Game Mechanic Discussion -- Level Scaling

[Wittymations]

You know what kinds of games I really enjoy? RPGs and their many flavors. I love the shit out of statistics and seeing the numbers on my characters go from itsy bitsy to big. Dunno why, but it's enjoyable.

 

However, a problem for many people is that these really big numbers is that it can essentially turn a really tough game into a really easy one. You can become a living god if you put all your points into the right spot, enchant the right items and have the right gear. Even if it's not a perfect build, you can still be really, really powerful -- even bosses can become trivial. A number of players can see this being really boring.

 

One solution that many game developers decided to take up is level scaling: increasing enemy level and stats based on their current level of the player. These enemies may even have upgraded gear if your level is high enough. The game, overall, becomes more challenging.

 

On one hand: It's not a perfect solution, but it does fulfill the task that the developers seek: constant challenge. It can create some pretty wild results if not handled well, like in Oblivion where a bandit can get his grubby little hands on daedric gear (For people who never played an Elder Scrolls game, basically demon gear that's pretty rare, bandits are among the first few enemies you'll fight.)  Skyrim does it a bit better in that you'll spawn stronger enemies here and there, but areas with these enemies will spawn some of all types. Some games have enemy levels regulated based on areas they spawn, Fallout 4 does this, MMOs like Guild Wars 2, and even Borderlands -- a farm on the South East part of the world will spawn rats at a pretty low level while an underground sewer will spawn rats at a higher level. This is probably one of the better forms. Although, if you're a level low and walk into that sewer, the rats will probably be a lower level than normal.

 

Some people, like myself, generally dislike level scaling in games even as a concept. The arguments against it:

• With poor handling, it can spawn incredibly powerful enemies when you were leveling everything else but combat skills at the time (an issue that plagued Skyrim and Oblivion -- more so with the latter.)
• Level scaling defeats the purpose of leveling in the first place, if enemies are going to be adjusted to your level, why not cut out the middle man and remove leveling? Keep your and the enemies strength stagnant and the challenge remains constant.
• Finally, the world feels like it revolves around you -- which for some players, may be a nice egotrip, but for others who want to escape into the world, it feels like it's entirely your playground vs a place they have to adjust to. Why should the rat care that you're level 20 and decided to get stronger and become a Dire Rat? It doesn't make sense. If you're a faction's number one enemy and they're watching you, it makes more sense for them to bulk up

Sidenote: Level scaling feels more at home to MMOs which I give a lot more leniency to.

What's your opinion? Like level scaling provides more challenge or find it counter-intuitive? Do you feel there's a way to have level scaling without it feeling like it's forcing itself into the game?

[Salamander]

In general I'm of the perspective that level scaling just eliminates the point in levelling at all, and may indeed make it a better approach to avoid levelling and battle entirely.  In that respect, it seems like level scaling acts against the rest of the game system.  MMOs are a different kettle of fish which I don't know anything about, mind.

I'm intrigued by the idea of having level scaling produce a mix of enemy levels, from strong all the way down to an area base level, though; not one I've encountered before.  That would prevent areas from becoming too oppressive.  But speaking of comparatively traditional RPGs, if you've designed a game where the player character can become so powerful that all the enemies they'll encounter become trivial and there's no challenge left in the game, then... well, that's clearly a game balance problem, but it's one that should be addressed by either not letting the player become so powerful in the first place or making sure the enemies in later areas don't fall behind.  Putting in level scaling is just an admission that you messed up or were lazy.  If the designers want constant challenge, they should be testing the game balance throughout to keep players at an appropriate level and introduce new enemies which are tailored to that level.  If it's a question of players having too many abilities, create enemies which require complex new strategies.  The player shouldn't be punished for having built their character well; and as for the person who grinds for ages in order to trivialise the game, well, that's their business and I'm sure it's not very interesting - though it may also be that they find RPGs difficult, and are undertaking an ad hoc way of attaining an easy mode, and there's nothing particularly wrong with that.

I'm playing Etrian Odyssey V right now, and one thing that at least some (all?) Etrian Odyssey games have done is that they have endgame level caps which can only be lifted by beating postgame bosses; normally you can't go higher than level 70, but then you get the quest to beat a particular boss and doing so lifts the cap to 80, and so on...  That keeps a lid on the player's strength at the endgame and the postgame, so you won't wildly outclass the most powerful enemies.  I've been mulling over the possibility of using badges or trials in Pokemon to act as level caps throughout, since those are games where overlevelling can happen rather easily, so I think that might be worth investigating.  I also played a demo of The Alliance Alive recently, and that doesn't appear to have character levels; comparative strength comes from better equipment, and from weapons and weapon skills themselves having limited levelling, and I'm really intrigued to play a full game with that system.  I've heard that the Dark Souls system is such that it becomes easier to kill enemies, but it never stops being possible for them to kill you if you mess up?  For an action RPG that sounds reasonable.

[MegasonicZX]

I like level scaling but not if its scaling down enemies to my level (don't actually know which games do that to be honest) but when its scaling them up to your level. Reason why is because while I know it eliminates the power side of levelling to a degree, it doesn't affect the abilities and skills you got through levelling so you can use all those fancy abilities on more than just late game enemies for the last few hours. I think one game that does this sort of well is Tales of Xillia 2. It has level scaling in the sense that no matter how high level you are, the bosses will match that level but only up to a point, you can still grind levels if you so wish but in normal play, the bosses will never be too much lower of a level than you. Now while that sounds daunting, its important to remember that through the numerous levels you achieve you unlock new artes, abilities, more TP (which is essential to you surviving in tougher fights) and HP, so while the bosses have levelled with you, you are still more capable than what you would've been had you stayed low levelled. 

Of course, a system where levels don't mean too much and its mostly on the players own skill is preferable to me like how the first two paper Mario games were set up or Kingdom Hearts where lvl 1 runs are entirely possible and don't have you whacking enemies for ten hours just to kill them.

[Diogenes]

I'm not a fan of enemy scaling. Creating a system that exists just to counter another system seems like sloppy design. But I think the real problem goes deeper than just enemy scaling; if the goal is to produce a more consistent and challenging experience, why is the player allowed to control their level in the first place?

In any RPG I can think of, enemies are designed to more or less cancel out your gains from leveling. In games with enemy scaling this is very direct; as you get stronger, enemies get stronger. Your level 1 warrior will fight level 1 imps, your level 5 warrior will fight level 5 imps. But this is still true of games without enemy scaling, if you look at it over the course of the game. The further you go in a game, the stronger the enemies get. The "level 1" imps near the starting town are going to stay the same, but the second town is surrounded by ogres, who just happen to be the right strength to fight your level 5 warrior. This is most obvious with recolors, which are basically a low-tech attempt at enemy scaling. Take an enemy from the early game, buff its stats and maybe give it a new move or two, and put it in a later area where it balances out the player's assumed higher level. Your level 1 warrior fights weak red imps, your level 5 warrior fights stronger blue imps.

So to me, enemy scaling seems like a completely ass-backwards solution to the actual problem. Instead of coming up with some complicated, arcane system of strengthening monsters to counter the complicated, arcane system that strengthens the player, why not just...not have levels? Skip coming up with secret equations to determine how many monsters the player has to fight and how many points of strength they gain from it, since you're just going to counterbalance that by designing stronger enemies. Focus on the things that actually meaningfully change how the player approaches fights, like spells and techniques and equipment with special effects. Give the player more tools and ask them to come up with new and better strategies instead of simply grinding their way to more raw power.

[Salamander]

1 hour ago, SaberX said:

This level mechanics were aways like that. I think scaling become a thing when extremelly experienced players demanded more challenge in those games. This thing is happening in pokemon and it seriously destroying the game(not scaling, but experienced players interfiring with the game).

Pokemon is an increasingly weird series with an increasingly large accumulation of tactical options and items and gimmicks which are only represented in... an optional 5% of the game, maybe?  I'm thinking of the various Battle Tower equivalents, which, what d'you know, scale everyone to the same level to make sure it's an equal challenge.  It is very strange to have so much sophistication which is essentially multiplayer only.  My own experience is that I do find the games too easy, but at the same time I can't imagine wanting to be interested in the extreme specialisation and hard work of the metagame.  Pokemon should be harder at its easiest and easier at its hardest - I suppose that would be my take.  Increasingly I sympathise with the people who want to bring back those weird unlockable difficulty levels from... Black 2 / White 2?  Having explicit easy versus hard modes would give GameFreak free rein to make the games both easier and harder without having to compromise in what usually ends up being the easier direction.  But that's the tough part of having a franchise primarily aimed at small children but with a hardcore fandom of experienced adults.

I have increasing sympathy with the idea of eliminating levels, too, and experimenting with that; hence my interest in The Alliance Alive.  Games with multiple jobs with job levels I think could also stand to benefit from eliminating character levels.  At the same time, levels can be an extremely good structure around which to rig things like skill points and point-buy builds and so on.

[Tornado]

There is absolutely, positively nothing I fucking hate more then level scaling in an RPG. I will not play one any longer once I discover that it has it, no matter how far I am into it (the only exception I've ever made is the Silver Star remakes, and in comparison to the original Lunar I haven't replayed them nearly as much). If the game has an enjoyable, well-designed combat system, it's already not a chore to power level to begin with; and a developer telling me that doing so and putting more time into their game than the typical player would anyway is not the correct way to play is one of the biggest "fuck you" statements someone making a game in the genre can make.

[FlameStream]

The feeling getting stronger and seeing bigger numbers is something that people enjoy. This is especially true in MMOs since it's a measure of progress. In any case, removing levels, or any stats increase on RPGs may fend off those kind of people. I know a few that just grind it out and just raze through, because that's how they enjoy playing it seems.

[Salamander]

2 hours ago, SaberX said:

I was more talking about Battle Tree, which is taking a very bad route. I believe that the difficulty increased was most of smogonians fault. Most of them opt to use extremelly powerfull pokemon and then get over themselves claiming that the game is easy. Gamefreak stupidily believe that because experienced players wants more challenge, and then put some hard tasks on BT. This is the worst type of balancing.

Ah, I see.  I frankly don't even attempt to touch any of those elements any more precisely because of their infamy for being difficult and unfair, so... yes, I can see that.  At the very least I would hope that it would ease you in.  But I haven't really be able to get excited about any of those since the really interesting selection of Battle Frontier facilities in Platinum, which had genuinely exciting gimmicks and did start off perfectly manageable.

I've been thinking more about the no-level solution to level-scaling and level-grinding and level issues more generally.  The trouble is, levelling is an excellent framework for progression.  You use it to hand out new moves, or more abilities, or skill points, as well as stat growth.  Once you take away that... what do you replace it with?  How do you distribute those improvements?  Through job levels, weapon levels, gathering money for new equipment...  I'm intrigued by the thought of using any of those as substitutes, but if you're zealously anti-levelling, all of that is just levelling by proxy, and thus subject to grinding, and thus counter-subject to scaling.  Alternatively, you concentrate new abilities and so on in McGuffins found in specific locations through the environment, or gated behind very specific fights, plot events, etc.  But if you do that... why would we bother fighting regular enemies at all?  What's the incentive to not just run from every single battle?

It's the Paper Mario: Sticker Star problem.  That game has no levels, so your only prize for beating a random battle is getting more stickers to use in future battles.  But, especially since you'll often use more stickers in battle than you get back, actually fighting battles at all is inefficient compared to avoiding every single one of them - and that's exactly what I did.  I played Sticker Star as a boss game, running straight past every single regular battle and avoiding everything non-mandatory, and the game did not punish me for it.  Normal battles were not just a chore, they were an actual obstacle.  If you make a game like that, you've sabotaged your game as an RPG.

Well, if it comes to that, the real issue with traditional RPGs is that in the vast majority of cases ordinary battles are, if we're honest, really boring and repetitive.  In so many games you just press attack over and over again until you win, and only have to do anything interesting against bosses.  Random battles and levelling are a kind of facsimile of something interesting, a mechanical imitation of pen-and-paper proceedings, and one which you don't really get anything out of unless you're playing a game which either has action elements or which has an unusually sophisticated battle system.  It's partly because of this that levelling can be so very easy; grinding is enabled precisely because battles are so frequent and so simple.  You're just going through the motions.  Level-scaling is a balance to that in more ways than one; it takes away the benefits of grinding, but it also reintroduces challenge.  I'll give it that.  But I would prefer it if RPGs made more of an effort to provide interesting battles where enemies actually have something substantial to offer that always requires a tailored response.