Did Bethesda screw up with level scaling or is it necessary?

[Crevice tab]

Open world games need a little bit of level scaling, developers usually just get it wrong. Baldur's Gate 2 was filled to the brim with content and they used a couple of different methods. XP was scaled depending on level and iirc some encounters were scaled in difficulty depending on level.

Bethesda takes a very stupid approach to game design. They spend a lot of time designing a world, this is where most of their resources go. You have this massive world that can't possibly be filled with hand crafted encounters that are finely tuned for multiple strategies. Their answer is to simply scale every design and hope it works. If they took the time and did something even a bit more sophisticated, like Nehrim's level range areas, it would be a more manageable experience. But good luck with that when the general audience doesn't seem to give a fuck.

Well you don't need to have all or even most encounters finely tuned for multiple strategies. Just use the vastness of the world to your advantage-> so while a warrior can brute force his way through a battle a mage would summon daedra and let them do the heavy lifting, an enchanter would make his weapons and armor good enough to compensate for his lack of skills and a thief can hire bodyguards etc. Also give players enough slack so suboptimal builds don't get punished (not applicable in Skyrim where you start with everything dam near identical but let's assume we're talking about a better age for the Elder Scrolls) and make most encounters/NPCs/quests logical (safe areas/not so safe areas and all the other common sense stuff) and presto: you now have a balanced, fun game without needing level scaling precisely because it's large and open.

What needs to go is the save the world now type of mentality and the 'you can do everything from the very beginning' design: think Morrowind- you have a huge, interesting world which you want the player to explore. Actually playing the game should be treated like an inconvenience you can skip out of.

 

[V_K]

IMO the best solution to open-world design is not level-scaling but limited character growth. It should be about gaining flexibility in how you approach the encounters, not hp and dps bloat. The same applies to enemies - different types should require different tactics to kill, not just have higher numbers.

Welcome to Gothic/Risen. Great games.

Not really. Haven't played Risen, but in Gothics armor upgrades heavily influence you survivability, like gaining 3-4 DnD levels at once. And the fact that access to them (and spells) was strictly tied to plot points made it even worse. Gothics have their strong points but character system definitely isn't one of them.

 

[Perkel]

IMO the best solution to open-world design is not level-scaling but limited character growth. It should be about gaining flexibility in how you approach the encounters, not hp and dps bloat. The same applies to enemies - different types should require different tactics to kill, not just have higher numbers.

Welcome to Gothic/Risen. Great games.

Not really. Haven't played Risen, but in Gothics armor upgrades heavily influence you survivability, like gaining 3-4 DnD levels at once. And the fact that access to them (and spells) was strictly tied to plot points made it even worse. Gothics have their strong points but character system definitely isn't one of them.

yeah difference was that with better armor you took like no damage.

O still remember my shit grin when i got runic armor. Though i don't remember if it was G1 or G2

 

[Crevice tab]

Not really. Haven't played Risen, but in Gothics armor upgrades heavily influence you survivability, like gaining 3-4 DnD levels at once. And the fact that access to them (and spells) was strictly tied to plot points made it even worse. Gothics have their strong points but character system definitely isn't one of them.

In their defense armor does actually dramatically increase survivability IRL though perhaps not quite to such a large extent. Games, movies and books usually give the blatantly false impression that armor is just shiny clothing/only good against arrows. Someone without armor is going to be vulnerable to each cut and glancing blow. Someone wearing armor just has to worry about defending his vulnerable spots and not allowing his enemy to get really good hits in.

 

[DragoFireheart]

Level scaling is lazy game design. That's why it's useful.

Hand-crafting encounters takes more work then using a formula to scale the world to you (along with RNG).

 

[Crevice tab]

Level scaling is lazy game design. That's why it's useful.

Hand-crafting encounters takes more work then using a formula to scale the world to you (along with RNG).

Throwing shit around like a demented monkey (see Oblivion) is lazy. It's also so bad that even the hardcore fanboys don't defend it.

A more sensible Skyrim like system is in no way easier to design than flat out abandoning level scaling. In fact placing static NPCs is ever so slightly easier in Skyrim's CS.

 

[DragoFireheart]

A more sensible Skyrim like system

 

[ERYFKRAD]

A combination of skills that increase with practice, and perks to improve them, isn't a bad idea in and of itself.

 

[Xeon]

Skyrim's system is still kinda broken, even if you don't level any combat ability, you'll still level up pretty fast and end facing high level enemies that can one shot you. This is vanilla, I think mods kinda fixed some of the issues.

 

[Crevice tab]

A more sensible Skyrim like system

Compared to Oblivion.

Everything's looks good if you compare it with shit.

My point is that unless you try to sink to the very bottom (Oblivion) you'll consume at least as much time with overly complicated whatnots as you would if you would have done away with leveling entirely and you'll have worse results to boot. (See Skyrim)

 

[DragoFireheart]

Compared to Oblivion.

Everything's looks good if you compare it with shit.

My point is that unless you try to sink to the very bottom (Oblivion) you'll consume at least as much time with overly complicated whatnots as you would if you would have done away with leveling entirely and you'll have worse results to boot. (See Skyrim)

A combination of skills that increase with practice, and perks to improve them, isn't a bad idea in and of itself.

Within the context of Bethesda my point still stands.

While conceptually Skyrim could have been good, it isn't. Execution counts as well, and systems that look good on paper don't always translate to being done well. Over 90% of the skills in Skyrim were just bonus damage or some shit. The system itself doesn't encourage the devs to deviate from such fluff perks because it's too easy to add them.

 

[Crevice tab]

Within the context of Bethesda my point still stands.

While conceptually Skyrim could have been good, it isn't. Execution counts as well, and systems that look good on paper don't always translate to being done well. Over 90% of the skills in Skyrim were just bonus damage or some shit. The system itself doesn't encourage the devs to deviate from such fluff perks because it's too easy to add them.

The skill system is a different kettle of fish. Skyrim's is poorly executed even by Bethesda's standards.

The point is that leveling (and indeed many other features) aren't mutilated due to laziness or practical constraints: they're mutilated because the devs 'know' that that's what the public desires or some other sort of inane excuse. So the gaming industry is stuck at reinventing the wheel and marveling when it turns out that round is proven better than square for the hundredth time. The whole leveling business has become a tradition or a trope rather than something practical.

 

[DraQ]

Excess fluff removed exposing the actual problem.

You don't fix shit design by piling more shit design on top of it. That's lunacy.
You fix shit design by finding actual shit design and removing it or replacing it with good design.

If the actual problem is that high level character can roflstomp arbitrary number of low level ones, then fix the actual problem, throwing obviously bad "fixes" at the problem won't make it go away, it will at best merely move it around, at worst also spawn many additional problems.

Good point. But still, if op asks
Did Bethesda screwed up with level scaling?
then my Answer would be "no"

where it should have been "yes".
By default.

"it was a necessity to redeem the horrible combat system/character progression".

Does not follow.

People often ask the wrong questions when approaching issues like these. Before asking "What should happen when I level up?", you should first ask yourself "Should I even be leveling up?"

No the question to be asked is- How does the character get better/develop?
Levelling up by itself is not wrong.

It's also not right by itself.
It's a mechanics that's supposed to serve purpose.
If you ask yourself the following questions:

• Does my scale/scope/projected narrative need an explicit mechanics for characters (in particular the protagonist) getting better at what they do? (Is it a from-zero-to-hero story?)
• Can I reasonably fit this character growth into the game's scope? (Will I manage to avoid situation where a farmhand becomes a demigod in a totally unreasonable, even for a "chosen one", timeframe?)
• Are my design skills good enough to avoid cornucopia of problems potentially created by level ups including but not limited to HP/DPS bloat, grind making all challenge optional, loot and threat inflation, inability to create credible threats to push player in the direction I want to? (Can I avoid turning my game into Dragon Ball fucking Z?)

and answer "yes" to every one of them, then yes, having level ups might actually not be a suicidally retarded idea for you.

Plus question is about what happens when the world levels up with you.

Ideally you realize the massive design blunder you made and rectify it preventing anyone who isn't on your design team from experiencing that.
Usually, since in most cases you aren't a dev and the game isn't a WIP project that can be salvaged, you either ragequit, mod the game to fix it or whine for someone to mod it for you.

 

[DraQ]

I mostly agree with you, but your second point (being able to withstand something that should turn you into a smear on the landscape) is contestable, in a way. Not that I approve of being able to take 10 hits from a dragon without being reduced to a bloody pulp, but there should be ways to deal even with the hardest shit the game throws at you - just that dealing with it shouldn't be straightforward or easy.

Two points:

• Being able to fight something with right tactics and extensive preparation doesn't imply being able to fight it in a "normal" way. Whether you're a lvl0 peasant in soiled rags, or lvl >9000 master of all trades with the best gear that actually exists in the setting, if you just stand there yelling "come at me bro!" at a dragon (or even a giant), you should die. In a single messy hit.
  
• Unless something is specifically meant to be fought over the course of the game, there is no need to ensure ways it can be beaten. If something is meant to be to be personification of pant-shitting terror, then ensuring it can be beaten is even counterproductive - it's far better to actively try to plug any exploitable holes player may cheese (working within mechanics, without cheap scripted invincibility) - if player finds a way around your countermeasures, all the more power to them, but if it turns out to be a non-option is also not a big loss - it just means that you've successfully shown the player their place in your game's foodchain. There is nothing wrong in threats player can't defeat unless it's cheap (lololol invincibility script!!!1) or gamebreaking (when it's something player *is* meant to fight).
  And I'd argue that dragons are, in many situations, such a threat, since they combine intelligence and often arcane power with sheer physical prowess and centuries, if not milenia, of experience. It should be like fighting nastiest, and most cunning adventuring party that somehow got their hands on a modern attack helicopter and learned to use it really fucking well. And if dragons are not enough, there is always some room for a full lovecraftian entity or two. On the more mundane side you can just throw an army at player. Having something to make the player go "shit! ruuun!" regardless of their level, gear and 1337 skills is good and allows you to put pressure on player which in turns allows for meaningful narrative.

 

[Sceptic]

If DraQ's name were ever to end up under "world design" in a game's credits I'd buy it in a fucking heartbeat

 

[Tigranes]

In G2 you can take a cut to the left as soon as you start the game, the cave under the lake, find an NPC, and also some harder enemies - and the overgrowth is designed so you get utteryl utterly lost before finding some way back to the road. In Risen, you can explore literally half the map before reaching Harbour Town or Bandit Camp, e.g. the cave with the ghoul on the way to Harbour Town, or all you have to do at Harbour Town gate is to turn around and go up the road to start encountering mid-game enemies.

I don't even know what game is 'full open world' and good. 'Semi' open world always seemed the way to go.

 

[Luzur]

I mostly agree with you, but your second point (being able to withstand something that should turn you into a smear on the landscape) is contestable, in a way. Not that I approve of being able to take 10 hits from a dragon without being reduced to a bloody pulp, but there should be ways to deal even with the hardest shit the game throws at you - just that dealing with it shouldn't be straightforward or easy.

Two points:

• Being able to fight something with right tactics and extensive preparation doesn't imply being able to fight it in a "normal" way. Whether you're a lvl0 peasant in soiled rags, or lvl >9000 master of all trades with the best gear that actually exists in the setting, if you just stand there yelling "come at me bro!" at a dragon (or even a giant), you should die. In a single messy hit.
  
• Unless something is specifically meant to be fought over the course of the game, there is no need to ensure ways it can be beaten. If something is meant to be to be personification of pant-shitting terror, then ensuring it can be beaten is even counterproductive - it's far better to actively try to plug any exploitable holes player may cheese (working within mechanics, without cheap scripted invincibility) - if player finds a way around your countermeasures, all the more power to them, but if it turns out to be a non-option is also not a big loss - it just means that you've successfully shown the player their place in your game's foodchain. There is nothing wrong in threats player can't defeat unless it's cheap (lololol invincibility script!!!1) or gamebreaking (when it's something player *is* meant to fight).
  And I'd argue that dragons are, in many situations, such a threat, since they combine intelligence and often arcane power with sheer physical prowess and centuries, if not milenia, of experience. It should be like fighting nastiest, and most cunning adventuring party that somehow got their hands on a modern attack helicopter and learned to use it really fucking well. And if dragons are not enough, there is always some room for a full lovecraftian entity or two. On the more mundane side you can just throw an army at player. Having something to make the player go "shit! ruuun!" regardless of their level, gear and 1337 skills is good and allows you to put pressure on player which in turns allows for meaningful narrative.

I would welcome something like this, yes.

I mostly use crossbow or bows along with cover against Dragons in Skyrim, since i feel running up to those big jaws with a hammer would be suicide, even though i know its perfectly functionable in Skyrim, it just doesnt feel right.

 

[Azarkon]

Level scaling is lazy game design. That's why it's useful.

Hand-crafting encounters takes more work then using a formula to scale the world to you (along with RNG).

Level-scaling and hand-crafting are not mutually exclusive. In fact, the two frequently go together, see DAI, where all the plot-critical encounters are hand-crafted - and level-scaled.

Equivalently, randomly generated does not imply level-scaled. See Diablo I & II and Angband.

The primary motivation behind level-scaling is not too lazy to hand-craft, but rather the desire to give players the option of going at their own pace.

Level-scaling became all the rage in the game development community due to repeated complaints about players out-leveling/under-leveling content. A lot of developers became distraught over balancing player freedom with prescribed paths and content skipping, and level-scaling looked, on the surface, to be a panacea that made the problem go away.

Worried about players finding the end boss battle too easy because they out-leveled it? No problem, level scale it.
Built an epic cool dungeon that you absolutely want the player to experience, but because it's an open world you don't know when the player's going there? No problem, level scale it.
Not enough content for level 60 characters because the prescribed path only gives enough exp for 55? No problem, level scale it.
etc.

The BG 2 developers back in the day had to worry about not allowing you to get to Spellhold at level 9 because you're just going to get pwned repeatedly with no way out. In the worst case - eg a plot critical event that doesn't allow backtracking - it breaks the game, forcing a hard reload from an old save. In less bad cases, but equally horrible in anal retentive developers' minds, the player goes to Spellhold at max level and goes lolwut and proceeds to ezmode through the rest of the game, feeling no challenge whatsoever.

How do you solve this issue without level-scaling? The answer is gating, ala 15,000 gold = lots of exp-giving quests to go to Spellhold, quest chains that force you to hit Chapter X before doing Z, etc. But gating takes away player freedom - there's no two ways about it, and feel especially hamfisted when implemented in open world environments eg doors you aren't able to open, roadblocks that you aren't able to walk around, dungeons with guards denying you entrance, etc.

 

[DragoFireheart]

The BG 2 developers back in the day had to worry about not allowing you to get to Spellhold at level 9 because you're just going to get pwned repeatedly with no way out. In the worst case - eg a plot critical event that doesn't allow backtracking - it breaks the game, forcing a hard reload from an old save.

Why is this an issue?

 

[JarlFrank]

I mostly agree with you, but your second point (being able to withstand something that should turn you into a smear on the landscape) is contestable, in a way. Not that I approve of being able to take 10 hits from a dragon without being reduced to a bloody pulp, but there should be ways to deal even with the hardest shit the game throws at you - just that dealing with it shouldn't be straightforward or easy.

Two points:

• Being able to fight something with right tactics and extensive preparation doesn't imply being able to fight it in a "normal" way. Whether you're a lvl0 peasant in soiled rags, or lvl >9000 master of all trades with the best gear that actually exists in the setting, if you just stand there yelling "come at me bro!" at a dragon (or even a giant), you should die. In a single messy hit.
  
• Unless something is specifically meant to be fought over the course of the game, there is no need to ensure ways it can be beaten. If something is meant to be to be personification of pant-shitting terror, then ensuring it can be beaten is even counterproductive - it's far better to actively try to plug any exploitable holes player may cheese (working within mechanics, without cheap scripted invincibility) - if player finds a way around your countermeasures, all the more power to them, but if it turns out to be a non-option is also not a big loss - it just means that you've successfully shown the player their place in your game's foodchain. There is nothing wrong in threats player can't defeat unless it's cheap (lololol invincibility script!!!1) or gamebreaking (when it's something player *is* meant to fight).
  And I'd argue that dragons are, in many situations, such a threat, since they combine intelligence and often arcane power with sheer physical prowess and centuries, if not milenia, of experience. It should be like fighting nastiest, and most cunning adventuring party that somehow got their hands on a modern attack helicopter and learned to use it really fucking well. And if dragons are not enough, there is always some room for a full lovecraftian entity or two. On the more mundane side you can just throw an army at player. Having something to make the player go "shit! ruuun!" regardless of their level, gear and 1337 skills is good and allows you to put pressure on player which in turns allows for meaningful narrative.

I'm toeoo adrunk to reply properly but yeah some shit ashoukd sfuck the player up because shit is fucking superior like the aryan race cmpaltred to other humans so yeah dragons shouldfuck player up but there shoukd still be a way to beat them which is super hard and well hidden because that makes it super awesome fun and a great achievement and not trivial "yeah i was supposed to manage that" shit like in dragderp aeg or skyrtirmz but an actual achievement of hey i managed to beat a thing that i wasnt supposed to so it should be fucking hard and almost impossivle but only slmost so if the player is super msamt he can do it adnd that is intelligent game design

oh yeah posting fdrank on codeks lol

 

[Riel]

I think what is screwed in most RPGs isn't the NPC scaling but the PC scaling. In most games when you start you can die almost to anything but later you can survive falls a 10s of meters, fireballs and all sort of nonsense that should be fatal, even if the system does account for that whit special rules a high level character still can take a lot of blows or shots until it goes down this of course forces your foes to be equally strong or the game becomes too easy and boring.

The most elemental fix is to flatten the power curve but that might nerf the "awesomeness" of levelling up so you can also:

Starwars D20 (PnP) has an interesting concept, it divided Hitpoint in two: one was Hitpoints themselves, this figure was equal to constitution so it didn't improve much with character levels if at all and then added Vitality that acted both as buffer for health (generally you couldn't get you HP damaged until this was depleted) and "mana" for powers and the such, but there were kinds of damage that bypassed Vitality altogether one of them any critical hit, this allowed the game master to pit a few high level PCs vs a ton of lowly Assault Troopers and there was always a sizeable risk of being truly hurt, I lost track of how many jedi knights went down to the most regular bad guys in that game, the experience was so good that we actually used it in all our D20 games after that.
While as i mentioned that was PnP roleplaying the idea can easily be adapted to a cRPG.

 

[Lhynn]

Level scaling is never good. There is no excuse, ever.

 

[a cut of domestic sheep prime]

Levelling up by itself is not wrong.

It's also not right by itself.
It's a mechanics that's supposed to serve purpose.
If you ask yourself the following questions:

• Does my scale/scope/projected narrative need an explicit mechanics for characters (in particular the protagonist) getting better at what they do? (Is it a from-zero-to-hero story?)
• Can I reasonably fit this character growth into the game's scope? (Will I manage to avoid situation where a farmhand becomes a demigod in a totally unreasonable, even for a "chosen one", timeframe?)
• Are my design skills good enough to avoid cornucopia of problems potentially created by level ups including but not limited to HP/DPS bloat, grind making all challenge optional, loot and threat inflation, inability to create credible threats to push player in the direction I want to? (Can I avoid turning my game into Dragon Ball fucking Z?)

and answer "yes" to every one of them, then yes, having level ups might actually not be a suicidally retarded idea for you.

Exactly. I think just about every RPG would be better if more developers asked themselves these questions.

Side note: To me, having played a decent amount of Skyrim and seen it's various storylines, I have to conclude that it would probably have been more fun if it weren't an RPG at all. It'd be consistently challenging the whole way through - depending on what kind of enemies the devs pit you against and how many.

The game actually suffers more from its half-baked rpg elements that its story - which is really saying something as the story sucks. I've been tooling around with the idea to gut the RPG system and only have the player upgrade weapons, armor and spells - with a limited amount of monetary resources in the game to do it. And even then, keep HP, mana and stamina at the same level you start at throughout the game. Encourage player archetypes by having the player allocate hp, stamina and magic at the beginning of the game ONLY. This way you are not playing as a bloated, classless soldier of boring like in vanilla.

Basically, the goal would be a system to where when a troll takes a swing at you, it's going to hurt. Even in the late game. And one that will keep enemies at a similar level of challenge throughout the game.

Not that I hate RPG elements in general, mind you. It's just that I believe Skyrim so broken that nothing short of either a complete redesign or gutting the system would fix it.

 

[rezaf]

Being able to fight something with right tactics and extensive preparation doesn't imply being able to fight it in a "normal" way. Whether you're a lvl0 peasant in soiled rags, or lvl >9000 master of all trades with the best gear that actually exists in the setting, if you just stand there yelling "come at me bro!" at a dragon (or even a giant), you should die. In a single messy hit.

I like the way you put this and you DO have a point, but I have to say this would probably disqualify me (and I'd wager many other players) from playing your game. Maybe in a TBS environment where I can ponder what attack to use at which point, but in real-time ...
Even beyond the struggle with the controls, I for one have to admit that I wouldn't know how to fight a real dragon or giant, nor do I possess the neccessary skills to do so. I think a RPS should not exclude me from it's audience for this reason, though.

In an action game, this can be more acceptable, but even there a little abstraction is in order.

• Does my scale/scope/projected narrative need an explicit mechanics for characters (in particular the protagonist) getting better at what they do? (Is it a from-zero-to-hero story?)
• Can I reasonably fit this character growth into the game's scope? (Will I manage to avoid situation where a farmhand becomes a demigod in a totally unreasonable, even for a "chosen one", timeframe?)
• Are my design skills good enough to avoid cornucopia of problems potentially created by level ups including but not limited to HP/DPS bloat, grind making all challenge optional, loot and threat inflation, inability to create credible threats to push player in the direction I want to? (Can I avoid turning my game into Dragon Ball fucking Z?)

These are very good questions and - once again - I like how you approach the issues at hand. I do think, though, that level ups are an almost mandatory portion of any RPG, even though it's usually not realistic at all to go ... say from hardly being able to hold a gun to hitting the white in the eye of an enemy a football yard away within a game's timeframe.
Also, some games have almost the opposite problem (the Witcher comes to mind), where you're supposed to be some kind of seasoned veteran, occasionally even a war hero, and yet you have to climb up a character development slope starting with level one.

Your approach would maybe be better suited for an "action adventure" or something - from what I understand without having played it Dark Souls seems to go a little in this direction?

Then again, you probably would have some justification to tell me my expectations to the RPG genre are wrong, tainted by playing decades worth of games that approach these things in the wrong way and/or are generally badly designed.
Maybe so, but that's just how I roll these days...
_____
rezaf

 

[Xeon]

Yea, a lot of the posts, kinda would like Bethesda to have a Dark Soul approach to combat I think. I haven't played Dark Souls but I did watch a lot of videos and I don't know, it just doesn't suit it IMO for random encounters but man, it would have been awesome for boss battles, the Dragon boss in Dark Soul felt more majestic or something than the Dragons in Skyrim.

I don't know if they can do that kinda fights in an open world environment since bosses in Dark Soul fight in like an arena or something but you kinda shouldn't throw down boss types enemies the way Skyrim did with Dragons, they made it a collectable mini game to unlock abilities.

Spoiler

Last boss in Skyrim was pretty sad, it had his own place and some unique attacks but had zero challenge, that's fucked up if for the entire game you hear how terrifying Dragons or last boss are.

Haven't played Skyrim in 2 years so might be misremembering but I think Giants can one shot you. They are kinda much stronger than Dragons.