Larian Studios Forums Divinity - Original Sin Divinity Original Sin - Beta Game is to hard!

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.