What games had the worst XP inflation?

[PorkaMorka]

Actually, I think D&D has some kind of "Commoner" classification that's totally separate from the levelling system (correct me if I'm wrong, grognards?)
Levels are technically only meant for "adventurers".

Yes, in this was the case in AD&D.

It was replaced by the system deux describes in third edition.

 

[Average Manatee]

This makes sense. Ever seen the Chess competitions where Grandmaster players play against multiple weaker players? They still wipe the floor. The difference in batting averages between decent players and amazing players in Baseball is .1, but those amazing players get paid a hell of a lot more than just the difference between them and the average player. Skill increases ARE geometrically important in the real world.

Epic is pretty fucked up though, but Epic (and arguably anything past the 15) was never meant to be played by anyone concerned with common sense.

True, but these sorts of things are so-called tournament rewards: because things are highly positional, being fractionally better than the rest gives a massive payoff. It isn't like Kasparov or whatever is 50x better at chess (whatever that would mean), but because they have an increment over their opponents they generally win even when multi-ing forty games at once. Compare to a 'world's strongest man', who won't win a tug off war against 50 or so average dudes if they could team up. So I think skill distributions are (generally) normal distributions, but certain games strongly privilege small increments at the right tail. Black swan, Talib, Extremistan/medicoristan, scaling, etc. etc.

The same can be said for any kind of battle situation. Being 'barely' better than someone is the difference between dying and not dying, thats a pretty massive payoff. In fact all of modern warfare is about highly trained elite units over an infinite tide of grunts.I don't think there are any tug of war situations in D&D.

I'd guess the same applies in fighting. In real life, your pro swordsman or whatever isn't going to win a 50 on one fight, nor your pro special ops dude take on 50 or so grunts in a 'straight up' shootout. But they do have value in circumstances where this 'being better than average' can scale, like duelling or special ops stuff. Of course, none of this applies in fantasy (still less D&D), where level 20 mages could probably take on thousands of basic troops without issue, and level 20 fighters could probably take on hundreds before enough 20s were landed to finish their HP.

There are a shit ton of people who somehow manage to face long odds and come out ahead. Let me tell you about my personal favourite. How does 150 (with several machine guns) vs 1 sound?

http://www.badassoftheweek.com/york.html

Dude was a pacifist too.

Now granted, D&D is a lot less about dumb luck than real life, but it's fantasy so let it go.

 

[visions]

Of course that also reveals the problem of absolute classes picked at level 1. How can a random farmer also be a wizard? How does a servant know how to shoot a bow? While D&D is all about people fitting into predefined roles, I think it'd make a bit more sense to do true class selection at level 2 instead of level 1, or just make level 1 play more equivalent to level 3 or 4 instead and have a "level 0" or something for story reasons.

By level 1 you already have some training in your class, this notion is supported by the fact that random starting ages differ for the classes (implying that developing the skills neccessary to qualify as a level 1 wizard took more time than developing the skills neccessary to qualify as a lvl 1 rogue etc). It's like that in 3.5 at least.

 

[Johannes]

I think it's ok that a lvl 20 is way better than 2 or more lvl 10 characters, since they should also be exponentially rarer. But in cRPGs you often don't get the feel that even if you solve some insignificant local troubles, there's still guys whose fists are miles above you. Take Baldur's Gate for example, by the end of the game your party is so badass they can beat anyone in the town pretty much, but then you get to Athkatla and everyone's at least as good as you. If there had been some archmages, liches, etc., that could just fart you to the ground if you tried anything on them, and who would be somewhat above local politics like the games plot. Imagine if a single of the epic level gnolls or whatever from MoTB came to sword coast...
Like in Torment you had the Lothar guy, for example, or Hoaxmetal, who were so powerful there was even no point in trying to go against them, right in the Sigil. And you also knew there was ridiculous amount of shit flinging around in the Blood War, way out of anyones scale to deal with.

Also, consider the scope of what low level adventurers can actually accomplish. If there's some minor thing that's actually causing people trouble, say Nashkel mines and the "steel crisis" or whatever it was that caused, why wouldn't somebody send a single mid-level mage with invisibility to investigate and easily slurp up that shit?

tldr - if you're gonna have your gameworld have ridiculously varied power levels, maybe try making the gameworld reflect that somehow from the ground up instead of just scaling every area to whatever level you presume the player party will be at that point. Or don't, most people can suspend their disbelief enough to not care about how the whole world is totally centered on the PCs.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

Thinking of DnD in terms of real world logic is futile, because it's not a system that models real world activity. It's a system for things like mythology, Conan/LotR prose and those action movies they make in India. In DnD world it's logical that a level 20 fighter could easily fight off an army single-handedly for days (probably on some mountainside or a bridge) before succumbing to several hundred wounds, because that's how stories like that work. It's the same type of thing why PCs in CthulhuTech can dodge bullets, because that's what happens in anime combat.

However, internal consistence that Johannes was talking about is EXTREMELY important. If the setting crumbles due to not making any sense, you're in trouble. You can't slap in a several thousand wizards into the everyday life of a medieval fantasy setting and pretend they don't change anything, and that's just for starters. Same thing with avoiding the "Elminster Effect." Basically, if you write a setting or an adventure where there's a big looming threat, you don't want to have questions like "why wouldn't they just send Elminster/Beckett/Justice League/etc to deal with it?" because that's a huge problem (basically: Never write living FRIENDLY uber-NPCs to a setting if you aren't about to kill them off) and shows that ultimately your PCs are just stand-ins in the story.

 

[Johannes]

Well, if there's hostile uber-NPCs, but no friendly ones, what's stopping the bad guys from taking over the world in short order? Sure, you can somehow explain the bad guys inactivity, he's trapped in another dimenson until next week or something, but the good guys inactivity can be explained also. Maybe neither side wants to take direct action because of a Mutual assured destruction scenario for example, or the good guy has his hands full of fighting off some other threat or whatever.

 

[Admiral jimbob]

I know that plenty of games have tried to modify the traditional XP system, but what I really like to see is games that have a reasonable explanation for the XP gains actually making the character more powerful.

Might and Magic 3's manual backstory does! Badly.

 

[Johannes]

And there's some sort of level-up goddess in Rance universe. Makes about as much sense as anything else in there, so it's ok.

 

[mondblut]

Basically, which games rewarded the player excessively for not doing anything special or difficult?

There was that old game similar to Elvira (and probably done by the same company). You got xp every step you made, literally. Just 1 point, and only once per visited square, but still - - -

 

[curry]

Basically, which games rewarded the player excessively for not doing anything special or difficult?

Planescape: Torment comes to mind, where the player gains a dozen levels in a single go right at the end. It's been years since I ever played it, but I was still bummed by this feature. I felt like I wasted time trying to do all possible sidequests earler.

Checking GameBanshee, one sees that you get:

- 10,000 XP just for entering Curst
- 65,000 XP for killing slavers
- 150,000 XP for finding the will
- 43,750 XP for saving Kyse and killing thugs
- 287,500 XP for jailing two corrupt guards

That's way more than you got in the entire Upper Ward, a much larger and more wholly filled area. It's very strange.

I read an interview where one of the devs said the publisher forced them to throw XP at the player so that the player would constantly get level ups.

 

[Wyrmlord]

Basically, which games rewarded the player excessively for not doing anything special or difficult?

There was that old game similar to Elvira (and probably done by the same company). You got xp every step you made, literally. Just 1 point, and only once per visited square, but still - - -

Waxworks? (I am not sure)

Here is one thing about horror games. They are always easy. The developer gets so caught up in making the game "atmospheric" and "ambient" that they forget all actual gameplay. If they focus on the core game, they lose the chance to put in their "Wow!" moments as actual gameplay would interfere with them.

Bloodlines itself shows good examples of both. Ocean House Hotel was easy, because you couldn't die, and that takes away all the real thrill from the place. Meanwhile, the werewolf survival mission is really something that gets the player's pulse beating, because there is something at stake there. Of course the werewolf moment isn't some classy subtle Hitchcock movie, but it's a videogame, so the rules totally reverse here.

 

[mondblut]

Waxworks? (I am not sure)

Yup, that's the name.

Here is one thing about horror games. They are always easy. The developer gets so caught up in making the game "atmospheric" and "ambient" that they forget all actual gameplay. If they focus on the core game, they lose the chance to put in their "Wow!" moments as actual gameplay would interfere with them.

They are either always easy, or always hard. In a "lol u fucked if u don't do it the only right way" way.

There is no place for horror in RPGs, because RPGs are always ultimately about pwnage. If something fucks you up in an RPG, you just turn back and grind some more until you can steamroll over it. And if it doesn't let you turn back, well, it's a shit RPG and it's author a homo who has no place making RPGs and should go back to his railroaded adventure shit.

Bloodlines itself shows good examples of both. Ocean House Hotel was easy, because you couldn't die, and that takes away all the real thrill from the place. Meanwhile, the werewolf survival mission is really something that gets the player's pulse beating, because there is something at stake there. Of course the werewolf moment isn't some classy subtle Hitchcock movie, but it's a videogame, so the rules totally reverse here.

You got to be kidding. The werewolf QTE minigame is probably the worst fucking moment in ANY game ever pretending to be an RPG. Even KOTOR's space invaders minigame wasn't as annoying and revolting - and that's *despite* repeating itself every goddamn time you went into space. With this event alone Troika deserved their bankrupcy. Should have been forced to sell themselves into prostitution and say bye to some organs to pay off the debts, too.

 

[Raghar]

What? Running around and using these small cramped places to prevent hims to get at you, until he blow them to pieces and get at you anyway. Then trying to get electricity up and when he didn't blew up stairs and you managed to get it right you might get him. The trouble is I had two magasiznes for a flamethrower, and a flamethrower (just as a precaution because it saved my butt at an encounter with A.) and used both on him, sadly it had no effect.

What was wrong with that? Aside to immunity to fire.

 

[Random]

I know that plenty of games have tried to modify the traditional XP system, but what I really like to see is games that have a reasonable explanation for the XP gains actually making the character more powerful.

Might and Magic 3's manual backstory does! Badly.

Well, KOTORII had a sort of explanation in that the Exile's power gains are from absorbing the force connections around him and such. Basically, whenever he gets xp for killing something, he absorbed its power, and whenever he gets xp for finishing a quest, he's aborbing force connection from his followers and such. At least, that's what I got out of it.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

Well, if there's hostile uber-NPCs, but no friendly ones, what's stopping the bad guys from taking over the world in short order? Sure, you can somehow explain the bad guys inactivity, he's trapped in another dimenson until next week or something, but the good guys inactivity can be explained also. Maybe neither side wants to take direct action because of a Mutual assured destruction scenario for example, or the good guy has his hands full of fighting off some other threat or whatever.

Or the Bad Guy might also be busy making sure all of his mini-boss henchmen attack the players in an orderly fashion, one at a time, with appropriate intervals so the PCs are stronger the next time.

But really, it's something that should make sense both in terms of the campaign's story and in the setting itself. A good game to illustrate this problem is DC Universe Online: None of the player characters are necessary at all, they're just onlookers to the whole thing, and are only awarded a piece of the action because the JLA really wants to have a coffee break for a change and is willing to loan the bad guys for you while they do that.

EDIT: It's basically like this: If the players can just ask (going with a WoD example here) when you present them with "Gehenna is coming, are you bad enough dudes to stop it?" "why can't Beckett just go and round up a posse of official NPCs and take care of this?" shit is wrong.

 

[Average Manatee]

And there's some sort of level-up goddess in Rance universe. Makes about as much sense as anything else in there, so it's ok.

The Rance series makes a hell of a lot more sense than most these days. Somehow it managed 10 games without any major retcons, while Bioware essentially ignores ME2 and guts half of ME1 to make ME3.

Well, if there's hostile uber-NPCs, but no friendly ones, what's stopping the bad guys from taking over the world in short order? Sure, you can somehow explain the bad guys inactivity, he's trapped in another dimenson until next week or something, but the good guys inactivity can be explained also. Maybe neither side wants to take direct action because of a Mutual assured destruction scenario for example, or the good guy has his hands full of fighting off some other threat or whatever.

Not having a polarized good vs evil game in the first place might be a good way to start.

 

[Gord]

tldr - if you're gonna have your gameworld have ridiculously varied power levels, maybe try making the gameworld reflect that somehow from the ground up instead of just scaling every area to whatever level you presume the player party will be at that point. Or don't, most people can suspend their disbelief enough to not care about how the whole world is totally centered on the PCs.

One reason why I don't like epic level settings as in Hordes of the Underdark or Mask of the Betrayer much.
While the story itself (esp. MotB) might be good, the setting often enough doesn't make much sense.

Well, at least HotU took place in sufficiently removed places (Underdark) or planes (the hell part), but there's still some suspension of disbelief required.
MotB however is a lot worse in that regard, as all of a sudden Thay (and Rashemen) seems to be potulated almost exclusively by characters of level 20 and upwards.
Makes you wonder why the Red Mages haven't conquered Faerun yet, what with all their Squads of Epic level Gnolls and wizards.
Even the apprentices you encountered seemed to be epic level already...

 

[Stabwound]

JRPG games, but the Suikoden series has some of the most annoying EXP scaling I've ever seen. It's basically setup so that you'll always be the level the designers intended at any given time.

For example, a certain enemy might give you 1exp if you are one level overleveled, or 10000 exp if you are very underleveled. It makes it impossible to grind, but also unnecessary to grind, either. While eliminating grinding isn't such a bad thing, a levelling system is pointless if the game locks you to a certain progression that severely.

 

[mondblut]

What? Running around and using these small cramped places to prevent hims to get at you, until he blow them to pieces and get at you anyway.

You are running around and using these small cramped spaces in a faggot nigger prince of fucking persia. In a monocled RPG, you press "attack" and "end turn".

 

[Raghar]

When you have only one character, pressing end of turn 130x isn't the best idea. Not to mention the werewolf would be able to use his turn to go through the whole threatened space, thus the trap would fail.

BTW when you run left and right and the whole space around you is exploding, it's immersive.

 

[Johannes]

For example, a certain enemy might give you 1exp if you are one level overleveled, or 10000 exp if you are very underleveled. It makes it impossible to grind, but also unnecessary to grind, either. While eliminating grinding isn't such a bad thing, a levelling system is pointless if the game locks you to a certain progression that severely.

I don't think that's necessarily bad, you still get to customize your build and it matters, even if you go against enemies of comparable power.

 

[mondblut]

When you have only one character, pressing end of turn 130x isn't the best idea.

Having one character in an RPG isn't the best idea in itself.

Not to mention the werewolf would be able to use his turn to go through the whole threatened space, thus the trap would fail.

Of course it would fail. The only kind of traps that does not fail in an RPG is of the "whoopsie, you failed a saving throw and a spotting check, enemy gets a free turn, and enjoy your -3 AC for 4 turns" variety. Action nigger shit better gets the fuck out.

BTW when you run left and right and the whole space around you is exploding, it's immersive.

And very role-playing, too. Like, playing a role of Master Chef.

 

[deuxhero]

basically: Never write living FRIENDLY uber-NPCs to a setting if you aren't about to kill them off) and shows that ultimately your PCs are just stand-ins in the story.

Define "friendly". Does it mean non-hostile or willing to offer assistance?

Eberron actually deals with this well. The world is in a VERY uneasy peace, and these big players or their armies actually doing anything risks creating a new war. Red Hand of Doom (which features a rampaging Hobgoblin army) actually makes MORE sense in Eberron than Greyhawk or Faerun as a result, despite being intended for those two more, as a team of adventurers (you) aren't connected to any national entity.

 

[Damned Registrations]

JRPG games, but the Suikoden series has some of the most annoying EXP scaling I've ever seen. It's basically setup so that you'll always be the level the designers intended at any given time.

For example, a certain enemy might give you 1exp if you are one level overleveled, or 10000 exp if you are very underleveled. It makes it impossible to grind, but also unnecessary to grind, either. While eliminating grinding isn't such a bad thing, a levelling system is pointless if the game locks you to a certain progression that severely.

The game has like 70 potential party members. If I had to grind the shit out of them to get them up to par when I wanted to use them after ignoring them for 15 hours it'd be terrible.

And note that you can still be underlevelled for an area if you're running from a lot of fights (which can be a viable strategy, if your party consists of mostly mages with very high burst potential for only a few rounds of combat, enough to murder a boss but not every encounter before hand, let alone both.) You're just never able to over level an area (unless you abuse some non linear window open to you to fight elsewhere) which I think is a better way of ensuring the combat has some challenges than scaling the enemies or trusting the player to push himself.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

basically: Never write living FRIENDLY uber-NPCs to a setting if you aren't about to kill them off) and shows that ultimately your PCs are just stand-ins in the story.

Define "friendly". Does it mean non-hostile or willing to offer assistance?

Eberron actually deals with this well. The world is in a VERY uneasy peace, and these big players or their armies actually doing anything risks creating a new war. Red Hand of Doom (which features a rampaging Hobgoblin army) actually makes MORE sense in Eberron than Greyhawk or Faerun as a result, despite being intended for those two more, as a team of adventurers (you) aren't connected to any national entity.

I did give an example in my post about what I mean:

If the players can just ask (going with a WoD example here) when you present them with "Gehenna is coming, are you bad enough dudes to stop it?" "why can't Beckett just go and round up a posse of official NPCs and take care of this?" shit is wrong.

Basically: Don't write a story where the use of PCs is redundant.