Level Scaling

[DukeC]

I'm not a big fan of level scaling when that means boosting enemy stats. It's fun to see your RPG get stronger. You should always learn the strength of your enemies by playing the game. It shouldn't matter if you fight a deathclaw when you are level 1 or when you are level 20, the deathclaw should be at the same strength and toughness and you will learn by trail and error when you are strong enough to defeat one.

I can understand why level scaling exist, it might get boring fighting a single dog for the 100th time when you are level 20. So another type of level scaling that I think are ok is just increasing the numbers of enemies. One dog is no problem at level 20, but if you are attacked by 25 dogs it might give you a match. This must be carefully tweaked aswell so not all encounters at level 20 are bandit gangs of 20 bandits, that would not make sense in the game world having that many big groups of bandits running around.

[qstoffe]

ANY type of DIFFICULTY scaling based on character level is one of the worst things imaginable in modern (consolized) RPGs. Why? I give you some bullet points:

* It cheapens every choice you make!
* Probing the world for dangerous areas is pretty pointless. Everything is scaled anyway.
* The desire to increase in level is reduced. It's scaled anyway.
* Replaying the game, picking things off in a different order has no meaning as the scaling difficulty will remove the impact of choice of making things in a certain order.
* It's confusing to the players. Telling your friend you thought a certain monster was hard when you were lvl 40 and he says he had no problem with it at lvl 7. Not to mention the confusing difficulty of replaying such a game.
* It detracts from the feeling that your character is making progress and growing in strenght.

I could go on and on but to be honest I think the first bullet pretty much says it all.

[SkyeFyre]

To be honest, the only game I felt that did level scaling correctly was Morrowind. I didn't even realize there was any until someone actually brought it up after Oblivion came out. If it was as subtle as Morrowind, ok. Otherwise, absolutely not.

[Lucius]

I'm ok with level scaling in the general environment. But certain areas should have set levels and all "interiors" should have set levels, or at least very tight level ranges. Anyway its designed, whatever you do, DO NOT SCALE LOOT. I want to find awesome stuff if I'm able to get my hands on it.

[Vryheid]

And don't forget the most obnoxious level scaling mechanic of them all, level scaled unique items. Nothing like finding out that that Ultimate Sword of Butchery that you got at lv 10 is almost immediately and irrevocably obsolete because you didn't grind to the level cap before completing a key quest.

I seriously doubt the Inxile team would be considering any of this, though, otherwise they could hardly call it an old school RPG.

[alexander]

I am totally against level scaling!
The best thing of the old RPGs is that you can say, for instance: "I finished this game #n of times. And always the guy in that cave/building was with the same weapon and that weapon is my favourite. So when start this game again I always go there and try to get it despite of his level that is ALWAYS 10".

Please DO NOT INTRODUCE LEVEL SCALING or RESPAWN in Westland 2.

Thanks in advance.

[clippedwolf]

Is this unanimously agreed on so far. Cause to me it looks like level scaling is universally hated here.
Lucius, you're talking about regional scaling and I think a lot of people here are okay with that.

[Keaton]

Imo this is a much too important question to just wave it away with superficial arguments like "it sucks!" as most of you did.
First, like some here already mentioned, there are many different ways to handle level scaling.
For open sandbox games like Wasteland region scaling comes to mind.
But there are problems with that, as mentioned somewhere in this (mostly beyond boring to read) thread before, in that it takes away the sense of openness sandbox games should provide. If every location has an ideal level then the game kind of forces you to play through locations in roughly that preset order if you dont want to have a frustrating experience playing it.
The good thing is, you can solve that problem by slowing down level progression, either by providing fewer levelups or by making player level less important for combat difficulty.
Then you would still have the sandbox made kind of linear but with a greater tolerance for deviations from the ideal playthrough order. The game world doesn't revolve around the player level and you still have an open sandbox game where you decide where to go next. Win win imo.

Everybody should at least agree that every game worth its money should provide challenging gameplay throughout.
So when your characters are low level there should be enemies that match that level. Same for high level partys.
That naturally makes level scaling necessary in every RPG. And region scaling is still just that, level scaling. Enemies level with your party as you progress through the game. Sure, some masochist nerds would enter fights way out of their league and still be able to win them feeling like they accomplished something great afterwards, but that isnt what game designers should cater for. There should be an ideal order to beat the game, but it shouldn't be forced upon the player.
And it's also completely wrong to assume that most of your enemies have to become easier on higher levels because you want to "enjoy" that you leveled up to Mr. Awesome so you have to wipe the floor with most mobs. Sorry, but the result would not be as awesome as you imagine, it would get very boring very soon.
Level progression isnt just there for you to feel epic and awesome. It is there to unlock gameplay mechanics and choices on higher levels, in fights as well as outside.
A good game can have fights levelscaled to your player characters the entire time and yet the leveling can be important and rewarding.
For example Gothic 1+2 did this. Higher skills unlocked new spell effects, combos, equipment, choices to interact with the gameword and so on and still most enemies were levelscaled.
Yes, Gothic mobs were scaled chapter- and regionwise. With every new chapter stronger mobs showed up in the areas you already visited (but they didn't replace the weaker ones if you didnt already kill those which is way better than the way Oblivion handled that part). Also you didnt visit many areas until later in the game making it possible for the devs to put much much harder encounters in those areas. Sure, there were some pretty hardcore enemies in the early areas (like the dinos left to the city gate in Gothic 2), but you didnt have to mess with them to progress with the story, you didn't even have to figure out a way to avoid them because they were placed in more isolated spots.

Btw, if Wasteland 2 will have a story devided into chapters (though I seriously doubt it) it would be cool if they could just copy and paste Gothic 1+2 level scaling.

edit: The more I think about it the less I believe most of the too hard to beat enemies in Gothic 1+2 were isolated. You had to run away quite often, which is great.
So please ignore that part.

[Bushbaby]

Dislike level scaling. But if a designer would like to repopulate an area with more difficult adversaries than before, an event could be triggered by completing a quest like: If the quest is completed, this triggers an invasion of new, dangerous enemies in a previously "cleansed" area. This area is now more challenging to traverse than before.

[Sleepingfurry]

depends what audience they trying to please. Rpg fans that play so they can see their character dominate the enemy want to continue playing games where this is the trend. Rpg fans that want very hard difficulty that challenges them want to contine playing games where this is the trend. After a rpg fan plays so many casual or hard difficulty games it is hard for them to switch from hard to easy or easy to hard.

I like level scaling if it is done right. Some rpgs need it while others don't. Elder scroll games would become too easy and quickly boring if they didn't have it. Especially the later ones because of boring worlds that are not immersive. Not knowing anything about wasteland its funny that this is even being discussed.

[Starwander]

Please don't have level scaling either. Part of the fun of getting more powerful is that some monsters/creatures become weaker and less imposing than before. Either that or make leveling a passive process that doesn't drastically increase your power overall, just your abilites.

[qstoffe]

Imo this is a much too important question to just wave it away with superficial arguments like "it sucks!" as most of you did.

It sucks! Plain and simple.

Everybody should at least agree that every game worth its money should provide challenging gameplay throughout.So when your characters are low level there should be enemies that match that level. Same for high level partys.

Agreed but SCALING difficulty based on character level is just WRONG! It's sloppy design is what it is. I agree it's a lot harder designing a world that remains challenging throughout an entire playthrough. Level scaling is the easy way out. Even though it's a so called "sandbox" game I don't think you should be able to do everything in ANY order. Restricting you from certain areas early on is part of GOOD design imo. It also makes replayability more interesting as you *know* what areas are difficult.

There should be an ideal order to beat the game, but it shouldn't be forced upon the player.

Agreed but if you resort to level scaling to fix that problem you'll end up with even BIGGER problems imo.

[Burzmali]

Seriously folks, bit of PTSD from Oblivion much?

Level scaling is fine, when used in moderation no one cares, no one complains. It's been around forever, Darklands (for those that played Wasteland, you probably played Darklands) had an excellent system that made some fixed encounters slightly more difficult, certain harder random encounter more likely, marginally improved the equipment of mooks and increased the number of mooks slightly as you gained power (Darklands is a level-less RPG).

I know the "Random bandit in Deadric Armor" has you all a bit shell-shocked, but in an open world RPG where you can go back and complete missions that you should have done at level 5 but miss until you are level 20, let the developers tweak the difficulty a bit so the missions aren't just a choir to complete.

Also, the other main benefit of level scaling is that if a player is underpowered for the area they should be in, the solution isn't just "grind harder".

tl:dr version: Level scaling is fine in moderation, it makes backtracking less tedious and reduces grinding.

[Ekaros]

Scaling done by Oblivion and later games with same engine was painfull, how come a naked dude don't die from single shot of most powerfull weapon with max skill...

Area based isn't bad, old players can expect what is there and go when they are almost ready for it, not that bad option, just like Fallouts worked quite well, apart from going for best stuff ;D

[Sub-Human]

...but in an open world RPG where you can go back and complete missions that you should have done at level 5 but miss until you are level 20, let the developers tweak the difficulty a bit so the missions aren't just a choir to complete.

No, thanks. To me that's just another type of annoying level scaling.

[Burzmali]

...but in an open world RPG where you can go back and complete missions that you should have done at level 5 but miss until you are level 20, let the developers tweak the difficulty a bit so the missions aren't just a choir to complete.

No, thanks. To me that's just another type of annoying level scaling.

Every play Baldur's Gate 2? Ever get over-leveled in the first few chapters and render the rest of the game's combat, save for the final encounters, about as interesting as watching a steamroller flatten mice? That's what level scaling is designed to combat. In an open world game without a timer or other reason for the player to move forward, invariably player A will attempt to continue the main plot and player B will dick around with Fedex quests for 50 hours the first time you give them a chance.

You're making a game, how do you make a game player A can still win without forcing them to do hours of retrieving cats for quests that they aren't interested in, and how do you the game a challenge for player B without forcibly capping the amount of XP/resources they can get early on?

There's really only three ways to do it, level scaling, mandatory power-ups (you defeated the giant spider! Have a rocket launcher!) and hiding the plot until the player is powered up enough to handle it. Choosing none of those is why more than a few vintage games (Dragon Quest, Final Fantasy, Bard's Quest, Wizardry, etc.) have section in their walkthroughs that basically say "Grind for 4 hours and then continue with the story". That's the downside of regional scaling, if the player isn't stronger enough to enter the next plot area, their options are save kittens or grind kittens until they can proceed.

I'm not saying that level scaling is the way to go for Wasteland 2, but it seems silly to ask the devs to throw that tool out of their toolbox because Bethesda keeps whacking you in the foot with it.

[abyss]

Level scaling is gaming AIDS.

[krellen]

Every play Baldur's Gate 2? Ever get over-leveled in the first few chapters and render the rest of the game's combat, save for the final encounters, about as interesting as watching a steamroller flatten mice? That's what level scaling is designed to combat.

But that's exactly why I over-levelled. It's designers trying to limit the game to one single right way to play, which is contrary to the design goals for Wasteland, which aims to allow multiple paths of success.

[Burzmali]

Every play Baldur's Gate 2? Ever get over-leveled in the first few chapters and render the rest of the game's combat, save for the final encounters, about as interesting as watching a steamroller flatten mice? That's what level scaling is designed to combat.

But that's exactly why I over-levelled. It's designers trying to limit the game to one single right way to play, which is contrary to the design goals for Wasteland, which aims to allow multiple paths of success.

If the options are "Allow player to become unstoppable killing machine by rescuing kittens" and "Keep the end game challenging regardless of whether or not the player has a kitten fetish", I choose the latter, with cheat codes included for folks that prefer the former.

[bos_hybrid]

I think(hope) that level scaling is not and was never include in Fargo's dream of Wasteland 2.