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Elder Scrolls, Final Fantasy VIII, Silverfall, Mass Effect... These different games have at least one thing in common - they all have level scaling (for enemies and loot).

Level scaling - game adjusts the difficulty and/or type of enemies according to the player char's level.

Pros: enemies provide constant challenge; no need to battle lvl 1 enemies for zero exp later in the game; the game grows either easier or harder depending on the build; freedom to explore every pixel on day one etc.

Cons: does not feel natural - e.g. all lowly bandits are suddenly wearing rare, high quality armor; no real sense of accomplishment; no real sense of danger; no compelling reason to explore etc.

One of the arguments is that level scaling in the "open world" RPG = gradual increase in difficulty in the static world of the linear RPG, so there is no real difference.

I personally prefer a static open world w/o re-spawning monsters and w/o level scaling (think Gothic 3). You explore at your own peril.

What do you think?

Level scaling is a just a lazy, cheapskate solution used by developers who can't be bothered to put effort into balancing the game properly.

Level Scaling is awful. I vote no.

It goes hand in hand with respawning. If you hunt a pack of wolves to extinction in Oblivion, does it come back after three days? No dummy, it takes years. Decades likely for a new pack to move in and grow to strength.

It's just against some kind of natural order. Were here to destroy the planet. If nature evolved fast enough for levelled scaling, we'd be fighting antelopes with tanks by now. Those crazy antelopes. But no such luck, the best we can do is still only to use them to kill off members of our own species.

Ehh, I guess it's a resounding no for me.

I could live with level-scaling, as long as the increase in power is less than the player's increase, hence leveling up keeps paying off, and even then only for plot-related enemies, like in BGII.
The worst thing would indeed be handing out good equipment to "weak" creatures. Just increase their stats, if you even touch them at all.
So, my answer is a careful "sometimes".

Most properly know my position:

Level scaling (and treasure scaling) is an abomination.
It diminishes the effect of exploration, it diminishes the effect of leveling, if implemented "correct" it reduces the difficulty factor, if implemented wrong it can make the game impossible.
I see absolutely no positive factors pro level scaling.

The elimination of exploration is done because it doesn't really matter that you explore any more. So what if you find some hidden dungeon if the challenge level would be the same as if you went into the dungeon close to the central hub? The monsters and the loot is the same. The thrill of stumbling on that dungeon with too hard monsters which you struggle to defeat for that powerful weapon is gone because you'll still only find that iron dagger if the game deems you should only have iron daggers.

It diminish the leveling concept, and thus the character building aspect because the relative powerlevel remains the same

It can make the game way to easy, because again the relative powerlevel remains the same.

If the game doesn't implement it correct (Hey - Bethesda, I'm looking at you), it can completely make the game impossible for you to play. Take Oblivion where you can level in non-combat skills. Yet the game scales based on your level, and thus pits you against enemies you can't defeat because your level might be high, but the combat skills aren't and the game can't cope with non-combat skills.

My conclusion is as galraen.
It is a mechanics introduced so lazy developers do not have to work on balancing their gameplay and thus can spend more time on fluff and graphics.

It has no place in RPGs, it basically reduces the game to a pure action game akin to a normal shooter game. Simply because the only thing which changes as you "level" is you get a more powerful weapon which still is relative to your enemies.

I consciously avoid games which have level scaling. I've not spend money on Mass Effect for the very same reason.

I voted Sometimes, because I feel that while level-scaling is ridiculous for, say, rats or skeletons, human-like enemies, particulary the ones you have met and fought before should progress. As for treasure, I am kind of on the side of a Very Special Bonded Weapon here, with minimal loot in the games, with items being special something that rarely happens, and gold being just totaled and used in plot-related situations. And I really only play SP games, so that's what I am talking about.

I voted "abomination" and am in agreement with Xandax.

I've written something about this very question on my website. Scroll down to "About enemy scaling in computer RPGs".

It's not level scaling that is the problem, it is the way it is presented.

Being a game developer is akin to being an illusionist. It is alright to use secret doors and mirrors and whatnot so long as your audience doesn't see them. The minute they do the illusion is ruined. They want to believe the magic you are showing them but they can only do so if they can't see the crass mechanics of the thing.

The problem with Oblivion like level scaling is it is too in-your-face and counters the other illusions an RPG strives to create, like the illusion of power progress.

There are simple, subtle ways to level scale without breaking the illusion for the player. First, don't level scale everything and don't level scale absolutely 1-for-1 with the player. Using random probabilities and increasing enemy numbers instead of just level is good.

You can start off with a table like this :

- 50% chance 1-2 level 1 goblins
- 20% chance of 2-3 level 1 goblins + a wolf
- 10% chance of 1-2 level 2 goblins
- 5% chance of 1 level 4 goblin champion.
- 5% chance of 1-7 level 1 goblins + 1-2 level 1 goblin shamans.

Then shift it to this when the player hits level 8 or so:

- 20% chance 1-4 level 1 goblins
- 50% chance of 2-7 level 1 goblins + 1-3 wolves
- 10% chance of 1-4 level 2 goblins
- 10% chance of 1-3 level 4 goblin champion.
- 5% chance of 1 level 6 goblin chieften.
- 5% chance of 1-12 level 1 goblins + 1-4 level 1 goblin shamans + 0-5 wolves.

etc

And it is unlikely the player will really notice. They will still get some battles that are a cakewalk and probably won't care too much if the groups are slightly bigger. To enhance the illusion have NPCs add lines in dialogue about how the "goblin menace continues to grow!" and you're good.

In fact, plot related tricks are an excellent way to cover your level scaling mechanics. Say you encounter lower level bandits when travelling the roads. Cool, you deal with them, you get stronger and they become easier. However, as you get past level 10 or so you start hearing rumors that a new gang of bandits has moved into the region. They're tougher, more organised and better equipped than the previous group, in fact people wonder if there is an outside force behind them, supplying them. This new group of bandits has invaded the previous groups' territory, pushing them out. Now, when you travel, you have a high chance of encountering these tougher bandits (change the name and the clothing a little) but also a chance of encountering the two bandit groups fighting, with the original bandits generally losing.

Suddenly a highly artificial mechanic (level scaling) becomes a source of depth and dynamism for the world, a feeling of things changing over time. You could easily add a few quests to the whole thing around the inter-bandit war and the player won't even question why traveling between towns is still challenging even though he is higher level! :laugh:

Presentation is everything.

Avery good post Naked Ninja, with a lot of vry good points. However I would say that most of the justification and solutions you give are relevant to DMed PnP campaigns, but not really to CRPGs.

The difference is time scale, in a PnP campaign the action is spread out for years, over a vast territory. In CRPGs it's more like weeks, and confined territory. Cyrodil for example is a tiny map really, you can cross it from corner to corner in not much more than a day, and I'm not talking about fast travel either. The timescale of the game can very from a couple of days to a couple of months, but no more than that unless the player is deliberately dragging it out.

Therefore the 'new bandit gang' is valid in a PnP game IMO, but it doesn't really work in a CRPG. Also (and this is were you are dead right about presentation) having bandits walking around with a king's ransom on their backs is clearly ridiculous. A bit better equipped gang, sure, maybe a wand or two, steel instead of Iron, maybe with a better spellcaster, but not to the point of wearing the best armour and wielding the best weapons the world can make!

I guess the intrinsic problem for CRPG makers is that of timescale, the super rapid progression of the players does present problems, but you scale the game by moving the protagonist to a new area, with different denizens and different dynamics, as in Baldur's Gate.

The problem arises also when a developer tries to pretend that a fantasy equivalent of a FPS is an RPG, as Bethesda have done. As Abe said, "You can fool all of the people some of the time ..........".

Depends on the CRPG, obviously, one set over the course of a few days wouldn't work for that specific example, sure.

But for the most part it would be fine, players in CRPGs actually have an incredibly abstract sense of time, more based around the actions they undertake and the quests/storyline they participate in than the actual in-game clock. They will shrug off the fact that, during the course of their playthrough, their character becomes 20 times more proficient than they were at the start, ie 20 times more skilled than they had managed to accumulate up till that point over the course of their entire lives. They won't question the fact that they are now the archmage of FantasyLand, having surpassed the previous archmage in skill (who has supposedly learned his skills over his entire lifetime) in weeks, etc etc. It is just as realistic to be able to save the world/topple evil dictator/overthrow government X in that time span as it is for a bandit group to move in on another bandit group.

Players don't need reality, they just need an enjoyable facsimile of reality. You can help this by simply dropping in some abstractions. A screen which says "you travel by ship to city X, the journey takes 3 weeks" etc etc. In PnP, though the campaign may take years the players don't actually play out all those years either. People measure their time in "events", moments when things happen and the plot progresses. The in-between stuff is just skipped as "blah blah we travel through the desert blah it takes a month blah ok we're there now".

The best way to hide this transition so it doesn't seem so jarring is to make things change once the player has moved on to another area. Have some quests take them back through their old stomping grounds and have the place be changed a bit. Their sense of time will be more based around "when I was in the desert" and "when I was up north in the snow" segments rather than actual day count. It will have created enough of an illusion for them to accept it.

I didnt read all of the posts, so I'm sorry if any one wrote this before. Level scaling is used to make the games more easy, for casual players, and that starts with console players. Hardcore players enjoy the difficulties they face to beat the goals set for them, even if they couldnt make it through first time they will try again and be satisfied with the challenge. But a casual player will give up if it is too hard or too long or, actually they can give up any time. So developers use level scaling to make casual players like the game.

On the other hand, nowadays people talk about games which look like real, but personally I dont want games to look like real but feel like real. When I attack a soldier with a wooden stick, he wont say "Oh the guy is attacking me with a stick, it wont be fair to shoot him. I'll fight him with my bare hands."

I totally agree with you. Soontir. I also think that level-scalling is used to make it easier for the 'casual' gamer to like the game. Obviously it really suckes if you belong to a group of hardcore gamers.
So because of that I'd say it's an abomination.

On the other hand it sometimes can be quiet nice. Take an example to Oblivion. What should you think of the game when you where at the beginning in these dungeons and you had to face goblins wich weren't lvl 1-4 but if the were lvl 8 or even 9. you would get killed before you got even look and see that there was a 6 foot tall monster running towards you. I obviously know that there are a few persons on this God forsaken planet who would actually like this, but I just don't like a game were you are killed 5 times before even knowing what the controlles are.:speech:
So if you look at that side of the story, I would nearly want to say that level-scalling is a good thing.

To make a long story short I say that it depends on the gamer you are. So for me I say that I like level-scalling sometimes.

If you made the first monsters you face lvl 6 - 7, you've got design problems, I think.

GawainBS wrote:If you made the first monsters you face lvl 6 - 7, you've got design problems, I think.

Not necessarily, level doesn't mean anything when comparing the statistics of your character to the statistics of an NPC or creature. Even though they may be level 6 and you may be level 1, their power might simply be a fraction of what your character would be at level six.

For instance, take oblivion. If they did this sort of thing in the sewers where you first started, what would be level 1 and what would be level 6? Level 1 would be infant mudcrabs and rats, but level six would be something akin to dire rats, and even dire rats aren't stereotypically that strong, all they are, are ROUS's.

Then of course, the one goblin shaman in the sewers of oblivion would probably be level 6. He's using a staff, has spells, and even though he's a wizard, has far more hit points than the average goblin. He's a boss in every sense.

This example is if oblivion DIDN'T use a level scaling system just FYI.

Therefore the 'new bandit gang' is valid in a PnP game IMO, but it doesn't really work in a CRPG. Also (and this is were you are dead right about presentation) having bandits walking around with a king's ransom on their backs is clearly ridiculous. A bit better equipped gang, sure, maybe a wand or two, steel instead of Iron, maybe with a better spellcaster, but not to the point of wearing the best armour and wielding the best weapons the world can make!

This is a very profound point. I think that any level progression with the progressively tougher enemies will feel artificial if you look at it from a real world standpoint. But I overoll would like the games focus more on the adventure and story, than on the combat anyway. I am actually one of those players some of you professed to hate so much. I will set it to dm_god or use Ctrl+Y if it's too difficult - or walk away if I am allowed to do it to return later. And I think that the level scaling is there for the 'hard-core' gamers who always say how the difficulty should be increased, increased and increased. I don't mind wiping the floor with the rats when I am level 10 because there were rats in the dungeons. I don't think a game should be designed so that you always could kill a creature you encountered; or that it always should be difficult and require 5 reloads. Story-driven tough guys should be tough (just give me Ctrl+Y, please or more RP labour intensive options that help to take them down), and story-driven easy guys should be easy.

Level scaling is a good idea when you offer it as an on/off switch in a user configuration panel. Otherwise, I could easily live without ever seeing it in another game.

The real Achilles heel of games like Oblivion, is that once the player cottons on to the games intrinsic weakness it's game over.

Once a player understands that it's your opponent's power that is decided by level, and not your own, which is totally derived from skills the game is the easiest walk over you'll ever encounter.

Once I realised (fairly recently) that the Executive Producer of Oblivion was Todd Howard, who was responsible for the worst game Bethesda have ever released, Redguard, everything fell into place. The most consistent conclusion by reviewers of Redguard, 'Great graphics, shame about the (non-existant) gameplay'. Sound familiar?

galraen wrote:Once I realised (fairly recently) that the Executive Producer of Oblivion was Todd Howard, who was responsible for the worst game Bethesda have ever released, Redguard, everything fell into place. The most consistent conclusion by reviewers of Redguard, 'Great graphics, shame about the (non-existant) gameplay'. Sound familiar?

He was also the project leader for Morrowind, a game that doesn't scale and is widely regarded as a classic. Sound familiar?

fable wrote:He was also the project leader for Morrowind, a game that doesn't scale and is widely regarded as a classic. Sound familiar?

As I understood it he was a designer on Morrowind, Project leader on Redguard.

Oh and incidentally, there was scaling in Morrowind, just not so much of it that it ruined the game.