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What do you enjoy more - low level RPGs or high level RPGs?

Azalin

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Mar 16, 2011
Messages
7,305
Mid level is probably best but I like a bit of both,like others before me said,it depends on the ruleset and the setting to a lesser extent
 

Lancehead

Liturgist
Joined
Dec 6, 2012
Messages
1,550
I like high levels that retain high lethality of enemies alongside pc's power and options.

It's why I never imported a character from NWN2 and always started MotB from scratch.
Reaching OC's level cap of 20 is pretty easy, though, while MotB from scratch starts you off at 18.
 

DarthBehemoth

Learned
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Oct 4, 2010
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567
Location
Netherlands
Low level. Some games just do a great job at showing you just how vulnerable you are. KOTOR 2 is my favorite game in this regard. I mean, in the beginning (Peragus, The Harbinger) you're forced to rely on your companions, can't yet mow down everyone in combat and run from Darth Sion, the not so pretty undead Sith Lord.
 

DragoFireheart

all caps, rainbow colors, SOMETHING.
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Low level ending with mid/upper level. I like the struggle of being a low level. I also like how I feel powerful at mid levels but not so powerful that everything dies easily: I still enjoy struggling against the most powerful enemies.

High level is ass when a single character can solo the game. :decline:
 

mindx2

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I don't see it as an "either" "or" preferred game style. I like the progression of going from a low level/ weak party at the beginning to a high level/ strong party by the end game. I like the excitement of leveling up and unlocking new and exciting abilities/ spells/ hp/ etc. as I explore the game world. Give me areas where my pathetic party of weaklings has to run in fear only to return many levels later and dish out holy retribution. Just don't ruin that sense of accomplishment with level scaling! The journey from low level to high is what makes me continue to return to cRPGs year after year with the Might & Magic and Wizardry (and yes, even the BG series) games being some of the best in this regard.
 

Night Goat

The Immovable Autism
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I like mid-level gameplay the best. You've got a decent amount of abilities, and you're probably fighting something more interesting than rats and goblins by this point. Yet you still have the excitement of gaining levels from time to time, quest rewards and loot are still sometimes useful to you, and fights can still be challenging.
 

Wyrmlord

Arcane
Joined
Feb 3, 2008
Messages
28,886
My favourite level range in D&D is levels 5 to 10.

I have played some NWN/NWN2 modules in that range. Start at 4-5 and at 7-9.

You get this feeling that you only experienced half the story or adventure. You don't see what brought your PC to intermediate ability, and you don't get to see him get stronger beyond.
 

Dreaad

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The only low level parts of games I have enjoyed was in IWD 1/2, Fallout NV and that starting village in the witcher... everything else probably enjoyed the middle the most. High level stuff has a tendency to become melodramatic good vs evil fan fic i.e. I would rather read a book.
 
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I tend to lose interest at high levels. You may have more options, but chances are you're just bumrushing everything, because you can. It also gets a bit retarded storywise because RPG worlds are lawless shitholes where everything can be solved with violence, yet you often can't use your massive power to just destroy everyone and everything between you and your objective.

This reminds me of a tourney I was watching in Ultima online. The contestants maxed everything they could, yet the fights consisted of running in circles slinging fireballs at each other. One of the guys beside me even says, "These guys have 63 spells but only use two". :lol:
 
In My Safe Space
Joined
Dec 11, 2009
Messages
21,899
Codex 2012
I tend to lose interest at high levels. You may have more options, but chances are you're just bumrushing everything, because you can. It also gets a bit retarded storywise because RPG worlds are lawless shitholes where everything can be solved with violence, yet you often can't use your massive power to just destroy everyone and everything between you and your objective.

This reminds me of a tourney I was watching in Ultima online. The contestants maxed everything they could, yet the fights consisted of running in circles slinging fireballs at each other. One of the guys beside me even says, "These guys have 63 spells but only use two". :lol:
Armageddon spell would be quite awesome in Ultima Online.
 

Nutmeg

Arcane
Vatnik Wumao
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I enjoyed Baldur's Gate I when I got to Baldur's Gate (also Durlag's tower), and I stopped enjoying Baldur's Gate II when I progressed the narrative beyond Athkatla.
 

Daemongar

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Codex Year of the Donut
Looking at the responses, what game does high level right? I'm honest when I say this, the only games I can think of are MotB and Wasteland. The reason I say Wasteland is that the game had pretty much placed (very little random stuff), death was permanent, and high level encounters provided a challenge throughout the game since the players didn't grow that much more powerful with each level. If not that, well, I'd say MotB. Just because it was designed around being high level and assumed you could stomp, and provided challenged for high levels as well (vampire f'ing monks.) But it was more than beating mobs.
 

flabbyjack

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the area around my keyboard
lower-level = more potential for growth = more fun. At high-level you are pretty much maxed out and it starts to get all Dragonball Z-ish

The beginning of an RPG when you are scraping by, with hardly enough $ to eat, provides me a sense of satisfaction. The entire world is dangerous to you, as even low-level enemies are on par with you. Maybe you're saving up $ for a shiny new weapon that's much better than your character's humble pre-game circumstances has provided you... low-level and low fantasy (grimdark gothic ftw) is the way to go.
 

Gurkog

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dnd is pretty much shit all the way through, imo. I tend to prefer early-mid levels in RPGs, because that is usually when resource management actually matters and characters have the most tactical growth. Usually high levels just means higher numbers without any significant change to tactics. Games where high levels becomes a roflstomp are beyond boring to me. F:NV kept the pace right, imo, especially with Sawyer mod. Diablo 2 singleplayer is pretty balanced all the way through the end with the official 1.1 patch.

Really, tactical variety, resource management, and danger level need to be kept active, because without them RPGs become banal shit boring.
 
Self-Ejected

Lilura

RPG Codex Dragon Lady
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Feb 13, 2013
Messages
5,274
High, mid and low can all be interesting and challenging, it depends on the overall campaign and combat encounter design.

Epic combat tends to get boring fast, good examples are Throne of Bhaal and Hordes of the Underdark. Epic done right is Mask of the Betrayer and Planescape: Torment, where the feeling of godhood is instead more satisfyingly expressed by awesome, world-shaking dialogue choices.
 
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In all the best fantasy fiction that I've read, "epic powers" often come at a cost and you rarely see a power being used more than twice if more than once at all, usually for pacing reasons but sometimes for narrative coherence, tying back to the former.

In line with that, high level shouldn't mean flexibility to spam powers, at least not without consequences. That's the major flaw I see with high level epic adventures. Narrative simply doesn't support the system. Narrative and the system exist in vacuums where the latter is only a numbers game.

Similarly, high level shouldn't mean becoming a god in the course of a game. Taking fiction as an example again, most characters come with an established pool of abilities and they go through more personal tribulations than character development in the sense of CRPGs. My criticism in this part is the lack of personality abstractions and the lack of an interaction between such abstractions and all the usual CRPG stats.

There is a slight attempt at the latter in Conquistador which I liked very much: some of your party members can "have their spirits broken" after certain plot events or based on your management of them. This is the kind of mechanic that should be explored deeper and adopted more widely imo.

Without such mechanics, the concept of high level adventures in CRPGs feel inherently broken and unconvincing to me and I find myself playing games far less for it.
 

ProphetSword

Arcane
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Jun 7, 2012
Messages
1,755
Location
Monkey Island
I'm a big fan of low-level type adventures. The world should feel dangerous. There's a sense of accomplishment that comes with barely defeating a powerful foe, like a dragon, at low levels versus wiping out eight-hundred enemies with the massive fireball of ultra-cheesiness just because you can. If it were up to me, levels would be limited in these kinds of games so that you can only go so far in your power. That way, certain enemies (like dragons or demons) would always remain dangerous and would always kick your ass if you weren't prepared to deal with them. Sure, you could take out the local thugs easily enough...but a large size dragon should always give you trouble and shouldn't be something you can rip apart with a spell or two...at least, in my opinion.
 
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Which reminds me: why the fuck are the dragons so damn suicidal in Skyrim? They fly FFS, what compels them to stick around while even the ants can grind it to death? Likewise, the first dragon encounter by the watchtower near Whiterun was a joke. Here is my level 4 or 5 character, fresh out of the starter dungeon and I'm already killing a dragon.

I've always envisioned that killing such a massive sized beast would take a lot of people doing a lot of things in coordination; arrows, spears, ropes, scrolls - a real group effort against overwhelming adversary.
 

Bluebottle

Erudite
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Joined
Oct 17, 2005
Messages
1,182
Dead State Wasteland 2
The perfect point for me is the transition for low to mid point. This is only made possible, however, if the low point is incredibly risky and dangerous in combat encounters, making the reaching of those mid levels all the more satisfying. Essentially, what I'm saying is the whole progression must be right in order for any given point on it to feel rewarding. High level is a bit of a different beast, and one that I've never really felt was particularly satisfying. Not to go too terribly storyfag on everyone, but I think the only real advantage that can be gained from the high or epic levels are to increase the scope of the experience into fantastical events which are simply infeasible for a low level party (think MotB's assaulting the realm of the god of the dead, or parleying with dead gods).
 

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