I'm still like 5 levels over the main quest. So it doesn't really bother me.
I don't really get how they messed up the balancing this much. All that time and testing and I feel like they just kinda said fuck it - release it. They knew these problems existed.
Here's some ideas:
- Increase the rate quests go up in level. If we look through our log, and always do the lowest level quests in linear fashion, we should never run out of equal level quests. It is not hard to add up quest XP rewards, compare them to levels, and balance accordingly. There's no other sources of good XP in the game. Players should be required to do majority of side quests if they want to have ideal difficulty for main quests. It is the ONLY way to balance a open world game that doesn't scale mobs.
- Increase the rate monsters get stronger to match the increased quest levels.
Ideally...
White Orchard: Levels 1-5
Velen/Novigrad: Levels 5-25
Skellige: Level 20-40
There is far too much level 5-15 content. Another big problem is Skellige. If you play this game as intended, doing almost everything, you get there completely over leveled and nothing is challenging. Difficulty doesn't matter. The entire place needs a massive increase to levels, if you go there under level 20 you should expect to be slaughtered if you aren't careful.
Here's some ideas:
- Increase the rate quests go up in level. If we look through our log, and always do the lowest level quests in linear fashion, we should never run out of equal level quests. It is not hard to add up quest XP rewards, compare them to levels, and balance accordingly. There's no other sources of good XP in the game. Players should be required to do majority of side quests if they want to have ideal difficulty for main quests. It is the ONLY way to balance a open world game that doesn't scale mobs.
- Increase the rate monsters get stronger to match the increased quest levels.
Ideally...
White Orchard: Levels 1-5
Velen/Novigrad: Levels 5-25
Skellige: Level 20-40
There is far too much level 5-15 content. Another big problem is Skellige. If you play this game as intended, doing almost everything, you get there completely over leveled and nothing is challenging. Difficulty doesn't matter. The entire place needs a massive increase to levels, if you go there under level 20 you should expect to be slaughtered if you aren't careful.
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I started a thread on this and I am glad to see I am not the only person who feels this way.
1. The removal of XP from low-level no scaleable quest makes the game pseudo-linear not open world since there is no reason to explore the open because there is no value in doing so or reward for doing so. (especially with the weird loot system)
2. This means there is an inherent design cap to the game. It is impossible to reach level 70 without future DLC and expansions because you will receive no exp the moment you outlevel all of the level 30 monsters.
3. This is an action game, not an RPG in that sense because I can't choose a path that is not tied to the narrative. In Skyrim if I wanted to I never had to complete either of the two main stories, my destiny with the dragons or the war between the two factions. I could play quest anywhere in the world and do what I wanted to to reach what character driven goals I had for builds.
4. At level 35 I do not have access to the full 85 ability points imaginable which is why I would never max out all the abilities in the skill tree. That is not Open World RPG.
The game has stripped away the illusion and become a linear narrative driven action game instead of an open world RPG.
1. The removal of XP from low-level no scaleable quest makes the game pseudo-linear not open world since there is no reason to explore the open because there is no value in doing so or reward for doing so. (especially with the weird loot system)
2. This means there is an inherent design cap to the game. It is impossible to reach level 70 without future DLC and expansions because you will receive no exp the moment you outlevel all of the level 30 monsters.
3. This is an action game, not an RPG in that sense because I can't choose a path that is not tied to the narrative. In Skyrim if I wanted to I never had to complete either of the two main stories, my destiny with the dragons or the war between the two factions. I could play quest anywhere in the world and do what I wanted to to reach what character driven goals I had for builds.
4. At level 35 I do not have access to the full 85 ability points imaginable which is why I would never max out all the abilities in the skill tree. That is not Open World RPG.
The game has stripped away the illusion and become a linear narrative driven action game instead of an open world RPG.
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I disagree here. This is not a reward driven RPG, it's a story driven RPG. The goal in this RPG is not to get stronger and stronger. I could really care less about there being little to no rewards by doing certain things. It's a story RPG, and the side quests have good stories too. Infact, I came to ignore levels completely because they don't really matter.
The problem here is that you out level everything and that's what makes it not fun to soak in the stories. You get a story build up, then just 2 shot a boss, totally breaking immersion.
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In your disagreement you just pointed out exactly what I stated. What is the point of doing those sidequest If I out level them? Then I am just two shotting them. Its hard to argue that this is not a story driven RPG, but then that is not an Open World RPG is it. If it is about telling the story they want to tell and keeping you on path with that story then that makes the game linear. it is not generating a reason for you to go off the ebaten path when the side quest are not challenging, the loot rewards for them are garbage/weird, and they give no XP...I can get to the recommended level by just doing the main quest.
You are right though level does not matter at all, especially since playing on the hardest difficulty you can still beat enemies way above your level with relative ease. That is putting that two shotting enemies into scope as well is it not?
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This is a story driven RPG. Keywords are 'Story' & 'RPG'. Its not a story driven adventure game with some leveling thrown in.
Both the story & RPG part should be strong & compliment each other.
The story are in no doubt fantastic, but XP gain & levelng is just poorly implemented.
I think too much people are giving free pass for the poor design in leveling by saying how good the story is.
We should be able to applause the story as its rightfully great, but at the same time to critizise the XP/leveling in the game.
The game should be judge as a sum of its part, & most people will judges W3 as an amazing game, but that does not means we cannot focus on area that fall shorts & comment on them.
Both the story & RPG part should be strong & compliment each other.
The story are in no doubt fantastic, but XP gain & levelng is just poorly implemented.
I think too much people are giving free pass for the poor design in leveling by saying how good the story is.
We should be able to applause the story as its rightfully great, but at the same time to critizise the XP/leveling in the game.
The game should be judge as a sum of its part, & most people will judges W3 as an amazing game, but that does not means we cannot focus on area that fall shorts & comment on them.
RPG means role playing game. No where in the definition does RPG mean gaining levels and/or earning XP to get stronger. You are playing the role of Geralt, whether or not he gets stronger is beside the point, and does not make it any less or more of an RPG. An RPG could have absolutely no fighting or combat whatsoever, and it would still be an RPG.
This is a story focused game, and yes they should of gotten the combat balance a little better, but standards also have to be lower because it's not the primary focus of the game. Saying "there's no reason" to do something just because there's no reward doesn't make sense in a game like this. That's like saying there's no point in watching a movie because your not going to get anything in return. The story should be reward enough, and if it's not, then perhaps that person isn't a target audience for the game.
The only problem here is the fact being so overpowered takes away from immersion, and hurts the story. Fixing that, will fix the XP problem too. They simply need to make quests and monsters get stronger at a faster pace.
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I got 5 XP for a quest that was 10 levels below me. I was ok with that. If I had done that quest at that level, I would have missed the other quest i actually did ten levels before, and would be getting 5 XP for that one instead. I'm ok having the fun experience and ok with getting tiny XP; I want to former more than the latter.
What does being a RPG (role playing game) have anything to do with being forced to do quests in a specific order to grant maximum XP?
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That's baffling also. Why nerf XP when you are overleveled?
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That's baffling also. Why nerf XP when you are overleveled?
You aren't forced to do anything. You can do them at any level and there are plenty of ways to earn xp. The recommended levels are based on the area your in.
My issue with xp is not the side quests but the insane amount awarded during the main quests. I finish this one quest boom I get something like 300xp great. I go to the quest giver and converse with them then I get another 240xp super. I continue the conversation and it branches off and suddenly I'm awarded another 160xp. I don't get it. When I play a game like this i want to explore and do things at my own pace but playing this game I always feel like I'm being funneled back into the main quest for fear of overleveling. The amount of xp being given hinders the game, in my view, because an OP character is just not that fun to play even on DM. I do hope they create another difficulty or add an xp mod where you can gain levels slower and maintain the difficulty instead having a bunch of unfinished lvl 6-7 quests in my journal when I'm at lvl 10.
Wait...you let a quest unfinished just because you are overlevelled? Seriously?
Ya, there's no point, imo, to further stunt the experience by doing all the quests because pretty soon you're too over leveled for everything and the difficulty of the game becomes less of a challenge. While what they did with 1.05 was a step in the right direction I still think they didn't go far enough. Fighting lvl 5 trash mobs at lvl 10 isn't particularly difficult or rewarding just to complete a quest.
No we're not forced, but if you want maximum XP gains, then the most efficient way to play is to do all quests in level order as to not over level and possibly miss out on XP.
Exploration in this game is crazy fun, but if you explore too much, you'll find that you'll out level a number of quests missing out on valuable XP.
I spose in the end it's a trivial matter to some, including myself, as I had enough XP to pretty much complete the build I wanted by the early 20s, but I can understand were other peoples frustrations are coming from.