-Sigh- Dead Island...

[Rednog]

Yea the scaling is really pissing me off, I'm level 22 and still in the first area and I chose the throwing expert (which is hilariously under-powered and such an ill conceived class)

Really? I'm playing with a friend, who's also the throwing expert, and he often out-damages me, the blunt weapon expert. At level 15 or 16, I'll crit for 6 or 7 hundred, but I see his criticals reaching 9 hundred. Then again, he was pointing his XP into combat first, so that could explain it.

Throwing expert has blunt and sharp skills in the combat tree, which give a special bonus attack if you target and hit the head on a zombie, pair that with criticals and they do silly high damage. But even then the throwing part is underwhelming because it is no more effective than a basic attack, and even then unless you went survival tree throwing the weapon will disarm you. Even then you have a chance to break limbs with in melee, I've riddled some zombies with like 5 knives to the skull and a bash to the head with a nail bat is more effective.
Also the throwing expert is a bit glitchy right now, people are complaining of the colored weapons disappearing, I just had my fully upgraded orange 23 Devastating Mace just go poof on my when I threw it at a zombie, it said it boomeranged but I was barehanded and it wasn't on the ground.
Also while he may get an occasional big crit, throwing experts have the lowest stamina out of all the classes, so we only get like 3 or so swings before we're pooped out.

 

[Hamish Durie]

Curious though, if you fight the thugs and bigger zombies, do shots to the head with guns do massive damage? Cause I honestly can't fight the thugs at all as the throwing guy. I can run in take a shot with my weapon and jump out, but then my stamina is depleted, and half the time trying the hit and run tactics I just get backhanded away, and by the time I recover the damn thug is right on top of me and sends me flying again before I can move.

No idea. I wasted the one bullet I had.

The best way to take down Thugs that I've found is use the Debilitating Wrench (Gotten from restoring power to the Lighthouse) and break their arms/head, then just beat them to death while circle strifing.

meat cleaver keep moving around and take swings at his arms
or just methodically throw every weapon you have at them till they fall down

 

[Shadowkire]

Anyway, for discussion value: How do you feel about level scaling? Any ideas on a better system of allowing enemies to challenge the player? It gets bothersome when you're decked out in glowing legendary armor, but looters in cloth rags and wielding rusty, chipped daggers have more health than you do...

The mechanics of Dead Island are flawed, I will give you that much. What really eats at me is the problem any game that isn't partially focused on vehicle use has: I can accelerate backwards to maximum speed in 3 seconds but moving forward feels like I am dragging a trailer.

The level scaling is a problem aswell. As your level gets higher the hp of the zombies scales faster than the damage from punches and kicks, the latter being my primary method for knocking down enemies for the coup de grace. This wouldn't be much of a problem except the kicks do less and less damage to a zombies stamina as well, meaning when a zombie doesn't go down easy I have to boot him in the chest a half dozen or more times to put him on the ground.

And here is the silly thing about the weapon system: when a weapon breaks(o durability), it does terrible damage, so bad you are better off chucking it and using your fists. The silly thing is this applies to brass knuckles.

OT: You don't need scaling, at least not traditional scaling. Instead of the Dead Island approach, the base stats(total health, stamina, damage output) should remain static. When a character levels the player puts points into the character's possible skills, some of which could change the base stats. Meanwhile the zombie's stats stay the same and as the character moves farther and farther into the dangerous areas of the island the spawns in those areas become more numerous. This allows the player to feel like s/he is getting more powerful while still providing a challenge.

[edit]
One thing they could change to improve the effectiveness of the trowing and firearms experts: make headshots as effective on the dead as they are on the living. A headshot on a living enemy does about x4 damage(+300%), on the dead it does maybe +50%. Also drop the health scaling of the undead, about 1000-1200 damage drops the living at level 28 and it takes 1800+ to take down the undead.

[edit]
Oh and another thing that I hate about the level scaling in this game: heavy pipes/broomsticks/paddles/etc. don't have levels therefore never get any better. This creates situations where against any enemy, living or dead, you can take a heavy metal pipe and beat an enemy in the head with it until the pipe breaks and the enemy still has the majority of it's health left. Metal pipe section + head + Dead Island = migraine(for the head and player).

 

[shadow_Fox81]

this convinced me i'll like the game

 

[Xyphon]

Anyway, for discussion value: How do you feel about level scaling? Any ideas on a better system of allowing enemies to challenge the player? It gets bothersome when you're decked out in glowing legendary armor, but looters in cloth rags and wielding rusty, chipped daggers have more health than you do...

[edit]
Also drop the health scaling of the undead, about 1000-1200 damage drops the living at level 28 and it takes 1800+ to take down the undead.

Well, think about it this way. The zombies obviously feel moderate to low pain as they react to being burned, beaten, electrocuted and so on. Yet they can run around trying to nibble on your delicious meat while on fire, missing most of their skin and with both arms cut off.

They're more resilient than non-infected humans,thus it actually makes sense to have more health.

OT: I don't have that much of a problem with the level scaling. What I DO have a problem with is how much the game LOVES to fuck you over.

When I'm in the middle of doing an EASY ranked quest, the game decides it would be HILARIOUS to make me fight THREE Ram zombies at once 10 meters away from my objective. I could just see the troll faces on those damn Rams as they juggled me into oblivion.

 

[Smooth Operator]

I'm not fond of Dead Island myself so I'll just comment on level scaling.
I hate the cheap version of just bumping up stats, that takes away a huge chunk of the feel for progression... so after all those upgrades and skills gained you still have problems defeating a pedestrian, that sort of thing just makes me angry.

I prefer it if they swap enemies, add bigger and tougher looking monsters, switch up the grouping, switch their tactics,...

But what I addore is a consistent prebuilt world, where certain enemies will be put in certain critical areas and until you are powerful enough to tackle them you need to run the fuck away.
That way it always feels like you are figuring shit out and not just defeating a running equation.

 

[B4DD]

Technically, I think that the level scaling lends the the survival horror elements of the game, albeit cheaply. For instance, If you go back to the Resort part of the island after completing the city, you'll still be fighting the same types and level of zombies, just at different amounts and in a different setting. While this is an incredibly lazy mechanic (typing it out made me realize it even more so), it never allows you to feel comfortable on this island. Despite being able to take a nice stroll on the beach I am still plagued by waves of the damned infected class zombie (I hate them sooo much). While pretty frustrating I think it lends to the game's theme in this situation.

And that is how you ramble like a mother fucker.

 

[B4DD]

I would say that it's a great game. It's incredibly satisfying preforming a decapitation on a zombie with the first swing of your cleaver. What this game has going for it is the sheer fun of it all. Aside from a lot of suspense, fighting the zombies in a hand to machete scuffle is quite fun. I didn't get it for the story, the characters, or the setting (though it is quite pretty). I got it for the fun of mutilating once human creatures.

EDIT
I should add that as you progress the game racks up the tension and can tend to be rather stressful. There really isn't that much of a penalty for dieing (You lose a bit of money and you have to wait like 8 seconds.), but the constant sounds of a zombie controlled city, their moans and roars, is grating on the nerves and when one of the fast bastards hits you from an angle you weren't expecting it can give you quite a jump. It's still fun but I've had to take in smaller doses now.

 

[ChildofGallifrey]

Soooooo , what you prefer that enemies always be weaker than you and the game becomes L4D on easy mode?

Personally, level scaling takes away the entire point of leveling for me. If I find an area in an RPG where the enemies are all lvl 38, I want to go off and level up to lvl...say, 42. I have a clear outline as to how powerful I need to be to defeat those certain enemies without much difficulty. What's the point of going out of my way to get stronger if the enemies just get stronger with me? In that case, like Haymaker said immediately below you, just give me a skill point or whatnot every time I level up.

That being said, I see how it would work for this game. It didn't work in, for example, FF8 because part of FF has always been the option to grind yourself silly and burn through everything in your path. But for a game like DI where you're supposed to be (mostly) alone and overwhelmingly outnumbered it wouldn't do to become massively overpowered and be able to destroy anything with one swing of a baseball bat. For the first playthrough anyway; sometimes a person just want to tank through a horde without fear and rain carnage down upon their foes.

 

[Ruwrak]

I have a feeling im the only one alive who liked having the difficulty raised up to full with Oblivion arn't I?

I suppose that with Dead Island it would be nice if the levels scaled a -little- bit along with the level of zombie you just killed. I.e. a lvl 2 zombie drops a lvl 2 stat weapon and a lvl 11 zombie drops a lvl 9 stat weapon. Or something in that direction. That way you still have a weaker weapon, peserving the 'running scared trying to survive' feeling, but still offering a slight chance of better combat survival.

Isn't that what you mean Kopikatsu?

 

[B4DD]

Soooooo , what you prefer that enemies always be weaker than you and the game becomes L4D on easy mode?

Personally, level scaling takes away the entire point of leveling for me. If I find an area in an RPG where the enemies are all lvl 38, I want to go off and level up to lvl...say, 42. I have a clear outline as to how powerful I need to be to defeat those certain enemies without much difficulty.

You make a very good point sir, but as I said, it works to build tension.

 

[ChildofGallifrey]

Soooooo , what you prefer that enemies always be weaker than you and the game becomes L4D on easy mode?

Personally, level scaling takes away the entire point of leveling for me. If I find an area in an RPG where the enemies are all lvl 38, I want to go off and level up to lvl...say, 42. I have a clear outline as to how powerful I need to be to defeat those certain enemies without much difficulty.

You make a very good point sir, but as I said, it works to build tension.

Yeah, I wholeheartedly agree. I read your post right after I finished mine, and you outlined what I was trying to say in my second paragraph much better than I did.

I'm not used to unwillingly waking up at 6 am, so I'm a little less than lucid right now -_-

 

[Silenttalker22]

I think Mass Effect 1 did scaling well. While the only tangible difference in your enemies is their health and shields, you continue to get new and stronger abilities, and quicker use of them. So it still felt like actual increasing advantages without making you the embodiment of Thor.

 

[Inkidu]

I think if you're going to level scale (Where EVERYTHING levels with you), don't really bother including levels at all. Why not just gain a skill point or whatever every time you fill the EXP bar?

I suppose the levels help to reinforce the idea of getting stronger. More a marker of progress than anything else.

I haven't played the game yet, but level scaling is a little annoying. To work, you have to feel genuinely more powerful, without things actually getting easier. I thought oblivion did it pretty well.

Bull pucky, I'm going to give you an example that doesn't use levels and you still feel like you're getting stronger. Deus Ex: Human Revolution. You didn't have levels but by the end of the game you were either a super-cool killing machine or a ghost's shadow.

Levels are archaic, developers don't really need them anymore. I think it just fill people with nostalgia. Either that or mini/maxi gamers can use them as rough earmarks for their math.

 

[B4DD]

Bull pucky, I'm going to give you an example that doesn't use levels and you still feel like you're getting stronger. Deus Ex: Human Revolution. You didn't have levels but by the end of the game you were either a super-cool killing machine or a ghost's shadow.

Levels are archaic, developers don't really need them anymore. I think it just fill people with nostalgia. Either that or mini/maxi gamers can use them as rough earmarks for their math.

Ehh, the praxis was essentially leveling. It's the same system, just by a different name...er...lack of a name.

A few RPG's have attempted to do away with the main theme of leveling, but they still use it in one form or another. Spiral Knights comes to mind, where your character never levels up or gains new abilities. Instead your worth is measured solely by the armor on your back and the weapons in your hand. It kind of works, but you lose the feeling of individuality, the feeling that this is your character. Really, if your gonna make an RPG, leveling of some kind or another needs to be in play, because without it you have no character progression. You could try something else, but really any kind of progression can easily be related back to leveling.

 

[Inkidu]

Is Dead Island any good? Looks like crap to me.

You know, I can't decide that either. I've read at least twenty reviews of varying levels of professionalism. I've asked more people than I remember, and I can't seem to get a common answer out of any of them. So, I've decided it ain't worth sixty bucks.

 

[B4DD]

Is Dead Island any good? Looks like crap to me.

You know, I can't decide that either. I've read at least twenty reviews of varying levels of professionalism. I've asked more people than I remember, and I can't seem to get a common answer out of any of them. So, I've decided it ain't worth sixty bucks.

Play the game dammit, and whatever you do, don't listen to Edge, they are incredibly unprofessional.

 

[Inkidu]

Bull pucky, I'm going to give you an example that doesn't use levels and you still feel like you're getting stronger. Deus Ex: Human Revolution. You didn't have levels but by the end of the game you were either a super-cool killing machine or a ghost's shadow.

Levels are archaic, developers don't really need them anymore. I think it just fill people with nostalgia. Either that or mini/maxi gamers can use them as rough earmarks for their math.

Ehh, the praxis was essentially leveling. It's the same system, just by a different name...er...lack of a name.

Not really, It's more like getting a random ability point every once and a while. There's no number ascribed to it. You can even find an buy them. The idea of needing arbitrary numbers to tell you how strong you are is really outmoded. Unless they lock in the level scaling when you enter an area (Fallout 3, Skyrim) then it's basically telling me the developers are lazy. I can forgive Oblivion because it was doing it first and no one had ever tried to do it before them, but now developers should know better methods.

 

[B4DD]

Bull pucky, I'm going to give you an example that doesn't use levels and you still feel like you're getting stronger. Deus Ex: Human Revolution. You didn't have levels but by the end of the game you were either a super-cool killing machine or a ghost's shadow.

Levels are archaic, developers don't really need them anymore. I think it just fill people with nostalgia. Either that or mini/maxi gamers can use them as rough earmarks for their math.

Ehh, the praxis was essentially leveling. It's the same system, just by a different name...er...lack of a name.

Not really, It's more like getting a random ability point every once and a while. There's no number ascribed to it. You can even find an buy them. The idea of needing arbitrary numbers to tell you how strong you are is really outmoded. Unless they lock in the level scaling when you enter an area (Fallout 3, Skyrim) then it's basically telling me the developers are lazy. I can forgive Oblivion because it was doing it first and no one had ever tried to do it before them, but now developers should know better methods.

That's a technicality though. Not gonna retype that wall of text so here:

A few RPG's have attempted to do away with the main theme of leveling, but they still use it in one form or another. Spiral Knights comes to mind, where your character never levels up or gains new abilities. Instead your worth is measured solely by the armor on your back and the weapons in your hand. It kind of works, but you lose the feeling of individuality, the feeling that this is your character. Really, if your gonna make an RPG, leveling of some kind or another needs to be in play, because without it you have no character progression. You could try something else, but really any kind of progression can easily be related back to leveling.

 

[Inkidu]

Is Dead Island any good? Looks like crap to me.

You know, I can't decide that either. I've read at least twenty reviews of varying levels of professionalism. I've asked more people than I remember, and I can't seem to get a common answer out of any of them. So, I've decided it ain't worth sixty bucks.

Play the game dammit, and whatever you do, don't listen to Edge, they are incredibly unprofessional.

Hey, if you got sixty bucks you want to mail me I'm more than glad to PM you my mailing address. All the rental places near my home have gone out of business and Netflix doesn't do games. I just got it, so I'm not exactly sure. Otherwise, my disposable income is a bit lacking.