Enemy Level and how it affects World Building
I was playing the game just now and got annoyed enough to actually stop for the moment due to an issue I wasn't expecting to encounter in a CDPR game. I'd like to preface my point by stating that I'm generally enjoying the game thus far and loving it's story, music and graphics, clearly a lot of attention was put into these areas and I wonder if it was maybe at the expense of something a tad more important for an open world RPG, which is how you balance your enemy difficulty and levels.
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And this is just a small point regarding the generally pretty poor gameplay design of this game, which I absolutely love. I wish it was the 10/10 it could have been if CDPR just believed that what they've been doing so far, which was great, was the correct way and not do this MMO style bullshit. In fact, most MMOs get this right, while for some reason, one of my favorite developers doesn't. It's a shame no one on the dev team will read this and hardly anyone will complain about this loudly enough to be heard, considering they're already going with flat leveling, they just majorly fucked up the enemy placement and selection, it's an easy fix and I can only hope that a mod can fix this, one of the game's several shortcomings.
I was playing the game just now and got annoyed enough to actually stop for the moment due to an issue I wasn't expecting to encounter in a CDPR game. I'd like to preface my point by stating that I'm generally enjoying the game thus far and loving it's story, music and graphics, clearly a lot of attention was put into these areas and I wonder if it was maybe at the expense of something a tad more important for an open world RPG, which is how you balance your enemy difficulty and levels.
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Introduction
There exist two general philosophies when you're deciding how to balance your open world game and they generally coincide with the type of audience you are after. If you're interested in catering to the largest market sector and also lowest common denominator, you use a level scaling system which makes sure that enemies are always of an appropriate level to be considered challenging for the player, the other is flat level placement, which is more focused around the "hardcore" RPG crowd and their desire for organic feeling worlds with tiered challenges, this is both to provide variable difficulty for players and help with worldbuilding, now let's take a deeper look into each type.
Level-scaling
As we already know, level scaling is the design principle in which ball enemies automatically scale to the player character (from here on referred to as PC). This has several effects on the general combat difficulty and also the worldbuilding.
In open world games, players tend to want to explore freely, without restrictions, this is why they often get annoyed at "invisible walls" and why more mainstream open world RPGs such as the Elder Scrolls franchise opt to use level scaling. Level scaling makes sure that there are no areas which a player can't "beat", the PC never feels too weak and underpowered and the player never feels like the game is "unfair". It also means that, generally, you don't see much variation in difficulty.
The negative consequences of this are two fold and mostly concern "hardcore" players and RPG vets:
1)A sense of a lack of progression.
"I gain 10 damage, my enemies gain 10 health" is a simple way to describe this point. Generally the increase of PC power is muted by the increase in NPC power. Once you're armed with the Epic Sword of Dragonslaying +10, it still takes more than several hits to kill a Highwayman. This ends up reducing a player's feeling of having accomplished something and being powerful. Game developers try to alleviate this by introducing new visual elements to the NPC, the most basic example I can give you is the Bandits armed with Daedric Armor and weapons in Oblivion, which needless to say completely ruins any immersion. Not only is that bandit camp back next to the starting village still an issue for our hero, after he's slain multi-dimensional tentacle monsters, but now those bandits are also wearing what is supposed to be extremely rare and valuable equipment that almost no one has even seen, let alone used.
2)Destroys worldbuilding
The previously mentioned Daedric Bandits from Oblivion are a great example of this. You can't expect a discerning player to suspend their disbelief when a naked guy with a stick is still dangerous to him when he's the Supreme Badass of Godlsaying and similarly, you can't expect that same suspension of disbelief when those exact same naked guys are now running around in magical, ultra rare, super epic demonic gear of the astral planes.
Flat-leveing
This is simple on a technical and on a design level. Enemies are given set levels appropriate to their type and location in the world. This has major benefits for worldbuilding.
1)Locations with stories
"That mine there be haunted, master witcher." can actually mean something when there's a dangerous ghost there, perhaps even with a unique texture to emphasize it.
"Wild dogs prowl that battlefield now, a problem for peasants, but not for a witcher like you."
The Witcher 3 uses flat leveling and I already gave two examples of how it can solidify the worldbuilding in a game such as this, I could go into more detail, but I think it's a pretty obvious point.
Other examples include the Dire Wolves in something like Gothic, in the deep forests, the Deathclaw quarry in Fallout: New Vegas and such.
2)Feeling of power when coming back and of danger when entering the unknown
The Nekkers in that cave might have given you a bit of trouble earlier, but now that you've upgraded your armor and have a shiny new sword and have already killed an Arachas and several golems, they're child's play, while entering the lair of a Manticore is filled with danger and uncertainty, because you know it won't be exactly your level, it won't be designed to be just easy enough to beat, you'll have to work for it. Other examples include again, most of Fallout New Vegas.
Again, the example itself is pretty self explanatory.
As you can see, Flat leveling is really much better if you're interested in building a natural feeling world and how it can punish newbie players by killing them.
So why exactly did I make this thread, what possible purpose does it have?
Well, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt did something I wasn't expecting, it takes negative aspects from both methods.
The Witcher 3
Bandits can range in level from 1 to above 10, 20 and maybe higher, haven't played that much yet. This is a big issue, because you end up in a situation where a nearly naked man, in his underwear, brandishing a Small Blackjack can somehow increase drastically in power in a new area. Especially when you get to Vellen, if you decide to go into the Devil's Pit, which is right next to where you arrive, you'll be greeted by bandits that take more than 20 hits to kill, while killing you in 3.
Geralt, the best swordsman alive can't kill a naked guy with a stick, the likes of which he was just killing a minute ago.
Naked man with a stick, the likes of which were getting chopped to bits by Geralt, the greatest swordsman alive, can now kill said swordsman in three hits with his stick.
This is an issue, from a worldbuilding perspective. One naked bandit isn't that different to another, they look identical and use identical gear, they should pose an identical challenge and a regular human enemy shouldn't ever be that much stronger than Geralt, they weren't in the previous games, they aren't in the books,only in Witcher 3 with it's screwed up enemy placement are they able to touch him.
And it's not like there's a small variety of monsters, in fact, both previous Witcher games had a variety of monsters as large as any Elder Scrolls and used them perfectly. And when they wanted to give you tougher human enemies, they changed from bandits to professional soldiers, but that would still be screwed up in The Witcher 3, because CDPR seem to have fired the person who was reponsible for that.
Here is how it should be, in accordance with both how good open world games are designed and how CDPR themselves have been making games thus far, this us just an example, the numbers are to give an idea.
Human Enemies
Level 1-3: Naked bandit.
Level 3-5: Bandit with some armor
Level 7-10: Deserter with his soldier's armor and weapon
Level 10-12: Professional bounty hunter/assassin
Level 12-15: Human boss characters
Level 15-20: Witchers/ Mages/Mutants etc.
Not naked bandits existing in ranges from Level 1 to 10, you should never be in a situation where a single naked bandit can destroy you, while taking more hits from your sword than it has durability to sustain.
Same goes for monsters, a ghoul is a ghoul, it doesn't need to go from level 2 to 9 for no reason. How can Geralt be able to kill 5 Ghouls at once in this one area, but not able to kill a single one in the cave next to this area? That's why you have Alghouls, to have a tougher Ghoul. How were they able to get it right in The Witcher 1, their first game, but get it so wrong when they already have so much experience making RPGs?
There exist two general philosophies when you're deciding how to balance your open world game and they generally coincide with the type of audience you are after. If you're interested in catering to the largest market sector and also lowest common denominator, you use a level scaling system which makes sure that enemies are always of an appropriate level to be considered challenging for the player, the other is flat level placement, which is more focused around the "hardcore" RPG crowd and their desire for organic feeling worlds with tiered challenges, this is both to provide variable difficulty for players and help with worldbuilding, now let's take a deeper look into each type.
Level-scaling
As we already know, level scaling is the design principle in which ball enemies automatically scale to the player character (from here on referred to as PC). This has several effects on the general combat difficulty and also the worldbuilding.
In open world games, players tend to want to explore freely, without restrictions, this is why they often get annoyed at "invisible walls" and why more mainstream open world RPGs such as the Elder Scrolls franchise opt to use level scaling. Level scaling makes sure that there are no areas which a player can't "beat", the PC never feels too weak and underpowered and the player never feels like the game is "unfair". It also means that, generally, you don't see much variation in difficulty.
The negative consequences of this are two fold and mostly concern "hardcore" players and RPG vets:
1)A sense of a lack of progression.
"I gain 10 damage, my enemies gain 10 health" is a simple way to describe this point. Generally the increase of PC power is muted by the increase in NPC power. Once you're armed with the Epic Sword of Dragonslaying +10, it still takes more than several hits to kill a Highwayman. This ends up reducing a player's feeling of having accomplished something and being powerful. Game developers try to alleviate this by introducing new visual elements to the NPC, the most basic example I can give you is the Bandits armed with Daedric Armor and weapons in Oblivion, which needless to say completely ruins any immersion. Not only is that bandit camp back next to the starting village still an issue for our hero, after he's slain multi-dimensional tentacle monsters, but now those bandits are also wearing what is supposed to be extremely rare and valuable equipment that almost no one has even seen, let alone used.
2)Destroys worldbuilding
The previously mentioned Daedric Bandits from Oblivion are a great example of this. You can't expect a discerning player to suspend their disbelief when a naked guy with a stick is still dangerous to him when he's the Supreme Badass of Godlsaying and similarly, you can't expect that same suspension of disbelief when those exact same naked guys are now running around in magical, ultra rare, super epic demonic gear of the astral planes.
Flat-leveing
This is simple on a technical and on a design level. Enemies are given set levels appropriate to their type and location in the world. This has major benefits for worldbuilding.
1)Locations with stories
"That mine there be haunted, master witcher." can actually mean something when there's a dangerous ghost there, perhaps even with a unique texture to emphasize it.
"Wild dogs prowl that battlefield now, a problem for peasants, but not for a witcher like you."
The Witcher 3 uses flat leveling and I already gave two examples of how it can solidify the worldbuilding in a game such as this, I could go into more detail, but I think it's a pretty obvious point.
Other examples include the Dire Wolves in something like Gothic, in the deep forests, the Deathclaw quarry in Fallout: New Vegas and such.
2)Feeling of power when coming back and of danger when entering the unknown
The Nekkers in that cave might have given you a bit of trouble earlier, but now that you've upgraded your armor and have a shiny new sword and have already killed an Arachas and several golems, they're child's play, while entering the lair of a Manticore is filled with danger and uncertainty, because you know it won't be exactly your level, it won't be designed to be just easy enough to beat, you'll have to work for it. Other examples include again, most of Fallout New Vegas.
Again, the example itself is pretty self explanatory.
As you can see, Flat leveling is really much better if you're interested in building a natural feeling world and how it can punish newbie players by killing them.
So why exactly did I make this thread, what possible purpose does it have?
Well, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt did something I wasn't expecting, it takes negative aspects from both methods.
The Witcher 3
Bandits can range in level from 1 to above 10, 20 and maybe higher, haven't played that much yet. This is a big issue, because you end up in a situation where a nearly naked man, in his underwear, brandishing a Small Blackjack can somehow increase drastically in power in a new area. Especially when you get to Vellen, if you decide to go into the Devil's Pit, which is right next to where you arrive, you'll be greeted by bandits that take more than 20 hits to kill, while killing you in 3.
Geralt, the best swordsman alive can't kill a naked guy with a stick, the likes of which he was just killing a minute ago.
Naked man with a stick, the likes of which were getting chopped to bits by Geralt, the greatest swordsman alive, can now kill said swordsman in three hits with his stick.
This is an issue, from a worldbuilding perspective. One naked bandit isn't that different to another, they look identical and use identical gear, they should pose an identical challenge and a regular human enemy shouldn't ever be that much stronger than Geralt, they weren't in the previous games, they aren't in the books,only in Witcher 3 with it's screwed up enemy placement are they able to touch him.
And it's not like there's a small variety of monsters, in fact, both previous Witcher games had a variety of monsters as large as any Elder Scrolls and used them perfectly. And when they wanted to give you tougher human enemies, they changed from bandits to professional soldiers, but that would still be screwed up in The Witcher 3, because CDPR seem to have fired the person who was reponsible for that.
Here is how it should be, in accordance with both how good open world games are designed and how CDPR themselves have been making games thus far, this us just an example, the numbers are to give an idea.
Human Enemies
Level 1-3: Naked bandit.
Level 3-5: Bandit with some armor
Level 7-10: Deserter with his soldier's armor and weapon
Level 10-12: Professional bounty hunter/assassin
Level 12-15: Human boss characters
Level 15-20: Witchers/ Mages/Mutants etc.
Not naked bandits existing in ranges from Level 1 to 10, you should never be in a situation where a single naked bandit can destroy you, while taking more hits from your sword than it has durability to sustain.
Same goes for monsters, a ghoul is a ghoul, it doesn't need to go from level 2 to 9 for no reason. How can Geralt be able to kill 5 Ghouls at once in this one area, but not able to kill a single one in the cave next to this area? That's why you have Alghouls, to have a tougher Ghoul. How were they able to get it right in The Witcher 1, their first game, but get it so wrong when they already have so much experience making RPGs?
And this is just a small point regarding the generally pretty poor gameplay design of this game, which I absolutely love. I wish it was the 10/10 it could have been if CDPR just believed that what they've been doing so far, which was great, was the correct way and not do this MMO style bullshit. In fact, most MMOs get this right, while for some reason, one of my favorite developers doesn't. It's a shame no one on the dev team will read this and hardly anyone will complain about this loudly enough to be heard, considering they're already going with flat leveling, they just majorly fucked up the enemy placement and selection, it's an easy fix and I can only hope that a mod can fix this, one of the game's several shortcomings.
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