Level Scaling - The Why

I'm going to spend a few posts discussing the issue of a much maligned game design trope - level scaling.  I recently got into a "discussion" (if you could call it that) on the BioWare forums about the mechanic.  If you've read those posts, some of what I say here will be repeated from there, but I feel it is something that actually deserves to be examined with some thought.

One of the reasons level scaling is much maligned is because it is examined on its own as an individual mechanic. Breaking down a game into its components is a good means to analyse a game technically, but the problem can be that the individual criticisms don't take into account how the game works as a whole. There's a "can't see the forest for the trees" problem occurring for many people.  Interestingly enough, this seems to be the issue that many US game reviewers had with the game Alpha Protocol.  Here is a very interesting article discussing the vast divide in reviews of the game from the US and Europe. I have to say, from my perspective, it seems like the US reviewers were expecting an FPS or a Mass Effect. Alpha Protocol is neither; it is a great game in its own right, albeit with some technical/polish issues.

I imagine Thorton would use these options on an Internet forum too...

Generally, one of the core aspects of an RPG is considered to be the process of leveling up your character.  Through their actions, they become more experienced, which subsequently lets them become more powerful. In most games, a large portion of this power is demonstrated through combat, as the player's hero becomes more capable with a weapon or magic, but also with other supporting skills. Players have to fight at some point, so they need to do something to make them more capable in dispatching enemies. If you can find me an RPG with no mandatory combat, I'll be surprised and impressed. (Actually, I think that's called an adventure game) Players like having this progression, as they like reaching the end of the game knowing that their former rat-slaying weakling has dispatched trolls, giants and dragons on their way to saving the day/world/land of cute puppies.

As such, the enemies increase in difficulty as the game goes on. Take Baldur's Gate 2, where you go from killing goblins, slavers and trolls to facing off against an entire drow city, beholders and dragons.  Or Diablo 2 (why did I pick two sequels?), where you go from beating quill beasts and creatures that run away when you kill one of their friends, to a giant charging slug of doom, jungle-midgets-from-hell, demonspawn (and demonspawners) and a prime evil in the form of Diablo himself.

What's 3 feet tall and delightful to kill? These things.

So as we progress through an RPG, our character becomes more powerful, and as such, the enemies need to become more powerful as well. If the former doesn't occur, the player has a reduced sense of achievement. If you don't believe me, then you're at odds with everyone who has ever played World of Warcraft, or done something that was not entirely fun for the sake of earning an Xbox achievement or PS3 trophy. People (gamers in particular) like achieving things and getting rewards, no matter how small they might be.

If enemies don't become more powerful, then we fall into a terrible situation where the combat becomes repetitive and laughably easy, both of which inspire boredom. The last thing a player wants to be while playing a game is bored. Hence why developers/designers do everything they can to stop the player from being bored. So therefore the encounters the player is involved in have to become harder, so the player takes advantage of their improved skills, tactics, items or anything else that might affect gameplay.

Having established that it's essential for a player to have that sense of achievement, there's a few means of delivering that. For starters, you can pit the player again new enemies, which will look different from previous enemies, most likely behave differently, possibly use new abilities or weapons, and definitely be tougher (ie take or deal more damage) than the previous enemies. The designer could have the player face off against a horde of weaker enemies they've faced previously, demonstrating how much more powerful they are by handily dispatching an army of enemies that previously posed a threat. It is also possible to put the player in fantastical "boss battles" with amazing enemies that require special tactics to win is one excellent means, and also serve as natural climaxes within the flow of the game's plot and its difficulty curve. I'm sure you can think of other ways to make encounters more challenging too.

Take 2 of a fight against the same boss. This time, you win.

So fights have to get more difficult as the game goes on, which is more than achievable by pitting the player against increasingly difficult enemies.  That's been happening in games for years. But in the past few years, games have become increasingly complex. We're no longer always pushed down a linear path. However, this poses a problem. If we're no longer dealing with a linear path and there are several major quest lines to pursue, how do we keep combat challenging across the length of the game?

Let's say we're dealing with four key-quest lines as part of the main plot. By necessity, if we're making the game non-linear, the player must be able to pick any of these four quests from the start. If they can't... well, the game isn't non-linear, is it? At which point you're simply providing the illusion of choice, and beating the player into a pulp if they don't take your "suggested" path.  In that case, my bother giving the illusion of choice? Just force the player down the linear path that they have to take anyway. It is a lesser evil to pretend that the player has choice when they don't than to simply not present it as an option.

The illusion of choice...

So in our scenario, the player can pick any of the four quest lines from the start, and will likely gain a lot of experience (and hence combat prowess) from finishing one of these. If they then go to another one of those four areas, unless the difficulty of the combat encounters is increased... that's right, boredom sets in.  So we have to scale the difficulty of the encounters to match the player's level, which sounds like a job for level scaling!

Unfortunately, level scaling doesn't always work out for the best, and has numerous problems associated with it. Those issues are what I'll be addressing next time.