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Mob Scaling: Yes or No?

prairiechickenprairiechicken Member Posts: 149
One of the issues I have with BG is that while the non-linearity gives people more choice and helps the game feel fresh, the average mobs are quickly trivialized to the point that they might as well not exist. The areas are tuned in a way that it is possible for players straight out of Chateau Irenicus to tackle - and it makes things utter faceroll for characters with few more levels. I don't really find it fun to see band of goblins or orcs in dungeons that die in a touch.

There are few mobs that scale (Adamantite Golems, Elder Orbs, etc), but they are largely confined to certain areas and even these eventually can be overleveled.

On the other hand, some people hate level scaling because it removes a sense of progression. It is legitimate issue to have level 18 characters struggle to band of goblins, and while it can be circumvented with more elite mobs spawning in its place it can also create RP problems.

So are you for or against mobs scaling to match the player power?
  1. Mob Scaling: Yes or No?67 votes
    1. Yes
      25.37%
    2. No
      64.18%
    3. Other
      10.45%
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Comments

  • HudzyHudzy Member Posts: 300
    I tend to enjoy systems where mobs scale within a range, so can offer a challenge to a higher level player, but eventually fall behind.
  • deltagodeltago Member Posts: 7,811
    I have two play through's of Baldur's Gate going right now. One, my novelization play through that is heavily RPed and one I just started in a mad rush to have another final save ready when SoD comes out.

    I am currently at the same place in both play throughs, Peldvale, making my way to the bandit camp.

    In my novelization, I have 3 party members: Kivan, level 2, Kagain level 2 and my PC Level 2 cleric with two inactive levels of ranger.

    My rushed playthrough, I have a full party (Imoen, Garrick, Kivan, Neera, Branwen and a Swashbuckler). They are all leveled 3 and 4.

    My novelization play through, I was fighting regular bandits while walking through Peldvale. During my rushed one, I was tackling Elite only with clusters of bears. If the leveling wasn't scaled, I would have found either my novelization one too hard, where I would have to break the style of play I was attempting to go level up and recruit more companions; or my rushed one too easy as I would have utterly destroyed common bandits without any challenge.

    I took different paths during these play throughs as well. In the novelization, I ventured to the Friendly Arm Inn first as advice from my foster father (RP). In my rushed, I headed south into High Hedge first to quickly pick up Kivan and then after doing a few quests in Beregost, headed straight to Nashkel. When it was time to go to Peldvale, I hadn't even highlighted the map below the Friendly Arm Inn. When I reached there, was I was fighting packs of wolves instead of lone ones, a nice surprise from what I am use to in that area that gave it a slightly better challenge than what I expected, or had fought before.

    The scaling allows a player to choose where he or she wanted to venture to first, without hindering their experience one way or another and I enjoy that about this game. It allows the player to keep it fresh and experience it in different ways each time they play. Without scaling, the game would become very linear with immersion breaking warnings (recommended levels 5-6) attached to each area.

    That doesn't mean I don't think every encounter should be scaled. Any encounter tied to a quest or the main story line should remain the same. There needs to be some indication of how powerful the party should be at different stages of the game. It'd also be annoying if a regular belt fetish ogre turned into an Ogre Mage and all you got from finishing the quest was a stupid book and an order to take a bath. Challenge and Reward should an evening scale or it could jade the experience.
  • FinneousPJFinneousPJ Member Posts: 6,455
    It's a question of balance, as @semiticgod demonstrated.
  • GemHoundGemHound Member Posts: 801
    edited March 2016
    Oh I picked the wrong one. I'm against mobs scaling since in the past when this has been done, it always has lead to a game that is easier to go through as a permanent level 1 then as a level 6 or level 20. Hmm it says I picked yes up there but no down here... any ideas?
  • Lord_TansheronLord_Tansheron Member Posts: 4,212
    edited March 2016
    I've always been a big fan of difficulty scaling, but I do realize it has its limits. Personally, I much prefer the system BG already has for some areas, namely that the TYPE of enemy that spawns changes based on EXP, rather than enemy stats scaling upwards. That'll prevent the "lvl 40 goblin" scenario, which I do admit wreaks havoc with RP. Of course, spawning different enemy types isn't a catch-all either, and not without its issues (don't want dragons in random city ambushes now, do we).

    A hybrid system would probably work best. I imagine something along the lines of exp/lvl brackets. Within a bracket, only certain types of enemies spawn; but those enemies also scale within the bracket. For example, the aforementioned goblin would spawn for a party of anything from lvl 5 to lvl 10, but the goblin's level would also vary from 5 to 10, depending. When the party is lvl 11, goblins no longer spawn, and something else spawns instead, say, trolls. These then also scale from 11 to 15 or whatever, and so on. The top end would be something like liches, demon knights, etc. How the "party lvl" is calculated would probably be contingent on total party XP or something like that.

    This of course also has some RP issues, but unless you want to manually set tables of enemies and stats for every single area in the game, a bit of friction is perhaps an okay compromise.
  • DemivrgvsDemivrgvs Member Posts: 315
    edited March 2016
    Mob Scaling completely ruins the immersion for me. Having stuff like low lvl bandits suddenly becoming high lvl supreme warriors only because I delayed the quest a bit is terrible imo.

    Balance can be achieved in other ways. For example:
    - slow down lvl progression so that you don't get a level up every single side quest you make, this way even if you do multiple side quests you'll not end up slaughtering everyone when you go back on the main quest
    - limit the Diablo-style power creep where you find better equipment everytime you turn a corner or check a container (I hate modern games with level up based containers)
    - instead of leveling up critters based on your level, do something similar to BG2 random encounters where the encounter itself is a bit scaled. For example if you wait too long to infiltrate Nalia's Keep you might have to face better prepared enemies with more traps, ambushes, monsters, etc.
    - etc.

    Short story: I understand that adding +x level and/or x2 damage/hps multiplier is easier (and sometimes, moderately it can be done) but having the very same creature in the very same place behave like a kitten or like a dragon depending on my level seriously break my immersion.
    Post edited by Demivrgvs on
  • DJKajuruDJKajuru Member Posts: 3,300
    I think it is fine as it is, as long as there are mods that improve AI , such as BG Stratagems.
  • JarrakulJarrakul Member Posts: 2,029
    So long as you're scaling the encounter, and not the creatures in the encounter, I'm all for it. I don't want 6 orcs to become 6 super orcs, but 6 orcs can become something like 12 orcs and 4 trolls.

    The exception is bosses. I think with bosses, scaling the boss themselves is probably fine. Still an... uncreative way to handle boss scaling, but it may at times be necessary.
  • Lord_TansheronLord_Tansheron Member Posts: 4,212
    Dee said:

    I personally prefer enemies to be scaled with difficulty settings rather than level. Give me extra challenge when I ask for it, not because I completed too many side quests.

    Definitely both. If you already have difficulty settings in your game, it'd be silly not to use it for that.

    The situation you describe definitely has two sides, though. You can also end up in a situation where you "completed too many side quests" and as a result steamroll things left and right. Prime example: finishing all the side areas before going to the Underdark. Makes most of the things there a joke. Finish WK and they're a COMPLETE joke.
  • prairiechickenprairiechicken Member Posts: 149
    GemHound said:

    Oh I picked the wrong one. I'm against mobs scaling since in the past when this has been done, it always has lead to a game that is easier to go through as a permanent level 1 then as a level 6 or level 20. Hmm it says I picked yes up there but no down here... any ideas?

    You can intentionally design so that mobs scale slower than players. At the end leveling serves as a nerfing mechanism without making everything into utter joke.
  • Lord_TansheronLord_Tansheron Member Posts: 4,212
    Doesn't that punish weaker players, though? They tend to rest more, so more time passes (or, if you go by real time instead of in-game time, they take longer to do things). Don't get me wrong, I like the idea behind the concept, but I think it would have to be based on some metric that doesn't excessively punish people who play at a slower pace (not to mention you can rest for literal weeks each button if you don't have healers). And lo and behold: there is such a metric, XP. It's essentially a number representing how much you've done in the game, which is why it's so often used for scaling purposes.
  • bob_vengbob_veng Member Posts: 2,308
    edited March 2016
    they'll be informed via loading screen tip that resting a lot has certain costs. so people will adjust their style of play. it's much more interesting even for beginners not to enter every battle with a full spellbook.
    also people will start using potions...no one ever uses healing potions, i'm being told :smile:

    also, i'm talking about months upon months of elapsed time, so that leaves a lot of room to do everything in due time
  • CloutierCloutier Member Posts: 228
    edited March 2016
    As long as the main quest increased difficulty on a fixed scale that is sufficient, I don't mind that sidequests are too easy or too difficult. They're just sidequests.
  • Lord_TansheronLord_Tansheron Member Posts: 4,212
    bob_veng said:

    they'll be informed via loading screen tip that resting a lot has certain costs. so people will adjust their style of play.

    But explaining things and expecting people to play around that works for ANYTHING. That's not much of an argument, is it.
  • bob_vengbob_veng Member Posts: 2,308
    it's not foretelling anything specific, just reminding them of a commonsense precept: "delaying on objective can mean missing an oportunity to catch an enemy off-guard" or "as time goes by, you may discover that your enemies have grown stronger" etc...
  • jinxed75jinxed75 Member Posts: 157

    Doesn't that punish weaker players, though? They tend to rest more, so more time passes (or, if you go by real time instead of in-game time, they take longer to do things). Don't get me wrong, I like the idea behind the concept, but I think it would have to be based on some metric that doesn't excessively punish people who play at a slower pace (not to mention you can rest for literal weeks each button if you don't have healers). And lo and behold: there is such a metric, XP. It's essentially a number representing how much you've done in the game, which is why it's so often used for scaling purposes.

    The biggest challenge would be to still present a believable world. Scaled mobs usually throw such aspects under the bus. Replacing the Drow in the Underdark with Balors, because you opted to finish WK first? 500HP Drow and Sword Spiders? Not really good for the atmosphere of the game imo.
    I think the IWD approach of adding some more mobs depending on the difficulty level is fine. Scaling the abilities of the opposition with the difficulty level is also good.
    Auto-scaling just related to your ingame progress is something I couldn't get behind. I loathed Bethesdas games for that kind of formula.
  • Lord_TansheronLord_Tansheron Member Posts: 4,212
    It's a matter of balance, I suppose. There's overdoing it, for sure. Having every random encounter be top-tier demons is too much. But I just don't want to run into orcs and goblins worth 50xp each either.
  • jinxed75jinxed75 Member Posts: 157
    But Orcs and Goblins are common signature folk in the Realms. Banning them from the game just because you've passed a certain amount of XP doesn't make the game richer. Sure, they are kind of a waste of time, but that's part of the experience of rising to absurd power levels.
    Dunno, probably depends on ones perspective on the game. While I like the strategic aspects of it, I still see it as a D&D cRPG first, and a strategy game second. I don't need every fight to be a challenge as long as the game still provides enough of them when it is appropriate.
  • JarrakulJarrakul Member Posts: 2,029
    So let me fight 60 orcs instead of 6. I agree that removing them is a bad form of scaling, so let's do the opposite. You don't get to tell me you wouldn't feel like a cool high-level awesome person plowing through a veritable army of weaker enemies. And unless the quest hinges on specific numbers, I wouldn't think it would cause thematic problems either.
  • Lord_TansheronLord_Tansheron Member Posts: 4,212
    There is a point where you have to compromise with game mechanics. RP is all well and good, but I don't want it to be a detriment to my game experience. I'm not talking about lvl 30 500hp uber-goblins, but wading through groups of enemies that couldn't kill me if I stood still for 2 hours is not something I want. RP or no RP. Maybe that's just me.
  • bob_vengbob_veng Member Posts: 2,308
    yes 60 orcs would be okay because their scout told them that a legendary warrior is coming and they have to come out in numbers to beat him
  • semiticgoddesssemiticgoddess Member Posts: 14,903
    It can be a lot more complex than just doubling the number of enemies of giving them more levels. You can add thematically relevant aspects to the fight instead.

    Guarded Compound: The slavers gather enough money to hire Cowled Wizards as extra guards.

    Unseeing Eye quest: When previous acolytes fail to take the Rift Device, Gaal trains a new elite corps of blind priests to go after them.

    Windspear Hills: Instead of a standard orc party, a famous orc warlord and his massive entourage cross your path.

    Spellhold labyrinth: Bodhi takes the time to optimize her dungeon, and brings in more exotic enemies to replace the kobolds and minotaurs.

    De'Arnise Hold: Isaea Roenall takes over, and brings in his own high-quality personal guard.

    City of Caverns: As the civil war heats up, Villynaty and Ixilthetocal strike deals in the Underdark out of desperation, and drow warriors join the fray.
  • PteranPteran Member Posts: 388
    edited March 2016
    Like others have said, it's all about balance. If I had my way, areas or quests would still fall within a certain range. There are still beginner quests and areas, just as there are more elite areas. Have things be scaled within a range. The earlier you get there the lower the level, or maybe you face fewer enemies. But if you show up late to the party, you'll find a more sizeable and generally dangerous force. This would be compounded by the Improved AI from mods like SCS.

    Example: Windspear Hills is a bunch of ragtag orcs ranging from like level 8-13. If you go there fresh out of Chateau Irenicus you'll face weaker, lower leveled orc warriors and archers. Go there after getting a few levels and you'll find they've improved. Maybe now you're facing level 11-13 orcs, with hobgoblins or orogs mixed in. They could be better equipped as well. Maybe throw in some Orc Shamans or something to get some spells involved.

    Obviously each area needs an upper limit. It would make no sense at all to show up post-Underdark and have the place crawling with demons...

    Level scaling can work, it just needs to be done properly.

    EDIT: Bosses should only be scaled up. You need to be at an appropriate power level to continue progressing in the story. But if you come into it having milked all the extra XP you could out of side quests, be prepared to face a much stronger, smarter boss.
  • prairiechickenprairiechicken Member Posts: 149
    Also mobs scaling with level (in different ways) allows for different types of challenges in a same zone.

    For example in goblin fortress in IWD2, my 6-player party was pretty low level and the fight was mostly tank spank with decent number of mobs. In my 4-player party I was like 2 levels higher, and suddenly I was fighting x3 number of mobs with much more elites. But I also had level 3 and 4 spells like Fireball, Thorn Spray, Flame Strike, etc, and throwing many powerful spells at enemies before they overwhelm me made it totally different fight.
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