Skyrim Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

[Dasale]

I prefer the no-scaling solutions. Don`t really see why they can not work as you say.

I'm surprised you never noticed it. Let say a RPG have the main story/quest chains, involving all players get involved in 30 quests and corresponding xp. Then you have a large world with many non linearity with the amount of xp through quest and pure fights that worth 100 quests in comparison to the main story 30 quests.

The problem is that some player will do all those 100 quests and some other will just do 30 of them. If you don't see the difficulty problem rising from that then I wonder.

Another example is coming from the difficulty to manage non linearity and freedom to player.

With a word with freedom how you'll setup the step 10 of your main quest? Knowing that some players will explore a lot of the world before trying this step and will end too strong. Despite Morrowind hadn't fully static difficulty, I end in that problem in the whole last part because I felt into a bug blocking the main quest, then wanderer a lot and got a superman character, when I realized the problem and found how manage it, the game freedom still had let me the possibility to get a whole final quite easy that I made the two eyes closed.

 

[zadokAllen]

The individual style of play is players problem - if it is a problem at all. If I choose to do the 100 quests or grind somewhere for 100 hours than maybe I earned the right to be a super-powered hero.

It`s down to the developers to balance the main quest vs exploration cleverly - even when it`s probably not always entirely possible, especially with open worlds.

But as long as it`s not game breaking as in Oblivion I won`t have a problem with it.

Playing Risen now -where reloads are the order of the day (sometimes minute and Fallout 3, with it`s hybrid scaling/fixed system. So far, both suit me fine…

 

[DoctorNarrative]

The way you do it is have areas of varying difficulty that are not so strict and linear as to ruin the open-ended nature of the open-world RPG, but still restricted by level or ability to a certain degree. I don't like MMOs but take WoW as a popular example, when you hit a level like say 30 there are three or four zones that cater to level 30 characters and you pick the one you want or bounce around between them. You could go to a level 35 zone but it might be very hard, you could stick to a level 25 zone but it would be too easy and the rewards not as good. It's your call.

In a TES game you could start say in the Imperial City in Oblivion and be told to go to Chorrol, which is in the North. The Northern part of the game then could be relatively low level with some caves that are harder, and quests in that general area could be aimed at low level characters. Then more to the West or East could be mid-level areas and the coast and South high-level areas. The main quest could try and steer you roughly through these areas in order while the side-quests take you all over and you have to discover what you can handle and what you can't by experimentation, getting lucky with some hard quests and getting awesome loot as a reward or feeling super powerful with some easy quests.

That's MY personal favorite method. Obviously there are advantages to scaling or else companies wouldn't do it, but for my personal taste a more static world is better.

 

[Dasale]

The problem of static fights is to have area you made too late and end be highly spoiled and lost all their mood.

Another rather classical problem is coming from increasing xp requirement for each levels. For some reason you'll start a very rude area you see it is difficult but can manage it through tricky tactics and feel pushed to accomplish the bravery. So you make your way through it and refuse stop something you started explore. The too difficult fights end in being less fun and after you finished it, you are significantly too strong for many easy area because you earn quickly a lot of xp and the now easy area end be boring.

You can be a cooperative and dedicated player and fail in those problems anyway. A smart scaling allow reduce this a lot. The only problem of scaling beside to be complicate to manage is to reduce ability to tune the fights setup. But this can certainly be improved.

 

[ToddMcF2002]

The Gothic formula works best. You can only progress on the main quest if you are strong enough. If you are too weak go find something else to do. Games that cater to people who want to play the game linear just... well suck typically.

 

[Dasale]

The Gothic formula works best. You can only progress on the main quest if you are strong enough. If you are too weak go find something else to do. Games that cater to people who want to play the game linear just… well suck typically.

Sure BG2 with one of the more sophisticated scaling management is a game that sucks.

It's in G2+NOTR that I had area a lot too easy and then boring because done too late. It's also a game with limited equipments and armors are a way to control the area where you can survive, it's a disguised scaling management but quite restrictive. Moreover the game used relative small area and not all opened at once. It's a lot of design restrictions.

Perhaps G3 perfect better the formula with more open world but well not a game I enjoyed.

 

[cutterjohn]

http://www.gametrailers.com/video/vga-10-tba-game-2/708369


Dragons, ruh roh…

Maybe you can ride them and then buy a $10 hhhhhhhhhheeeeeeeeeeerrrrrrrrrrrreeeeeeeeeee ttttttthhhhhhhhhaaaaaarrrrrrrr bbbbbbbbbbbeeeeeeeeeeeee ddddddddrrrrrrrrrraaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhgggggggguuuuuunnnnnnnnnnzzzzzzz aaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhmmmmmmmmmmmuuuuuuuuzzzzzzzzzz (TM) DLC.

Resonable no?

[EDIT]
Later edit since this regard posts made a while back...

Morrowind did indeed use an engine call NetImmerse, the company that ended up with the Gamebryo engine IIRC purchased the one that made NetImmerse and incorporated almost all of netimmerse into their own engine which they changed the name of to GameBryo. I seem to recall having read an article about this some time back, as IIRC NetImmerse was mostly being used for architectural and other simulations at the time and IIRC Morrowind was the first game to actually use it... NetImmerse must've been more advanced than the other company's engine though...
[/EDIT]

 

[pibbur]

I too liked the gothic system. Took a lot of running in the early stages. But I still remember the satisfaction when I finally could take down one of those raptors.

 

[zadokAllen]

The way you do it is have areas of varying difficulty that are not so strict and linear as to ruin the open-ended nature of the open-world RPG, but still restricted by level or ability to a certain degree.

Precisely what I had in mind. Do you reckon this Francesco mod you recommend can get close to this?

Obviously there are advantages to scaling or else companies wouldn't do it

They do it so as not to upset the casual/normal/easy mode/whatever-you-call`em players. Philosophy seems to be that if you die few times you`ll get upset, format the HDD, kick the dog, and most importantly won`t buybuybuy the sequel/DLC.

The Gothic formula works best.

Agreed, just please don`t call it "the Gothic formula". More like damn-near-every-rpg-before-Gothic-formula

 

[DoctorNarrative]

Precisely what I had in mind. Do you reckon this Francesco mod you recommend can get close to this?

No, like I said Francesco's mod just "fixes" the scaling in Oblivion. It makes it less obvious, and less radical. You will still see weak enemies and might encounter a tough enemy, you can find crappy loot and might find epic loot, etc. etc..

OOO is said to do a much better job of turning the world into a static one. Try that out if that is your main goal.

 

[zadokAllen]

Nah, I don`t want complete static. There have to be some transition zones and random encounters. Francesco sounds good.

 

[Dasale]

I too liked the gothic system. Took a lot of running in the early stages. But I still remember the satisfaction when I finally could take down one of those raptors.

Yes but with a good scaling system the designers could implement this too.

A major point in the scaling system is to allow build too strong area for some range of levels, if that's not possible the scaling fails. But I admit that raptors in G2+NOTR was an incredible achievement of thrilling tension I don't remember have seen in another RPG (but in few shooters and perhaps black beasts of Fallout 1).

In G2+NOTR the difficulty was also a lot from learning the fighting system (and about managing the character skills that was much more strict and surprising for those who have played G1 first).

When you replayed G2+NOTR for sure raptors was still building a thrilling tension, but manage kill them had just another dimension. The difference from many other RPG is that in G2+NOTR the difficulty is linked a lot to the learning curve and then the rewarding of beating something you couldn't before isn't just pure stat increase but also players skills increase involved, and that increase the pleasure of the progression.

 

[ToddMcF2002]

Dasale I had the same issue with NOTR, got there too late and too powerful. That could have been avoided with a little linearity but the designers. Basically Gothic is linear with chapters and land masses allowing for tons of freedom within the chapter/area. Risen is no different.

Another great system (and a variant of the above) is what the Nerhim team did for Oblivion. The districts are all universally visitable but you'll die a quick death depending on where you are. Unfortunately the map tells you the level range for the area, but it is still very effective. Level scaling can occur in the wilderness, but creatures placed in and immediately near dungeons are hand picked with static levels. You can really get your ass kicked

 

[Nerevarine]

Unfortunately the map tells you the level range for the area, but it is still very effective.

I can definitely see why this would not be popular due to potential immersion problems from having the game visibly tell you what you are getting into, but I think it's a good solution. Players can tell what challenge a region holds and decide for themselves whether it is worth it to continue in that particular region or save it for later. I certainly don't need such a feature, but I suppose it saves time lost from having to quickload after a fast death and still keeps the challenge level high.

 

[Benedict]

I too liked the gothic system. Took a lot of running in the early stages. But I still remember the satisfaction when I finally could take down one of those raptors.

Definitely . . . I thought the Gothic games managed it well just by being bloody difficult so that people didn't end up completely missing early game areas until they were too easy as they needed them to get enough experience to survive.

 

[Benedict]

They do it so as not to upset the casual/normal/easy mode/whatever-you-call`em players. Philosophy seems to be that if you die few times you`ll get upset, format the HDD, kick the dog, and most importantly won`t buybuybuy the sequel/DLC.

I remember some Jeff Vogel blogpost where he was talking about this . . . saying that even when he'd gone out of his way to hugely signpost that a particular fight is well above the average level for that area and that people should come back later, he still got loads of complaints about how they couldn't win it.

Shame really, I like the experience of every so often getting my arse handed to me. Especially when game designers give me plenty of signposting so that I'm fully saved up before chancing it, it does get annoying if I just stumble into sudden death.

 

[Lemonhead]

Hey, here is a nice screenshot that I hadn't seen before. Looking pretty nice. But then so did Oblivion until they removed a lot of the goodies before launch. Dynamic shadows and all that...

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?f...et=a.465981001403.247238.131368351403&theater

 

[bloodlover]

Yeah that looks nice. I hope they will make the game less shiny than oblivion was.

 

[TheMadGamer]

As for other mods the only one I use other than Francesco's is Darn's UI mod. It's essential to getting a good PC user interface. I'm not a big modder though, like I said I like keeping games close to their original vision, so I am not the best one to offer advice on mods if you are the type to really go all out.

When did this Darn's UI Mod get released? Is it better than BTMod? If so, what makes it better?

 

[DoctorNarrative]

When did this Darn's UI Mod get released? Is it better than BTMod? If so, what makes it better?

Yes, it's better. More options (inside the game too) and just all around a better fit. Try it out if you like... Darn has made excellent UIs three times now.