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[blackmagechill]

I'd point out that almost all games scale levels to one extent or another, because the alternative is player frustration, which is a serious no-no in modern gaming. Thus, wherever the player starts, The Rules say there shalt not be high-level mobs, and that, as you move onward, there shalt be mobs of increasing power as you go. Usually, when playing an RPG, I find myself wondering what it is about Random Starting Town that makes it the home of all that is weak and puny in the world.

I don't want Narshe just to be home to the weakest people in the world (seriously, you can find the guard captain on the Veldt at like level 14) I want it to have either an even difficulty slope all around or a no forgiveness destruction of the player's ability to fight at all at the start (i.e. roguelikes and dwarf fortress). Sure the final fantasy games were good, and WoR in 6 (if you didn't realize all the references by now, thats what they were from) scaled the game out well, and,the second time through an area there was typically something hidden that would have more challenging monsters suited to a fuller party (less so in WoR though, as there was never a way to tell if the player had this or that character to complete X dungeon).

[darkrider2]

Another idea of mine is not to scale the power of enemies directly, but rather the range of power they can be. For instance say you're attacked by bandits at lvl 1. They're all pretty weak and you can take them on in 1v1 combat but as a group they're dangerous. You get a little stronger later on and find you can fend off the weak groups 1 vs. group. Then as you grow more in power the bandit group composition shifts. Most of it is still the same weak bandits from the beginning, but now they have a leader who rivals your own strength. The expanding maximum power of the range allows weaker enemies to still spawn, allowing you to feel strong, while some of them still pose a challenge.

That's actually a good idea. I used to play a game called tinywarz (meh) and the depending on the planet bandits of varying strength would spawn, there would sometimes be a group with a large powerful unit and several weak ones, it really does give that sense of progression.

[Astral]

Fallout: New Vegas tended to stray away from levelled enemies than most Bethesda games; the loot may level with you more, and there were some areas that did level the enemies to an extent, but mostly it was a matter of putting meat shield barriers (see: giant radscorpions, deathclaws) in the way of players, preventing them from going in specific directions.

Not much stopping you from getting 100 in your weapon of choice, with perks to match, and just mowing through enemies like no tomorrow.

[loose nut]

Not sure how strictly you define your "modern", but both Baldur's Gate 2 and Star Wars: KOTOR are pretty good games that lack any noticeable level scaling. Also modded TES IV: Oblivion.

Are you kidding? KOTOR has pretty ridiculous level scaling. It's especially noticeable when you become a Jedi and are having about the same difficulty with things as you did before you were a Jedi. Baldur's Gate II, no, no level scaling there.

[majikero]

That's why mods exist. For Fallout 3 I use FWE. For TES:4 Oblivion I use OOO. It makes the game awesome and fights epic life or death struggle, especially against superior foes.

[IronyOwl]

I like level scaling. Impossibly difficult or uselessly weak enemies don't really serve any purpose, or at least not enough to justify having vast expanses of the game devoted to them when they'll only be relevant for so long.

Granted, I do appreciate being able to find weaker, earlier enemies if you so choose, but I don't think mowing through swathes of them should be a significant design goal.

One solution I've thought of is like level scaling, but with a twist to salvage progression. Say the world scales in level like we've seen in games like FO3 and Oblivion, but once a player "clears" an area, all the creatures that may spawn there remain at the level they were when the player "cleared" that area (the definition of cleared would have to be a game and area specific detail). This lets the game keep up with the player in power for new areas the player is exploring, but allows them to feel their progression when they return later for whatever reason.

This means you'd "taint" areas when clearing them out, resulting in strategies to knock out or not touch certain regions before you hit a certain strength level. Making an area respawn as useless mooks just so you can go feel awesome one-shotting everything in it later is a really, really flimsy reason to have the region respawn at all.

Another idea of mine is not to scale the power of enemies directly, but rather the range of power they can be. For instance say you're attacked by bandits at lvl 1. They're all pretty weak and you can take them on in 1v1 combat but as a group they're dangerous. You get a little stronger later on and find you can fend off the weak groups 1 vs. group. Then as you grow more in power the bandit group composition shifts. Most of it is still the same weak bandits from the beginning, but now they have a leader who rivals your own strength. The expanding maximum power of the range allows weaker enemies to still spawn, allowing you to feel strong, while some of them still pose a challenge.

This really only works in situations where weaker enemies mix well with stronger ones; ie it's not just a solo fight with some useless mooks derping around asking you to one-shot them to feel tough. It also suffers from some of the weaker enemy problems in that some regions are partially useless, even if they do maintain some valid encounters.

[Frumple]

I like how gearhead does most of its scaling. The more you succeed, the harder the fight gets. The more you fail, the easier the fights get. It basically self-adjusts to your capability without direct level scaling -- you can very easily game it to weaken things, if you want, so you can either play it very carefully, retreating occasionally to bring down the general difficulty or go balls to the wall and let it adjust itself when you get your crotch rocket mecha blown out from under you. S'one of the more bearable scaling systems I've seen.

Then it's got some set difficulty encounters that will wreck the shit out of you if you try getting into them early. Full death (usually you just get your ride blown up) is rare in GH1 and fairly mitigatible in GH2, so some degree of surprise!death isn't massively annoying.

ToME4 is a limited scaling effect; individual zones have an upper and lower limit for monster levels (and thus what monsters can be generated), so you've got some give in dungeon order without (theoretically, anyway) completely trivializing similar difficulty dungeons after you take down the first one. Then there's an optional area that scales indefinitely (and will eventually kill you, if you keep screwing with it.).

I could see a game where it has both linear (plot) scaling, OoD shit (wreck-your-face areas, no scaling), and opt-in difficulty boosters (investing something into a particular area to boost difficulty). Something for everyone ♪

[sneakey pete]

Meh, Half-Life 2 scaled according to how well you did, so it can't be the end to all games.

Say what?

[Ashnal]

*snip*.

This means you'd "taint" areas when clearing them out, resulting in strategies to knock out or not touch certain regions before you hit a certain strength level. Making an area respawn as useless mooks just so you can go feel awesome one-shotting everything in it later is a really, really flimsy reason to have the region respawn at all.

In an ideal game (pure fantasy I know) with such a system though it wouldn't matter when you got there. The encounter would be difficult when you're there doing it and would become static after you've met area-specific criteria. Now having an area of "useless mooks" does serve a purpose. It sits there as a marker of what you've accomplished, how far you've come. Now I would agree that leaving the area there solely for the players that like to one-shot weak things is flimsy, but what about players just passing through to get to another area? Consider it for areas that realistically *should* respawn over time anyways, like encounters with wildlife. There isn't a reason to respawn special encounters, but certain omnipresent things like wildlife should.

*snip*.

This really only works in situations where weaker enemies mix well with stronger ones; ie it's not just a solo fight with some useless mooks derping around asking you to one-shot them to feel tough. It also suffers from some of the weaker enemy problems in that some regions are partially useless, even if they do maintain some valid encounters.

The example I gave is of a complete group composition, but consider applying the concept to which individual encounters are spawned as well. Lets say at lvl 1 only butterflies and deer spawn. At lvl 5 wolves get added to the list of possible things, but you still get plenty of deer and butterflies. At lvl 10 bears get added to the mix, but leaving the now weaker things still able to spawn.

I do get the feeling that you're saying weak encounters serve no purpose. I disagree with that specifically. I would say that while you can judge your character progression based on the progression of current encounters, how far you've come tends to be much clearer when you're faced with what used to be a challenging enemy whom you can now mop the floor with. The problem comes when this happens too often or too little. It should be just enough to remind you of where you were then and where you are now, but not enough to bore you.

[eerr]

Meh, Half-Life 2 scaled according to how well you did, so it can't be the end to all games.

Say what?

Half-life and Half-life 2, the difficulty of enemies scaled based on how well or how crappy you do.

If you do bad enough, the zombies will just stare at you half the time.

If you pop off every tom dick and jane instantly, shit gets real.

[Telgin]

I've always hated level scaling for the reasons listed in here at length.  It's usually just stupid.

In every case that I know of, it just encourages abusing the system.  I had a lot of fun abusing Final Fantasy VIII that way.  You could do so much better in the end by keeping the characters level 7 (or whatever the starting level was) and junctioning powerufl magic than you could by leveling up and suddenly bosses get so much harder with more powerful abilities.

Actually... maybe that's the point?  Maybe they're trying to encourage you to play smart and game the system?

[IronyOwl]

In an ideal game (pure fantasy I know) with such a system though it wouldn't matter when you got there. The encounter would be difficult when you're there doing it and would become static after you've met area-specific criteria. Now having an area of "useless mooks" does serve a purpose. It sits there as a marker of what you've accomplished, how far you've come. Now I would agree that leaving the area there solely for the players that like to one-shot weak things is flimsy, but what about players just passing through to get to another area? Consider it for areas that realistically *should* respawn over time anyways, like encounters with wildlife. There isn't a reason to respawn special encounters, but certain omnipresent things like wildlife should.

Except if you get there at level 1 and clear it out, it forevermore spawns hostile squirrels. If you get there at level 50 and clear it out, it forevermore spawns elite dire bear raveners. That could be a significant difference at some point.

Leaving a weak-ass area as a transitional area doesn't make a lot of sense, because then it's just filler. It doesn't provide a challenge, it presumably doesn't provide meaningful loot or experience, it's just a place you have to trek across and occasionally be accosted by useless squirrels on. If there was any point to letting wildlife attack you on your way, there was probably a point to making sure the wildlife was an encounter and not a nuisance.

The only exception to this is when they're functioning more like resources than encounters, ie you need deer to respawn so you can harvest deer hides so you can upgrade your stuff. That's slightly different, but even then the same basic issues (pointless later on if deer hides are only for low level stuff, for instance) apply.

The example I gave is of a complete group composition, but consider applying the concept to which individual encounters are spawned as well. Lets say at lvl 1 only butterflies and deer spawn. At lvl 5 wolves get added to the list of possible things, but you still get plenty of deer and butterflies. At lvl 10 bears get added to the mix, but leaving the now weaker things still able to spawn.

I was considering that as well; hence the "portions are still useless" bit. Sure, the region might spawn level 10 bears that actually mean something to you, but they could just as easily spawn a flock of butterflies that serves no purpose whatsoever except taking up room that could have been bears.

I do get the feeling that you're saying weak encounters serve no purpose. I disagree with that specifically. I would say that while you can judge your character progression based on the progression of current encounters, how far you've come tends to be much clearer when you're faced with what used to be a challenging enemy whom you can now mop the floor with. The problem comes when this happens too often or too little. It should be just enough to remind you of where you were then and where you are now, but not enough to bore you.

I maintain that this is far, far too flimsy an excuse to justify basing sweeping game design principles on, though. Again, I can see having access to lower level enemies in some fashion, but I don't think the occasional satisfaction of "Wheee, these things used to be hard and now they die in one hit!" is worth the irritation of constant "Shit, how many of these are actual enemies and how many are scenery?" and "Okay, gotta hit the group with one fireball to clear out the trash, and then the fight can begin!" and "Why are there so many useless mooks I don't care about in here?"

[3]

Spoiler: Tangential rant (click to show/hide)

I think it's of more importance that developers focus on making encounters interesting and varied before considering the more extreme end of flow design. In most level-scaled RPGs, the primary difference between "weak enemy" and "strong enemy" is purely statistical (or some equivalent thereof, such as having higher-level spells and whatnot). In an ideal situation, all encounters should present a unique challenge; each enemy type should have a very distinct "feel" in order to present the player with as wide a selection of options and challenges as possible.

For example... when I play Skyrim (by no means the worst example of heavy level-scaling), I can't help feeling like my choices in a given situation are thus:
- Find spiders. Solution: Attack via primary means.
- Find bandits. Solution: Attack via primary means.
- Find undead. Solution: Attack via primary means.
- Find dwemer constructs. Solution: Attack via primary means.
- Find dragon. Solution: Attack via primary means.
- Find random daedra wandering around in the middle of nowhere. Solution: Attack via primary means.

What thought process am I going through? There isn't one. The game is in no way an interesting enough mechanical state to permit even the consideration of level scaling, and yet this is a moderately successful example of scaling. The bad examples are, obviously, far worse.

[Shadowlord]

I just started playing Fallout 3, and I am reminded why I hate level scaling. I didn't like it in Skyrim. (Setting the level encounters based upon when you enter and having you fight characters with different names and a slightly tweaked appearance is still level scaling.) I thought I would check out Kingdoms of Aramur, but they do the same thing.

Sometimes I want to walk into an area and be "the man", but it never happens. It seems like the world is just a continual struggle, just like it was at the very beginning.

Every time I hear this I am reminded of this quote: "The Warrior Caste loves to win and hates to lose."

[amjh]

The reason why I think level scaling doesn't work is because it basically means building overcomplicated error-prone systems to make games with RPG elements work like games with no RPG elements.
If you think the player getting a better character breaks the balance to me the logical solution would be to remove character improvement, or change the system to something that only diversifies the options, not building some kind of unsightly virtual rube goldberg machine that's only purpose is to cancel itself out.