I loved The Witcher 3... except its levelling system.
I have no problem with the MC gaining experience points and subsequently increasing its strength, but I do take issue in being shackled by the level of a monster or quest. Nothing breaks the immersion more than being swatted by a nondescript ghoul or wolf 5 levels higher than you after defeating a dragon or demon half an hour earlier. This is, in my opinion, the foremost pain point of TW3.
How do you solve it? I'm no game designer but I play a lot of games and I've seen people do it better. Dark Souls comes to mind. What is the real difference between the first zombies you encounter and the knights guarding the final boss? Their health? Damage output? Attack reach? All of those are correct but the real difference is more subtle. Its the enemies depth and complexity.
When you begin a game, you know little or nothing of its world or mechanics. You may bring a few transferable skills from other titles of similar genres (especially on console), but a game usually teaches you the fundamentals in its tutorial. Many games don't go beyond that, causing you to use the same moves, abilities and strategies throughout the story. It gets pretty dull, pretty quickly...
Great games however, are consistently building upon those core mechanics, forcing you to react faster (parrying), face new problems (multiple enemies in a tight location), exploit weaknesses (back-stabbing), use smarter strategies, etc. The monster's difficulty and your skill become intertwined and they grow throughout the story, finally culminating in a boss which combines much (or the entirety) of what you've learnt (think Pikachu and Snorlax in DS). A levelling system is a cheap imitation of this epic journey, replacing depth and complexity with artificial difficulty decided by a subjective number.
I also understand that guiding the player, especially in an open world game, can be very difficult and a levelling system is a straight forward fix. If the challenge the player is overcoming has a numerical value of +/- 2 with the MC, then someone with median skill should experience the thrill of the event has per the developer's design. If the difference is too high, come back later. If too low, it'll be a piece of cake. This is my second issue with a levelling system. It bans me from pursuing stories which I'm interested in. It also forces me to complete less appealing quests because I worry if I leave them, they'll provide less XP and be too easy.
I played a game recently which managed to avoid this problem - God of War (2017) (& BOTW apparently). Now granted, GOW isn't really open world and does have a levelling system which I'm currently bashing. However (slight spoiler ahead), the game gradually and elegantly opens up with the story through the shifting lake in the main area. Not only did this make me feel like I was directly and significantly impacting the world, but also allowed me to discover its depth (pardon the pun). Pairing a quest's access with progression removes the worry about difficulty and ensures the experience that the developer envisioned (in most cases). No invisible walls or locked doors. No need for overpowered enemies guarding entrances. No need for artificial barriers blocking me from quests. It was like eating a cake, where the more your cut into it, the move layers of cake you found within.
TW3 was a great game, but recent titles have since elevated shared aspects of game play. CD Projekt Red is one of my favourite developers who obviously cares tremendously about their games and players. I hope they can also draw a little inspiration from their peers on this topic.
Please let me know what you guys think. Let's get the conversation going and hopefully get a response from CD Projekt Red by pushing this up!
I have no problem with the MC gaining experience points and subsequently increasing its strength, but I do take issue in being shackled by the level of a monster or quest. Nothing breaks the immersion more than being swatted by a nondescript ghoul or wolf 5 levels higher than you after defeating a dragon or demon half an hour earlier. This is, in my opinion, the foremost pain point of TW3.
How do you solve it? I'm no game designer but I play a lot of games and I've seen people do it better. Dark Souls comes to mind. What is the real difference between the first zombies you encounter and the knights guarding the final boss? Their health? Damage output? Attack reach? All of those are correct but the real difference is more subtle. Its the enemies depth and complexity.
When you begin a game, you know little or nothing of its world or mechanics. You may bring a few transferable skills from other titles of similar genres (especially on console), but a game usually teaches you the fundamentals in its tutorial. Many games don't go beyond that, causing you to use the same moves, abilities and strategies throughout the story. It gets pretty dull, pretty quickly...
Great games however, are consistently building upon those core mechanics, forcing you to react faster (parrying), face new problems (multiple enemies in a tight location), exploit weaknesses (back-stabbing), use smarter strategies, etc. The monster's difficulty and your skill become intertwined and they grow throughout the story, finally culminating in a boss which combines much (or the entirety) of what you've learnt (think Pikachu and Snorlax in DS). A levelling system is a cheap imitation of this epic journey, replacing depth and complexity with artificial difficulty decided by a subjective number.
I also understand that guiding the player, especially in an open world game, can be very difficult and a levelling system is a straight forward fix. If the challenge the player is overcoming has a numerical value of +/- 2 with the MC, then someone with median skill should experience the thrill of the event has per the developer's design. If the difference is too high, come back later. If too low, it'll be a piece of cake. This is my second issue with a levelling system. It bans me from pursuing stories which I'm interested in. It also forces me to complete less appealing quests because I worry if I leave them, they'll provide less XP and be too easy.
I played a game recently which managed to avoid this problem - God of War (2017) (& BOTW apparently). Now granted, GOW isn't really open world and does have a levelling system which I'm currently bashing. However (slight spoiler ahead), the game gradually and elegantly opens up with the story through the shifting lake in the main area. Not only did this make me feel like I was directly and significantly impacting the world, but also allowed me to discover its depth (pardon the pun). Pairing a quest's access with progression removes the worry about difficulty and ensures the experience that the developer envisioned (in most cases). No invisible walls or locked doors. No need for overpowered enemies guarding entrances. No need for artificial barriers blocking me from quests. It was like eating a cake, where the more your cut into it, the move layers of cake you found within.
TW3 was a great game, but recent titles have since elevated shared aspects of game play. CD Projekt Red is one of my favourite developers who obviously cares tremendously about their games and players. I hope they can also draw a little inspiration from their peers on this topic.
Please let me know what you guys think. Let's get the conversation going and hopefully get a response from CD Projekt Red by pushing this up!
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