Leveled loot and monsters

[Imbecile]

without any kind of levelled system it seems pretty likely that you are unlikely to get too many close and entertaining battles. Youll probably either die, reload, wander off and slaughter a few rats, and then return. Or you'll kick arse easily. Either way isnt too much fun.

Fighting close battles against suitably levelled opponents is more fun - if you like a challenge.

Sorry, but that's complete rubbish. What's 'Fun' is good design which gives you real decisions. Play Gothic for example. You are always challenged, you are always making decisions, you are always having Fun. Most encounters you'll have will be challenging but do-able, because the game is well structured.

And then there's taking on a Snapper/Fire Lizard/Shadowbeast early on, learning the hard way not to venture too far into the woods, then doing it again later in the game and feeling the satisfaction of besting the fearsome creature.

Damnit, I’m not disputing that real decisions are good, I’m agreeing that running away every now and then is great, and crushing your opponents underfoot or watching them run like hell is nice too.

What I actually say is that you don’t want all of your combat to be this way. In a (admittedly my) perfect world, the bulk of your combat would be against opponents that would require you to make good combat decisions. The problem is that if combat is to easy or too hard, it doesn’t matter that you choose your spells or positioning carefully. It doesn’t matter that you’ve selected the appropriate weapon beforehand. It doesn’t matter that you fight with the skill of two separate gorillas. Because its crush or be crushed.

For me at least 50% of combat should give this kind of combat challenge, with a few unlevelled beasties in there to make the player cautious, or force them to rethink their approach. But I guess its not the challenging thing that you are disputing

I know that you are saying that you know that its doable if the design is good enough, but good design can very easily be thrown off if one player decides to clobber 800 rats at the start, or wade in a little too early. The problem is that while an unlevelled game might appear to be perfectly balanced to one person, if another plays it in a different way, then he may end up with too great a challenge or no challenge at all.

What I am trying to say is that it doesn’t have to be all or nothing. Want to offset this a little? Bung in 10% levelled monsters. Want to offer a consistent combat challenge throughout where your level means next to nothing? – bung in 90% levelled monsters.
Want a fantastically tough dungeon at the start that teaches the new player a lesson? Use entirely unlevelled monsters? Putting a cave in near the end game, with a unique set of enemies that you want to be tough? Make them levelled +5

 

[Twinfalls]

What I am trying to say is that it doesn’t have to be all or nothing.

Well, you said earlier

without any kind of levelled system it seems pretty likely that you are unlikely to get too many close and entertaining battles. Youll probably either die, reload, wander off and slaughter a few rats, and then return. Or you'll kick arse easily. Either way isnt too much fun.

- which is what I was arguing against. I got the impression you were saying levelling is almost neccessary for a consistently challenging and balanced game. And this is just not true.

There's no argument from me that you can't create a good game which has some levelling. I just don't think levelling is neccessary at all - I think the Gothic games demonstrate that. I don't like levelling - it takes away from believability and immersion.

 

[Imbecile]

Ah..but I also said...

If its done badly it can feel pretty unrealistic, but if you tweak it so that you will be more likely to face different types of bad guys at various levels, put a limit on how tough girl kobolds can get, and intersperse the levelled bad guys with unlevelled, or partially levelled bad guys, I dont see why RPGs couldnt deliver the best of both worlds.

Although admittedly, Im not always the most coherent of posters.

Yeah the levelled thing is a bit daft (although I like its gameplay impact), but I’m able to ignore it in the same way that I can ignore the transformation of my character from tramp to god within three and half weeks. If your character didn’t level in such a ridiculous way then this wouldn’t even be an issue

 

[Lumpy]

Don't like it. I don't want the feeling that the world is tailoring itself to me. Especially at low level. I want to know there is a risk that if I'm stupid or incautious I could run into a monster that is way over my head.

At higher level, I would rather face new tougher monsters along with slaughtering the weaker ones, NOT have the weaker ones get tougher.

So basically, whatever I do the risk and the reward is always the same. Boring.

Wait. Monsters do not get tougher. Monsters are always the same level.

Second, you don't always get monsters of the same difficulty. You are more likely to get the monster that is set to your difficulty, but you may also get a stronger or weaker one.

Third, levelled lists have limits. If you enter a goblin cave you won't be getting anything more than a goblin shaman. If you go to a Daedric ruin, you'll find at least Scamps at the entrance, and at least Dremora inside, even at level one. You can't go to a hellish ruin at level 1 and expect to find rats.

Also, not all dungeons have to be randomized, for Pete's sake. Important ones can have unlevelled monsters, so you'll be pwn3d by the bad guy at level 1, but you won't have any trouble from him at level 70. Levelled lists should be used mainly for unimportant, non-quest dungeons.

And dungeon level doesn't have to be directly proportional to the player's level. While the player's level increases from level 1 to 30, a dungeon's level may increase from 10 to 20. So the dungeon will be hard when the player is low level (under 10), normal while the player's level is between 10 and 20, and easy above level 20.

 

[Zomg]

One thing that should be noted is that combat does not need to be balanced to be fun or have interest. The vast majority of combats in Fallout 2, for instance, are tactically uninteresting, shallow, and exploitable (inventory stimpacks, pop out attacks with no interrupt system), but because of the sounds, death animations, humorous messages in the text window, etc. the combat is compelling and full of character. Shooting a rat and getting the "splat" animation is fun in and of itself, even though that rat is no particular threat; the similar "unload a minigun on a non-aggressive enemy on hex away" bit is completely unrealistic and unbalanced but hilarious in a bit-of-the-ultra-violence way. The combats can also create micro-narratives; The bungler enemies fumble their grenades and blow each other up, the junkies flee in terror from the gunfight, etc.

Anyway, as has come up, thinking of levelled lists vs. zone-and-hand is a bit of a false dichotomy, as they can be mixed freely and well.

 

[bryce777]

The way it's done in wizardry 8 is completely stupid, and also in the elder scrolls games. Actually in daggerfall it's not bad, except for how the totally random encounters are done.

For all the reasons listed and ultimately because it makes it so you are always challenged too much or too little...and usually too little.

Mostly, it's just laziness that makes developers do this. Actually balancing out a game takes time.

Some randomness is nice, though, but I want a realistic world and not some idiot world with level 1 crabs, level 10 crabs, etc. etc. In the old wizardry games, when you entered a new area, you knew you entered a new area, and you had to tread very carefully at first.

It's true a lot of the problem is the goofy power difference in many games; games like darklands and xcom have a much more realistic progression where skills matter a lot, but you dont suddenly become able to magically absorb being beaten with a telephone pole or hit by a company of crossbowman.

 

[Sycandre]

Well, in PnP RPG, players characters rarely show the outrageous stats/skill progression shown in CRPG, so, as a GM, I usually fixed the challenge for my players right from the begining, knowing that their characters will be globally the same, even in the next adventure.

But in CRPG as TES, the character, starting as a totally dumb guy, has to become a god in about 6 month, so he is caught in a kind of frenzied stat building. I think it is something to please the powergamers, to make them feel they can really optimize their character. To me, you build your character off-game, at the begining, and then you play it as it is.

But as soon as you allow your player character to have such an extremely fast and opened progression you have to face the GM usual problem of balancing difficulty, at even a higher degree: you can't know in advance what your player character will be able to do or not, when and where.

As long as you take this way, I think you have two options: either you limit the accessible zones for the player character, keeping the hardest for later, and balancing difficulty/experiencing so you can forsee your player characters level/zone.
Or you have to use the leveled list, so your player, wherever and whenever he goes, faces challenges according to his level.

But, assuming the whole point is to keep, as in any RPG game, a challenge fiting your characters abilities, wouldn't it have been easier and much more realistic, to get rid of the usual outrageous character progression, keeping his power level globally constant, and balancing it with a globally equilibrated world challenge?

I think that it all comes from a time, when, instead of linking storyline progression to actual intrigue/investigation/exploration/action, the devs used character experiencing as the key to unlock areas and plots. Today, CRPG gamers can't even imagine progressing in a game without their characters powering up. But how to make it compatible with TES freedom of motion: by adopting leveling lists? or teaching those players that you can have a great RPG adventure with a characters whose stats won't even gain one single point? :wink:

 

[kris]

They are undoubtely stupid... they CAN be a good thing, but stupid nonetheless.
And you know why? It stems from the stupidity of general stat systems in RPG.
I mean - begin as power equivalent of potplant, end as Godzilla.

Also, at first you get rusty swords you cannot kill yourself with, and end with magical artefacts that seem to rip apart space and time.

As long is such (also, undoubtely, rather stupid) systems exist - they will require levelled loot and monsters to provide most fun the player.

Been playing Console games have you? One of my big pet peeves with them, the insane leveling. A system is poorly designed IMO if someone that have leveled halfway can't possibly beat someone at the last and be beaten by someone at the first level. goes hand in hand with combat sustem and weapons, for with modern weapons it makes even less sense why a "level 1" shouldn't be able to kill a last level guy.

What I actually say is that you don’t want all of your combat to be this way. In a (admittedly my) perfect world, the bulk of your combat would be against opponents that would require you to make good combat decisions. The problem is that if combat is to easy or too hard, it doesn’t matter that you choose your spells or positioning carefully. It doesn’t matter that you’ve selected the appropriate weapon beforehand. It doesn’t matter that you fight with the skill of two separate gorillas. Because its crush or be crushed.

For me at least 50% of combat should give this kind of combat challenge, with a few unlevelled beasties in there to make the player cautious, or force them to rethink their approach. But I guess its not the challenging thing that you are disputing

Usually they solve this with challenge = monster HP and damage output. Best way to make all combat challenging is to make it lethal and/or to make a injury count. Now it is mostly a HP bar that can be instantly filled up with the magical überpotions that is spread out over the land. Big evil guys usually haven't found out that technique, with the exception of Darth Malak that became challengin mostly due to that.

When we are at it, stop making some weapons being more powerful than actions of god himself.

 

[Balor]

Been playing Console games have you?

Actually, no.
Not because 'consoles are TEH EVIL!" - mostly because I cannot affort a purely gaming platform. And gettng PC games in Russia is much easier then console games, and cheaper, too.
But it's a trend commmon to most, safe a few more 'hardcore' (like abovementioned Darklands) RPGs.

That's mostly to please munchkins, of course.
And munchkinism has nothing to do with RPGs - collecting XP and rising skills - is llike acquiring just abstract points and unlockign cool bonuses in arcades. Stat progressment becomes not a tool, but a goal.
Well, it also comes from players having nothing to do but this. Example - Morrowind.
But that's so banal...

 

[RGE]

To me, you build your character off-game, at the begining, and then you play it as it is.
...

But, assuming the whole point is to keep, as in any RPG game, a challenge fiting your characters abilities, wouldn't it have been easier and much more realistic, to get rid of the usual outrageous character progression, keeping his power level globally constant, and balancing it with a globally equilibrated world challenge?

This is my preferred way, but the deep pockets belong to the masses who want more levels. The main benefit I see in having to level up ingame is that if the character ends up with a lot of different abilities, the ingame levelling can allow me to slowly get used to my character rather than have to learn how to use all abilities at once. It also makes it possible to get used to the gameworld and adjust the character to what the gameworld seems to require, something which can be useful when there's no DM around to adjust the gameworld to the character. But for real powergaming everyone knows that once you've designed your character at level 1, it's set on a straight path towards whatever build you've decided on.

 

[Atrokkus]

It all depends on the main character's development system. I believe that the core rule here is to equal PC and NPC development patterns.

For instance, if the character development system is based on "practice makes perfect" principle, when each skill and stat is increased through its particular usage, then the best thing you could do is allow NPCs (monsters) to actually evolve the same way. That, of course, involves a lot of complex scripting and convoluted system of inter-npc relationship (that is, they are not just neutral or hostile to PC, they play out their own agendas, fight each other, fight noone, use skills etc). And it all potentially doable, except for the conversation-related skills and perks, obviously (although it could imitated somehow).
Basically, it's the Gothic principle, but evolved in a way that it is static no more. Basically, stasis was the only problem Gothic (and several other likewise designed games) had. In other words, the game must not have graduated difficulty areas, and npcs must also be able to raise their effectiveness all by themselves, just as the PC does.

Naturally, such a system will require a very diligent npc-designs, in terms of skill/stat specializations. But most importantly, it will require an extremely advanced AI system, that could actually select multiple paths for NPCs, while leaving room for the main plot. It's like every NPC would have to have a personal AI of a level not less than that of RTS or TBS AI.

However, if such a concept fails to be implemented, there's still a pure Gothic/Darklands principle to consider. Definately, Gothic's levelling design was the most thought-out and natural, and that's how I would like it to be in other games. No gradation of difficulty, no taking player by the hand and showing him around. Put the fucker in the messed up world and let him beat the game or die trying (and blatantly looted or eaten afterwards).

 

[Azael]

To me, the solution in a serious CRPG is not levelled loot and opponents, but rather to keep combat interesting and dangerous for all levels. In theory, I could go out and beat up Remy Bonjasky, assuming that I caught him unaware and most likely fought very dirty (ashtray to the temple is a nice method, I hear), while in most games I have nothing to fear from peons once I reach higher levels and vice versa, don't stand a chance in hell against powerful adversaries as a still-wet-behind-the-ears adventurer.

Same thing with loot,early weapons/equipment shouldn't just become useless at later levels. Sure, a new nice and shiny H&K MP7 might be better than the old unreliable Tommy Gun you started out with, but a bullet from the latter will still do the job. The challenge lies in making combat in a setting like that fun and exciting and not just a save-reload exercise.

 

[HardCode]

A better way to handle monsters is to give them variable stats. Just like PCs and NPCs, they have varrying abilities. Give a monster type a range of scores, and have each encounter generate that particular monster's scores. This way, some will be way too tough for low level character, but others will be easier. You'd never know what you're going to get. The exception would be places/dungeons in the game intended to be "gotten through" by a low level player.

A few quick checks and RND() functions wouldn't make the CPU blink.

 

[Atrokkus]

Also, I would like game designers to disavow the badass endgame boss cliché. What if the endgame boss is good at maneuvering his army, but pretty helpless once it comes to duelling? I mean, make him a formidable opponent, but not really powerful, much like one of his guardians.

 

[bryce777]

To me, the solution in a serious CRPG is not levelled loot and opponents, but rather to keep combat interesting and dangerous for all levels. In theory, I could go out and beat up Remy Bonjasky, assuming that I caught him unaware and most likely fought very dirty (ashtray to the temple is a nice method, I hear), while in most games I have nothing to fear from peons once I reach higher levels and vice versa, don't stand a chance in hell against powerful adversaries as a still-wet-behind-the-ears adventurer.

Same thing with loot,early weapons/equipment shouldn't just become useless at later levels. Sure, a new nice and shiny H&K MP7 might be better than the old unreliable Tommy Gun you started out with, but a bullet from the latter will still do the job. The challenge lies in making combat in a setting like that fun and exciting and not just a save-reload exercise.

I think items should be kept separate from stats. You need to balance them, as well, but they can have a different balance in different worlds. A suit of plate mail and a horse and lance really will make you nearly invincle against most infantry let alone a bunch of farmers with hoes...and not even speaking of magic items. It can be fun to become very powerful, but at the same time it's silly to have 500 hitpoints compared to 10 hitpoints for grunt soldiers. You could take on a whole army with your bare hands.

 

[Azael]

I think items should be kept separate from stats. You need to balance them, as well, but they can have a different balance in different worlds. A suit of plate mail and a horse and lance really will make you nearly invincle against most infantry let alone a bunch of farmers with hoes...and not even speaking of magic items. It can be fun to become very powerful, but at the same time it's silly to have 500 hitpoints compared to 10 hitpoints for grunt soldiers. You could take on a whole army with your bare hands.

Items should be kept separate from stats in cases where the stats don't reasonable affect the performance. A bullet fired from a revolver (or bolt from a crossbow, if you prefer the medieval times) should do (basically) the same damage to the chest regardless of the skill of the shooter, although a skilled gunman would have an easier time hitting said chest as well making a directly killing shot to heart. This is different from a melee weapon where physical strength and skill of the attacker plays a bigger part.

I'm like becoming powerful in games as well, using your example of plate mail, a good horse and a lance against weaker foes in Mount & Blade is loads of fun, but what makes the game even more fun is the knowledge that those weak foes could defeat me if I get careless, or they lucky. Even if you have a very high strength and several points in Iron Skin, a couched lance will knock you out. The game also deals with defeat in a very good way, allowing you to fight another day. Not realistic, but more fun than having to reload.

 

[bryce777]

Well, generally in the age of armored combat their were not that many fatalities. People dropped mostly from exhaustion a lot of the time.

The unarmored kerns were out of luck, though.

 

[TheGreatGodPan]

Also, I would like game designers to disavow the badass endgame boss cliché. What if the endgame boss is good at maneuvering his army, but pretty helpless once it comes to duelling? I mean, make him a formidable opponent, but not really powerful, much like one of his guardians.

I think Deus Ex and Fallout both did a good job in that department.

 

[gromit]

This would all be very moot if levelling universally gave you more and varied options, rather than "do the same thing but with a bigger number." A ninja starts with just a chop and a kick, but later can sacrifice raw damage for a sweep for the trip, or use a hip throw to create a more tactically advantageous situation out of being surrounded. A rogue learns to disable locks of another design, or leanrs to do the old ones quicker.

The only kind of obstacle-levelling I ever saw any sense to was in the KotoR games, specifically your level's role in computing the DC of the computers and locks... essentially measuring how much of your potential upon levelling was being put into the task at hand. Yep, the rolls on locks and computers make zero "real-world" sense under the hood, and it severely limits the amount of situations where you have to leave a door be for a while, to level up your lockpicking, as it becomes much harder to catch up to the value as you level, but given the body of the games were four stages to be tackled in any order, it was a fairly sleek game-specific tune.

I also thought that, at least in the first (haven't finished the second,) allowing the over-story elements to occur on any planet was nice, as it gave a game-world explanation for more and more tough enemies coming at you, as opposed to there simply being a tougher monster behind the tree because... well, because.

Note that these tweaks only work swimmingly in a game that follows a linear progression, although they let you do the "four requirements" in any order... an adjustment created as a result of minor deviance in the plot-flow. Now, note that completely non-linear games don't need to adhere to any challenge-scaling, because you can try them later, after levelling that skill (since it's not "the next thing you need to do," and remains an absolute value rather than a percentage of your "skill potential" for the level you have reached.) Note that completely linear games, too, don't need challenge-scaling, since if a designer can't handle a single difficulty curve, he needs a new job.

This makes me wonder a lot about the validity of a mechanic that still needs work when it's used in the solitary situation that requires it. It also still destroys the concept of levelling, since it could be simplified into picking a level for each skill in the beginning of the game, ranging from "no fucking clue" to "master," with the sole caveat being the loss of the chance for the skill to "degrade" in relation to the others (which doesn't make sense in this implementation anyway - "I could have picked that lock, identical to the one I just picked, if only I didn't get one point more proficient at noticing things!" Although perhaps it was the awareness increment that allowed him to contemplate the nature of his dilemma?)

I think Deus Ex and Fallout both did a good job in that department.

The Master was pretty tough, though, but he could be outsmarted, so it sort of strikes me as an example of the opposite. Bob Page's lack of physical strength was right on the money, but resulted in a thousand of those damn French Sewer Dinosaurs.

 

[Section8]

I see levelled loot and monsters as being just another form of procedural content, and as such, bears the same advantages and disadvantages as other randomly generated bits and pieces. Of course, if a game doesn't take that advantage and run with it, then it's a pointless exercise. There are also plenty of trappings of procedural content that allow the player to exploit the systems, such as level scumming.

Personally, I'd like to see procedural content in an RPG generated with relation to the game world, rather than an arbitrary relation to the player character's level. Think Civilisation, where stronger foes are encountered as the game progresses, because the AI "players" are advancing and expanding, just like the player.

Rather than having a lowbie town that wants the PC to get rid of a bunch of static bandits, I'd love to see bandits set up camp near a lowbie town because other lands are more perilous, and this spot is easy pickings. From there, the town itself could realise the threat the bandits posed, and perhaps post bounties for adventurers, or maybe petition someone higher in the ruling heirarchy of the game to send weapons/soldiers/trainers/whatever, which in turn increases the strength of that settlement, which again attracts more powerful foes, and so forth.

So the general dynamic is that the world as a whole slowly increases in power with or without the player. the individual components of the game world should always have something for the player (say, posting soldiers to deal with a town's bandit problem increases it's strength, but decreases the strength of the towns the soldiers were taken from.) The game world has to be carefully balanced and entirely dynamic, but that's where procedural content shines.

--

It's a fucking great discussion, nice one on bringing it up, Lumpy.

 

[kris]

Well, generally in the age of armored combat their were not that many fatalities. People dropped mostly from exhaustion a lot of the time.

also a lot to do with them being nobles and not executed after a battle, in fact they often saw it as beneficial to take them alive as they could be ransomed.

 

[Lumpy]

Rather than having a lowbie town that wants the PC to get rid of a bunch of static bandits, I'd love to see bandits set up camp near a lowbie town because other lands are more perilous, and this spot is easy pickings. From there, the town itself could realise the threat the bandits posed, and perhaps post bounties for adventurers, or maybe petition someone higher in the ruling heirarchy of the game to send weapons/soldiers/trainers/whatever, which in turn increases the strength of that settlement, which again attracts more powerful foes, and so forth.

I don't expect an AI system that complex anytime soon, but I'm preety sure that it will happen someday.
NPCs levelling up separately from the player would be quite plausible with Radiant AI though, and much better than the level offset system Bethesda decided to use for NPCs.

 

[Zomg]

I don't expect an AI system that complex anytime soon, but I'm preety sure that it will happen someday.

The thing is, that's not that complex at all. Think of Civilization (broken record, I know) - that's a game that distills fairly real-seeming outcomes from thousands and thousands of fairly mundane, simple AI choices and strategy. "Which tile should this city improve first?" is very simple AI, but by iteration of that simple choice you get a credible representation of cultivation. AI is not the hangup, commercial will to make that game (and manifold others) is.

 

[Vault Dweller]

I don't expect an AI system that complex anytime soon, but I'm preety sure that it will happen someday.

The thing is, that's not that complex at all.

Exactly. There were many games in the past that've offered you incredibly complicated gameplay produced by simple means and strong desires to make truly great games: Civ, Darklands, Ultima, etc

 

[Dreagon]

One of my best memories of Morrowind was when I first ran into a couple of Kagouti at very low level. They were part of a small miniquest so were not "leveled" to me, and were not appearing randomly yet. I ended up dying multiple times and finally had to take a tortuous path back (involving multiple attempts at sneaking and rock hopping) to get away from the things. Ended up being leery of the things even after leveling to their level. Point is, it was a "real" moment. The very thing I look for in an RPG. The world had handed me something above my head, and that made the world more real and gave the feeling of it being a dangerous place that had to be treated with respect.
When my charactor looks into a dark forest, I want to think there are things in there that are DANGEROUS, not that when I wander in I can pretty much just expect some things that will be generated by the game to my specific charactor. Then it's all about me and not the forest.