» Mon Dec 12, 2011 6:24 am Set the leveled lists to generate spawn chances based on a virtual population...
This works fine for animals spawning in the wilderness, and probably wouldn't be hard to do. Not sure players would notice the difference between a virtual population and well-designed spawn lists, though, so it might be overkill. There do seem to be awful lot of wolves and foxes, though. I feel like there are too many animals wandering around. They lose their interest by being too readily available.
I'll give it this, I like the title. "The Well-Appointed Bandit" sounds like a wonderful old English children's story... Or a dirty old English limerick...
It just popped into my head. I thought it fit pretty good, so I used it. Probably all those Penguin classics I read when I was a teenager.
What does Bethesda say the point of scaling enemies is? To offer a challenge no matter your level?
You don't have to scale every single opponent in order to do that, and why would you? Why in God's name do bandits have to be a continuous challenge? All you have to do is have a few creatures that scale with you throughout the whole game (dragons maybe?!?!) and then stop scaling everything else where it makes sense to stop scaling them. There should be ZERO level 46 bandits in my game. I should wipe the floor with them by the time I get to that level. If I want a challenge all I got to do is find the nearest dragon.
I recently went to a dungeon with my stealth character. Saved at level 13 right at the entrance. Used console commands to max out my archery and sneak. Cleared the dungeon with both characters. I did more damage to the bandits with my level 13 than I did with my level 30 something. That is BAD GAME DESIGN.
You don't have to scale every single opponent in order to do that, and why would you? Why in God's name do bandits have to be a continuous challenge? All you have to do is have a few creatures that scale with you throughout the whole game (dragons maybe?!?!) and then stop scaling everything else where it makes sense to stop scaling them. There should be ZERO level 46 bandits in my game. I should wipe the floor with them by the time I get to that level. If I want a challenge all I got to do is find the nearest dragon.
I recently went to a dungeon with my stealth character. Saved at level 13 right at the entrance. Used console commands to max out my archery and sneak. Cleared the dungeon with both characters. I did more damage to the bandits with my level 13 than I did with my level 30 something. That is BAD GAME DESIGN.
Yes, the point of having dynamically scaled enemies is to provide a more or less constant challenge no matter what the player's level is. Bethesda has backed away from this concept a lot since Oblivion as it was probably the single biggest complaint about the game. Skyrim has much, much better dynamic scaling, but it is still there.
Most spawns do have a maximum level they won't spawn past, and some of them don't scale at all, so that's sort of already the case in Skyrim. I think it's funny that as soon as I published my article about why they choose to go with allocating better weapons and armor to the bandits instead of making them super-strong demi-gods I started noticing complaints on the forums about bandits in Skyrim...being super-strong demi-gods. Certainly, Oblivion's bandits were scaled, too, but Skyrim's bandits seem to scale more because they're not decked out in great gear. Damned if you do, damned if you don't!
Personally, since I'm a human (or elf or humanoid) and I can go around killing trolls and stuff, I don't see why other humans can't. I think it's very logical that many of the most powerful opponents in the game would be other people like myself. The problem seems to be that there are just too many NPCs like this.
The fundamental flaw I see with this article, and level scaling in general, is the notion that the player should have a fair fight anywhere they go. It's an open world game, therefore the player can travel anywhere at any time, therefore the player should be able to fight and win a suitably challenging battle that is tailored to their level.
I say this is silly.
The player isn't entitled to a fair fight. They should EARN it. The player should find places that, quite simply, are suicidal to enter. You shouldn't go to a crypt at a low level and think "I can do this, the worst I'll see in here is an enemy that's about as tough as I am, plus lots of sword fodder", rather, you should see a crypt at low level and run the hell away because you will be horribly murdered by undead abominations that you can't hurt. An open world should not automatically equate to every part of the world obliging the player by stooping to his level. There should be quests you cannot do, places you cannot go, until you become powerful enough to survive there. Unlike a linear game where you are literally "stuck" if you are not powerful enough to continue, the open world should be designed so that the player can travel to other areas at their level and continue honing their skills until they are ready to move up to greater challenges.
It should be a personal accomplishment to finally reach the end of The Cave of Sinister Badness, not only because you killed the Superbad Boss Monster but also because it's the culmination of days of gameplay just to reach a point where you can get in the front door and not die instantly. That sense of personal accomplishment is utterly missing in both Oblivion and Skyrim. In fact many people advocated designing your character to NOT level up while doing Oblivion's story, because quite frankly it was easier at level 1 and there was no barrier whatsoever to a wetback completing all the momentous events seen in the plot. Which is insanity.
I say this is silly.
The player isn't entitled to a fair fight. They should EARN it. The player should find places that, quite simply, are suicidal to enter. You shouldn't go to a crypt at a low level and think "I can do this, the worst I'll see in here is an enemy that's about as tough as I am, plus lots of sword fodder", rather, you should see a crypt at low level and run the hell away because you will be horribly murdered by undead abominations that you can't hurt. An open world should not automatically equate to every part of the world obliging the player by stooping to his level. There should be quests you cannot do, places you cannot go, until you become powerful enough to survive there. Unlike a linear game where you are literally "stuck" if you are not powerful enough to continue, the open world should be designed so that the player can travel to other areas at their level and continue honing their skills until they are ready to move up to greater challenges.
It should be a personal accomplishment to finally reach the end of The Cave of Sinister Badness, not only because you killed the Superbad Boss Monster but also because it's the culmination of days of gameplay just to reach a point where you can get in the front door and not die instantly. That sense of personal accomplishment is utterly missing in both Oblivion and Skyrim. In fact many people advocated designing your character to NOT level up while doing Oblivion's story, because quite frankly it was easier at level 1 and there was no barrier whatsoever to a wetback completing all the momentous events seen in the plot. Which is insanity.
In linear games, developers are expected to provide a more or less consistent challenge to the player at all times. Otherwise, certain levels are considered too hard or too easy. Perhaps Bethesda was wrong to try to apply this reasoning to an open world game like the ES, but I'm sure that's why they did it. They thought there were giving ES players what linear game players like.
I think the introduction of encounter zones shows that they're listening to the fans and trying to provide the best of both worlds. I've entered dungeons in Skyrim and gotten my butt handed to me by the ordinary mobs. I couldn't even get to the bosses, if they existed. I had another character enter a vampire lair at about level 3. Needless to say, the Vampire Elder or whatever the hell it was (didn't really get a chance to see what it was called) one-shot killed me about ten times before I decided to leave and go somewhere else. The most damage I ever did to him was about 5% health. And that was with a scroll. Clearly, there are already places like this in the game. If you follow the main quest, of course, all of those locations are scaled to your level so that you can complete it, if that's all you want to do. I got my personal sense of accomplishment defeating an ice troll on level 7 playing on Master difficulty. That sense of accomplishment is still there for me.
Has been done in Oblivion with Planes. There were IIRC 6 basic outdoor outlets. The interiors were random as in each door had several maps to lead to randomly. This can be done for normal caves, too. But this would led to generic dungeons again as best of both worlds probabyl won't work in a timely, moneyish manner.
This was what led me to idea of applying it to dungeons. The Oblivion planes weren't terribly well done, but I think the concept is sound. I don't think it would lead to dungeons being any more generic than they already are, and would make them a little more interesting. If in one playthrough the dungeon is occupied by bandits and the next playthrough its flooded and occupied by something else, even though the layout is the same, the experience is different. They're cosmetic changes, like having NPCs that don't all look the same. Sometimes all it takes are little details to aid immersion.
I prefer the static item way. Make the item too uber and useful, and I can use it forever if I choose to. If I don't want to be too potent, I won't use that item. This series is all about choice, and taking away the choice to be uber powerful (which some people really like) kind of undermines that feeling for me.
And on the topic of difficulty, I think there's a good balance now. Sometimes I'll be in a dungeon, easily cutting through everything, and some crazy powerful draughr or something will wreck my day. Won't even see it coming. Then again, I'm not playing with anything but non-cheating enchantments and my smithing isn't maxed out. Keeps the difficulty level. Dragons, though -- you can say that they don't pose as much of a challenge because I'm the Dragonborn, but they're really not a challenge for anyone. I've seen a small group of bandits kill a dragon. Guards kill dragons. Dragons aren't really all that scary, and I feel like they should be scarier than giants which are currently the only thing that still make me think twice.
And on the topic of difficulty, I think there's a good balance now. Sometimes I'll be in a dungeon, easily cutting through everything, and some crazy powerful draughr or something will wreck my day. Won't even see it coming. Then again, I'm not playing with anything but non-cheating enchantments and my smithing isn't maxed out. Keeps the difficulty level. Dragons, though -- you can say that they don't pose as much of a challenge because I'm the Dragonborn, but they're really not a challenge for anyone. I've seen a small group of bandits kill a dragon. Guards kill dragons. Dragons aren't really all that scary, and I feel like they should be scarier than giants which are currently the only thing that still make me think twice.
Well, the problem is that not everyone agrees, so who do the developers cater to? If half-way through the game I have the best weapon I can get, that gameplay element is dead to me. There's no new, shiny weapon to look forward to. Telling me not to use it isn't really a solution because it's going to be too tempting for players not to. The "if you don't like it, don't use it" argument comes up all the time as a way to avoid addressing design issues. For the record, that's how I play: if I don't like it, I don't use it. That doesn't mean I think that these sorts of issues shouldn't be fixed if they can be.
As far as the dragons go, that's a one-off design issue. They have been kept intentionally weak because they're just glorified keys. Dragons are an excellent mechanic for the difficulty slider to address: Novice - anyone can beat a dragon...Master - Good luck. They can be scaled much more dramatically than the other creatures, so players playing on Master will never see a weaker mob killing one.
Thanks to everyone for their replies!
