Level scaling, why is this a thing?

[Ambient_Malice]

It exists because RPG combat mechanics are fundamentally bullshit. I have a plastic spoon. 15 hours ago, this plastic spoon took 37 stabs to kill a zebra. Now, I can kill a zebra, for some reason voiced by Chris Tucker because Chris Rock was busy, by lightly tabbing its firm, sexy zebra rump with the spoon. That's not how spoons work.

Even games with moderate level scaling, such as Fallout: New Vegas, end up with scenarios where you're shooting a foot-wide scorpion at close range with an assault rifle, its flesh spraying far and wide, and the thing shrugs it off. All because you went into an area you weren't supposed to yet.

 

[loa]

To be more concrete, let's say every level you gain 5% damage. But, every enemy in the game also gains 5% hp. This is a perfect cancel.

Which game does that?

 

[Redvenge]

No, my position is game B shouldn't have a leveling system in the first place as it is pointless. It should instead dispense with the leveling system, and the time spent to make it then make the scaling system to cancel it out, and simply concentrates on other aspects of the game play.

To be more concrete, let's say every level you gain 5% damage. But, every enemy in the game also gains 5% hp. This is a perfect cancel. Sure you're pumping out bigger numbers, but it still takes you 10 hits to kill that ghoul at level 1 or level 100. You could have instead just dispensed with the 5% increase in damage and hp entirely and had the same game.

Both systems "cancel out". You will eventually out-level everything in Dungeon 1, and then have to proceed to Dungeon 2.

If the scaling system is under-tuned, then you wont be challenged. If it is over-tuned, you will always lose to the first opponent you meet when you "level up". The static dungeon model is much easier to implement.

I understand people like the freedom, but the freedom isn't lost by dispensing with the system. In fact, the leveling system with level scaling is only an illusion of progress when there actually is none. So the choice isn't freedom verses non-freedom, it's freedom with the illusion of progress, or just the same freedom without the illusion.

What freedom? It's the same system. You level up and overcome challenges. Difference is, you MUST goto the fire dungeon before you goto the poison dungeon.

But, anyway, from people's responses, I get the impression it is the illusion that is appealing. I guess I just can't wrap my head around that.

In an ideal scaling system, new enemies are introduced. New abilities are brought into play. You must adapt to the new challenges. X-COM: Enemy Unknown is a decent example.

 

[Lunar Templar]

Level scaling is stupid and defeats the point of 'progression'.

 

[Gordon_4_v1legacy]

My greatest argument for level scaling is Kingdoms of Amalur. By about a third of the way through the game, every time I entered a new area I could kill the toughest enemy in about four hits and my exp acquisition was still accelerating. That was a game that absolutely would have benefited from intelligent application of scaling, because the alternative (due to the absolutely ridiculous number of sidequests in that game) was to make it so you'd get roflstomped by rats in a new area unless you spent four hours assisting every guild member, helping every granny, and turning over every rock for collectibles in each of the previous maps.

There are places where it's appropriate and where it's not. It would have helped there.

I loved that game, but yeah, some kind of intelligent scaling system would have been nice to keep the challenge up. Even if it was just making the AI a brutal bastard to force some tactical thinking.


One game I think that would benefit from a scaling system would Pokemon. Usually once you get past the story endgame you can curb stomp the nation - in a more edgelord sort of game you'd be appointing yourself El Presidente for Life rather than just champion.

 

[Redvenge]

In an ideal scaling system, new enemies are introduced. New abilities are brought into play. You must adapt to the new challenges. X-COM: Enemy Unknown is a decent example.

That's not a scaling system, though. That's an unseen timer. The aliens are going to roll out all of those enemies anyway, and you HAVE to upgrade your guys if you want to stand a chance.

The scaling in X-COM is dependent on the difficulty setting. On lower settings, the alien progress is tied to the progress of the player.

The scaling system in X-COM is a good reference for how dynamic creature placement should be implemented. In a more free-form open world sand-boxy game, you would need more balance and improved AI (but I believe that is a common request for these types of games anyway).

 

[DementedSheep]

I like level scaling because without it the game can become too easy. I'm a completionist, which means I'll put off a main quest so I can do the side stuff than return to the main quest having overleveled it and the game is now boring. Skyrim is a good example, as the dragons quickly drop off in difficulty as you level up, which means my scrawny Breton battle-mage can go toe-to-toe with a monster of legend and kill it with a few chops to the face. Yes, I'm the chosen one with the blood of a dragon, but it still doesn't feel right that I should be able to kill it so effortlessly. Dragon Age: Inquisition was even worse for me as I found myself constantly checking my level and the suggested level of the next main quest lest I overleveled and found myself bored (thank Andraste for the option to turn on level scaling).

If you want to try and keep the difficulty, stop and think about what would be a reasonable level for the player to be at when they find the place compared to the rewards for completing the task.

How do you determine that beyond building a strictly linear game? What's "reasonable" for one will be unreasonable for another. Let's say there are three types of gamers: gamers that follow the game at a steady but measured pace, gamers who look for anyway to speed through it, and gamers who like to see everything before moving on. Which of these approaches is the "right" approach? Choose wisely, because you've damned the other two to boredom, either from easily mowing down enemies who vastly underlevel them or being forced to grind before they're able to clear the next mission.

Granted, not everything should be leveled with you. Critters and bandits and the like should be weaker as you grow stronger. Further, I feel like weaker enemies should never be thrown out entirely, because it does give you a sense of growth if enemies who terrorized you earlier are cannon fodder for you now, but they should be accompanied by stronger foes. Ultimately, if I reach the final boss and kill him by barely lifting a finger, I feel robbed of any sense of accomplishment. I would rather have a steady difficulty curve than feel like a walking god.

Isn't the point (one point atleast) of doing all the quests to become godlike? If you can't become godlike after doing all the quests, then you never can. You make a choice to do all the side stuff (or grind in a JRPG), you don't get to complain about being over leveled.

Or because you just like doing the quests or are compeltionnist? This is the problem, not every player wants the same thing. I lean towards being a completionist but I hate being over-leveled. This is problem in a lot of RPGs because I don't want to end up face rolling though everything but I would have to skip a whole bunch of content I paid for or find away to intentionally gimp myself to avoid that.

 

[BX3]

I think a lot of people defending level scaling forget that its not the same as throwing stronger enemies at you. I don't want the same enemies to get stronger, I want to rank up in what I fight. From annoying rats in the basement, to ruffian bandits in the woods, to a hoard of orc, to a dragon atop a mountain peek, to the very gods themselves.

But when you kill those gods, you want those rats and bandits and orcs to not also be at your level. You just want to worry about larger and better things.

Essentially. This is one of the bigger reasons why I even play RPGs/JRPGs. The way I see it, if I'm logging in hours and hours in one of these games, and the fruits of my labor aren't rewarded with being able to murder a slime with little more than an errant thought, then what's the point? This is why I'm not a fan of level scaling. I won't combat its right to exist, because hey different strokes, but I stay far away from them because unless the other factors of the game are so amazing that I can easily ignore it, it otherwise becomes a huge waste of time to me.

 

[WeepingAngels]

I like level scaling because without it the game can become too easy. I'm a completionist, which means I'll put off a main quest so I can do the side stuff than return to the main quest having overleveled it and the game is now boring. Skyrim is a good example, as the dragons quickly drop off in difficulty as you level up, which means my scrawny Breton battle-mage can go toe-to-toe with a monster of legend and kill it with a few chops to the face. Yes, I'm the chosen one with the blood of a dragon, but it still doesn't feel right that I should be able to kill it so effortlessly. Dragon Age: Inquisition was even worse for me as I found myself constantly checking my level and the suggested level of the next main quest lest I overleveled and found myself bored (thank Andraste for the option to turn on level scaling).

If you want to try and keep the difficulty, stop and think about what would be a reasonable level for the player to be at when they find the place compared to the rewards for completing the task.

How do you determine that beyond building a strictly linear game? What's "reasonable" for one will be unreasonable for another. Let's say there are three types of gamers: gamers that follow the game at a steady but measured pace, gamers who look for anyway to speed through it, and gamers who like to see everything before moving on. Which of these approaches is the "right" approach? Choose wisely, because you've damned the other two to boredom, either from easily mowing down enemies who vastly underlevel them or being forced to grind before they're able to clear the next mission.

Granted, not everything should be leveled with you. Critters and bandits and the like should be weaker as you grow stronger. Further, I feel like weaker enemies should never be thrown out entirely, because it does give you a sense of growth if enemies who terrorized you earlier are cannon fodder for you now, but they should be accompanied by stronger foes. Ultimately, if I reach the final boss and kill him by barely lifting a finger, I feel robbed of any sense of accomplishment. I would rather have a steady difficulty curve than feel like a walking god.

Isn't the point (one point atleast) of doing all the quests to become godlike? If you can't become godlike after doing all the quests, then you never can. You make a choice to do all the side stuff (or grind in a JRPG), you don't get to complain about being over leveled.

Or because you just like doing the quests or are compeltionnist? This is the problem, not every player wants the same thing. I lean towards being a completionist but I hate being over-leveled. This is problem in a lot of RPGs because I don't want to end up face rolling though everything but I would have to skip a whole bunch of content I paid for or find away to intentionally gimp myself to avoid that.

You can't be a completionist and not be/complain about being over leveled just like you can't read a walk through and then complain about spoilers.

If someone was complaining about being under leveled because they avoid as many battles and quests as they can, would you tell them not to avoid those things if they don't want to be under leveled?

 

[barbzilla]

Another reason is to keep you out of places you're not supposed to be yet. That's why there's such a phrase as being "underleveled" for a particular area. Conversely, it grants the player the satisfaction of over-leveling, allowing them to go back to the weaker areas and kill the fuck out of everything as though you're a mad god of destruction.

This sounds like a game without level scaling.

Depends on which form of level scaling we're talking about: the kind that keeps up with you so that the difficulty never changes or the kind that you keep up with so that the difficulty never changes.

Two different kinds of scaling, but in the end it's the same difficulty curve. The only difference is that one allows you to either fuck up and go somewhere you're not supposed to be or you can go bring down your wrath on all the poor lower level mobs.

I strongly prefer a game with a good autosave that allows you to explore and maybe run into an overpowered enemy (that you may be able to beat for high experience).

You mean like the second kind of scaling - zone based level scaling - that I previously mentioned?

And just to further clarify: it's a form of level scaling because as long as you're progressing through each zone in the proper order the difficulty never really changes until you either go back or skip ahead.

Level scaling as a term means the game will take the experience you gain and give anywhere from 50% to 100% of the gained experience to the all base enemies in the game so that you can continue having the same level of challenge no matter where you are. What you are talking about is level gates. Level gates are where each level, zone, ect is set to a particular level range while you are able to level as much or as little as you wish to before entering said zone.

That said, it is all semantics though, and you could easily apply the term level scaling to zone scaling since it is scaling something to something else using levels.


OP:
I agree with you. Imagine if a game like Dark Souls level scaled, there would (IMO) be no reason to have any enemies in the game save for a series of bosses and when you built your character you would select the weapons, spells, and armor you wanted to use for the entire game (so essentially an arena fighter). There are some good examples of level scaling out there, but they apply more to games that don't have a traditional leveling system in place, or the leveling system is limited in nature (I.E. as you level up you gain new active skills or spells, and while the skills are no more or less powerful than the spells you already had, they work in different ways and allow you to combine them tactically for greater effect, but you wouldn't gain any passives like health, strength, or speed).

The real reason that it exists though is because publishers (and to a lesser extent, developers) are lazy money hungry people who follow tested formulas that have sold well in the past. So when Oblivion became as big as it did, developers made the assumption that scaling like that is what everyone wants. Honestly I am tired of the leveling systems in video games period and just want for someone to do something fresh in AAA gaming.

My game idea is free to any publisher/developer out there that wishes to make it. I'll happily give them license to make it as long as they agree not to change the systems I have designed.

I want a game where you start out all powerful and slowly lose your powers as the game progresses. You would start out as 1 of 9 immortals on earth who are the last descendants of the gods. The powers that each immortal possesses is shared through a sort of hive power pool between all of the immortals (Note: in this case when I say immortal, you are able to die, but when an immortal dies their essence is placed into a random baby somewhere in the world and on their 21st birthday they regain their past memories and their powers). Your character is tired of life and wishes to die, but the only way this can happen is if all of the immortals die within 21 years of each other as there would be nothing left to tie the power pool to this universe, so on the child's 21st birthday, they would just continue living as a normal human with no memory of being god descendant or having powers.

As the game starts, you would have already tracked down the first immortal (the one with the power of teleportation) and have to fight him/her. Once you kill them, all of the immortals lose teleportation for the next 21 years including you. So you would have the hunt the other 7 that are scattered all around the world (though they are not that hard to track down since they always end up in positions of power). As you kill each one you become weaker and weaker and closer to death, just as the remaining immortals would... the difference being that they would all have private armies and security you would have to get past just to have the opportunity to kill them (plus the added difficulty of tracking them and the travel).

Now if it takes you too long to kill them all (because time would pass like it does on earth, only speed up for the purpose of the game), and 21 years passes the first one you killed would come back, and the remaining would gain back the power they lost (teleportation in the case of the first 21 years). Assuming you do continue on with the quest long enough to kill your 8 immortal siblings (and the last battle you would each only have 2 powers; regeneration and whatever the power of the immortal you saved for last was), you would have the choice to kill yourself and end the cycle, finally allowing mankind to follow its path without the interference it has dealt with for so long, or live out the rest of your life until your family starts regaining their powers.

If you happen to die at any time during the game, there are no save points, so you would have to wait (not as the player, this would just be a short cut scene) for your new body to have its 21st birthday (which would also mean that all of the other immortals are back alive again) to begin your quest anew. However, each time you die the game would get harder depending on how many of your kin you had managed to kill, as they would start working together to hunt you down and trap you in a kind of stasis prison (which would be game over and you have to start a new game) not to mention upping their security details. After about 4 of your deaths, your god-kin would start working together against the laws laid down by gods that passed you the powers in the first place meaning you might have to fight multiples at the same time.

I have a lot more to the idea, but that is the type of thing I am talking about when I say I want something new out of a leveling system. Especially when you think about the fact that video games are supposed to get harder the further you get into them, not easier like most leveling systems make it.

 

[DementedSheep]

I like level scaling because without it the game can become too easy. I'm a completionist, which means I'll put off a main quest so I can do the side stuff than return to the main quest having overleveled it and the game is now boring. Skyrim is a good example, as the dragons quickly drop off in difficulty as you level up, which means my scrawny Breton battle-mage can go toe-to-toe with a monster of legend and kill it with a few chops to the face. Yes, I'm the chosen one with the blood of a dragon, but it still doesn't feel right that I should be able to kill it so effortlessly. Dragon Age: Inquisition was even worse for me as I found myself constantly checking my level and the suggested level of the next main quest lest I overleveled and found myself bored (thank Andraste for the option to turn on level scaling).

If you want to try and keep the difficulty, stop and think about what would be a reasonable level for the player to be at when they find the place compared to the rewards for completing the task.

How do you determine that beyond building a strictly linear game? What's "reasonable" for one will be unreasonable for another. Let's say there are three types of gamers: gamers that follow the game at a steady but measured pace, gamers who look for anyway to speed through it, and gamers who like to see everything before moving on. Which of these approaches is the "right" approach? Choose wisely, because you've damned the other two to boredom, either from easily mowing down enemies who vastly underlevel them or being forced to grind before they're able to clear the next mission.

Granted, not everything should be leveled with you. Critters and bandits and the like should be weaker as you grow stronger. Further, I feel like weaker enemies should never be thrown out entirely, because it does give you a sense of growth if enemies who terrorized you earlier are cannon fodder for you now, but they should be accompanied by stronger foes. Ultimately, if I reach the final boss and kill him by barely lifting a finger, I feel robbed of any sense of accomplishment. I would rather have a steady difficulty curve than feel like a walking god.

Isn't the point (one point atleast) of doing all the quests to become godlike? If you can't become godlike after doing all the quests, then you never can. You make a choice to do all the side stuff (or grind in a JRPG), you don't get to complain about being over leveled.

Or because you just like doing the quests or are compeltionnist? This is the problem, not every player wants the same thing. I lean towards being a completionist but I hate being over-leveled. This is problem in a lot of RPGs because I don't want to end up face rolling though everything but I would have to skip a whole bunch of content I paid for or find away to intentionally gimp myself to avoid that.

You can't be a completionist and not be/complain about being over leveled just like you can't read a walk through and then complain about spoilers.

If someone was complaining about being under leveled because they avoid as many battles and quests as they can, would you tell them not to avoid those things if they don't want to be under leveled?

Have you forgotten what this thread is about or something? Soft level scaling helps fix this problem. That's why it's there.

Edit: and you comparison doesn't even make any sense, the point of walk-through is to give you step by step guide which necessitates spoiling things. The point of of side quest and exploration is not to over level you.

 

[WeepingAngels]

I like level scaling because without it the game can become too easy. I'm a completionist, which means I'll put off a main quest so I can do the side stuff than return to the main quest having overleveled it and the game is now boring. Skyrim is a good example, as the dragons quickly drop off in difficulty as you level up, which means my scrawny Breton battle-mage can go toe-to-toe with a monster of legend and kill it with a few chops to the face. Yes, I'm the chosen one with the blood of a dragon, but it still doesn't feel right that I should be able to kill it so effortlessly. Dragon Age: Inquisition was even worse for me as I found myself constantly checking my level and the suggested level of the next main quest lest I overleveled and found myself bored (thank Andraste for the option to turn on level scaling).

If you want to try and keep the difficulty, stop and think about what would be a reasonable level for the player to be at when they find the place compared to the rewards for completing the task.

How do you determine that beyond building a strictly linear game? What's "reasonable" for one will be unreasonable for another. Let's say there are three types of gamers: gamers that follow the game at a steady but measured pace, gamers who look for anyway to speed through it, and gamers who like to see everything before moving on. Which of these approaches is the "right" approach? Choose wisely, because you've damned the other two to boredom, either from easily mowing down enemies who vastly underlevel them or being forced to grind before they're able to clear the next mission.

Granted, not everything should be leveled with you. Critters and bandits and the like should be weaker as you grow stronger. Further, I feel like weaker enemies should never be thrown out entirely, because it does give you a sense of growth if enemies who terrorized you earlier are cannon fodder for you now, but they should be accompanied by stronger foes. Ultimately, if I reach the final boss and kill him by barely lifting a finger, I feel robbed of any sense of accomplishment. I would rather have a steady difficulty curve than feel like a walking god.

Isn't the point (one point atleast) of doing all the quests to become godlike? If you can't become godlike after doing all the quests, then you never can. You make a choice to do all the side stuff (or grind in a JRPG), you don't get to complain about being over leveled.

Or because you just like doing the quests or are compeltionnist? This is the problem, not every player wants the same thing. I lean towards being a completionist but I hate being over-leveled. This is problem in a lot of RPGs because I don't want to end up face rolling though everything but I would have to skip a whole bunch of content I paid for or find away to intentionally gimp myself to avoid that.

You can't be a completionist and not be/complain about being over leveled just like you can't read a walk through and then complain about spoilers.

If someone was complaining about being under leveled because they avoid as many battles and quests as they can, would you tell them not to avoid those things if they don't want to be under leveled?

Have you forgotten what this thread is about or something? Soft level scaling helps fix this problem. That's why it's there.

Edit: and you comparison doesn't even make any sense, the point of walk-through is to give you step by step guide which necessitates spoiling things. The point of of side quest and exploration is not to over level you.

If the side quests in the game you are playing give XP awards then side questing does = possible over leveling, especially if you insist on doing them all.

Just as one who looks at a walkthrough should expect spoiler, one who skips no side quests should expect over leveling.

No, I haven't forgotten what this thread is about, you want level scaling to fix the negative consequences of your completionist behavior, fuck other players who actually want to become godlike and therefore pursue the side quests.

 

[DementedSheep]

I like level scaling because without it the game can become too easy. I'm a completionist, which means I'll put off a main quest so I can do the side stuff than return to the main quest having overleveled it and the game is now boring. Skyrim is a good example, as the dragons quickly drop off in difficulty as you level up, which means my scrawny Breton battle-mage can go toe-to-toe with a monster of legend and kill it with a few chops to the face. Yes, I'm the chosen one with the blood of a dragon, but it still doesn't feel right that I should be able to kill it so effortlessly. Dragon Age: Inquisition was even worse for me as I found myself constantly checking my level and the suggested level of the next main quest lest I overleveled and found myself bored (thank Andraste for the option to turn on level scaling).

If you want to try and keep the difficulty, stop and think about what would be a reasonable level for the player to be at when they find the place compared to the rewards for completing the task.

How do you determine that beyond building a strictly linear game? What's "reasonable" for one will be unreasonable for another. Let's say there are three types of gamers: gamers that follow the game at a steady but measured pace, gamers who look for anyway to speed through it, and gamers who like to see everything before moving on. Which of these approaches is the "right" approach? Choose wisely, because you've damned the other two to boredom, either from easily mowing down enemies who vastly underlevel them or being forced to grind before they're able to clear the next mission.

Granted, not everything should be leveled with you. Critters and bandits and the like should be weaker as you grow stronger. Further, I feel like weaker enemies should never be thrown out entirely, because it does give you a sense of growth if enemies who terrorized you earlier are cannon fodder for you now, but they should be accompanied by stronger foes. Ultimately, if I reach the final boss and kill him by barely lifting a finger, I feel robbed of any sense of accomplishment. I would rather have a steady difficulty curve than feel like a walking god.

Isn't the point (one point atleast) of doing all the quests to become godlike? If you can't become godlike after doing all the quests, then you never can. You make a choice to do all the side stuff (or grind in a JRPG), you don't get to complain about being over leveled.

Or because you just like doing the quests or are compeltionnist? This is the problem, not every player wants the same thing. I lean towards being a completionist but I hate being over-leveled. This is problem in a lot of RPGs because I don't want to end up face rolling though everything but I would have to skip a whole bunch of content I paid for or find away to intentionally gimp myself to avoid that.

You can't be a completionist and not be/complain about being over leveled just like you can't read a walk through and then complain about spoilers.

If someone was complaining about being under leveled because they avoid as many battles and quests as they can, would you tell them not to avoid those things if they don't want to be under leveled?

Have you forgotten what this thread is about or something? Soft level scaling helps fix this problem. That's why it's there.

Edit: and you comparison doesn't even make any sense, the point of walk-through is to give you step by step guide which necessitates spoiling things. The point of of side quest and exploration is not to over level you.

If the side quests in the game you are playing give XP awards then side questing does = possible over leveling, especially if you insist on doing them all.

Just as one who looks at a walkthrough should expect spoiler, one who skips no side quests should expect over leveling.

No, I haven't forgotten what this thread is about, you want level scaling to fix the negative consequences of your completionist behavior, fuck other players who actually want to become godlike and therefore pursue the side quests.

And you're saying fuck other players who don't want to faceroll everything by trying force them into skipping content they paid for and want to do. Funny how that fucking works, right? There always going to be someone not getting what they want. It's not like I even said this should be how all game operate, its just a reason to have it (ie: what this thread is discussing).

 

[Neonsilver]

Leveling allows gives a sense of progress to the player. You unlock new abilities for your characters and make them stronger. As a result areas where you started the game would become incredibly boring and if you can't avoid fights with the weak enemies it's very annoying as well.
In a game with linear progression that isn't much of a problem as it's unlikely that you will return to an earlier area. In a an open world game that encourages exploration you would want any area to be interesting, no matter when the player explores said area (Skyrim for example). Another reason could be that, while a game has a linear progression, the story brings you back to earlier areas (Final Fantasy 8 for example).
While in those cases a level scaling system prevents any area from becoming uninteresting because the enemies don't pose a challenge, the developers can at the same "lock up" areas by making the minimum level of the enemies in that area higher.

 

[WeepingAngels]

I like level scaling because without it the game can become too easy. I'm a completionist, which means I'll put off a main quest so I can do the side stuff than return to the main quest having overleveled it and the game is now boring. Skyrim is a good example, as the dragons quickly drop off in difficulty as you level up, which means my scrawny Breton battle-mage can go toe-to-toe with a monster of legend and kill it with a few chops to the face. Yes, I'm the chosen one with the blood of a dragon, but it still doesn't feel right that I should be able to kill it so effortlessly. Dragon Age: Inquisition was even worse for me as I found myself constantly checking my level and the suggested level of the next main quest lest I overleveled and found myself bored (thank Andraste for the option to turn on level scaling).

If you want to try and keep the difficulty, stop and think about what would be a reasonable level for the player to be at when they find the place compared to the rewards for completing the task.

How do you determine that beyond building a strictly linear game? What's "reasonable" for one will be unreasonable for another. Let's say there are three types of gamers: gamers that follow the game at a steady but measured pace, gamers who look for anyway to speed through it, and gamers who like to see everything before moving on. Which of these approaches is the "right" approach? Choose wisely, because you've damned the other two to boredom, either from easily mowing down enemies who vastly underlevel them or being forced to grind before they're able to clear the next mission.

Granted, not everything should be leveled with you. Critters and bandits and the like should be weaker as you grow stronger. Further, I feel like weaker enemies should never be thrown out entirely, because it does give you a sense of growth if enemies who terrorized you earlier are cannon fodder for you now, but they should be accompanied by stronger foes. Ultimately, if I reach the final boss and kill him by barely lifting a finger, I feel robbed of any sense of accomplishment. I would rather have a steady difficulty curve than feel like a walking god.

Isn't the point (one point atleast) of doing all the quests to become godlike? If you can't become godlike after doing all the quests, then you never can. You make a choice to do all the side stuff (or grind in a JRPG), you don't get to complain about being over leveled.

Or because you just like doing the quests or are compeltionnist? This is the problem, not every player wants the same thing. I lean towards being a completionist but I hate being over-leveled. This is problem in a lot of RPGs because I don't want to end up face rolling though everything but I would have to skip a whole bunch of content I paid for or find away to intentionally gimp myself to avoid that.

You can't be a completionist and not be/complain about being over leveled just like you can't read a walk through and then complain about spoilers.

If someone was complaining about being under leveled because they avoid as many battles and quests as they can, would you tell them not to avoid those things if they don't want to be under leveled?

Have you forgotten what this thread is about or something? Soft level scaling helps fix this problem. That's why it's there.

Edit: and you comparison doesn't even make any sense, the point of walk-through is to give you step by step guide which necessitates spoiling things. The point of of side quest and exploration is not to over level you.

If the side quests in the game you are playing give XP awards then side questing does = possible over leveling, especially if you insist on doing them all.

Just as one who looks at a walkthrough should expect spoiler, one who skips no side quests should expect over leveling.

No, I haven't forgotten what this thread is about, you want level scaling to fix the negative consequences of your completionist behavior, fuck other players who actually want to become godlike and therefore pursue the side quests.

And you're saying fuck other players who don't want to faceroll everything by trying force them into skipping content they paid for and want to do. Funny how that fucking works, right? There always going to be someone not getting what they want. It's not like I even said this should be how all game operate, its just a reason to have it (ie: what this thread is discussing).

The difference is that you want to rob players who want to become godlike of a way to make that happen. You can currently choose not to be a completionist if you don't want to be over leveled.

Perhaps a no XP toggle would be great for everyone but level scaling is not even on my radar as acceptable.

 

[Guffe]

I'm not sure if I understand the question/discussion exactly but I'll give an answer nontheless.

As someone already said, games are one of the best mediums for "instant gratisfaction". You level up, a golden spiral surrounds your character and you hear a high pitched "ding". You know now your base stats are higher and can take on new challenges, which keeps pushing us forward because the gold spiral and ding-sound, is something nice in our minds.
It's as if you'd be reading a book, but cna only turn a page when every word on the two previous pages have been read, and every 5 pageturns there's a small reward.

The second thing for levels in many games would be the "different route/ability" choices. Like in WoW you have the 3 different skill trees. In Xenoblade you have skills and arts and classes which you level up and choose after every level. And levels for your character is an easy way to give x amount of points to a character, which then can be distributed accross your characters skills, so that you become different to everyone else, since you can't accquire everything possible.

I wonder if this answers, or partly gives an argument for levels....

For me personally, if a game is done well I don't really care if there are levels or not. As long as the game is done well, both levels or without work.

 

[WeepingAngels]

Leveling allows gives a sense of progress to the player. You unlock new abilities for your characters and make them stronger. As a result areas where you started the game would become incredibly boring and if you can't avoid fights with the weak enemies it's very annoying as well.
In a game with linear progression that isn't much of a problem as it's unlikely that you will return to an earlier area. In a an open world game that encourages exploration you would want any area to be interesting, no matter when the player explores said area (Skyrim for example). Another reason could be that, while a game has a linear progression, the story brings you back to earlier areas (Final Fantasy 8 for example).
While in those cases a level scaling system prevents any area from becoming uninteresting because the enemies don't pose a challenge, the developers can at the same "lock up" areas by making the minimum level of the enemies in that area higher.

They can always make low level enemies run away from you, that way you don't need to worry about fighting a level 1 rabbit if you don't want to.

 

[CaptainMarvelous]

I'm a little baffled that some very vocal people have no goddamn idea how Level Scaling works.

Anyone here, hands up, playing Skyrim in full Daedric Armour with maxed out stats in every area, how hard do you find fighting a Wolf?
Fallout New Vegas, that Deathclaw at the start, is it STILL impossible?

The goal isn't that every enemy is as tough as you just that there is still an element of challenge. Even with Zone Based level scaling , the enemies get harder as you progress to give you a bit more of a challenge and keep pace with the levels you gained in the last area.

The whole reason it's called 'Scaling' is to keep the balance ffs.

Any game where your enemies change and stop being the same ones in the same quantity you fought in level 1 has level Scaling. Hell, even ZELDA, when you get the Master Sword you can deal 2 blocks of damage not 1 so you encounter more enemies in the new areas who need more hits to kill. If you sink the effort into upgrading and getting the Golden Sword/Biggoron's sword you can do more and get passed the scaling but it doesn't change the fact the difficulty adjusted to the level you were on.

Conceptually, Level Scaling is basically just a difficulty curve adjusting to you the player and your character improving.

What the OP appears to be talking about is redundant levelling systems that appear as 'RPG elements' in games that don't feel like they make an impact. I'm not sure which ones they're referring to since those games are by and large buying abilities and combos, I'm not familiar enough with DMC to remember how it worked but I'm pretty sure Stinger Level 3 did more damage than Stinger Level 2 regardless of opponent so...

 

[Bat Vader]

Guildwars 2 had both good and bad level-scaling. Level-scaling so higher level players are level-scaled back in lower levels zones is a good idea. It makes it so they can't one shot everything. However, level-scaling people in story based instances is stupid. If I am 5-10 levels ahead of a story instance I shouldn't be scaled back to that instance level. My level isn't effecting anyone but me in that instance. I over level so I don't have to have a hard time in instances like in Star Wars: The Old Republic.