Koki on 29/11/2011 at 14:39
Isn't summing up your point in a thread title like shooting yourself in the foot?
I've read more than I ever wanted to about Skyrim's level scaling on official forums recently but they're very much like an imageboard. They move so fast and have so many users that it's counterproductive to write any large amount of text there; it will be swept off the (several) front page(s) in matter of hours. That's where the good old half-dead TTLG shines.
Let's set up some things straight here:
1. Skyrim is an extremely open game. Compared to Skyrim, most "open" RPGs like Fallout 1 and 2 or Arcanum are CoD clones. In both Fallouts, the difficulty clearly scales along the path of the main quest, which is roughly north-south line. In Fallout 2, same thing - game gets progressively harder as you travel clockwise around the worldmap. Arcanum went as far as dividing the world into two with a mountain range that is impassable without metagaming before main quest deems it necessary.
Forthermore, both Fallouts and Arcanum rely heavily on the main quest to tell you where to go. Fallout even has a time limit to not allow player to doddle too much. Fallout 2 pretends it has a time limit. Bottom line is, a clearly defined main quest line gives the devs a clear indication where the player will go and when(at which level) so they can adjust the locations accordingly difficulty-wise.
No brainer how it relates to Skyrim. After you end up with Helgen, which is a tutorial, all you have is a passing comment of your war buddy to visit Riverwood. Sure, it's obvious that this is the main quest line(because it says so in the quest log) and you should go there if you want to finish the game - but there is no real obligation or even motivation to do it. At this point all you know that you got lucky and avoided an execution. Ancient doom is not really looming about, you are not the Chosen One(at least you don't know it yet) - all is right with the world.
And it's not just the case of player being an "asshole" and wandering in the opposite direction the compass tells him to - if you're a mage you're directed to Winterhold Academy; if you take part in a drinking game with a seemingly random guy in a local tavern you end up in Markarth, which is at the other end of the worldmap from Winterhold. It's impossible to predict where the player will go, so it's impossible to scale enemies accordingly.
2. Most of Skyrim is filler. Nothing else remains to be said here, really. 90%, if not more, dungeons in the game are optional. I don't even think you're required to visit half the main cities as part of the main quest. In other words, if you only follow the main quest, you'll never see significant majority of the game. So, again, scaling it along the player's path is impossible.
But there's more to it than that. If most of the game is filler, what makes said filler worth visiting? Well, XP and phat lewt of course. People often said that some areas of the game should be just more dangerous than others and you should not have a snowball's chance in hell to do them on low levels(but the same people still yearn for going there and obtaining super phat lewt super early). Yeah, but level scaling works both ways. It means wherever you go, it will be worth it. If you're level 30 and see a wolf's cave, you can still find something valuable inside. And face enemies that do not disintegrate when you as much as look in their direction.
Let's put it this way. Imagine Skyrim is not level scaled and 1/3 dungeons are low-level, 1/3 are mid-level, and 1/3 are high level. Since you need only to visit several of low-level dungeons to get to mid-level ones(you can't expect the player to run through 30 or so dungeons just to get to mid-levels, as it would turn the game into a singleplayer MMORPG; also you can gain levels without even stepping outside city gates, but more on that later), it would mean that all the remaining low-level dungeons are now worthless. Enemies inside are nothing but a nuisance, and loot is nothing but garbage.
Furthermore, to avoid "zoning" like Fallouts and Arcanum do and because you can't really tell where the player will end up and when, low, mid and high level dungeons should be mixed and spread more or less evenly across the entire game. tl;dr: it's a fucking disaster.
Unfortunately, Bethesda is still ran by this guy:
Inline Image:
http://media.next-gen.biz/files/imagecache/article/todd-howard.jpgSo Bethesda fucked it up generally.
Therefore let's put up some ideas about how you could make level scaling ten times better without putting much effort into it(a month of development time, tops):
1. The non-combat skills. God. Fucking. Dammit. Admittely, Smith/Enchant is actually the strongest combo available in the game, but there are others - like Pickpocket, Speech, Alchemy, Lockpick, Sneak, etc. Just... don't fucking scale by those. For fuck's sake.
2. Bandit, Strong Bandit, Stronger Bandit, Strongest Bandit, Strongestest Bandit. How about limit bandits to I don't know, level 30 and then replace them with complately different enemies instead of just Bandits on Steroids? How fucking hard would that be? Bandits up to level 30, then Draugr, then shit, ghosts or Trolls or werewolves or whatever. And if Beth was actually a GOOD COMPANY they would also make dungeons out of pre-made chunks in several varietes and change them as they change the enemies. So layout would remain the same, but at level 19 you would fight Frost Spiders in a cave, and at level 33 Draugr in Nordic Ruins,
in the same location.
3. End-game stuff: Just because you scale UP to the player doesn't mean you should scale DOWN too. Leave a dozen "end-game" dungeons with "fuck your shit up" variety of enemies. Granted, it creates a risk of the player exploiting the game(mostly AI) and getting super phat lewt early but honestly, that's a little price to pay for having some locations to remind the player that it's not ALL ABOUT YOUR ASS. Similarly, all bosses on the main quest shouldn't scale either. None of the "Killing the last boss at level 1" Oblivion bullshit again.
Briareos H on 29/11/2011 at 16:27
Great post. Generally, my idea is to bring back all the attributes plus map annotation, an enhanced version of Mark/Recall and to completely rework / de-linearise larger dungeons. But that would require Bethesda to be a "GOOD COMPANY".
As you said, the character level used for scaling should only be related to combat skills. No way around this: all other skills serve the purpose to get around combat situations. As a counterpart, dungeons should be designed with multiple paths in mind. Make sneaking a viable option and put enemies of varying levels within the same dungeon: have the part/path of a cave leading to the phattest lewt populated by stronger enemies, allowing to be bypassed only if you use high level non-combat skills: acrobatics, levitation, illusion, speechcraft (talk your way through a bandit blockade, WHY THE HELL NOT), sneaking and lockpicking, also why not add a skill to find secret passages.
That way if you're specialised enough you can still get the loot and that great feeling of circumventing enemies which are way stronger than you, through clever use of skills you raised otherwise. But that won't make you gain a level and become magically stronger. If you can't get through, you can still get as far as you can (usually, get to the intermediary and quest-related loot) and then when you're getting your ass handed back to you, just register the dungeon (annotation + fast travel back without breaking the lore through the use of that little thing called 'mark/recall') and come back later to get the high level loot.
Finally, low importance dungeons/camps should level otherwise normally if they
"limit bandits to I don't know, level 30 and then replace them with complately different enemies instead of just Bandits on Steroids."Quote:
Leave a dozen "end-game" dungeons with "fuck your shit up" variety of enemies.
Yes.
In summary:
- Separate "combat level" leveling and skill levels, more varied skills.
- Filler dungeons or camps, scaling with the current player combat level with a few possible pre-configured difficulty settings (easy, medium, hard).
- Larger dungeons, scaling with the current player combat level with a few possible pre-configured difficulty settings (easy, medium, hard) and a path leading to high-level/unique loot with fixed-level enemies and ways to circumvent through skill use.
- Special dungeons with fixed-level only enemies and ways to circumvent through skill use.
This poses the problem of raising skills, which should probably be a mix of the skill-specific XP and a cap tied to the combat level and other skills.
As for the easy/medium/hard setting for difficulty scaling, find a way to communicate it to the player beforehand through hearsay or geography. A super secret hive lost in the mountains should be more difficult than a bandit camp in the open.
Koki on 29/11/2011 at 17:17
Quote Posted by Briareos H
This poses the problem of raising skills, which should probably be a mix of the skill-specific XP and a cap tied to the combat level and other skills.
Just introduce additional, separate leveling system that is hidden from the players and which works only off of combat skills. And use the hidden level to determine mob/loot level.
Avalon on 29/11/2011 at 17:23
Yep, the game should scale off of your skill levels, not just your overall level. I'd say it would be a million times better even if they just balanced it off your single highest offense skill (one handed, two handed, destruction, archery, etc).
Furthermore, it should be a dynamic sliding scale, rather than just replacing lower level creature with higher level creature. Gradually nudge up the stat values of a creature without necessitating a huge leap from "dragon" to "elder dragon" to "ancient dragon," to name an example. This could then scale with the ridiculousness of the alchemy/enchanting/smithing shenanigans, so that I'm not killing the strongest, highest leveled creature in the game with a single power attack.
Sulphur on 29/11/2011 at 17:35
I don't see anything inherently wrong with zoning.
Yes, it's a free-roaming open-world RPG, but populating portions of the environment with enemies at different levels to funnel you along certain paths until you're ready to breach the borders is a good way to show that the world operates on a level separate from you, and that it's dangerous out there; come back when you're ready.
In a way, zones make for your easy/medium/hard dungeons simply by virtue of their enforcing a semi-linear progression, and they eliminate the worthless loot issue.
The levelling system needs to be based on combat-related skills, yeah. If they want to keep their unique mechanics and not plump for the ubiquitous XP harvesting system that every RPG goes for, it works well enough with zoning as long as skill counts go up with enemy deaths, and not just running at the enemy and swinging at/casting at/backstabbing them and then running away, ad infinitum.
wonderfield on 29/11/2011 at 17:36
Quote Posted by Koki
1. The non-combat skills. God. Fucking. Dammit. Admittely, Smith/Enchant is actually the strongest combo available in the game, but there are others - like Pickpocket, Speech, Alchemy, Lockpick, Sneak, etc. Just... don't fucking scale by those. For fuck's sake.
All of those skills factor, however. A high sneak skill makes it
significantly easier to avoid dangerous combat encounters and allows you to take down enemies that you couldn't possibly handle in a straight-up fight. A high speech skill gets you lower prices for the tools you'll need to get an edge over adversaries. Alchemy gives you powerful options to craft your own potions and poisons to give you a leg up in combat scenarios. Lockpick gets you into high-level chests and rooms with high-level equipment which'll give you an edge against your adversaries. Pickpocket, again, lets you get gold and equipment that...well, you know the rest.
All of the skills are relevant to combat, even if not
directly relevant. A player with alchemy and sneak skills at 100 is, potentially, an impressive force to be reckoned in combat, even with fairly low combat skills. If the player simply jacks up the skills that aren't directly relevant to combat and is constantly dealing with level 1, unscaled foes, the game's going to end up being a cakewalk. It opens the door to 'powergaming', an issue Morrowind was heavily criticized for.
Quote Posted by Koki
2. Bandit, Strong Bandit, Stronger Bandit, Strongest Bandit, Strongestest Bandit. How about limit bandits to I don't know, level 30 and then replace them with complately different enemies instead of just Bandits on Steroids?
You'd get pretty sick of killing Draugrs, trolls and werewolfs after a while, just as you get tired of killing Ultimegamatron Bandits. I don't think that's a valid approach.
Quote Posted by Koki
Similarly, all bosses on the main quest shouldn't scale either. None of the "Killing the last boss at level 1" Oblivion bullshit again.
How exactly would that fly with your typical casual console gamer? Not well, I'd imagine.
Phatose on 29/11/2011 at 18:04
I'd personally like to see many of the non-combat skills removed from the skill system entirely, and replaced by stand alone systems. A mixture of quest, component gathering and maybe a mingame with some randomization to keep things interesting.
Blacksmith & Enchantment are the worst offenders here. Certainly it's a crazy powerful combination at high levels - but if you're not actively grinding them, you'll never see those higher levels. And since blacksmith is so simple to grind, it makes little sense not to do so for the power it grants.
But that's not really much fun, nor is it adding much to the actual game. You could do a hell of a lot if you make it quest based - but that's obviously the equivalent of an entire guild quest series, and thus a lot of work.
smallfry on 29/11/2011 at 20:40
Level scaling is my biggest beef with skyrim. Here are my thoughts ramblings:
1. The difference in strength between a level 1 character and a high level character is too much. This means that the difference in difficulty between a fight with some rats and a fight with a troll is enormous. Part of what they'd like to achieve through level scaling (I think) is that every fight is not too strong, but still a fun challenge, which is about what it should be in my opinion. I think it would help a lot if the power difference between low level characters and high level characters (as well as low level items and high level items) is lessened.
2. The "difficulty" is only related to the difficulty of a "battle" instead of the "area." Basically, for every battle, you either get creamed and have no chance of killing the enemy, you use some potions and have a good, challenging fight, or cream the enemy and end up healing your wounds with auto heal. Then, you repeat for every battle in the cave. Remember games way back? Think about Baldur's Gate, for example, where when you enter a new area you'd have some fights and come out alive, but you would've used some precious spells, potions, or abilities that you won't have access to for the rest of the area until you leave and rest. The difficulty of the game is not JUST related to each individual battle, but instead ALL of the battles combined over time. I like what Drakensang does for this and think something like it would work for Skyrim: you receive "wounds" that are harder to heal and reduce your combat effectiveness. If you receive more than 3 wounds, you die. I would love to see something like this in Skyrim.
Sulphur on 29/11/2011 at 21:31
Aw fuck, Drakensang. Yet another game in the pile of games I bought on impulse and should be adding to my To Play list. (As in, on Impulse, the platform, and on impulse, in a sale.)
Briareos H on 29/11/2011 at 21:42
Quote Posted by Sulphur
I don't see anything inherently wrong with zoning.
It's very difficult to zone an open-ended RPG properly if you don't want to end up with the one-hit killer bees of Gothic and hurting suspension of disbelief too much. Plus, at this point, unbridled open-endedness has become emblematic of the Elder Scrolls games. Most reviews of Skyrim start with a variation on "the elder scrolls games are made for ignoring the main quest and going wherever you feel like", zoning would kill the popular opinion.
