Scaling

[someone else]

In paper games we have a game master who match enemies and loot to characters but in computer games we have scaling:

1) Geographical scaling - The traditional scaling, old games whether western or eastern do it. As you progress in the game you travel to new dungeons and towns, the monsters and equipment you find get progressively stronger. The wolf who does 2 points of damage gets replaced by the Death Dire Wolf who does 200 points of damage. Likewise the shopkeepers upgrade from shortswords and cloth armour in the first town to greatswords +10 by the time you reach town no.12.
Sure traveling back to old areas will have time wasting boring combat, the game world doesn't make any sense, but this is the easy to balance and some people get a kick out of mowing down those evil slavers which you couldn't previously defeat but now I have power armour and missile launchers hoo yah. If you are playing roguelikes make sure you have X resist before entering into Y zone, cost monster A spawns in zone Y.

2) Level scaling - Don't open that chest at level 2! Open it at at least level 10 where the loot list will have the diamond sword. Make sure you have a cure for blight before you reach level 12 cos blight rats starts spawning, as well as a weapon that can damage normal resistant monsters before reaching level 7 where those undeads start spawning in tombs.
You will constantly be challenged by appropriate monsters but this is extremely difficult to balance. Tying monster levels to character level? Character level may not represent your character's combat ability, nor does it take into account other factors like your equipment and spells. Leads into meta-gaming where you maximise your character power and minimize your character level. Also you get made fun of on the internet when you made a poor build and got killed by a level-scaled bear.

3) Time scaled - Robots taking over the galaxy? Don't worry, in 30 years time we will have the technology to defeat them! Can't afford to buy those new fangled Atomic Destabilizers? Not to worry! Quests will pay more in the future as well! The fedex quest that paid you 3,200 Galactic Credits in 2405 will pay 3,200,000 Galactic Credits in 2435!

Why play the game now when you can start playing 30 years later when you have better shields,further jumpdrives and fuel, more variety in weapons and more importantly moar money!

In a race against time game, time scaling for equipment does work, where you are limited in your resources initially. You know, like they only sell pistols and flak vests on-line in the first few days.

4) Quest scaled - Progress in the game will unlock new monster, new equipment, new areas and maybe respawn some areas as well. Excuse me while I clear out the entire game world in Chapter 1 so I can get moar xp and loot when they respawn in Chapter 2 where I will be overpowered. I am further encouraged to do this as certain benefits may vanish when progress further in the game.

Some games do a combination of these. In the real world I believe in making things simple, designing a game is the same, simple = easier to balance.
One game has a time-scaled NPC store, with geographically generated enemies, enemies that spawn with time, game progress triggers, resources that produce infinite money that can be be captured by the player, a percentage drop of loot, all in a dynamic campaign and the game turned out to be quite balanced.

 

[sgc_meltdown]

One game has a time-scaled NPC store, with geographically generated enemies, enemies that spawn with time, game progress triggers, resources that produce infinite money that can be be captured by the player, a percentage drop of loot, all in a dynamic campaign and the game turned out to be quite balanced.

space rangers 2 rite?

maybe one day there will be 3D flight sim with such things plus exploration.

 

[markec]

For me personally the one of the best monster scaling concept was in BG2. For example when you enter dungeon as low level you find few zombies and mummies in a room but if you come later on you might find a bunch of vampires or even a lich.

The best would be Gothic series where is no scaling what so ever, since then when you enter a cave you never know what will be there, maybe a wolf and maybe a troll.

 

[Micmu]

SR2 is hardly balanced. As far as the economy goes, it is completely out of balance. When you start everything is in hundreds/thousands of credits but after a while everything goes into millions (rewards, better equipment prices, etc...) - except interplanetary trading which only after a year or two becomes completely useless. Also, salvaged Dominator equipment is way way overpriced. Insane price inflation is one of the major SR2 faults. Still fun game, but could be a lot better in this regard.

 

[Overweight Manatee]

SR2 is hardly balanced. As far as the economy goes, it is completely out of balance. When you start everything is in hundreds/thousands of credits but after a while everything goes into millions (rewards, better equipment prices, etc...) - except interplanetary trading which only after a year or two becomes completely useless. Also, salvaged Dominator equipment is way way overpriced. Insane price inflation is one of the major SR2 faults. Still fun game, but could be a lot better in this regard.

The problem with removing price inflation is then you could simply wait around for weapons with no penalty. Why buy low end equipment for 5k if you could just wait 6 months and buy equipment 2x better (and 2x better equipment makes you 20x more deadly) for only 10k? Sure, you can't fight the dominators as well, but its not like your shitty ship in the first year could ever make a overall difference outside of sniping the one hyperspace dominator leader anyway.

Trading wasn't that badly balanced. While goods prices only went up moderately, your ship capacity, jump range, available planets and speed all skyrocketed through the midgame, which meant that trading was still pretty reliable up until the prices hit that exponential growth rate at 100k+. A good 800 free space spent to haul luxuries that gave a net profit of 100 each could take only a few weeks and was a cool 80k of money with no repairs to suck away cash like fighting did. You just had to be constantly checking the price market to see when a planet is high and when it will pay huge for.

 

[Johannes]

Just give a free world to roam and various different difficulty enemies, and those +10 greatswords buyable from the start IF you have the cash. And don't make the player gain too much power over time, so player skill > character skill and the easier fights still are a challenge of preserving resources/time at least.

And always have some kind of race against time, so you can't just grind endlessly without downside. With some antagonists gaining power as time goes, and some quests resolving by themselves eventually. So it's a game with proper strategy layer too, how to progress faster than the bad guy.

That's how I'd like it at least...

 

[someone else]

One game has a time-scaled NPC store, with geographically generated enemies, enemies that spawn with time, game progress triggers, resources that produce infinite money that can be be captured by the player, a percentage drop of loot, all in a dynamic campaign and the game turned out to be quite balanced.

space rangers 2 rite?

maybe one day there will be 3D flight sim with such things plus exploration.

*Buzz* SR 2 doesn't have resources that produce infinite money that can be captured by the player.

those +10 greatswords buyable from the start IF you have the cash.

If a game has lots of upgrades this could result in something like 200 items in the first vendor you meet, resulting in the player being overwhelmed where they spent 30 minutes window shopping, often delaying purchases so they can buy the better items (resulting in unbalanced power-gaming) or farming weak monsters so they can afford that better stuff. Hence games introduce items a few at a time.

 

[Johannes]

A single vendor doesn't have to have that many items necessarily. Delaying purchases to aim for better stuff seems like a nice strategic option to have, only a problem if the costs and incomes aren't sensibly balanced. Farming weak monsters, best design for me would be to make that unprofitable due to some time constraints, or, like in most good games without race vs time it just isn't the fastest way to gain money anyway.

You had the big adventurers shop right near the start of BG2 for example, worked well enough.

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

Fuck scaling and levelling. I just want my wonderful character creation, wonderful mechanics, multiple quest solutions and good C&C.
That's what I want from cRPGs. I don't want to grind, or to get a super magical three handed sword +15 or any crap like this.

 

[someone else]

^ How many rpgs has all that? PST & Fallout without combat and equipment? Both of them uses geographical scaling (or progression). You want a game with the same enemies and equipment with no change in challenge? Ok. Why are you so angry over computer games? You hate grinding? Well that is what level-scaling is supposedly good for. You can be Arena Champion at level one in Oblivion, no need to kill 1000 rats. All you need to do is to remove loot progression. Use same sword from start to finish. Of course they should just remove levels altogether.

Look up and see where this thread is at, this is in General Gaming btw, not RPG Discussion. Scaling takes place in non rpgs as well. Space Sims, FPS, tactical-strategy games, Super Mario Brothers etc. Homeworld 2 scales to your prior mission performance for instance, namely the amount of RUs you have. Xcom has time scaling, Xcom Apoc has time scale for geoscape (ufos are generated base on week), score scaled for tactical combat (enemy equipment scaled on your score, tis results in metagaming where you try to reduce score until you are ready for it, for instance it is better to have toxic gun ready before personal shields shows up. This is why it is bad to raid The Cult Of Sirius too much).

Not sure what your rant is, you want to remove levels, mob and level progression altogether in cRPGs and are very angry over this? Ok. Scaling is pretty much part and parcel of computer game, that is why I created this thread.

 

[DraQ]

1) Geographical scaling

Shit in the described form, viable if the gameworld is a patchwork of of low risk, high risk and high risk + high reward areas rather than linear progression.
Also needs to take into account reality of the gameworld - you can get away with shop in starting location offering shoddy, low grade equipment if you start in some hillybilly backwater and move towards the bigger city, it cannot be transparently set up as function of level progression.

2) Level scaling

Almost inevitably shit, unless used in extreme moderation, to limited effect, in conjunction with non-scaled content and possibly disguised as another form of scaling that makes sense in the gameworld context. That pretty much describes most of Morrowind's scaling (levelling, actually) as opposed to oblivious scaling.

Then there is Wizardry 8, but it's hard to explain how it avoided the suck.

3) Time scaled

Shit unless applied with extreme consequence. For example if robots are taking over the galaxy, then waiting for better tech should result in game over, rather than better tech.
May also be used as disguise for level limited scaling if implemented skillfully, since PC level is monotonic in respect to time - "there are more blighted animals as time passes and you begin to encounter progressively stronger variants of corprus beasts in blighted areas" in Morrowind is an example of it implemented skillfully enough to avoid breaking immersion.

4) Quest scaled - Progress in the game will unlock new monster, new equipment, new areas and maybe respawn some areas as well.

Again, only useful when it makes sense. If you can reasonably gate some areas in some in world way, or have a reason to repopulate an area with stronger badies, do so. If you just lock me out of fucking Cloakwood for no particular reason, go die in a fire.

The crux of the problem is that most games provide ways to accumulate wealth without including any proper money sinks, in particular time-dependent money sinks. If you replace static resource with resource flow, you should also replace static expenses with constant ones otherwise the game WILL end up imbalanced. Basic math says so and it's not my fault that most developers are too inept fucking cocksucking pussies who suck cocks to realize that when cash flows in and cash doesn't flow out, then cash accumulates.

If time doesn't cost you anything, then you can accumulate arbitrary amounts of wealth by waiting arbitrary amounts of time.

The best thing would be to somehow tailor the costs to wealth - apart from standard supplies like food, maintenance of high level gear should be costly, securing your personal treasures should also require a lot of expenses if they are notable enough to be worthwhile to high-level thieves, high level spells should require rare and expensive ingredients, high level weapons can require expensive ammo, and adventuring activities resulting in sufficient income to sustain high-level lifestyle should pose a high risk of contracting high level status effects requiring high level remedies.

Killing mudcrabs with a stick should be safe enough to be doable by a bare-butt character, but should only provide basic sustenance and minimum profit margin, insufficient, if you need to maintain proper gear and supplies essential for higher level jobs.

Essentially, the game should be constructed in such way that it's perfectly possible for a player to fall all the way to the bottom if he fucks up, but the bottom should allow barely enough margin to rise again, if you're careful and smart enough.

If you use level scaling to nullify the challenge drop if player grinds, or elevated challenge if player doesn't then you should just make the character static instead - same benefits, no side effects. Providing mechanics to improve character, then working around it to nullify this improvement is retarded. Also, scaling in Homewrold 2 was one of the most retardedly broken things in game.

 

[someone else]

Then there is Wizardry 8, but it's hard to explain how it avoided the suck.

Arnika road is infamous for bad level scaling, due to character level rising faster than skills and spells. The difficulty leveled off when leveling slowed down and skills and spells caught up.

 

[DraQ]

Then there is Wizardry 8, but it's hard to explain how it avoided the suck.

Arnika road is infamous for bad level scaling, due to character level rising faster than skills and spells. The difficulty leveled off when leveling slowed down and skills and spells caught up.

I thought the idea there was to make the player run the gauntlet.

An exam of sort before the game proper.

 

[ever]

I find scaling very frustrating, mainly cause its quite illogical. It sucks you out too, it reminds you you're not adventuring in this cool new world, but instead you're playing some silly game.

I don't understand the point of it either. What does it accomplish? If it's "get rid of the grind" then it is the entirely wrong approach.

In rogue-likes grinding is a solved problem. Case study: Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup. This game has no grind involved in it whatsoever. How does it achieve this?

1. The skill system is learn by doing, but the doing part drains available experience from an experience pool. Once the experience pool runs out you can do as much as you like but you will never gain any more skills.

2. Experience is gained by killing things, experience replelnishes the experience pool

3. Respawns are very very uncommon, and very very low level ( as they simulate things like rats coming to eat the corpses, or necromantic forces turning some corpses into zombies / skeletons ).

4. Food. You find food, buy food, or butcher clean meat for food. If you do not eat food you starve.

So 1. obviously gets rid of the whole "I'm going to spend the next 8 hours casting spells ad infinitum and become the best mage ever". The rest mean you have to be constantly advancing forward. You run out of food really quickly, so if you decide "I'm going to stay on this level and kill the respawns" you will find that you have killed a total of four rats and a kobold that lost its way, before you end up starving to death. The net result is you have to advance forward constantly in order to progress, even if further down the challenge in insurmountable - hence the many deaths suffered in these kinds of games.

Now tacking this system on to a computer role playing game wouldn't be the best idea ever but with a few modifications it could be workable. For example experience could be gained by solving quests too, some that might not even require combat. Another change might be to allow the player to have jobs such as a baker, farmer, or delivery boy to earn money to buy his or her food. Some enemies might no longer give experience to an already hardened adventurer. Net effect, the player won't die by doing nothing, but he won't get any more powerful without advancing in the game.

Another idea is to make the player age and his attributes ( but not skills ) drop as he gets older. Darklands did this to great effect, giving the game a tradeoff between a character's talent ( his attributes like strength and dexterity ) and his skills ( such as his ability to weild weapons with great mastery, or his knowledge of alchemty ). In this game it was not possible for your character to ever be "perfect", because while he gained more skills as he grew older, he became weaker, capable of enduring less, and in very old age his intellect started to falter as well. In fact even the character generation reflected this great trade off as you choose career paths for your dudes that would bring them great skill, but also advance their age. So for example you might want a character with great skill in alchemy, but to do this you would need to make him a student, the oblate, then professor, thel alchemist and so on, and each career choice would age him four or six years. I do not remember the details.

Also cool was how intelligence only started to decrease at a very high age ( I think it was in the sixties ) so it made sense to be bringing around this old religous dude and old alchemist guy everywhere, cause those things require high skill to be effective, but you don't really need things like strength and endurance to be able to do them well.

In a game with aging grinding makes little sense.

So I think saying "well level scaling gets rid of grinding" doesn't mean it's a good idea, because there are other ways to do this without the draw backs ( I know I haven't talked about the drawbacks, I think DraQ covered some well ).

So is there anything other than "it gets rid of the grind" that makes level scaling a good idea?

Edit: DraQ not gragt.

 

[someone else]

From what I can tell, level-scaling is primary implemented not to avoiding grinding but to provide players with appropriate challenge and loot level as in PnP gaming.

 

[ever]

Interesting.

So would you say something like "Without level scaling it is possible for me to come into an area where the encounters are too easy, and the loot too insignificant, or conversely where the encounters prove to be of insurmountable challenge. I prefer games where the area I enter is always challenging but not impossible, and the loot always appropriate, no matter what order enter the areas in."?

Or are you saying something else?

 

[someone else]

So would you say something like "Without level scaling it is possible for me to come into an area where the encounters are too easy, and the loot too insignificant, or conversely where the encounters prove to be of insurmountable challenge.

True.

I prefer games where the area I enter is always challenging but not impossible, and the loot always appropriate, no matter what order enter the areas in."?

I did not state my preference for level-scaling, but yes that is what level-scaling primary purpose is. I prefer locational-progress.

Computer games are initially built like a AD&D module, but when a game gets bigger and less linear with greater difference in character levels, it gets harder for a designer to control the encounter difficulty.

 

[Gord]

I prefer games where the area I enter is always challenging but not impossible, and the loot always appropriate, no matter what order enter the areas in."?

This seems to be the idea behind it. In a way, the challenge idea seems reasonable but implementation usually is highly illogical.
If used at all, level scaling should be very unobtrusive.
From a purely logical point of view a world like in the Gothic series makes far more sense than like in e.g. Oblivion or to a lesser extend, Morrowind.
If you somehow control the possible amount of grinding (either by using a system like in DCSS or by (mostly) removing respawns as in Gothic), you can do very well without level scaling.

Let's also consider an academical example: The Big Bad wants to sent a team of Assassins after you. In a case such as this it would make perfect sense to scale them to your level.

Does anyone know any rpg that doesn't employ some form of scaling, however?
As you level up, so do your enemies. The strength of you char relative to your enemies will always be roughly the same. Although you use better equipment and more impressive spells, nothing much changes below the line. Leveling is just an illusion...

 

[ever]

I did not state my preference for level-scaling, but yes that is what level-scaling primary purpose is. I prefer locational-progress.

Computer games are initially built like a AD&D module, but when a game gets bigger and less linear with greater difference in character levels, it gets harder for a designer to control the encounter difficulty.

In some highly non linear games with low frequency respawns ( to simulate roaming bandits, or wild life ) without level scaling the approach has been:

Towns for no encounters, except the odd scripted quest event, and maybe some low level thieves.
Roads for low level encounters with scrap loot.
Paths, or roads less walked for slightly more difficult encounters with non descript loot.
Woods, swamps, mountain ranges and other "wild" areas for medium level encounters with non descript loot.
Areas of interest ( such as a ruined temple in the middle of a forest ) for a single difficult encounter with rewarding loot ( maybe a hidden cache of the ancient arms once belonging to a great hero ).
Dungeons for very difficult encounters with much rewarding loot, and some super rewarding loot at the end.

In terms of what towns sell, they sell usually sell non enchanted items of random quality depending on the town and its lore ( all towns are accessible from the get go because of the roads ) while maybe some nobles or museums or a black smith or two hold unique weapons and armor of legend for sale at a king's ransom in coin.

It works really well when there's a few low level dungeons thrown in near civilized areas ( maybe some mines ), and a few super high level ones hidden in the deep wilderness.

I think this sort of system is best for highly non linear games with lots of exploration.

When I read the term "geographic scaling" in your post I thought you meant something like this, but then I read your description and it was nothing like it, much, much more linear.

 

[DragoFireheart]

Let's also consider an academical example: The Big Bad wants to sent a team of Assassins after you. In a case such as this it would make perfect sense to scale them to your level.

Why does it make sense for the main antagonist to scale his Assassins?

Big Bad: I want this mother fucker dead!

Assassins: Sweet! Lets go get our Ak-47s and M4 Carbines...

Big Bad: Sorry, can't let you do that. He's still level 1, so all you get is a potato gun and a couple of aluminum baseball bats.

Assassins: But boss, you want him dead. Shouldn't we get our best stuff and take him out?

Big Bad: Sorry, my contract says you need to use lower level gear since he is at a lower level. We can't be rewarding him for out smarting us now can we?

Assassin: . Ok

Me:

 

[someone else]

Let's also consider an academical example: The Big Bad wants to sent a team of Assassins after you. In a case such as this it would make perfect sense to scale them to your level.

Why does it make sense for the main antagonist to scale his Assassins?

Big Bad: I want this mother fucker dead!

Assassins: Sweet! Lets go get our Ak-47s and M4 Carbines...

Big Bad: Sorry, can't let you do that. He's still level 1, so all you get is a potato gun and a couple of aluminum baseball bats.

Assassins: But boss, you want him dead. Shouldn't we get our best stuff and take him out?

Big Bad: Sorry, my contract says you need to use lower level gear since he is at a lower level. We can't be rewarding him for out smarting us now can we?

Assassin: . Ok

Me:

It makes sense game difficulty wise. And I believe he was talking about bounty hunters in Fallout 2 who scale to your level.

@ever, sounds like Might and Magic which is geographical. I remember completing MM7 with a level 20ish party, things got really bad at the last dungeon.

 

[Gord]

Why does it make sense for the main antagonist to scale his Assassins?

Minion: Apparently one guy survived the attack on the village because he hid behind some crates

Big Bad: We can't afford any witnesses. Did he look dangerous?

Minion: Not really, he's just a peasant.

Big Bad: I see. Send the new guy to deal with him.

(Some days later)

Minion: My liege, the peasant killed the new guy, apparently e brought some friends and has found a sword and...

Big Bad: Silence! I will not tolerate such incompetence! *kills Minion* Send a a few of our best men to track him down and kill him once and for all!

Minion 2: Yes my lord!

(some weeks later)

Minion 2: Sire, I...our best men, they... they finaly found him but apparently he found some more friends and one is a really powerful mage and he found another sword and an armor and...

Big Bad: Enough! *annihilates Minion 2* I've had it with this motherfucking peasant and his motherfucking swords! I'll summon the Archdemon of Witness-Extermination. Get me my summoner robe and 10 virgins!


This is why.

Me:

It will get better, eventually...

 

[DragoFireheart]

Why does it make sense for the main antagonist to scale his Assassins?

Minion: Apparently one guy survived the attack on the village because he hid behind some crates

Big Bad: We can't afford any witnesses. Did he look dangerous?

Minion: Not really, he's just a peasant.

Big Bad: I see. Send the new guy to deal with him.

Don't ever make a video game please.

It makes sense game difficulty wise. And I believe he was talking about bounty hunters in Fallout 2 who scale to your level.

The bounty hunters only come if you kill kids and they are designed as a means to always be hard to kill regardless of your level. It's not a large part of the game as most of Fallout 2 is not some stupid level scaled shit. Regardless, it's still a shitty game design choice of developers and doesn't make sense in any regard other than a cheap cop-out to trying to properly balance the game. The player can never be rewarded with level scaling because he is never in any danger of being too weak. In that regard, the player is never rewarded because the developers were too lazy.

Bandits in glass armor or Minotaurs replacing rats in a dungeon are examples of what you get with shitty level scaling. Fuck it and fuck you if you like it.

 

[Gord]

So accordig to your logic it would make perfect sense to send an entire division of elite soldiers just to destroy one farm?

Me:

Oh, I forgot...

Well at least I can promise you not to make video games.

 

[DragoFireheart]

So accordig to your logic it would make perfect sense to send an entire division of elite soldiers just to destroy one farm?

Nice strawman. Depends on the story actually. What if the soldiers are dressed up as an opposing nation to try and frame them as the murderers of a rival nation?

If a big bad boss doesn't want witnesses, why not send his most competent assassin if it's of such great importance?