Fallout

Alright, well i'm going to attack a policeman, then off to North Korea. Wanna join?

 

I knew this response would come, and I planned for it in advance.

If you're going to go out and attack a policeman and then head off to North Korea, you'd have to be capable enough to do it. For example, if you knew you were gonna get your ass kicked, you wouldn't do that.

In the game, if you've got the "Uber-Magic-Sword-'o-Doom" and you wanna go fight that Tranny/Dragon hybrid, you'd have to be sure you could do it.

Also, the way games do it now, it'd be like having Arkansas have Level 1 monsters, Florida having Level 60 monsters and then Kansas having Level 90 monsters, it just doesn't make sense how they all hide out together in a set boundary.

 

Yes, but you're forgetting that this is a fantasy world. Are the plains of Africa more dangerous than a park? how dangerous it is depends on where you are. Obviously if you're closer to human settlements there will be less dangerous animals or outlaws, while when you are in the wilderness you see more wild animals, and convicts hiding from the law.

This is also a medieval setting, so law enforcement isn't as effective, evident since there are so many bandit camps.

So basically there IS places that are more dangerous than others because those are the places where human impact isn't as large.

Also, it was a joke. So, y'know, lighten up.

 

Level scaling sucks. I don't wanna be invincible, the whole point of many RPGs is you're training up for something. If you happen to meet that something early on, you should expect to get smashed into the floor, then you've got something to work towards. That's all part of the excitement and adds to the sense of progress.

 

I lean more towards preferring the classic level system for the reasons you just said, but I can understand the intentions in implementing level scaling.

 

I think level scaling should occur, that a level one monster would level up to 10 after you did so much & had a higher level, but the baddies start at their own level & will scale up when you go above them.

 

Then you lose the satisfaction of feeling all-powerful by going back to enemies that once troubled you and slaying five of them with a single blow. That's like, my favourite part. It'd feel slightly odd to meet some God-like rat where once there lived regular ol' weak rats.

 

I'm not too sure if that applies to 'vanilla' Oblivion (been too long since I played it modless), but I think it doesn't just level up the same enemies, but gives you different, stronger enemies depending on your level. My memory could be wrong, though.

I agree with you on the whole satisfaction thing, but I'm not sure how level scaling would fit into a game like Oblivion or other open world games. It works with more linear games like NWN, Dragon Age or Mass Effect because there is a certain structure to the way you play through them, but open-world games don't have that, so how would they determine which enemies would be at what level if they don't know the order in which you're going to play through the game?

 

I think several MMOs manage it pretty well. They can't be too sure of which order you're going to play, but being an MMO means you can attempt areas way above your level if you've got a big enough party to tag along.

It worked well enough in Fallout 3 too. There's no way you're gonna last long against Super Mutants or Deathclaws at the beginning of the game, but if you're up for a challenge the option is there, and it's always a bit of a exciting rush when you wander into a new area with new enemies and suddenly realise you're in way over your head. I'm not even sure which order Fallout quests should be played if you're trying to go by enemy difficulty but it doesn't really matter if you're not too exact, maybe you'll start with something a little tougher than you should have, but if you get through it... it's all good.

 

Does Fallout 3 use the classic level system? Since it's basically an upgrade of the Oblivion engine, I always thought it used level scaling, and probably because I didn't find any part particularly hard or easy.

 

It's a kind of hybrid system, you can read about it here:

http://planetfallout.gamespy.com/wiki/Does_Fallout_3_Have_Level_Scaling_Like_Oblivion%3F

It worked pretty well in my experience.

 

Hybrid sounds like a good 'middle ground' to take, hopefully they can use it in future games.

I like the idea of 'region locking', but what if you wander around everywhere as a level 1 character (I know no one would, but hypothetically speaking)? In theory, that would make the game ridiculously easy?

 

Good one, I'm not really sure how that would work out... presumably at least a couple of areas are set at a high level right from the beginning, places you go to late in the main storyline or something.

 

World of Warcraft has a good setup where certain areas have high level enemies and you don't stand a chance if you wander into them. I'm not saying WOW is good or bad so let's not get off topic and talk about that too.