Don’t know about CRPGs in particular, one way or the other. But in general I agree with you op.
If you level up, and it means your stats go up and all your enemies level up and stay at the same balance with you, it’s pointless. It still affords a moment of happiness ‘cool I levelled up’, but in a much less satisfying way.
The point of level up early in RPG video games was, to my knowledge, so that any one with time and patience could beat a game regardless of skill. The idea of level scaling is almost the exact opposite, to remove the advantage of levelling. They cancel out and both player level and enemy level should be removed if that’s happening.
That’s assuming a 1:1 unversal scaling though, which is rarely the case. In the details it can be tuned to something worthwhile - which enemies scale, how much they scale, etc.
Still, my thought is when games want level scaling, they should consider why. If you want players not to overpower enemies via stats, maybe get rid of the stats (or don’t change them on lvl up). Levels can still augment your player with new spells, unique abilities, or more options. Or maybe more carefully consider the placement of enemies and what their default level and stats are set at. Or maybe consider a lower level cap, or a lower range of stat values.
The possibilities are wide open, but level scaling done poorly can make level ups feel like a punishment.
I think the place they are getting the bit about patience from is specifically dragon quest. Where the devs intentionally positioned it in opposition to other games of the time that required you to get good so to speak.
I read an interview a few years ago, I think with Yuji Horii about the design in dragon quest being set up specifically so that by sinking time in you would eventually overpower everything and progress, even if you never improved at the game mechanics. I couldn’t easily find it again when I looked to link it but maybe I will be able to later today.
Yep, that is indeed what I was thinking of (though I don’t have a link handy either).
Didn’t mean to imply that’s where experience levels were invented. The clarification is appreciated though.
And even thought I was alluding to that DQ comment, I’m sure it wasn’t the first game to adapt experience levels, and across the board making things easier wasn’t always the impetus.
Something that’s being heavily overlooked in this thread is the difference between a CRPG and an RPG/ARPG. I’m not sure which one OP is referring to, but if you want an easy guide, Fallout 1-2 are CRPGs, Fallouts 3-4 are not. Skyrim, the Witcher, latter Assassin’s Creed games, Elden Ring, etc are not CRPGS. Games like Divinity Original Sin 1-2, Baldurs Gate 3, Pillars of Eternity, Pathfinder, etc are CRPGS
A CRPG is the video game sister-genre of the table top role playing game.
“Computer Role Playing Game” doesn’t mean “A Role Playing Game that’s on the Computer”, the word computer is used here specifically to distinguish it from tabletop, meaning it’s intrinsically tied to tabletop RPGs.
So if a game plays with very similar mechanics to a tabletop rpg (Turn based, tile or distance based movement, top down or isometric views, unique player-created characters, plus the other hallmarks of the greater RPG genre), then you can call it a CRPG. Games like XCom are closer to being CRPGs than the likes of Skyrim, though it wouldn’t itself qualify because it’s not an RPG.
Games like Skyrim are well established in the “Action RPG” genre which is intentionally distinct from the CRPG genre so the burden of supportive evidence and reasoning would really be on you to try and make the claim that Skyrim is a CRPG.
Thanks for presenting your rational, its well reasoned within the definitions you give.
However the definitions might not be as universality accepted as we might like, for example this presents CRPG as synonymous with “role-playing video game” with ARPGs, TRPGs, MMORPGs, etc as subgenres.
The distinction is very much universally accepted. The reason CRPG is used synonymously with RPG in that article title is because CRPGs were at the time of their inception what an RPG was. You can tell by reading the introductory description and the characteristics section that what is being described and named are tabletop-like CRPGs specifically.
You’ll notice that in the section that defines ARPGs that they’re referred to as a hybrid genre. They are related to CRPGs which is why they’re on the page, as they borrow elements from CRPGs but they are their own genre that by that hybridization are distinct from the traditional CRPG.
This is reinforced by the Wiki link I sent you which is a more cut and dried succinct list of game genres, where it lists ARPGs and CRPGs as two distinct genres.
Balatro is E for everyone 10+ in freedom ratings. We don’t give any shits about gambling imagery over here (Yes, I know balatro is not gambling and the PEGI rating is BS).
That’s really nice of you to do. I already own some of these games and the others I probably wouldn’t play anyway tho (except for The Outer Worlds but someone else was already faster haha).
There is always going to be some kind of level scaling in an RPG. I just think it’s a matter of what kind of scaling you’re using.
The kind that everything in the world just levels up when you level up fucking sucks. It completely kills any sense of power progression since your power level stays pretty much the same comparatively.
The kind where the enemies are just static levels based on where they are is better. You can still freely go to those areas, you just aren’t likely to survive until you actually get stronger. And as you get stronger, you can literally feel the power gains as areas you were getting your ass beat down in have the turn tables and you start beating their asses.
Scaling done by just creating a single archetype and then doing math to it also kinda sucks. It doesn’t ruin fun factors, or anything, it just seems lazy. Give the new enemy type it’s own stat block instead of just being another guy with bigger number. Unless your game has so many enemies that “same guy, bigger number” is inevitable, I don’t like it.
Cyberpunk 2077 used the static levels on launch, but changed to almost everything leveling with you in 2.0. I think the change actually worked better for the game, but it’s also done differently than every other game I’ve seen use that approach. Enemies gain stats much slower than V does, so a level 20 V still feels much more powerful than a level 1 V, but you also have the freedom to explore rather than having arbitrary beef gates making it nigh impossible to go to certain parts of the city before you’re supposed to.
On the other hand, I also love Morrowind’s painstakingly hand-crafted world with static enemies and hand-placed loot. In most games done that way, however, returning to lower level areas is typically a complete waste of time.
Ultimately, I think both systems can work if they’re done well, but everything leveling up is almost always done poorly, or at least worse than the average game with static levels.
A system I have thought of before is a hybrid where enemies have a target level and then their actual level is the average of your level and the target level. For instance, if an enemy’s target level is 20 and you’re level 1, they’ll be level 10. You probably won’t be able to do much to them. But when you get to level 10, they’ll be level 15, which you might be able to deal with if you’re good. You’ll eventually out-level them, but they’ll still be interesting to fight because when you’re at level 40 they’ll be at level 30. I only make the occasional mod, though, so I’ve never gotten to test if this actually is fun.
Fallout 4 has the hybrid method, and still doesn’t get it right 😮💨
It scales enemies as it has since Oblivion, but also scales them differently based on how far away from Sanctuary they are spawned. Everything on the southern and eastern side of the map are always gonna be stronger than the player by some degree, while everything close to the starting point is weak, even when it’s spawning a stronger variant due to player level.
But to be fair, I don’t even see FO4 as an RPG. It’s a FPS with minimal RPG elements. So I tend to strip the scaling entirely with mods to make it so humans (including the PC) die quickly and only the big, beefy mutants (super mutants, deathclaws, etc) are bullet sponges.
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