Haha ya kinda if you put it that way. But it does make the game slightly more challenging
Haha ya kinda if you put it that way. But it does make the game slightly more challenging
The game is not easy, you're just really, really awesome at videogames.
[Sard Edit: This might well be true. Less Snark, though, would be good.]
Not everyone has the ability and strength of will to just ignore all those pointless, story-bloated side quests and focus on what really matters in a game of this kind - mastering the combat.
You should be very proud. I'm so far behind you... I've been playing every day since it came out and I'm just starting Act 2.
[Sard Edit: This might well be true. Less Snark, though, would be good.]
Not everyone has the ability and strength of will to just ignore all those pointless, story-bloated side quests and focus on what really matters in a game of this kind - mastering the combat.
You should be very proud. I'm so far behind you... I've been playing every day since it came out and I'm just starting Act 2.
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1-15 was a very frustrating challange... after that the games a frustrating easy walkthru. what can I say, its hard to scale a games difficulty and still let people choose a trait style thats to their own fitting. I will say its quickly reducing the replay value if I dont have a challange awaiting, however I will find a way to make it challanging on the replay.
if you ask me the xp needs to be toned down ALOT. like I say after lvl 15 I have so much going on I trying to complete everything, I totally out level my stuff. If i want to take a challanging quest, it means alot of xp and fast leveling that I dont really want. I wouldnt mind a little grindy aspect of this game if I feel I need more levels before my fights.
if you ask me the xp needs to be toned down ALOT. like I say after lvl 15 I have so much going on I trying to complete everything, I totally out level my stuff. If i want to take a challanging quest, it means alot of xp and fast leveling that I dont really want. I wouldnt mind a little grindy aspect of this game if I feel I need more levels before my fights.
I made exactly that change just now. I made XP progression faster the first 5 levels, slightly faster till level 15, from then onwards slower (level 20+ much slower). In the beginning the game almost starves for XP but from level 15 onwards you scale the levels at a too fast speed. Just only this little change rebalances the difficulty curve a lot.
I really love this game but this is a HUGE problem. They make most of the content in the game trivial if you do all the content along the way. It's like you're punished by doing too many quests with greyed out quests and contracts after a certain point.
It seems to me they made the game for people who don't want to do most quests instead of those who do. In other words they designed the game for people who don't like RPG's which to me is just bizarre. It should be necessary to do a most quests to keep up level for the main quest instead of having to avoid most just so most of the content does not become trivial.
To people who say I don't want to do lots of quests to be high enough level for the main quest, don't play f***ing RPG's then, go back to COD.
It seems to me they made the game for people who don't want to do most quests instead of those who do. In other words they designed the game for people who don't like RPG's which to me is just bizarre. It should be necessary to do a most quests to keep up level for the main quest instead of having to avoid most just so most of the content does not become trivial.
To people who say I don't want to do lots of quests to be high enough level for the main quest, don't play f***ing RPG's then, go back to COD.
had anyone ever considered that full completion is just an option not an intended result?
I ask myself this and considering a game that has more stuff then I can do is appealing to me. should we start to experience games that we dont fully complete the first time because theres soo much content we cant?
if I put it like that is sounds awsome to me. We are so used to 100% completing our games to get all its worth, but if games can become so massive we should take a path and see where you end up I would say thats the right direction.
I ask myself this and considering a game that has more stuff then I can do is appealing to me. should we start to experience games that we dont fully complete the first time because theres soo much content we cant?
if I put it like that is sounds awsome to me. We are so used to 100% completing our games to get all its worth, but if games can become so massive we should take a path and see where you end up I would say thats the right direction.
[Sard Edit: Non constructive, aggressive post. Think a break is a good idea. ]
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Straight away you're assuming that people are going to play it more than once. It's a massive game, huge, and maybe I'll come back to it some time in the far future once I've finished but for my first time playing through I don't want to be punished with grey quests because I did too much content.
The game should never ever assume you'll do multiple playthroughs just to see all the content that is shockingly bad design.
It is true that at a time, when guides, FAQs etc. where not rightly available (since internet was not yet invented) and games where really huge (think Ultima, Wasteland, SSI games etc.) nobody ever remotely completed the game on a first playthrough. People simply enjoyed part of of what they could do and tried different things on different playthroughs.
Nowadays, however, it seems that if people - no matter how vast a game is - cannot complete it fully 100% at a first playthrough they aren't happy, and so devs many times even insert helps for them to do so (as pointing out where all the "secrets" are in the game etc.), plus guides, walkthroughs and what not.
This naturally has positives and drawbacks. The positive that in this way you can really spend many hours playing the game and enjoy all it has to offer in the first go (that's probably the most epic one), the drawback are that in this way, however, the game balance is difficult to keep and subsequent playthrough have less sense. In the first case you have a massive playthrough, sure, but the sense of discovery that there was back in the day is lost.
I remember when playing Wastleand and talking with friends nobody of us back then tried to complete the game at the first run, nobody of us tried to do eveyrthing. It was madness to even think of it. We just roleplayed the characters to the most and we did only what we thought was in their power to achieve. As I see it now things are a bit changing and roleplaying to its full is by and by vanishing: even a "completionist" playthrough is, all in all, a sort metagaming for how I see it.
Nowadays, however, it seems that if people - no matter how vast a game is - cannot complete it fully 100% at a first playthrough they aren't happy, and so devs many times even insert helps for them to do so (as pointing out where all the "secrets" are in the game etc.), plus guides, walkthroughs and what not.
This naturally has positives and drawbacks. The positive that in this way you can really spend many hours playing the game and enjoy all it has to offer in the first go (that's probably the most epic one), the drawback are that in this way, however, the game balance is difficult to keep and subsequent playthrough have less sense. In the first case you have a massive playthrough, sure, but the sense of discovery that there was back in the day is lost.
I remember when playing Wastleand and talking with friends nobody of us back then tried to complete the game at the first run, nobody of us tried to do eveyrthing. It was madness to even think of it. We just roleplayed the characters to the most and we did only what we thought was in their power to achieve. As I see it now things are a bit changing and roleplaying to its full is by and by vanishing: even a "completionist" playthrough is, all in all, a sort metagaming for how I see it.
It's not as if the Witcher series doesn't have a history of almost forcing the player into a 2nd playthrough, huh?. Alternatively, just carry on being overly dramatic by stating it would be a "shockingly bad" game design. A shockingly bad game design is something akin to Big Rigs, Sonic the Hedgehog 2006 and so on.
Trivialising a huge amount of content for people just because they had the stupid idea that they wanted to do as many quests and contracts as possible is bad design no matter how you look at it. They make really good sidequests and contracts that's why people want to see as much content as they can.
The vast majority of RPG's I play don't force a second playthrough to get the best out of them. CDPR don't get a pass just because it's The Witcher. It sounds like I have a problem with the game I actually love the game but this one BIG aspect of it they got completely wrong IMO.
You know, it may sound controversial and make angry someof those people who love to act as "old school RPG purists" (usually without actual understanding of what defines a good RPG or a good core design), but the more I play the game, the more I convince myself it would probably be a better game without "levels" at all.
Progression should be just about unlocking perks/talents and finding better equipment, without:
- having a basic stat increase at each level up. It's really not necessary and it doesn't make progression actually better. It's there just because it's tradition to have it in most RPG.
- having monsters based on different tiers of levels. Instead monsters should just have a defined range of power for each type, more or less consistent through the whole game. Like in D&D, where a goblin is always a goblin, not a level 1 and then a level 10 goblin according to where you move.
- having that MMO-like bullshit of deliberately making almost impossible to inflict damage to enemies who are too high in level even when your output should theoretically work (you know, what in WoW was called "glancing blows"). I wasn't even sure this was i nthe game until I noticed that even just ONE level up could turn a red enemy that was essentially immune to most of your advanced signs and bombs side effects in in a "green" (but still overleveled) enemy that made barely any difference from something of your own level. It's cheap.
I'll stress that this doesn't mean I'd want to see a game where you should be able to face everything easily from the beginning of the game; I'm just saying that I don't think in this case levels were the right mechanic to "gate" progression and content.
Progression should be just about unlocking perks/talents and finding better equipment, without:
- having a basic stat increase at each level up. It's really not necessary and it doesn't make progression actually better. It's there just because it's tradition to have it in most RPG.
- having monsters based on different tiers of levels. Instead monsters should just have a defined range of power for each type, more or less consistent through the whole game. Like in D&D, where a goblin is always a goblin, not a level 1 and then a level 10 goblin according to where you move.
- having that MMO-like bullshit of deliberately making almost impossible to inflict damage to enemies who are too high in level even when your output should theoretically work (you know, what in WoW was called "glancing blows"). I wasn't even sure this was i nthe game until I noticed that even just ONE level up could turn a red enemy that was essentially immune to most of your advanced signs and bombs side effects in in a "green" (but still overleveled) enemy that made barely any difference from something of your own level. It's cheap.
I'll stress that this doesn't mean I'd want to see a game where you should be able to face everything easily from the beginning of the game; I'm just saying that I don't think in this case levels were the right mechanic to "gate" progression and content.
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I don't get this. I mean, I do, but I don't. ANd I've outlevelled lots of content. It's not as satisfying to play it without the reward, but I have many other quests for XP reward. I play the grey ones for their content.
Nothing is preventing you from doing the quests - you just won't get XP that you don't need from them. They are easy for your powerful character.
The other option is a game that challenges you based on your character level regardless of the complexity or simplicity of the quest story at the time or surroundings.
Oblivion did that - people weren't happy with it either.
CDPR figures you have enough XP to do whatever you want - you can do all the quests or some of the quests, up to you. That's freedom. You just won't be rewarded for doing all the content - other than ACTUALLY experiencing that content.
If you're finding it too easy, play on Death March and never die. If you die, restart or throw out your most powerful item, whatever it takes to make it scarier and more immediate.
Nothing is preventing you from doing the quests - you just won't get XP that you don't need from them. They are easy for your powerful character.
The other option is a game that challenges you based on your character level regardless of the complexity or simplicity of the quest story at the time or surroundings.
Oblivion did that - people weren't happy with it either.
CDPR figures you have enough XP to do whatever you want - you can do all the quests or some of the quests, up to you. That's freedom. You just won't be rewarded for doing all the content - other than ACTUALLY experiencing that content.
If you're finding it too easy, play on Death March and never die. If you die, restart or throw out your most powerful item, whatever it takes to make it scarier and more immediate.
Its a catch 22 because they want to make the leveling balanced for people who don't want to do all the side stuff and just do the main quest.
The best way to fix this is IMO have the main level quest scale to your level that way you can never out level them and have them turn gray. That way you are always getting XP for them.
You idea is very interesting and it would also make sense given the lore of the game, however a gameplay like that is a nightmare to balance (really, I would not like to be a dev trying to balance the encounters in a system like that) and then you can be sure as hell that practically 80% of users would complain about "lack of progression" (i.e. that you play from beginning to end always in the same way).
Good news then: Cyberpunk ( the PnP RPG) doesn't have levels at all. They have individual skills, which you level up (not per use, but per significant success, typically) aaaaaand that's it!
No HP. No "abilities trees" that you unlock. No levels.
Challenge levels come in terms of complexity, resources, and planning.
Anyway. We'll see how much of that great system CDPR actually implements, but as it stands, the "toughest" most "high powered" character in the Cyberpunk world has the same max health and max skill potential a starter character has.
Probably better friends, though...
Well, but I don't think that's particularly true.
About the first sentence, because it seems to me that introducing "basic stat increase" at each level up is making the balance even more hard to nail down.
And about the second, because it's just a false claim; in the scenario I suggested you'd unlock the very same talents (just not through level ups, but maybe increasing the number of places of power or introducing some new source of talent points in form of lootable items), use mutagens for synergy in the same way, etc.
Exactly as it works now and with the exact same degree of variety. What would go away is just the "inflated numbers" (more vitality, more sing intensity, more attack power, etc) of your naked character at every level up.
Hmmm.... I agree with the sentiment that becoming over-leveled is too easy. If you do the main-quest at all you have very little time to do side quests. And if you do side quests you will be over leveled for the main quest.
Lower XP curve would be nice. I guess it depends on whether they want to force players to do side quests to progress the main quest.
Lower XP curve would be nice. I guess it depends on whether they want to force players to do side quests to progress the main quest.