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

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.