in some ways a product of players of previous games insisting, "actually, this is how it should be done!" Bethesda listened, and that was the result...

I'm rather baffled how scaling is somehow inferior. Badly done scaling such that the combat becomes drawn out, duh, we don't want that.

But non-scaled combat is balanced around party levels, which is effectively the same thing but with more effort. Now there can indeed be more tailored abilities to some extent, but these would be more like minor touches than anything. Scaling assures there is, as Gyson noted, no wasted content in exchange for the possibility of a slightly higher cap in fight diversity (which I'd argue would take too much time to develop well enough to notice when considering its payoff).

I just think most of the no-scaling advocates' arguments just aren't true, ultimately. It does not strike me that level-scaling is at all related with "HP bloat" or "level bloat", whatever those might even be (bad balance if I had to guess, which is a different problem).

As Gyson also noted, difficulty levels in level-scaled games also function as a challenge. Fighting things above your level in non-scaled games makes some areas trivial. It's bad to have to go along a route to not make certain areas trivial, and if you don't balance around doing EVERY sidequest then people will make various fights along the way trivial in difficulty and reward little experience due to the overleveling of the party. That's not good either.
__

TL;DR: It strikes me that the complaints in this thread about level scaling are actually about bad balance, not scaling. Non-scaled games can also have shitty balance, and there's a constant issue of who to balance the exp gain for (sidequester completionists, the in-between, or the main-questers). You can't help all three, so two get screwed somewhat.

I never played Oblivion, but as far as I knew the complaints about level scaling with that game in particular revolved around the fact that (because the monsters grew in power with the player) the game could become increasingly difficult every time a player made a mistake while developing their character. If a player didn't do some planning ahead, they could find themselves eventually becoming stuck.

Yet the complaints here in this thread make it sound like level scaling = boring.. which I absolutely don't understand, unless the definition of fun has changed to being able to soundly stomp the competition. As reaching that state lacks anything resembling an actual challenge, it's the furthest thing from fun (for me personally).

Also, I find character development in of itself to be entertaining, and despite what some are implying here there is typically far more to that than simply placing one extra level between you and your opponent. I've never played a game (with or without level scaling) where I happened upon opponents my level and groaned in disappointment because they weren't low enough to be facerolled.

Skyrim (which I did play) had some level scaling, but it worked very poorly. The first time a dragon caught me out in the open, the fight was heart-poundingly difficult - like hiding behind a boulder trying to get enough mana back for another heal while dragonfire folded around the rocks edges kind of difficult. Unfortunately, after packing on several levels, dragons now come up to me and it's swing-swing-dead for them. It is so completely disappointing to be that overpowered compared to everything else, and I will probably never finish Skyrim because of it.

Considering Divinity : OS is big on freedoms (and, supposedly, so are the players supporting it), I would think people would be happy with the ability to roam around in any direction and encounter adventure. But when players keep getting instructed by the community to "level up some first by doing quests in town" and then "exit through a specific gate to build up your strength before trying other directions".. that doesn't sound like too much freedom of choice to me. Level scaling (properly implemented) would have made that kind of freedom possible, however.

And, yes, I still wonder how all these random levels characters we end up with (as we all play the game differently) will be handled by both player generated content and developer created expansion packs (if there are any). Because it seems to me that with the current setup we're all going to have to keep creating new characters every time we play a new adventure. Because, without level scaling, a "module" creator has to fill it with content designed for very specific levels.

And that restriction (on both ends) kind of stinks.

I think there is some concern that scaling enemies would make going up levels FEEL kind of meaningless. A lot of people would feel they're never really getting any stronger, since they're always on exactly par with the enemies.

I do agree about the lack of freedom, but without looking at the whole game at this point its impossible to tell if it opens up or stays 'railroady' the entire time. We're only seeing like 20% of the content at the moment.

Maybe the problem really is just trying to balance everything so tightly around 'levels'. I'm not a game designer, so its hard to imagine any design that might be 'better' without resorting to something like 'MMO areas' where everything is a flattened difficulty.

But how can leveling feel meaningless when it opens up access to more skills and talents, new and better looking equipment, sets you against new types of foes, can open up new quests, new storyline, and even new areas? In a game that doesn't use level scaling, becoming one level higher than the last monster you faced is still of little consequence if there are a plethora of same-level monsters waiting for you right around the next corner.


Isn't this the case even if a game doesn't use level scaling? Even in Divinity : OS. You exit Cyseal's gate as a level 3 character and encounter carefully placed level 3 opponents. Eventually you run out of level 3 opponents, and if design has done its job properly you've accumulated enough experience to advance to level 4. Off to the next area we go.. where it just so happens level 4 opponents await us. Eventually we kill all of those encounters off and now we're level 5. What's over that next hill? Oh look.. level 5 opponents - even without level scaling.

This isn't the type of game with respawning MOBs where someone can decide they're just going to grind out the same low-level area for a while with their high-level hero. Unless you're the type to go mass-murderer in towns, the combat opportunities in this game are fairly finite, and there's just enough of it to make sure you can advance alongside it.

Hoo boy, I shouldn't have stirred up this old hornets' nest, LOL. I've heard all these pro-scaling arguments before and still (and will probably always) strongly disagree with them for reasons I don't have the energy to rehash/further develop here, so I'm just going to agree to disagree. It's all moot for D:OS anyway, thanks to the good folks at Larian choosing a development path that allows players to attempt (and in my case, at least) beat opponents who are (gasp) actually not at my same level, whenever I feel the need to try.

So back to the current beta difficulty - now the hotfix has allowed me to explore around the NE area without CTDs, I really had fun with the I guess it wasn't too difficult the second time around, but was a good time. Well done, Larian.

I read this thread and started daydreaming a bit.
Regarding level scaling I can think of a system based on dice rolls. The system could make a roll for example with d4 or d6 for all enemies, result-1 or -2 to be added to the PC actual level = enemy level. After that adding skills and abilities from a preset pool for them. So there would be differences in a group depending on 'luck' and a combat can be different by playing it again (loading older savegame). The game difficulty level could give a modifier to this roll.
I simply wouldn't show the level of the foes until the battle starts (or never for maniacs, hehe), so it could be also fun as player not to know how strong exactly the enemy is. This could avoid to get bored (but maybe also go on the nerves after some time, hehe).
However there are huge problems with this, this can unbalance the game quickly, devs have work a lot to be able to handle this right and the KI has to be very good to be able to handle such a random group most effectively.
Dream off: I don't think this would be implemented in a game, since this may be too much work for a not too big feature...

That's pretty much how Oblivion's level scaling worked for the most part: PC level offset was the standard for many if not most encounters. Although the types of enemies changed, the difficulty never really progressed except in the teens where if the player's own levelling wasn't ideal it got quite tough, and the mid-high 20s where the enemy level began to level off.

Equipment types as found both on enemies and in random loot also scaled with the player's level, so again, though its appearance changed, everyone even the most hopeless highwayman ended up using top-class equipment and the stuff from earlier in the game was functionally useless. It eventually got to the point where I just felt "why am I doing this?"

Although I've generally found the smug "Morrowind did it better" crowd to be quite insufferable, Morrowind's approach to enemy levels and general diversity did make for more interesting gameplay and certainly a more varied range of encounters. For a lot of players, overhauls that threw away Oblivion's vanilla levelling in favour of something that was a lot less smoothed out and influenced by the player's progress was a big improvement.

Indeed, especially in an open world like the Elder Scrolls, the point of exploring is totally ruined if there's nothing to explore since instead of finding easy areas and hard areas, and exiting new dungeons, all was hand-tailored for your level.
No exiting "what's in this lair" when you already know anyway.

Gone went the exploration fun, motivation, and then entire game with that. And I bougth the CE based on Morrowind. What a loss of money that turned out to be...

I also know another example. KOTOR1 has a finite 20 levels, and used pre-set enemies. They could be replaced by a higher type of the same enemy (including other name of course) if you were high (to allow you to do 4 levels in your own order), but only very few distinct enemies had that, most were fixed. But quite obviously the first was harder than your 4th. And that's good.
The game was easy.
Then came along KOTOR2, who stretched it to lvl 50 (even though one only reaches 30 realistically), and instead of handcrafted NPC's used levelscaling.
There is no challenge in the game, at all. The enemies are completely underpowered to the player simply cause the "add this based on level" isn't enough to compensate for the progression of the players power.

Dragon Age: Origins uses level scaling too. This resulted in aforementioned super-HP-bloated enemies to 'compensate' for the player. Again; No fun in combat was to be had.

The Old Republic introduced some events, encounters and such which scale, so all players could join said event. The result is usually;
* It scales to highest level of your party. Are you below it; feel free to twidle your thumbs as you cannot damage it.
* If equal level, it's not terribly challenging but boy, does it take a long time before enemies go down. Fun, it's not there.
* Let a lower level player spawn it, then kill it. Definitely the most fun, since you're not spending who-knows-how-long on repetitive content.

Now I have to say TOR's combat and system in general is horrible anyway (it's a MMO, what do you expect), but atleast finite levels was a lot more fun. The scaled content is just horribly, finding teams a nightmare since you get all level people there, and most low-level people just use a high-level friend to get them along. And they can, since it's horrible designed.
The designers say 'allow everyone to play this content due to level scaling' and I said 'you know what, forget this game' since everything that came out after that decision was just so mind-dumbing bad I didn't feel like playing no more. I suppose I should be glad they freed me from the clutches of MMO exactly by making me think 'what the hell am I doing, really?' something tht wasn't even daunting me by grinding max level content, but definitely hit home then...

A bit off, but
I think the main thing with this concept is the size of the game world. This can work good with a realistic size, like D:OS, where the devs can fine tune it more effective, but an Oblivion or Skyrim is simply tooo large. Now I read that The Witcher 3 will be 3 times bigger than Skyrim. In my eyes was Oblivion and Skyrim too big, and now this. Now they will have an impossibly large area with a load of work and the foe difficulty fine tuning is a very very small one of them.
So this may got failed by Bethesda for many other reason, but a smaller game can use it more effectively.

One additional opinion in favor of non-scaled foes. Others have raised solid points in favor, namely that constant scaling removes much of the sense of power progression throughout the game, which for some roleplayers like myself, is part of the fun of the experience (and certainly much of the fun of leveling.) If enemies always scale equally, then there is never any evidence that my PCs have gotten stronger in anything, only that they learned a few new skills. That's better than nothing, but not the same as seeing some lowbie quake in their boots as you stroll back through an early area with your hard-won experience and gear.

The flipside (also mentioned previously), is that you can occasionally risk more than the devs expected you to, and navigate a higher-level area via stealth, cunning, or just packing a lot of supplies! These experiences feel like you're "getting away with something," and are inherently exciting. Often this means a big reward in either items or XP, prizes that may be disproportionately great for your level, which feels awesome! But failing that, it is still satisfying to feel like your character went in search of greater challenges and was successful in the face of stacked odds.

These are all points in favor of unscaled enemies for the sake of fun. But I also feel like enemy scaling is just "weird" in context of the game world. It doesn't feel accurate to find that all entities within the world are advancing in power and expertise at the exact same rate as your PCs. It stretches suspension of disbelief, damages credibility of the world.

The trick is balancing the pre-set enemy levels so that you can sense additional challenge coming, and not just get slaughtered if you step a few feet off the preset path. The greater the power steps between levels, the harder that is to get right. If a baddie one or two levels above you is already an impossible foe, well, then, that does suck the fun out of the system. Borderlands is an example of a game that offered unscaled enemies, but got really aggressive with the stat bonuses/penalties between levels. The same weapon that would ravage an enemy one level below you would hardly scratch one above. So even though the was some illusion of varying challenges for the PC, in truth they were railroading the experience pretty hard. That's un-scaled foes done poorly.

The more info I get about The Witcher 3, the less interested I get in playing it.
I don't think that's how hyping a game is supposed to work.

I agree with Jake, eh, Juke. Plenty of levelbased games use level as balancing, and offer damage bonusses for lower leveled and damage reductions against higher leveled. It really doesn't matter what your gear is, it just magically does more damage if you level up even if the 43 and 44 enemy might be similar statwise.
That as a system is pretty bad, and I am glad to see it doesn't seem Original Sin goes that path, and levels are powerful because the power they give you instead of being part of the damage calculation system.

Thing is, that complaint has nothing to do with level scaling. Encounters can be made more or less difficult without changing the amount of levels between you and your opponent to create ridiculous situations where all your attacks are doing 1 point of damage or everything is being one-shotted by the swing of your sword because of obscene bonuses being applied to either the opponent or player due to the difference in level between them.

One would not expect a level 30 guard to possess the same skills, abilities, and challenge of a level 30 vampire or a level 30 dragon, regardless of them being all the same level. All level scaling does is put the opponent at your level, allowing you to run into it at any point during your adventure and not feel like you're wasting your time because a span of umpteen levels exist between you and it.


How is that any different than the setup in Divinity : OS (which does not use level scaling)? We fight low level undead and they drop low level gear. We fight high level undead and they drop high level gear which makes the previous gear obsolete.


Yes.. the answer to that question is "Monsters". There are monsters in the lair. Do they have to have a level number tagged next to their name to make that answer exciting?

With the new updates to Diablo 3, they don't even display level numbers next to monsters anymore. You just see a pack of demons bounding towards you, and they have a real chance of killing you. That's all the player needs to know. Their level is just a hidden number and in the end seeing it doesn't even matter. The fact that they represent a real threat and are about to swarm you is all that matters.

And yet, leveling is still exciting as it grants the player access to more abilities and more options - changes which are also happening to the monsters - meaning your fights when you were level 5 are nothing like your fights when you are level 30 (even though the game is using level scaling).

Thus, this suggestion you continue to make that all fights are the same regardless of level is completely false - for that to happen the designer would only be adding health and damage modifiers based on the monster's level - and that's a horribly lazy way to design monsters, one which has absolutely nothing to do with using level scaling or not. You can run into that same boring setup even in a game that doesn't use level scaling.

Level scaling simply makes the monster your level to remove obscene level-difference based bonuses and resistances between the two opponents. It doesn't magically do all the other awful things you're trying to pin on it.. a bad designer does that.

Really, I'm just stunned that people are claiming level scaling removes all challenge from a game, when in reality a challenge is the main thing level scaling aims to maintain. If you're playing a game and constantly having to seek out higher level encounters because the monsters at your level are a joke.. sure, giving you the option of facing higher level monsters is one way to fix that. A much better way of fixing that is doing a better job of designing the encounters so that they aren't a joke at their intended level. However, even when that is done, outside of level scaling there's little a designer can do to maintain the intended level of challenge if you happen upon an encounter that is well below your level.

And I love how everyone is continuing to just pretend concerns weren't raised (repeatedly) about how expansions and user created content would be handled without level scaling. I guess we're all excited about creating brand new characters each and every time someone designs a new adventure with the toolset? I must be the only one who wishes he could continue playing with his favorite characters.

Seriously, go play Oblivion. Experience the horrors of level scaling on exploration.
Just "monsters" isn't enough, I can exactly say which one. In EVERY SINGLE DUNGEON. Unless I go to level for the next monsters, who then again are also in EVERY SINGLE DUNGEON.
Fun, there ain't none.

You can obliterate all challenge by getting super-gear at lvl 1 (heck, the best strategy and advised tactic is staying 1 ALL GAME. Any RPG where the experts advise you to do that... I have no words). Of course, by the time you get 20 every single enemy wears super-gear too, and any and all "proudness" of getting good gear is gone seeing it being as common as rocks or trees.
"This armor is rare"
"Really? I saw a highwaymen asking me 5 gold wear the whole set, worth 9000 gold. Rare indeed."

It may be good for a hack&slash like Diablo, but seriously, what exploration or plot or believe of a world is there in Diablo. It's all about loot. That's, fortunately, not the case here. And I am glad for it.

Yes, a bad designer does that. And I am glad the designers of D:OS don't. Despite the apparent claims we now get they should get this, and the game's too hard and should simply allow you to go anywhere you want and addapt itself to that. I am very VERY glad they decide to say 'no' to that.

Okay, here's you anwer;
* Expansion will raise level cap (there's a shocker).
* Mods will add appropriate content for the environment it's added to (if it's good that is). Unless someone intentially wants to make a lvl 20 encounter area in Cyseal. More power to them. They got all the freedom they want designing. I absolutely see no issue there myself. Why would there be issues?
(Not to mention total conversions do indeed generally force you to restart. It doesn't make much sense bringing your full character into a total conversion mod, most of the times. I'm sure there will be 'arena' mods that will allow your character to test it's maxxed out metal)

Maybe if you actually raise concerns I can answer them. Because as far as I see, there are none, just like with the current fixed enemies approach. What's wrong?

I like hard games. As long as there's a way to beat the enemy without resorting to exploiting or excessive grinding, bring it on.

I dislike games where you can adjust the slider on the fly (like Diablo 3). Let the player choose a difficulty right at the start, and then they're stuck with their choice for the entire campaign. The problem with sliders is that players encounter a boss they couldn't beat, and they turn down the difficulty instead of thinking of ways to overcome the encounter. It's lazy. It's also their prerogative to do so, but playing like that wastes the developer's effort in designing an encounter.

Diablo(III) is not a RPG, it is an ARPG. ARPGs (such as Torchlight II) are designed for repetition, grinding of content / bosses / loot tables and often use algo's to level 'fix' mobs to present a player with challenge: they aren't RPGs, they're essentially skinner boxes. Fun skinner boxes with more depth than Zynga, but they're essentially putting a RNG in a pretty GUI and getting the player to pull the handle. Borderlands I / II fit in here (despite the FPS hybrid RPG later on) and so forth.

Then we hit JRPGs, the Final Fantasy series being the most famous, which feature level scaling and respawning and lots and lots of grinding. As an aside, an interesting mix of these two is Dark Souls, with NG+(>+++++++), that although featuring respawn & grinding have set levels / loot tables (which just aren't revealed to the player, but trust me, all the mobs are a set level/HP, chest loot is fixed and so forth). You'll note that DSI+II make you replay the entire set content at the same fixed pace, bumping on NG+. I count DS as a JRPG in disguise, really.

Many posters in this thread seem to hanker after a DS design.

This is a bad idea, especially in open world RPGs, as shown by Oblivion / Legends of Amalur. DS works because their level designers (esp. in the first) were making linear maps linked in clever ways - the grinding is there, really, to off-set the difficulty.

Then you have old-school RPGs, Ultima IV-VII etc etc. By Ultima VI-VII-Serpent, Origin had the pacing down to a tee, although they often enforced content themed locks [e.g. not getting magic until mages isle in Serpent; limiting reagents in U5 etc]. Ask any old-time player about magic axes in Ultima V and you'll get some fond remembrance of power-leveling parties. This category is vast, but the story / quests were more important than levels. You have FPS hybrids such as System Shock 1/2, Deus Ex and so forth. Content is fixed, and respawn is very limited (e.g. SS2 had a couple of mobs respawn, infected humans but never higher level mobs), and as such, you can control the progression of the player much easier. These are much more RPGs than Diablo and co.

D:OS is an old-style RPG and has permanent spawns [i.e. once removed, stay removed]. However, it does feature level scaling gear [chests] as well as permanent fixed gear [quest rewards, e.g. orc's armor from the beach]. However (and this is the important part): the # of chests is fixed, and they don't respawn. With fixed mobs you can estimate, to a high precision, exactly how much XP is available to a player. Obviously, completionists who find all the sub-quests will be at an advantage - however, this is a price they pay for allowing their lesser 'casual' friends to play along. As such, there is no grinding in D:OS, nor is there loot farming, nor is there even the potential to really out-level content.

The alpha certainly had a difficulty issue in that the end-sections were ~level 5, whereas the party would be level 7-9. I've not had time to see the changes (D:OS update d/ling now). Whether or not it would be desirable for D:OS to have a NG+ is a separate matter - I'd think not, given the quest repetition, but you never know.




TL;DR

The mechanics of designing the three are vastly separate; I'm not getting into a pointless internet debate, but Gyson (despite typing a lot) clearly doesn't understand the difference, nor does he have much useful input. For the record, Gyson complained that Skyrim had no scaling: this is entirely false, it had a more tinkered version of Oblivion's - he was one-shotting dragons because it's a terribly easy game designed for consoles / casual players, and the entire series (from Morrowind onwards) purposely make the spectrum of bonuses / multipliers (*cough*enchantabuse*cough*) allow power-players to run wild.

Not because of lack of scaling.



Even quicker synopsis: fixed content / spawns cannot have level scaling, if you want to design a proper system.




This entire thread was a pointless /derail. Difficulty, I'll see: although I did tell people that there would be tears over the light house

Why in the world would I do that? Your entire argument against level scaling seems to be entirely based on how badly it was implemented in Oblivion. As with any tool, using it wrong or poorly is going to lead to undesirable results. Exploring badly designed games for some kind of insight into a particular mechanic is pointless when I can turn to numerous well designed games and see level scaling at its best.

The problem is you, for what I hope are obvious reasons, are determined to go on pretending that Oblivion is the only example to look at when judging level scaling. I can list a half dozen examples of games where level scaling worked very well, but you will just continue falling back to Oblivion's bad design.


You seem to be responding to questions I never actually asked.

Although I've repeated this twice now, let's go for a third time. Since Divinity : OS allows players to progress in different ways, it stands to reason that players might end up with characters at varying levels by the time they reach the end of the game. You might, for example, wind up with level 20 characters, where as I wind up with level 23 characters because I'm a completionist and have participated in every quest the original campaign has to offer. Someone else may have level 26 characters because they kill all NPCs, friend and foe alike.

If we get an expansion, or if players use the editor to create additional modules/adventures, what level should the starting monster in those expanded adventures be? 20? 23? 26? What's the "right" magic number when all our characters can end up at wildly different levels (in a large part due to the freedoms allowed in this game)?

How would *you* make your module for the public? How are you going to balance a starting point for multiple character levels since the game doesn't automatically scale opponents to the character's level? If I release a module where the battles start at level 25 and you only have level 20 characters.. what good is that module to you? If I instead make the battles start at level 20 and someone has level 25 characters, how can I hope to keep them entertained when all the fights will be trivial due to the level difference?

For that reason, I suspect most new adventures will require players to create new characters each time (since having opponents starting at level ~1 is the safest bet), which is too bad for people that want to continue developing their favorite characters. Level scaling would have helped avoid a lot of issues here.

Yes, and that's a big problem for players like me who aren't having fun with trivial battles.


The only thing that is completely false is your summary of my statement. I did not say Skyrim didn't have level scaling. What I said was:


If you're going to base your entire point on something I said, make sure it's something I actually said. Don't just throw words into my mouth and then attack that. That you linked that statement to a complaint about "not understanding the difference" or "not having useful input" is all the more amusing coming from you when you're falling back on straw man tactics.

There's two answers to this:

1) Create the module with varying starting levels. e.g. Periwinkles of DOOOM - starting level 20 / 30 / 40 and simply scale the encounters accordingly [much less work than you'd think if the editor is any good]. Tabletop RPGs have been doing this for yonks.

2) Create the module with a specific level in mind, and bad luck to anyone else. Tabletop RPGs have also been doing this for yonks, the Temple of Elemental Evil waves its boney hand at you.







That was on page 2: I then skim-read your ill-informed and rather dull entries.

I'm glad you revised your initial statement, but you did, indeed, claim that Skyrim had a lack of level scaling. That you then claim "strawman", when you typed it, then revised your incorrect assumption / lack of knowledge, then are defending it by going on the attack...


Well boys, I think that's:



/thread






I'd suggest looking under the hood at what Skyrim does visa-vie scaling, but you clearly don't understand the issues.


D:OS cannot have level scaling. Case closed.

I'm not revising anything. What is written there was always written there. It's nice to know you're coming to conclusions about me based on your "skimming" of my posts. How thorough!

Maybe you should take the time to read more carefully before jumping to conclusions in the future, as it might help you avoid making this mistake again. I always find it strange when someone can't take the time to read what someone else wrote, but expects everyone else to read their own response. You'll forgive me if I start "skimming" your posts from now on.

You one-shot dragons in Skyrim because of broken mechanics, not because there's no scaling.

Skyrim is tightly scaled, it just tapers out a lot quicker than the player's own power. The reason for this is that there's an exponential power curve in Skyrim due to % modifiers, and the game doesn't calc DPS etc very well.

This is due to the way Bethesda design the mechanics; you are largely ignorant of this, and have not played Oblivion, where scaling as a design concept was really pushed hard, which is why the more knowledgeable in the thread keep referencing it.

You spent 3+ pages defending not knowing this. You continue to do so.




You also heavily suggested you knew what was involved with level scaling "under the hood" despite this.




/thread




If you're still in the dark: you one-shot dragons :: if they scaled correctly, they'd also one-shot you. DPS <> HP is that broken in Skyrim, especially over level 25 or so.

I guess each player has his/her own preference for spawn / non-respawn and scaling / non-scaling mechanics depending on his/her personal play style. Fortunately, there are enough games out there which cater to different tastes.

The point is: D:OS has no respawns and it has no level scaling. This has been known for a long time and people who pledged or bought the game did it because they liked this approach. The no-respawn and no-scaling mechanics are not going to change anymore.

And although the discussion in this thread has many interesting insights into arguments of both sides, it is pretty much useless since the debate about personal preferences can go forever.

I, for example, would be very disappointed if D:OS would get level scaling. I like wandering into a high-level area with a low-level character and take on the challenge to defeat the enemies there. There is a feeling of achievement in it which would be lost if there were level-scaling. I also like to come back to the original low-level area and one-shoot all the foes.

You must have overlooked me taking a few other examples in posts, like Knights of the Old Republic or Dragon Age?
And your entire argument was revolved around how Diablo III, a hack & slasher pur sang did it. But considering you now claim you can give 6+ examples of games with good levelscaling, let me have it!
I just point to Oblivion to show just how level scaling on exploration can have extreme negative consequences to a game.
Kind of important since your whole argument was about levelscaling to make exploration anywhere possible. Maybe if you simply stated "Level scaling will make games challenging throughout" I would have offered to keep looking at KOTOR2 instead... one of the easiest games in existance (and still one of the most awesome RPG's ever! Which would shock you too I guess)

No, they don't... that's what level caps are for.
Despite what some people may think and say that they are 'outdated' and should be banished, they do infact are included for a reason, and the reason is, well, this. There's no 'We have to guess the level of the player on continue' if the level is just simply known. And if the player isn't max level they can simply get there by doing more content they missed out on, which you know there is since we know with finite XP just how far you can get.
So it's not me answering questions you didn't ask, you're asking questions which wont even be part of the equation when the game is done.

Also, I find it very humerous the answer to "That map is lvl 25, I am 20" is according to you "better restart from lvl 1"...

Modmakers will make the levels whatever level they want. You want to add to Cyseal. Check. Want to add stuff for people there right now, or make returning better. Makes the set level different.
Sure, modmakers could put their stuff at the end, but seeing usual RPG gameplay and mods I suspect;
* They will be additions for the maingame (weapons etc)
* Modifications of the maingame (hate repair, change it!)
* Additions to the maingame, usually around the middle.
* Total conversion. Which by design require you to make a new character anyway since a lot of the time everything has changed.
Not everything needs to be added once you finish the game, and only there.

So; still; sollutions to non-existant issues.

(Sigh) This is why debating something with someone who doesn't understand the mechanics being referred to is frustrating.

Level scaling in Skyrim is not implemented in a way where everything matches perfectly to your your level. There are adjustments based on your location (higher elevations, for example, are typically more dangerous than lower). Then there are opponents which cap at certain levels, yet still show up in encounters. Dungeons lock to the level you were when you first entered them. And dragons have *fixed* levels, with certain types of dragons only appearing at certain level ranges. For example, if you're level 26 you are going to be encountering level 20 Blood Dragons. When you reach level 27, you will can start encountering level 30 Frost Dragons.

So, yes, I was easily killing dragons because, in their specific case, scaling was implemented in way of being almost non-existent and completely ineffective.

Make sure you know what you're talking about before you look silly going off on a nonsensical rant like the following...



Oh.. and stop /threading already. That's your third time, isn't it? What are you, 12?

The thread doesn't end because you think it's time to wrap everything up. If you want to leave the discussion, leave the discussion. Between the fact that you hopped into it and immediately started insulting me, and all the nonstop mistakes you're making, it's not like you're adding anything useful to it anyway.

Or stick around. It's up to you. But at least get your fact straight and your manners in check.

There is no hard cap beyond the fact that there is a limit to how much XP is available, but not everyone will reach the same level - because not everyone is going to trigger every possible XP opportunity before solving the game. Thus you are going to have people reaching the end of Divinity : OS with characters who are different levels.

Since we keep referring to Oblivion/Skryim, I'll let this author explain it for me. Save myself some typing for a change:

Skyrim's Latest Expansion Reminds Us Why Level Scaling Works

Now that Skyrim's Dragonborn DLC is with us, at least on Xbox 360, a classic Elder Scrolls debate is sure to rage anew: Should serious RPG fans be annoyed about "level scaling?"

It's frequently argued that level scaling is a black mark on the RPG genre. The whole point of leveling up is to make your character more powerful, and if all the enemies get more powerful too, you've gained nothing. And it doesn't help that the Elder Scrolls series hasn't always featured the best implementation of this concept. Notoriously, in Oblivion, high-level characters would face ragtag bands of raiders who were wearing rare, top-notch gear.

However, in some cases there is no alternative to level scaling—and if it's implemented properly, it dramatically improves the RPG experience. If anything, more games should use it.

Let's start by looking at Skyrim expansions. For these, Bethesda has very few options. It could steal a page from the MMO playbook, setting a higher level cap and adding content for players who have reached the previous one. The problem with this, however, is that it gives nothing to players who haven't capped out their characters yet—sure, many gamers played Skyrim to death, but many more finished the game long before they reached the cap, and they won't play an expansion if they have to grind to reach the fresh content. Scaling to level is the perfect solution: All players experience a healthy challenge with the new content, regardless of how much leveling they did with the old stuff.

Just as important, level scaling helps smooth out the rough edges of RPGs that give their players choices. Scaling isn't necessary for a linear RPG like Final Fantasy XIII, but when players have side quests and branching paths to choose from, different players will encounter the same content at different levels. Level scaling ensures that players will enjoy the game no matter what path they take through it. In many RPGs, players who methodically do all the side quests find the game getting too easy, a problem that could be solved with some minor level scaling.

This advantage to level scaling is especially pronounced in a game as open-ended as Skyrim or Borderlands. In these titles, you can encounter the same content not just at slightly different levels, but at utterly different eras in your time with the game. Without level scaling, any time you fail to take a quest when you're at the appropriate level, you're basically saying goodbye to that quest forever—soon, it will become comically easy. In the original Borderlands, I found it was pointless to take missions I had missed previously because the enemies did practically no damage.

Still another advantage to level scaling is that it cuts down on “grinding”—the practice of killing enemies at random just for the purpose of getting your level up. Sometimes an RPG needs to hold the line, insisting that some content is for high-level players only. But other times it’s appropriate to give lower-level characters a break and let them play.

Of course, it's easy to do level scaling poorly. Its critics have a point when they say RPG progression ought to mean something. You should get more powerful relative to your enemies as you play, and players who do all the side quests should have an easier time than players who rush through the main quests. Level scaling should never completely erase these gains, just mitigate them enough to make the game playable. And, as I've already mentioned, level scaling should never look absurd—random criminals attacking you on the street should not be as powerful as an elite warrior.

Also, Bethesda made the right decision by cutting off the level scaling at a certain point in Skyrim. Once you become extremely powerful, there probably should be some low-level quests that you can run through effortlessly. And of course, if you're too weak for an area, you ought to get slaughtered if you wander in. There’s so much to do in Skyrim that you never have to grind to get your level up—you just have to keep playing.

All in all, though, level scaling deserves wider implementation. Any RPG with a rich collection of side quests can benefit from evening out the challenge a bit. The RPG genre is famous for giving players plenty of options, and when players have different routes they can take through the content, there needs to be a way to ensure that all these routes will be enjoyable.

Level scaling is the perfect approach. So long as it's handled properly, it enables RPG developers to make huge games with non-linear stories without frustrating their players. That's something we should all want.

I just want to touch on this particular point by saying that while people did pledge based on a pitch and video demonstration of a particular game, they also did so with the knowledge that player feedback could be implemented. That means some aspects of the game could shift in a direction you may not personally like.

In this case, that didn't happen. I'm just explaining why the "people pledged based on blah blah" defense doesn't really work in kickstarter/early access games. Having backed several games, some of which have done complete 180's on me, I'm all too familiar with that unfortunate possibility.

I believe that level scaling goes against the design philosophy Larian is using for D:OS. Even if that's not true, it definitely would count as a major "new feature" and "beta = no new features", so I can't see it happening no matter how many words are spent.

That really depends why it's implemented, which can mean the difference between a feature and a "fix" or "solution" to a problem.

Yes, I agree with you that players' feedback can and should change the game (like it was with the new dungeon in Cyseal). However, there are core elements of the game which are defining features and these systems should not change: if for example the game is advertised as turn-based and developers suddenly decide to make it real time without pause then it would be a very bad turn on their backers. If this actually happens then I am pretty sure that many players will not trust the developer anymore and won't back their next project.

The no-respawn design is Larian's philosophy (I think Swen mentioned it on every possible occasion in his blog, during Kickstarter and here or on steam forums). So, I guess if suddenly the game would be designed around respawns and xp grinding, a high percentage of Larian's fanbase would be very upset. As Stabbey has also mentioned, I believe that also level scaling is against Larian's design philosophy (at least judging from their previous games).

There is no problem.

Also to your first post on this thread;
Pretty sure they stated there's a levelcap.

And let me ask you, honestly, what you believe is more likely for Divinity: Original Sin knowing what type of game it is;
* Some completely standalone piece of content that can be fit anywhere since it has no relation to the main game.
* A continuation of the storyline, which probably holds half-a-dozen spoilers in the first five minutes and makes no sense at all to play until you completed the game.

Thats pretty much the issue, if you're like me, and you do every last quest but you ALSO want a challenge in the fights... well not going to work, I'll be generally overlevelled (funnest part was doing the fire guys in the church area at lvl 5... me and my friend took a long time but managed it (enchanter CC op) but still it was fun... Now we're wildly overlevelled for other stuff but hey

Removing fixed levels, adding level scaling system = major mechanics change.

You seem to believe that I am unaware of how scaling in Skyrim, and more generally in the industry works. This is obviously not the case, and given that I posted a specific example of where scaling went wrong (Legends of Amalur) other than Oblivion, leads us to the following:

#1 - I've played Oblivion, Legends of Amalur, Ultima IV-VIII and so forth, something you manifestly have not, and yet you continue to assume a higher level of knowledge

#2 - your arrogance / lack of good faith in engaging in conversation is at a high threshold

#3 - I've modded many RPG / ARPGs, including Morrowind / Oblivion / Torchlight I/II and so on.


For reference, the concept of static / dynamic scaling (your dungeon example) was introduced in Fallout 3, and they are named Encounter Zones:

Encounter Zone

Encounter Zones group cells, worldspaces, and individual references into similarly leveled encounter areas.
Zone Level

The Zone Level is a value calculated the first time the player loads any of the Encounter Zone's cells. It is stored permanently on the Encounter Zone and is never recalculated. If the player returns to the zone after gaining several levels, the zone's level remains the same as when he first visited.

Leveled Lists use the calculated Zone Level, which is based on the player's level and the Encounter Zone Minimum Level. If the player's level is above the zone's, only a percentage of the player's level is used. The fLevelScalingMult gamesetting controls the amount.

Encounter Zones can be viewed, modified, and created from the Encounter Zone Dialog, found in the main toolbar under World>Encounter Zones. Cells are added to Encounter Zones individually from their Interior Data tab, found from the main toolbar under World>Cells.

http://geck.bethsoft.com/index.php/Encounter_Zone


Given you asked a nonsensical question regarding MOD creation & levels, there's a technical page from Bethesda's Fallout 3 G.E.C.K, showing you how it's done in their engine. Special snowflake, if you're asking about modding & wondering about level scaling, the answer is: learn to use the kit provided.



Hint: if you really want to know why Skyrim breaks, here's the Armor / Damage reduction graph for Skyrim (vanilla):

Damage Taken %



Armor Reduction & Effectiveness






Skyrim's armor system is messed up so that effective HP barely increases so little from 0 to 300 worn AR that even mediocre +health enchantments are more effective, skyrockets between 301 and 567 worn AR, and then falls off completely

http://forums.nexusmods.com/index.php?/topic/481577-skyrims-armor-system-is-broken/


Still think you know why you were one-shotting dragons? Methinks not.

Damage Cap: there is no damage cap in Skyrim.
Armor Cap: there is a cap to 80% of total damage at 567 armor

e.g. If a player does 1,000 damage, the maximum a player / creature can reduce this to is 200. If the player does 10,000 this is 2,000.

[edit]

On checking, monsters apparently do not have a native getav damageresist #, however the difficulty setting applies a damage reduction % to the player:

Difficulty Player Damage Dealt Player Damage Taken
Novice 2x 0.5x
Apprentice 1.5x 0.75x
Adept 1x 1x
Expert 0.75x 1.5x
Master 0.5x 2x
Legendary 0.25x 3x

So on legendary difficulty, we can count the monsters as ~almost~ hitting AR cap % reduction. This is important because this penalty applies to all monsters, thus rendering the higher threat dragons as more difficult to lower DPS characters.

[edit over]

This produces a massive issue with HP totals:

Dragon - Level - HP - Player level # add to lists

Basic - 10 - 950 - 0

Blood - 20 - 1421 - 18

Frost - 30 - 1860 - 27

Elder - 40 - 2255 - 36

Ancient - 50 - 3565 - 45

http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Dragon

In 40 levels, there is only an increase of 2615 HP, and fixed HP amounts are used whereas the DPS of the character (non-magic as magic damage is also broken, a different subject) follows this:



http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Weapons

The use of multipliers (*) produces large numbers, even without enchanting. Players can expect to hit ~300-600 with an 'endgame' (100 skill / perks / daedric) build as early as level 25. As this is on a curve, it should be obvious that attacking a level 10 dragon [950 HP] when your DPS is 40 will take longer than if your DPS is 250 attacking a level 40 dragon [3565 HP].


What do all these numbers mean?

They mean that the player's DPS is never capped, and while the player enjoys a massive % damage reduction between 301-567 AR, the monsters never receive anything but the difficulty modifier and their HP is a fixed total. Monsters don't seemingly have varying AR levels [barring humanoids, potentially], which further penalizes lower level DPS outputs with regards to HP totals. i.e. a 25% damage reduction on a DPS of 40 vrs HP 950 dragon has much more impact than on a DPS of 500 vrs 3565.

Again, the difficulty setting applies a flat x3 damage bonus to all monsters which again is effected as a % by AR. Thus, capping your 80% AR reduction will benefit the player that much more.

This means a player playing on legendary difficulty hits a point where the DPS of mobs is quickly reducing as their AR improves, at the same time as their DPS increases outscale the fixed HP of said mobs, who gain HP at fixed intervals.

Thus the AR / DPS mechanics break Skyrim, not the level scaling.


As I stated a post or two ago:




You might understand my previous comments now. Here's hoping. I'm also 100% sure I understand the mechanics of Skyrim's scaling, and I'm also fairly sure you that you do not, other than in a "hey, I read this opinion piece in a gaming magazine, so I'll block quote it".



and...


/thread


The reason for this is that a scaling system simply cannot work in D:OS with the current mechanics, thus rendering this entire thread pointless.




p.s. If you're going to block quote some random fluff gaming article, at least provide a link. Common courtesy to the person you're ripping off.

SteamUser - very insightful and interesting (to me personally) article! But I agree with Stabbey (and you) that this thread is just going to keep going, and going, and going, with no real relevance to the D:OS beta. Gyson apparently likes level-scaling MMOs; I prefer Larian-style non-scaling RPGs; life goes on. Back to the beta!

Randomly, I'm reminded of the two rather pervy chaps I encountered in the mine tower in Ego Draconis many levels before I should've done. That was annoying, and I almost threw my computer out the window in irritation, but it was such a sense of achievement when I eventually pwned them. It was quite disappointing when DKS put them off-limits until I was supposed to find them.

That would've never happened with PC level offset, which is ultimately just an anticlimax.

What you've just dumped is (in regards to this discussion) a large load of pointless data that attempts to steer people away from the very simple truth of why dragons in Skyrim can be unchallenging: ~70% of the time they are below your character's level, as (unlike other parts of Skyrim) their level is largely fixed rather than scaled in the traditional sense.

You see.. your entire theory makes huge assumptions about my character's level, my build, my gear, settings, etc. At one point you even implied I abused problems with enchantments and/or crafting when in reality I've disclosed absolutely no information to you about any of this. But, by all means, feel free to keep fishing and making wild assumptions - whatever you have to do to avoid admitting the underlying problem, right? All you're doing now is spamming the thread with articles and charts from other sources in some ridiculous attempt to boost your credibility - a method anyone can employ. And before you accuse me of doing something similar - I dumped an article *directly related to the discussion*.



Also, if you're /threading 4+ times during a conversation, you're probably using it wrong. Rather than typing /thread repeatedly, you should just try typing something relevant and accurate. Because that might actually help wrap up a discussion rather than create a situation where someone has to point out your errors. Just a suggestion.

And I'm reminded of the time when I was playing Game-X and reached the much hyped Encounter-Y, only for it to turn out to be a completely disappointing cakewalk because my opponents were so far in level below me.

And, honestly, I'm not trying to be sarcastic with "Game-X" and "Encounter-Y" labels.. it's just that it's happens so often that I wouldn't even know where to begin when picking an example. It's just that common, far more common than the scenario you described, and is becoming more so as developers create an increasing number of games that err on the side of being too easy.




No, not in the sense you're thinking. There's just a finite amount of XP opportunities.

LOL - give it up already, kids; you both have the last word, and you both win.



Ha, I also remember feeling like that in Divinity II - it's all about that satisfying "sense of achievement" for me as well. Good times - at least since I restrained myself from actually chucking the computer .



That's good - I was thinking there was a hard level cap for some reason, but apparently it's just a soft "cap" the player will reach after all XP opportunities are exhausted in the game. As I mentioned elsewhere, I can't stand actual max level caps, at least when the player hits them before all main/optional game content is explored. I want my party to be able to keep developing and earning/experimenting with new skills/abilities/strategies throughout the game, not 2/3 of the way through. Not to knock Spiderweb here (the old Exiles and Avernums - especially Avernum 3! - are some seriously addictive classic RPG goodness), but when Jeff Vogel switched to this hard level cap garbage in Avadon (with 10+ hours of the game still left to play after hitting the cap), he lost a longtime fan. Yeah, yeah, I know why devs use these - to enforce "balance" by ensuring every player is at the exact same level at the end boss - but that's just lazy game design. I need freedom and variety, or it ain't an RPG.

OK, now I need to take my own advice - level scaling isn't happening in D:OS, and neither are hard level caps, so why keep yammering on about it? Peace!

"unlike the other parts of Skyrim"

ALL monsters in Skyrim follow the dragon system of set level bumps, which you have erroneously imagined is not the case

For example, Falmer's level bumps are: 9, 15, 22, 30, 38, 48.

http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Monsters

There is no dynamic, constant = to character's level like you imagine, as I explained with the link to G.E.C.K where Encounter Zones set the level ranges of mobs (see? there's a reason for everything I type).

In addition, all leveled enemies are generated more like leveled creatures in Fallout. For example, Bandit NPCs are always a fixed level for their name (Bandits are level 1, Bandit Thugs are level 9, Bandit Highwaymen are level 14, etc). The player's level affects the range of possible bandit types generated within a bandit dungeon, and probably the frequency, but does not seem to affect the resulting stats except in a few rare cases. Lower variant bandits remain reasonably common even when more dangerous bandits are available.

Enemy types also seem to reach a plateau where they stop getting stronger. The strongest bandits (non-boss) are mid-20s. The strongest generic vampire is 54, and guards seem to stop scaling at 50. This implies that the difficulty of many areas will not increase beyond certain levels, except perhaps in frequency of difficult encounters. In other words, dungeons have a level range, where if you do not meet the level requirement, you will face the lowest range of the dungeon. For instance, if a dungeon is ranged from level 15 to 25, and you are level 10, you will face creatures in the dungeon scaled at level 15.

http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim%3aLeveling#Effects_of_Leveling

The reason for this:


Skyrim, unlike D:OS, does not have level caps on attributes. Indeed, unlike D:OS, it doesn't even have XP in a traditional sense. You can be level 50 and not be able to wield a sword due to the manner in which stat bumps = level. e.g. if you level stealth, crafting and other skills incorrectly, you can have a non-functional combat char. You can also, unlike D:OS, grind out those skills on the lowest level enemies in the game or without even killing enemies. For instance, you can level block by surrounding yourself with rats and going /afk, or level magic by casting a spell into thin air or make potions without involving yourself in dragon killing.


Level XP

The formula for character leveling is as follows:

Character XP gained = Skill level acquired * fXPPerSkillRank

Skyrim Game Setting variable: fXPPerSkillRank (default =1)

Example: Training Alchemy from 20 to 21 gives 21 Character XP points

XP required to level up your character = (Current level + 3) * 25




http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Leveling



This means that the skills you level and the gear that you acquire determine whether or not that dragon is a challenge, not your actual numerical level. Thus, a purely focused combat character might have an advantage, but in game design this has to be balanced against a median where the other end of the spectrum (a purely stealth / crafting character) is considered. To explain like you're five: given it was highly likely Skyrim would have millions of players, they ran % numbers to get a median HP total which would average out a challenge to the highest # of players.

Which would be fine, if the DPS/AR calcs weren't so broken. (And magic damage calcs, but let's not go there).


Thanks for clearing up the last part of the puzzle: you don't even understand how Skyrim's leveling system works, or how the game is balanced. Thus it is hardly suprising you didn't understand those "irrelevant numbers".

Fifth time lucky, I've run out of patience, as you've proven your own ignorance to my satisfaction. You were right though: there is indeed a lot under the hood of level scaling, as you've so aptly proven you don't understand.



/thread.

Feel free to still give me that half-dozen games list of good scaling games... I'm still waiting, you know.

No, there wont be. It's quite stupid to think a RPG goes gold without AT LEAST (but likely far more) infinite XP-bug. And then, that would be highly stupid.
I don't think Larian is highly stupid.

First of all, I don't think there's a person who played Skyrim that doesn't understand you can obtain levels by advancing skills that have nothing to do with combat (and the risks associated with that). That you believe you're schooling me on this matter is just a huge display of your desperation to appear superior (something you've been trying to do since you stepped foot in this thread), and adding nothing to this discussion.

Second, rather than make more incorrect assumptions (which you've been on a roll with, by the way), you should have simply asked about my characters. I developed them in a very reasonable way, without attempting to game the system or min/max, because I know how easily that can break the balance, and Skyrim was a game I had been seriously looking forward to. And yet in many cases *where level scaling was applied with an extremely light-handed or almost nonexistent touch*, it broke anyway. In sections where level scaling was used more traditionally, it worked fine (for my characters) and allowed for decent challenges.

You can keep tossing charts at this thread and stealing blurbs from resource articles all you want in some insane effort to prove you're a master on this subject, but it doesn't change the fact that you continue to miss the extremely simple concept I've been trying to convey: where level scaling was applied heavily in Skyrim, I found challenge. Where it was applied loosely or not at all, it failed horribly. That you continue to attack me with insults and implications that I don't understand anything is really pretty sad considering your own inability to grasp this crystal clear truth.

But, please, keep looking for something else to blame in regards to the specific balance issues I've been referring to. Maybe you would like to delve into the imbalances of crafting or certain talent trees next. Maybe you want to suggest I enabled the console and modified game settings. I fully expect to see the kitchen sink tossed this way soon.

"unlike the other parts of Skyrim"

ALL monsters in Skyrim follow the dragon system of set level bumps, which you have erroneously imagined is not the case

For example, Falmer's level bumps are: 9, 15, 22, 30, 38, 48.

http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Monsters


In addition, all leveled enemies are generated more like leveled creatures in Fallout. For example, Bandit NPCs are always a fixed level for their name (Bandits are level 1, Bandit Thugs are level 9, Bandit Highwaymen are level 14, etc). The player's level affects the range of possible bandit types generated within a bandit dungeon, and probably the frequency, but does not seem to affect the resulting stats except in a few rare cases. Lower variant bandits remain reasonably common even when more dangerous bandits are available.

Enemy types also seem to reach a plateau where they stop getting stronger. The strongest bandits (non-boss) are mid-20s. The strongest generic vampire is 54, and guards seem to stop scaling at 50. This implies that the difficulty of many areas will not increase beyond certain levels, except perhaps in frequency of difficult encounters. In other words, dungeons have a level range, where if you do not meet the level requirement, you will face the lowest range of the dungeon. For instance, if a dungeon is ranged from level 15 to 25, and you are level 10, you will face creatures in the dungeon scaled at level 15.

http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim%3aLeveling#Effects_of_Leveling




One of the most important parts of growing up is when to say: "You know what, I was wrong", and leave it alone. Dragons work in exactly the same manner as all other mobs in Skyrim.


Any other misconceptions left?

Just the ones you keep making and have been making from the start. Why are you printing all of that when from the start I said:



Nevermind.. I know precisely why you're printing it: because you want to pretend that it was your position from the very start, when it was actually mine. That's really pathetic.

And, once again, that information you just ripped from some off-site source to use as fodder for your argument does not apply to dragons in Skyrim (which is the creature I have been continually referring to). Dragons in Skyrim have fixed levels.. I explained this in detail pages ago. That you continue to insist otherwise is just ignorance.


Please, heed your own advice.

Yeah, I think we're done here. You've claimed that the rest of Skyrim's monsters don't use the same scaling system as dragons [FALSE] and that the rest of Skyrim scaled a lot better due to this [FALSE] and that issues with Dragons were unique to dragons [FALSE] and that this was because their level scaling was different [FALSE].

You then double-downed and stated I was claiming that Dragons don't have set levels [FALSE] when I'd even typed out the table... of Dragon set levels.


Man, special snowflakes, gotta love them. Or you're a troll. Let us return to what you mis-understood level scaling to be:





No, this isn't what level scaling is at all barring in the most simplest of ARPGs such as Diablo, and the reasons for this are more to do with <level> ranges on the RNG loot generator so that the monkeys pressing their skinner box buttons get sparkly loot that appeals to them. Has nothing to do with challenge in an ARPG setting the monster level = char level. Just... trust me on that one


I have comprehensively shown that Character Level = Monster Level does not equal level scaling, even in a simplified RPG like Skyrim. There's serious hard math under the hood, and it isn't possible (currently) to read a character's stats and dynamically create mobs that scale to an individual character's stats.[1] All RPGs, MMOs, ARPGs use median numbers for very good reasons.


See? The forest man, you missed the forest. You were so up a tree-house you didn't even know the Amazon was burning down around you.



p.s.


You. Still. Don't. Understand. How. Level. Scaling. Works. Or. The. Math.




Fate, it seems, is not without a sense of irony.



If you want to even start contributing to this topic, I'd suggest reading the G.E.C.K link I provided. Torchlight II uses a very similar method, and I suspect Diablo's is identical. This only works if you have chunks that are either fixed on entry [Fallout 3 / Skyrim[2]] or mobs generated on reload [Diablo, Torchlight II].

HINT: D:OS world map is generated on start, or at the very least, the areas generated are large enough to prevent this from working. To repeat myself (again): D:OS is not an ARPG. The issues with quest / item flags on quicksave reloads should have made you aware of this. Permanent World.

This is why this entire petty crap-shoot has been so frustrating: you. do. not. understand. how. the. game. code. functions. We've not even touched upon <spawners> and the fact that D:OS doesn't use them (I might be wrong, but I'm fairly confident I'm not) ~ and yes, I've coded a fair number of <spawners> in my time.



[1] If you can provide an example of this, you'd be rich. Very rich indeed.
[2] There are mods for Skyrim that change the global spawning level settings to give a greater challenge / more realistic spawning (e.g. 3% chance of ultra-level mobs), but what you have to understand is this: Skyrim spawns mobs on loading a chunk [or similar method, I'm a little rusty] and periodically removes all mobs. Which is why I mentioned Kingdoms of Amalur[3], btw. D:OS, as we've stated about 1,000 times, does not.
[3] See http://amalur.wikia.com/wiki/Area-Level_Cap_and_%22Anti-Overlevelling%22_Guide for issues in large fixed level zones with repeated quests / generated dungeons. Bascially, what KoA & Skyrim do is set a permanent level flag on the <spawners>, which allows the game to repopulate mobs with only a single variable in the <spawner>.

I stopped reading here. If there was some gem of insight hidden away in the rest of your post (most of which seem to be you copy/pasting someone else's words), you've lost your opportunity to present it - because I'm not going to waste more time trying to explain that you're misinterpreting the system. Especially when you acknowledged from the start that you're only skimming my responses.

You're going to believe what you're determined to believe. That you don't understand really doesn't make any difference to me, as your opinion on the topic isn't going to change whether reality dawns on you or not. That's not even touching on the point that arguing over how Skyrim did it is pointless to begin with - as nobody (including myself) in this thread appears to be a fan of how Skyrim did it, and the last thing we want is for Divinity : OS to follow Skyrim's model. There are better ways to implement level scaling.

This entire dialogue between you and I can be summed up as such: Me implying that I didn't care for Skyrim's version of level scaling because it often felt nonexistent. You attacking/trolling me on a personal level and then insisting that I don't understand how Skyrim's level scaling worked (as if that is somehow magically going to make me like the way Skyrim did things instead). Us then getting into the equivalent of an "am not, are too" squabble for the next several pages. My time is just too valuable to me to continue going in wasted circles with you.

Between that and your constant straw man (and personal) attacks, it's pointless for me to even continue reading your posts when other participants in the thread are bringing up more legitimate questions and responses (yet I keep wasting my time with yours - the one mistake I can actually admit to).

Neither of you is ever going to even slightly budge, take each other seriously, or really bother coming to any sort of conclusion. Why do you keep slapfighting each other?

My opinion on level scaling done pretty well: Most loot treadmill ARPG's, like Diablo, Sacred 2, and Torchlight. Dragon Age as well I believe used level scaling, since I recall all areas being visitable in any order barring the very end.

My opinion on level scaling done somewhat poorly but still very enjoyable: TES series.

Also, I'd really like to point out, because apparently this isn't obvious:

SOME GAMERS HAVE DIFFERING TASTES WITH HOW CONTENT SHOULD BE HANDLED. I can't believe I need to say that. I like level scaling. I like not having to worry about missing out on any content or walking in and getting one-shot. That's fun to me. It might not be fun to you. So be it.

They both have merit to different types of tastes, so let's just stop beating this topic to death with this nonsense.

When each person in an argument wants to have the last word... it ain't ever going to end. We might as well rename this the "Gyson vs. SteamUser Eternal Deathmatch" thread, shove it in a Skyrim forum somewhere, and move on. Moderators, a little help here?

I disagree. You are wrong and I am better than you. I await your reply.

RtM, you are clearly woefully incapable of comprehending the glorious scope of my magnificence. I shall disdainfully attack you with passive-aggressive - and perhaps aggressive-aggressive - insults and insinuations, as soon as the nausea arising from even e-lectronic communication with such underdeveloped pond scum passes.

Aaaaaand back to you.

Poopy face.

Ahhhh, you're no fun. You must be new here. More insults!

Fine! I was busy but I guess I will take some time out of my obviously higher quality and more active life to entertain you while you sit alone at home on your PC on singles.com hoping to find "someone who likes to laugh and doesn't mind having friends over for a night of MTG." My opinions clearly carry more weight as my lack of posts on here show that I have chosen to engage in conversations outside that advance the human race in ways that hope to counter the negative impact you and your like bring upon us. I don't quite understand it yet but your words carry your predictable 3 days un-showered stench. Please refrain from stinking up our threads.

I was so hoping singles.com would work for finding MtG players! Where do I go now?! /blubbering

Insults are bad. They are against the forum rules

YES!!! That was inspiring.

I say to you today, my friends, even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the Worldwide Interwebs. I have a dream that one day this nerdrage will rise up, live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all internet forums will devolve into a steaming heap of childish insults."

Can I get an amen?

amen! hallelujah!!

No, but you can get an Aman... talado! Huehuehue... get it? It-its like the first part of my name... and its close to amen, and uh... nevermind I'll just go over there.

On a side note, I've heard talk of a few good games that used a good implementation scaled leveling in this thread, and I would really love to know which ones those are, as it presents me the potential of enjoying a game to infinitum if such is the case.

I must admit my experience with scaled leveling in games has been vastly disappointing thus far, so something that can renew my interest in games with such systems would be very much a welcome distraction from the drivel that I've had to slog through thus far.

"RtM Online
apprentice"

I'm so proud

And here I saw this thread had 18 new posts for me... and wondered if I got my list of 6+ games with good level scaling.

I r dissapointed, son...

You're disappointed? I just read through a pseudo argument between Mikus and RTM, and at no point did either of them remember to spam the thread with irrelevant copy/pasted charts, formulas, wiki entries, and chicken soup recipes. How do you think I feel?

And...

/thread

Right, my bad! Here, I just heard about something I think everyone interested in classic turn-based RPGs will like:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rR4UaLLaFeM

Wow.

/circlejerk beats sourced information these days. I hope Larian doesn't think their code is "irrelevant" or that their balancing formula are "just shitty math".


I'll make it simple for the peanut gallery:

Permanent world without active <spawners> that are range triggered = you can't have level scaling[1]. Hint: this is D:OS code atm.

Even if you could, given the tightness of level ranges [20 or 30 potential capped level], making level scaled <spawners> for D:OS would be fairly useless, and not worth the effort, given all players will reach them within 2-3 levels variance.


Level scaling =/= Character Level = Monster Level.

Now, if you don't understand that, then that means you've never coded a game. Luckily, I have.


Gyson, bless his cotton socks, obviously has... not.
Playing Diablo does not make a game coder of you.
But you all love him, and will mock the person who knows better, so enjoy!



p.s.

Character Level = Monster Level == level scaling. THAT IS COMEDY GOLD. ((MMO devs lololololing atm))



[1] With 20 years experience, I'm trying to think of a RPG that had a) permanent world and b) active range <spawners> that scaled to level. I'm drawing a blank, perhaps the /circlejerk could enlighten me to one that does / did / will do?





Math & knowing the code & knowing the editor = misinterpreting the system.

Vrs

Vague quoting of game fluff articles about "how balanced Skyrim's scaling system is now post-patch". Paid for by Bethesda PR -.-

Fuck me Americans are deluded.

Gyson, the only chance at RPG development you ever had passed when Kingdoms of Amalur publisher Studio 38 went bust. And he was a baseball star, you know. Muppet.

It's okay to admit you can't actually think up 6 titles with good level scaling.
After all; I can't do so either...

What would be the point, honestly?

Let's forget the fact that several examples have already been mentioned in this thread. Whatever I point to as an example, you're going to come back with a speech about how that game isn't exactly like Divinity : OS and thus doesn't apply. Wasn't that what happened when I mentioned Diablo 3 (the updated version; it didn't scale at launch)..?

I could point to Guild Wars 2, and you're either going to say "hated it" or "MMO, doesn't count". But I actually really liked ArenaNet's approach to balancing player levels and content.

If you're not familiar with it (and this is the quick and dirty version, I'm aware it's more complicated than this, so no need for someone to dump a wiki entry in my lap and then /thread sixteen times), player stats scale down to the level of the area they're in. That allows you to encounter monsters around your level or higher, but not far below you. I absolutely love that I can take my max level characters and play around in a newbie zone (which tends to get the most developer love) and still find challenging adventures. As you level up, the entire world eventually becomes your playground rather than the majority of it becoming obsolete content that is too far below your level to be interesting. And there are still always harder areas to go to as you level, if you prefer.

But you would probably hate it. So, why keep trying to convince you with examples that you're just going to reject?

Because, unlike American TV, in the real world, "taking the middle ground" doesn't solve issues or make businesses work.


Gyson is wrong. I am not.



You can have fun throwing peanuts, but at some point you gotta admit either: a) I am a dog and I have no idea what I'm doing or b) there are objective coding standards / reality based stuff to making a game, and one of us doesn't have a clue about them.


Have fun, but seriously: I don't want any of you driving near me, your lack of faith in math, physics and code is disturbing.


/oooook





Because:

A) WoW did this first
B) It only works on instances, and is NEVER permanent
C) It doesn't work in permanent single player worlds where you're juggling multiple quest / kill flags
D) You have no fucking clue how it's coded.




Please kill this thread, before Zule summons Gyson to Manhattan to destroy the world. His brain is empty.


p.s.


Gyson, for your next post, please ask for D:OS to be Oculus Rift compatible, it makes about as much sense.

That part about not missing out on content is probably what I love most with level scaling, especially as I tend to do every little quest I can find. That usually puts me way ahead on XP/levels, and before I know it all the content in my immediate path is too low level to present a challenge. And without that challenge I get bored.

Divinity : OS has limited combat opportunities (particularly if you're not RP'ing a psychopath). For any one of them to be below my party's level and trivial is just frustrating. This isn't the type of game that requires grinding or provides respawning mobs, where you find yourself saying "I need to grind out 50 of drop-X before I bludgeon myself to death with my mouse, so prepare to be pwned low-level region!". Thus, having the ability to greatly outclass encounters in Divinity : OS is not up there on my list of features I need (or want).

Good, good, now we only need 4 more examples.

And the point would be you stated you could easily name half-a-dozen and then 3 pages long refused to tell them, making it look like you are/were a blatant liar.

This passive-aggressive immunity to real code is starting to produce comedy gold.


Aka, watching Priests argue about the underworld while someone is calculating the Earth is a globe and revolves around the Earth.


Please... /popcorn has been gathered. Please post more clueless tripe.




I'll be seriously impressed.

You've already made up your mind, so just go with that.

Seriously.. City of Heroes, Baldur's Gate 2, several Final Fantasy games, Dragon Age.. they all made use of various forms of level scaling.

Cripes, you must have hated Dungeons & Dragons. Or had a lazy DM.

When you played a game in the arcade and each battle got progressively more difficult than the last, did you cry "this is bull-sugar!" and demand your quarter back? :P

Wrong on all counts.

Baldur's Gate 2 does it well I suppose, and that is a game where even with enemies that scaled, the power that your character possesses with gaining level still feels like it is there. Though I think the notion people might be drawing from your posts Gyson is misinterpreted.

In BG2, the scaling works not by going the Oblivion route (the worst example of scaling) where the enemies you face are constantly scaled for you, a Level 1 goblin in BG2 will always be just that whether you are level 1 or level 20, whereas in other games, that level 1 Goblin will spawn if you are level 1, but a level 20 goblin would spawn if you were level 20. What BG2 does is it still keeps that level 1 goblin mob, but mixes in a few higher level monsters as well to provide your guy something to feel like a worthy foe, while keeping the weak litter mobs in to make you realize that yes, you have gotten more powerful than you were before. That was a game where scaling wasn't that big of a deal to begin with. I think the best way someone on an alternate thread explained it was something along the lines of:



It is not scaling to be exact, but it is a system that works better than most version of the mechanic in my opinion.
If that is the kind of system that you are proposing Gyson, I don't think I would be opposed to that in Divinity: OS.

I don't mind having lower level cannon fodder in the middle of a fight like you're describing, although I do want them to matter somehow (even if it's just being in the way of ranged shots intended for more powerful targets). What I don't want is to wrap up a fight.. save for 10 targets that are too low level to hurt me, leaving me feeling like the only challenge left is remaining awake long enough to allow the necessary amount of turns to pass in order to wrap up this turn-based battle.

Just as long as there are elements in those fight which pose a real threat or challenge, I'm a happy gamer.

The first time I played Divinity : OS, I exited through the north-east side of town and came across some level 4 encounters (I was level 3). Eventually I reached level 5 and was cutting back over to the west when I ran into several trivial level 3 encounters. My reaction was "I did this in the wrong order..", because when the fights are trivial the whole tactical element of Divinity's combat goes out the window, and then I'm just a button pusher.

They have inherently different systems in those games, where in BG2, every enemy is a threat, because damage could not be reduced most of the time, you could only improve your armor rating to increase your chances of dodging a blow. This is not the case in Divinity: OS, where damage can be nullified entirely with enough armor, to the point where those mobs that you went past in level do little to no damage. It is a very troubling problem to try to rectify in the game if it were to be approached, where trying to make the mobs under your level matter in combat to an extent, without having them feeling like all the trials and tribulations your character went through to reach such a high level was wasted because they are turn out to be just as difficult as they were previously. The line is there where trying to scale the game can easily cross from being too difficult to being too easy for the person playing the game as well as the person coding it. Realistically, I don't think Larian can implement this at this time, with the budget they have, and at the quality that its fanbase would want it to be at to make it actually good. The resources just aren't there I think, though I do wish they were.

I'm learning a lot in this thread.

Some details on BG2, yes, it did upgrade enemies sometimes.
It had several level character files. Partymembers had the most (so unlike modern RPG's where you can pick what you want, they join you at an appropriate level pre-defined). Enemies had quite a bit less.

In the end, since leveling takes long in Baldur's Gate II, and there aren't many levels (not 1-50 like most modern games), the system was barely actually used ingame. It did get in effect if you tried to important high-level PC's into the game from the start, but the thruth would be; the difficulty would still be horribly broken in the easy part.

It's not exactly the scaling most modern games do (since unlike systems adding numbers everything was preset and manually made). A LOT of work, you barely notice anything of it ingame, and as modmakers found out who made the unofficial patch, littered with hundreds and hundreds of bugs (it was quite obvious no-one ever tested the max-level stuff at the start of the game, and again; why would they?)

[End of History Lesson]

Finally. You called me out, now answer some questions



Please explain (reverse order, so D-C-B-A ~ why? because I want you to think):

a) the coding on instances, how they mod stats on loaded chunk, and how the server creates an image of the char save to revert to on leaving said instance. [Tip: applying -mods as an instance only debuff has been used in the past, but not in GW2: notably Anarchy Online]

b) a single player RPG where leveled instances that apply modifiers to the char on entry / leaving [to level], save them as permanent but discard them on exit [doesn't exist -- XP doesn't count].

c) a MMO where entering an instance that applies modifiers [negatively or positively] to level then is saved to the main world character permanently on leaving the instance [doesn't exist - XP does not count, we're talking levels / stats here]. Note: many MMOs apply level minimums on entry, and a few apply downscaling for PvP battles, however, no MMO in existence keeps instance modifiers as permanent, barring timed buffs. [e.g. complete X instance, Y buff for Z hrs]

d) http://www.wowwiki.com/Battleground -- please explain how GW2 did the auto-rounding trick when WoW was doing it previously?


Please do.

I expect code.


You just went all in with the Devil, and the Devil holds four Aces... boy. You can't answer those questions, because they are impossible.


If you knew anything, you'd know that.





/popcorn.







Hint: it doesn't exist. You're all arguing about fucking unicorns.



p.s.


Hai! I might have coded some of your MMO encounters at some point. I hope you enjoyed them, but srsly... there's a reason why we're not allowed to talk to the players. Because most of them are idiots not familiar with coding.

Dude, you need to take it easier on yourself.

I'm pretty sure anyone who's worked a job with passion at some point in his or her life can have a similar reaction to someone giving him/her insight on a subject he/she is supposed to know better.

Was it worth it? Was it THAT important? Just let it go, man. You made your point, people will do with it as they please. You're just getting upset about it, trying to prove that you, in fact, know what you're talking about. I'm guessing from experience it is not the first time.

/haveakitkat

I don't even know why this pointless argument has gone on for a week like this. Larian isn't going to make all the enemies scale to your level. End of story.

Probably not. But maybe I worked on some of yours.

That's some crazy good feedback you're giving for D:OS here, the game will surely be more balanced thanks to this thread.

A simple poll would be the answer, guys. Though you-know-who might be the only one to vote for level scaling.

everything I do or touch kills me I need to save every 5 minutes..haha I'm loving it

Leave it be, man. You obviously fail to grasp the level of creepy frustrated nerdrage you're dealing with here.

/circlejerk
/boy
/American
/muppet
/thread

That said, I'm almost enjoying this masterful display of devastating wit. It's like 10 years of the internetz distilled into one forum topic.

/popcorn



Yep. Hint: it wouldn't be me.

Realistically speaking, I think level scaling is a mechanic that you'd have to have had in mind relatively early in the development process to then start building your game accordingly. I imagine the difference in gameplay between using such a system and going unscaled would have to be catastrophically enormous, and I don't think that even Gyson would desire such a thing at this point in the game's development as it would be at best hasty and delivered at a low quality unless massive delays (many many months) are set to rework the entire game to accommodate the system were it to be implemented, and would certainly knock it back right out of beta into potentially pre-alpha for bug testing all over again. Though I think the merits of a system would be more appropriately discussed in any future endeavors beyond OS that Larian or other RPGs of this type decide to take on at the early or pre-development cycle.

Right now all this is is rhetoric being traded back and forth. I do not expect Larian to implement any relevant changes concerning level scaling in OS right now, but it might give them an idea of how to approach it in future projects like this.

Ooh, BBCish BASIC. Cool.

Though I admit it's over 30 years since I did anything with Basic, so I may be a bit off.

There's a few more besides that example at http://rosettacode.org/wiki/Detect_division_by_zero if you need them for future posts.

I can grab instructions from other websites too!


/post