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Gig
Southern Spirit
Joined: 20 Feb 2002
Posts: 3226
Location: NFG Headquarters |
| Level caps: What's the best solution? |
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I hate level caps... the level cap ruined Arcanum for me and now I understand that Morrowind has one too (not that I think I'll ever see the cap in MW).
What do you think is the best leveling control system? My favorite was the way they did it in Might and Magic IX. You can keep leveling and leveling as long as you want too, however, as you rise in level the next level becomes more expensive. Eventually the levels become so expensive that you can't afford to level up anymore. For me, it kept the game from going stale... I always felt as if I could level... I just couldn't afford it.
Play nice, ok? No level cap doesn't count as the best because... well... duh! 
_________________
''Perhaps I'm old and tired but I always think that the chances of finding out what really is going on are so absurdly remote that the only thing to do is to say hang the sense of it and just keep yourself occupied. Look at me: I design coastlines. I got an award for Norway.''--Slartibartfast
Last edited by Gig on Sat May 11, 2002 5:31 pm; edited 1 time in total |
Sat May 11, 2002 5:16 pm |
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Val
Risen From Ashes
Joined: 18 Feb 2002
Posts: 14724
Location: Utah, USA |
I always liked the Quest for Glory "leveling" system. Use a skill, it improves, end of story.
I also liked Fallout's system. So many possiblities there.
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Freeeeeeedom! Thank heavens it's summer!
What do I have to show for my hard work? A piece of paper! Wee!
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Sat May 11, 2002 5:22 pm |
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dteowner
Shoegazer
Joined: 21 Mar 2002
Posts: 7570
Location: Third Hero of Erathia |
Did you grab the Arcanum mod that allowed you to go to level 100? It certainly gave the game additional life for me, although I still ended up quitting before I finished that one.
As for caps in general, I don't see the need. In any RPG, there's going to be a certain amount of XP you can get without either an XP bug or intentional combat. In my mind, if someone wants to cheat, that's their problem. If someone wants to camp until monsters regenerate and do pointless combats, that's their problem. People that do those two things clearly aren't interested in a balanced gaming experience anyway, so why attempt to limit them? Where you run into trouble is when the game limits you to less levels than the "script" will give you, which was certainly the case with Arcanum.
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=Proud Member of the Non-Flamers Guild=
=Benevolent Dictator, X2/X3 and Morrowind/Oblivion Forums=
Sorry. No pearls of wisdom in this oyster.
RIP Red Wings How 'Bout Dem Cowboys! |
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Sat May 11, 2002 5:28 pm |
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Danicek
The Old One
Joined: 15 Dec 2001
Posts: 5922
Location: Czech Republic |
I hate caps also.
I think that it should be allowed to level as far as you want. Of course it is difficullt to offer good fights for extra strong characters.
I think that Diablo 2 leveling system with accesses to different difficulty level was very nice solution (when we talk about caps). |
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Sat May 11, 2002 5:53 pm |
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Joey Nipps
Orcan High Command
Joined: 03 Jan 2002
Posts: 849
Location: Outer Space |
No level caps at all. I see absolutely no reason why designers seem to want to cap levels. All this successfully does (and we have seen it in forum discussions) is to piss off a variety of people (notably the players). Having no level cap in NO way limits the enjoyment of the game for anybody. Conversely, having level caps limits the enjoyment of quite a large number of players.
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When everything else in life seems to fail you - buy a vowel. |
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Sat May 11, 2002 9:44 pm |
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Gig
Southern Spirit
Joined: 20 Feb 2002
Posts: 3226
Location: NFG Headquarters |
I understand that no level cap is best but, since it seems that they will exist whether we like them or not, what is the best of the evils?
quote:
Originally posted by dteowner
Did you grab the Arcanum mod that allowed you to go to level 100? It certainly gave the game additional life for me, although I still ended up quitting before I finished that one.
I did try to use that patch, it was recommended by another forum user but I never got it to work. There were actually two versions on terra-arcanum and I tried them both... no luck--I was really disappointed.
_________________
''Perhaps I'm old and tired but I always think that the chances of finding out what really is going on are so absurdly remote that the only thing to do is to say hang the sense of it and just keep yourself occupied. Look at me: I design coastlines. I got an award for Norway.''--Slartibartfast |
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Sun May 12, 2002 2:54 am |
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vaticide
Put food in here
Joined: 21 Feb 2002
Posts: 1122
Location: One step behind a toddler bent on destruction. |
Oooh, caps. Fun topic. I guess I generally agree with everyone who says caps are a bad thing, but I can also see a few reasons why they stick around. Most of these are from the game developers point of view.
1: Easier from a coding point of view. A defined range for a number is a good thing in programming. Going outside of ranges could cause unpredictable results.
2: Balance**. If the game has methods of gaining experience infinitely (respawning of enemies, etc.) it makes no sense for a player with near infinite time on their hands to become omnipotent in the game and then go fight the most powerful creatures as if dragons were roaches in a RAID factory. Rather than using a sophisticated method to fix this, capping is an easy solution. It also saves them from having to make an infinite amount of creatures to fight, for people at every level.
3: Catering to stat-hungry players. Some players like goals, and like to brag. I reached level 50! Yeah? Well I reached level 50 in 19h32m!! I sometimes think of this as the "Are we there yet?" mindset.
4: Faster to market. Easier coding, balancing and testing makes games ship faster and with less devastating bugs.
** Since most single player games have a finite amount of experience you could gain, why have the cap below that maximum? Seems like if you could gain a maximum of X,XXX,XXX EXP by killing everything and solving all quests in the right ways, that should be the cap, at minimum.
Methods employed to circumvent these issues:
1: Using higher, nigh impossible to reach caps. Make it so it would take 10+ years of legit play to reach the maximum.
2: Give higher levels diminishing returns, to prevent omnipotence. Have areas where creatures scale with the level of their opponent. Better testing to avoid anomalous experience gain (and other related) bugs.
3: Have other, similar things to appease this demographic.
4: Sorry, avoiding caps will most likely increase development time.
Any other suggestions/comments?
-vaticide |
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Sun May 12, 2002 6:15 am |
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Gig
Southern Spirit
Joined: 20 Feb 2002
Posts: 3226
Location: NFG Headquarters |
Those are really great ideas -V-. I'd love to see something like that happen but, from what you've seen so far, who's done the best job of controlling levels without making it too obvious?
My range of experience with RPGs is pretty limited and, although it's growing fast, it still pales in comparison to the rest of you! So that's why I'm asking--who has come the closest to getting it right?
Also, following Vaticide's lead, what do you think the best solution to meteoric player leveling could be? Pretend I'm a dev getting player input on the subject, I must control leveling somehow in order to balance the gameplay of my project, how should I do it? Again, don't isn't an appropriate answer to this question, it must be done in order to satisfy promises to my publisher.
_________________
''Perhaps I'm old and tired but I always think that the chances of finding out what really is going on are so absurdly remote that the only thing to do is to say hang the sense of it and just keep yourself occupied. Look at me: I design coastlines. I got an award for Norway.''--Slartibartfast |
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Sun May 12, 2002 11:18 am |
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dteowner
Shoegazer
Joined: 21 Mar 2002
Posts: 7570
Location: Third Hero of Erathia |
quote:
Originally posted by Gig
Also, following Vaticide's lead, what do you think the best solution to meteoric player leveling could be? Pretend I'm a dev getting player input on the subject, I must control leveling somehow in order to balance the gameplay of my project, how should I do it? Again, don't isn't an appropriate answer to this question, it must be done in order to satisfy promises to my publisher.
Just a theoretical conversation, right?
First, I think the only reason a publisher would ask for a cap is if they are planning an expansion that increases the cap (like BG1 and TofSC). Allowing the player to level further is a selling point, and greedy publishers know it. I know- it was just a conversation tool...
Second, like Vaticide and I said, any RPG will have a number of XP associated with the "script". The dev will know how many quests can be completed by the party (might be all of them, or could be an exclusive branching like MM7) and should have a general idea of combat XP that completing those quests will generate. Add those numbers together and there you go. Maybe add 10% to that for good measure. Gamers that "play the script" will never see the level cap and won't get upset. Gamers that exploit bugs or intentionally boost combat will hit it, but those folks can't complain too much- they're already screwing the game balance anyway.
Third, let me throw some philosophy out there. Just opinion, so feel free to ignore it. In most RPGs I've played, once I get around 3/4 of the way thru the game, I'm getting a little bored with "edge of your seat" combat. At that point, I'm more interested in finishing the story than in wondering if my party can survive the next critter. In MM6-8 (yes, they're my favorite series, but I also have replayed them more than all other RPGs combined), by the time you got into the "home stretch" of the story, your party was pretty well untouchable. That was fine with me. I guess I compare party development to human development. With babies, it's all about learning new things {levelling}. With children, they're still learning things and getting better at old skills, but they're starting to accomplish things {levels and story}. With adults, it's mostly about accomplishments {story}.
Kinda windy, but hope it helps.
_________________
=Proud Member of the Non-Flamers Guild=
=Benevolent Dictator, X2/X3 and Morrowind/Oblivion Forums=
Sorry. No pearls of wisdom in this oyster.
RIP Red Wings How 'Bout Dem Cowboys! |
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Sun May 12, 2002 3:07 pm |
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vaticide
Put food in here
Joined: 21 Feb 2002
Posts: 1122
Location: One step behind a toddler bent on destruction. |
quote:
Originally posted by Gig
Those are really great ideas -V-. I'd love to see something like that happen but, from what you've seen so far, who's done the best job of controlling levels without making it too obvious? ... who has come the closest to getting it right?
Hmm, the Ultimas were good as far as I can remember. I guess any game I have trouble thinking of when thinking about level caps did it right.
quote:
Originally posted by Gig
what do you think the best solution to meteoric player leveling could be? Pretend I'm a dev getting player input on the subject, I must control leveling somehow in order to balance the gameplay of my project, how should I do it? Again, don't isn't an appropriate answer to this question, it must be done in order to satisfy promises to my publisher.
Another good solution is to de-emphasize levelling and experience, and put more emphasis on strategy in battle, or other places experience is needed. This also requires a lot more development time to make sure there isn't a broken method of beating the game with a level 1 archer or something.
Like dteowner said not capping can pose a problem if you want to keep your options open for a sequel or expansion where the player would use their same character. If someone made their character so high level in the first game that no creature in the expansion posed a problem for them, they might not enjoy it very much. In the Baldurs Gate series if you maxxed out on experience, your player was just the right level to start the next installment.
Interesting allegory about the game progressing as human development, dteowner. I think if more games followed such a scheme they might retain more players.
-vaticide |
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Sun May 12, 2002 5:16 pm |
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Gig
Southern Spirit
Joined: 20 Feb 2002
Posts: 3226
Location: NFG Headquarters |
How fun! Look at all the great responses!
Yes, I'm just making conversation dteowner, I'm not a dev. I could never do something like that, if I wrote a game and nobody liked it I'd shrivel up and die.
_________________
''Perhaps I'm old and tired but I always think that the chances of finding out what really is going on are so absurdly remote that the only thing to do is to say hang the sense of it and just keep yourself occupied. Look at me: I design coastlines. I got an award for Norway.''--Slartibartfast |
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Mon May 13, 2002 12:23 pm |
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Guest
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I've been playing CRPGs for about 17 years and I can tell you in all honesty out of the dozens or more I've played the only games I ever hit the 'cap' in where the AD&D games. I've never seen the need to remove the cap, I guess. I keep moving onwards at all times, defeating everything in my path but rarely retracing said path for a second whack at 'respawned' monsters or more random encounters.
I've said before that the highest level I made in Arcanum by doing every quest and killing everything that was in my way was 44 (though by that point the character had 17 character points free because he didn't have anything to buy that suited him). I'm afraid you'll have to come up with a better example than that to convince me that caps need tweaking. 
They're just there. If anything I use them as a means to measure my characters progress. If the cap is level 50 and I'm level 10 I assume I have a little ways to go. If I'm level 45 I'm pretty sure I must be getting close to the end.
Exponential XP growth is the best way I've seen to control high level characters. In Fallout 2 (one of my favorites) it got to the point where it didn't matter HOW many alien packs or centaur packs you killed... you just weren't getting any further. There was a level cap set in the program for coding purposes.... it was just impossible (or beyond even the most dedicated power leveler's patience level) to reach. I guess if you played Fallout 2 for six months, 12 hours per day doing nothing but running from San Fran to New Reno you'd probably hit the cap...
BTW: What's the level cap in Morrowind? I'm level 4 after 20 hours of play or so... am I close? |
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Mon May 13, 2002 1:20 pm |
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EverythingXen
Arch-villain
Joined: 01 Feb 2002
Posts: 4342
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I agree with the previous person entirely. I feel such a connection with them... like I've known them my entire life. We have EXACTLY the same views and writing styles. They could be my long lost other half of my soul.
Or it could be me having been spontaneously logged out by the forum.
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Estuans interius, Ira vehementi
"The old world dies and with it the old ways. We will rebuild it as it should be, MUST be... Immortal!"
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=Worshipper of the Written Word= |
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Mon May 13, 2002 1:23 pm |
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Lintra
Elf Friend
Joined: 23 Apr 2002
Posts: 9448
Location: Bermuda, the triangle place with SANDY BEACHES |
I have to chime in on this discussion.
I dislike the idea of level caps. It is an artificial limit imposed by lazy designers who don't want to deal with limiting advancement by building the game engine correctly.
I *completely* agree what dteowner wrote about the end game being about the story. Continuing with his theme, it fits. By the time your party of adventurers is nearing the end of the story (most of them anyway) they are not doing anything new, they know each others strengths and weaknesses. The only improvement is doing the old things slightly better. So once your party reaches the unstoppable juggernaught stage make new levels millions of experience points away.
This does not slow down the story, it does not place artificial limits on the party. What it does to is force the focus to be on story and the party's contribuition to it rather than being self oriented.
It is also more demanding on the designers and writers who have to come up with a story that makes you want to see it through to completion after middle age!
I have been role playing since the mid 70's and this is an age old problem in a more modern guise. What to do with a super party? How to keep their interest and keep the story moving?
PS - My usual response was to whimp out and retire the PCs they would then become NPCs and part of the world history...while the players got to start with a new bunch (there was always the fun of the surprise when they either a) meet there old avatars or b) hear about them in mythological terms. It gave a sense of familiarity and comfort to the world). On occasion I would come up with a story line that required they dust off the old characters, but not often. |
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Mon May 13, 2002 1:42 pm |
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EverythingXen
Arch-villain
Joined: 01 Feb 2002
Posts: 4342
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My gaming group's attention span is so short that we have about 6 D&D campaigns, a Shadowrun, and a superhero game all on the run. And they wonder why the D&D campaigns haven't advanced past 9th level in nearly a year of weekly play in 3rd edition...
As an off topic: I love the high level game, especially in 3rd ed. As a DM you can finally take off the kid gloves if you want. They can damn near survive anything... and as long as one makes it, they'll all be back... so while I don't start chortling maniacally and saying 'Ooooh... this will kill off most of 'em!' I also don't go 'no... wait... this will cause casualties.'
So I guess people want an ever increasing experience dependant level system where the cap is the sheer amount of time you're willing to dump into finding monsters to whack. That works for level based games... now how about skill based experience-less level scheme games?
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Estuans interius, Ira vehementi
"The old world dies and with it the old ways. We will rebuild it as it should be, MUST be... Immortal!"
=Member of the Nonflamers Guild=
=Worshipper of the Written Word= |
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Mon May 13, 2002 1:54 pm |
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