Have gamers forgotten what levelling is?

[TheFeniX]

So there are none of them... except dozens of them? Fucking Buck Rogers Countdown to Tuesday is analogous, because in the early 90s nobody expected first person anything. Nobody expected to be able to beat the final boss at 'whatever level they happened to be at' either; FF8 specifically changed to a levelled system.

You're really comparing a game with a first-person view (which is gone once combat starts) to Fallout 3? Buck Rogers was awesome, but they aren't even comparable. Eye of the Beholder fits better because it had both first-person and real-time combat.

But as for Fallout 3 and Mass Effect themselves, they were lacking in other areas besides the leveling. Fallout 3 didn't even give you any bosses to steam roll.

And what the fuck does needing dexterity to play have to do with jack shit? You're not one of these 'oh noes clicking is hard' nerds are you?

Saying an RPG doesn't need dexterity isn't an insult anymore than saying "aim at enemy and hold Mouse1 or Right Trigger until it explodes/dies" is for an FPS game.

No, difficulties should be meaningful.

That's why I said the concept was good and the implementation was terrible.

Prototype was only hard due to primitive bosses, and how is 'driving a lot' difficult in GTA? How is that even relevant when neither of those games have leveling?

Difficulty was brought up, and whereas Prototype doesn't have levels, your character does get stronger as you progress, get XP, and buy new powers. If that doesn't count, then games like FFX and FFII don't count either.

GTA:SA isn't hard, it's just a boring "drive for hours and call it 'content' game." It's not related, which is why I said "sidenote."

With respect to games with levels, things like Oblivion, F3 and Mass Effect really didn't get any harder on higher diffs. Level-matching more aggressively in Oblivion just made the game ever flatter.

I don't know about Oblivion, but I do know the only thing that made my Insane run on Mass Effect easy was being level 60 with all the best armor and weapons. With respect to Fallout, then only time I bothered to move it up to "Very Hard" was when working towards level 30. But my Gauss Rifle made short work of anything but Mutant Masters. Never played Oblivion. That all said, has anyone tried a completely new game of Mass Effect on Insane? There are too many tricks in Fallout 3 to even slow you down on "Very Hard." You are correct though, the games don't really get harder besides giving enemies immunities, better damage, and more health.

The problem is Mass Effect is not linear when you do the first 3 missions, so without level scaling you'd either be forced to do them in a certain order due to difficulty or you would fight hard on one and steam-roll everything else up until Ilos. There's really no fix if you aren't just railroading the player along a set path.

[Aaron]

I don't know about Oblivion, but I do know the only thing that made my Insane run on Mass Effect easy was being level 60 with all the best armor and weapons. With respect to Fallout, then only time I bothered to move it up to "Very Hard" was when working towards level 30. But my Gauss Rifle made short work of anything but Mutant Masters. Never played Oblivion. That all said, has anyone tried a completely new game of Mass Effect on Insane? There are too many tricks in Fallout 3 to even slow you down on "Very Hard." You are correct though, the games don't really get harder besides giving enemies immunities, better damage, and more health.

The problem is Mass Effect is not linear when you do the first 3 missions, so without level scaling you'd either be forced to do them in a certain order due to difficulty or you would fight hard on one and steam-roll everything else up until Ilos. There's really no fix if you aren't just railroading the player along a set path.

I have, once I get off the Citadel I got my ass handed to me repeatedly. I had to beat insane with a previous character. I'm one of those "casual*" gamers though.

*Not the "buy every copy of NHL xxxx" type. The "I play once and a while" type.

[Stark]

I played the first unlockabel diff with a new char, and I think that should have been 'normal', because you could actually die unlike 'hard'. I didn't try insane with a new one, though, going back to my normal-finished level 40 due to acheivement whoring level 60. :S

Unlockable difficulties are irrelevant, I think, because by definition no 'new' player is going to use them: you have already finished the game and should have learned.

[Stark]

You're really comparing a game with a first-person view (which is gone once combat starts) to Fallout 3? Buck Rogers was awesome, but they aren't even comparable. Eye of the Beholder fits better because it had both first-person and real-time combat.

But as for Fallout 3 and Mass Effect themselves, they were lacking in other areas besides the leveling. Fallout 3 didn't even give you any bosses to steam roll.

We're talking about levelling, not perspective. The point is 'can people understand level difference = difficult combat', not 'omg roffle first person lol lol'. Buck Rogers has levels and you can't beat hard things without levelling; Fallout3 has levels and you can finish the game at level 3. Case closed.

Saying an RPG doesn't need dexterity isn't an insult anymore than saying "aim at enemy and hold Mouse1 or Right Trigger until it explodes/dies" is for an FPS game.

It's also irrelevant to the discussion.

That's why I said the concept was good and the implementation was terrible.

I don't even remember was DE did with diffs.

Difficulty was brought up, and whereas Prototype doesn't have levels, your character does get stronger as you progress, get XP, and buy new powers. If that doesn't count, then games like FFX and FFII don't count either.

Except in Prototype the example of 'player level 11 vs enemy level 13' can't happen, because there are no levels.

I don't know about Oblivion, but I do know the only thing that made my Insane run on Mass Effect easy was being level 60 with all the best armor and weapons. With respect to Fallout, then only time I bothered to move it up to "Very Hard" was when working towards level 30. But my Gauss Rifle made short work of anything but Mutant Masters. Never played Oblivion. That all said, has anyone tried a completely new game of Mass Effect on Insane? There are too many tricks in Fallout 3 to even slow you down on "Very Hard." You are correct though, the games don't really get harder besides giving enemies immunities, better damage, and more health.

The problem is Mass Effect is not linear when you do the first 3 missions, so without level scaling you'd either be forced to do them in a certain order due to difficulty or you would fight hard on one and steam-roll everything else up until Ilos. There's really no fix if you aren't just railroading the player along a set path.

Yeah, turns out ME had shit level design. This is why it's an example of player expectation to be able to fight any enemy regardless of level or progress.

Oblivion just had a difficulty slider that changed the amount you got raped on die-rolls.

[Vendetta]

I didn't try insane with a new one, though, going back to my normal-finished level 40 due to acheivement whoring level 60. :S

I did. There were something like two difficult fights in the entire game. Sure, you could die fast, but only if you fucked up.

However, having played through the game four times it might just be because I was so used to which abilities to use and when to get through at the higher difficulty.

Levelling did make some difference in Mass Effect, one of the hilarious stories of videogame journalism when it was released was N'gai Croal's review where he complained about the ridculous difficulty, and it then emerged that he hadn't spent a single skill point on any of his characters and hadn't put them on auto-level. But that didn't actually make a difference until something like Feros.

There was also a massive gulf between the level scaling for Geth enemies, which all remained pretty wimpy even when you hit 60 and basically anything organic which ended up getting forty billion hitpoints when you got up to high levels.

The problem is Mass Effect is not linear when you do the first 3 missions, so without level scaling you'd either be forced to do them in a certain order due to difficulty or you would fight hard on one and steam-roll everything else up until Ilos. There's really no fix if you aren't just railroading the player along a set path.

Setting the path of the adventure and balancing the challenge appropriately to match the increase in player and character skill would be much preferable to the way Bioware have been structuring RPGs since Neverwinter Nights.

[TheFeniX]

We're talking about levelling, not perspective. The point is 'can people understand level difference = difficult combat', not 'omg roffle first person lol lol'. Buck Rogers has levels and you can't beat hard things without levelling; Fallout3 has levels and you can finish the game at level 3. Case closed.

You act like with that ability, players new to RPGs couldn't figure out that levels matter. I think it would become very apparent the minute they hit their first Talon patrol or happened to run into a Mutant Master or Behemoth.

The main story behind Fallout 3 doesn't require a lot of direct combat anyways, so it's a really bad example. Knowing what I know now, I could probably avoid actually killing anyone in the entire game. I believe Fallout 3 is beatable without a single death due to the total lack of boss fights. But on my first play-through, level was very important. It wasn't until I hit level 10 that I really had my stride going. Unfortunately, since the game pretty much breaks past that level (unless your character is really poorly thought out), the whole game, besides a few encounters, was basically cruise control.

That said, your level 3 character is going to get mauled non-stop during many set-piece and random encounters during the game. Even with an NPC, you would be dying a lot trying to fight your way to the GECK or out of Raven Rock (without the support of the president's robots). The easy solution is to just run past them and spam stimpacks, which is doable because there are no forced fights in the game and the AI is fucking non-existent.

Setting the path of the adventure and balancing the challenge appropriately to match the increase in player and character skill would be much preferable to the way Bioware have been structuring RPGs since Neverwinter Nights.

I won't argue that. I personally don't see the point of choosing which mission to do first when sanity dictates how you should do them (if you need Liara for your party, you go to the dig site first) or the actions taken on one planet/scenario won't affect something on the others. As laughable as it was, at least killing the big fish under the sea in KOTOR2 would lead to kyoto...kolto, whatever, being massively expensive for the rest of the game. Too bad you were spamming "Force Heal" non-stop at that point.

[lance]

Difficulty was brought up, and whereas Prototype doesn't have levels, your character does get stronger as you progress, get XP, and buy new powers. If that doesn't count, then games like FFX and FFII don't count either.

Except in Prototype the example of 'player level 11 vs enemy level 13' can't happen, because there are no levels.

That can't happen in FFX or FFII either because the players don't have levels and I'm not sure about the enemies but I don't think they had levels either.

[Vendetta]

We're talking about levelling, not perspective. The point is 'can people understand level difference = difficult combat', not 'omg roffle first person lol lol'. Buck Rogers has levels and you can't beat hard things without levelling; Fallout3 has levels and you can finish the game at level 3. Case closed.

You act like with that ability, players new to RPGs couldn't figure out that levels matter. I think it would become very apparent the minute they hit their first Talon patrol or happened to run into a Mutant Master or Behemoth.

The thing is, all those things generally scale to your level, so you won't run into a super mutant master without having also found a level scaled weapon that can do him in (Behemoths are, at least, scripted).

Fallout 3 has an odd difficulty/level curve where there are particular points at which the difficulty will spike for a few levels because new and harder monsters have started spawning (it's about every 6-8 levels) but after a couple of levels the difficulty tails off again because you get more HP and bigger guns to cope with them.

[TheFeniX]

The thing is, all those things generally scale to your level, so you won't run into a super mutant master without having also found a level scaled weapon that can do him in (Behemoths are, at least, scripted).

I did not know Masters spawn at certain points in a PCs experience progression, so point taken. As I've never tackled one at less than level 18, how do the DLCs scale (if you know)?

That said, on my second play-through, I disarmed the Megaton Bomb, got my house, then hauled ass immediately to Rivet City so I could get the INT bobble-head for the skill point boost. I ended up running into a Talon patrol. One Missile Launcher, at least one shotgun and assault rifle. I tried about 6 times to kill them (I wouldn't have minded good guns so early) before I realized I had neither the HP nor the guns to take them out. I had to haul ass out of there.

But really, when looking back on games that started "levels" like PnP RPGs, you find that early PC/console RPGs completely missed the point. Never in a campaign did our GM say "This guy is too tough for you to beat, so go grind some levels for a few sessions while he waits around." A good GM (or game dev) should keep the player from running into shit they can't handle unless the PC is going out of his way to get himself killed. If I decide to leave Vault 101 and head straight to Old Olney or the Capital Building, then I deserve the death I'm about to receive. If I decide to follow the path the dev set to complete the game, then I shouldn't be punished for doing so by having to grind.

[Vendetta]

The thing is, all those things generally scale to your level, so you won't run into a super mutant master without having also found a level scaled weapon that can do him in (Behemoths are, at least, scripted).

I did not know Masters spawn at certain points in a PCs experience progression, so point taken. As I've never tackled one at less than level 18, how do the DLCs scale (if you know)?

Mostly about the same as any other content. The only exceptions are:

In Operation Anchorage the endboss General Jiangwei has no level cap and is always a human character at 10x the player level (most human enemies cap at some point and aren't nearly as silly), so he can theoretically be counted as a level 300 character with HP to match

In Broken Steel the game starts spawning Super Mutant Overlords at level 18 and Feral Ghoul Reavers and Albino Radscorpions at 22, which puts a spike in the difficulty as these are the toughest enemies the game has to offer and will chew through even a level 20 character's HP fairly fast.

In Point Lookout all of the enemies have a straight +35 damage modifier which ignores armour, so they're lethal at low levels and still threatening at higher ones.

[Connor MacLeod]

What Stark's words put me in mind of is my early days playing Computer RPGS like Bard's tale and Wizardry. Back then in order to prgress you had to get more powerful and you basically had two ways: 1.) you gained levels and 2.) got better gear for your guys. 1 was more important becuase more oftne than not getting the better shit meant getting farther into the game (or the dungeon, or whatever) and you needed levels in order to get the gear. Levels meant you were tough enough to survive - you gained more HP, MP, you got better at attacking, etc. Genreally you had no "work arounds" - you couldn't pick certain skills to make things easier on you (beyond the class choices for your party) - you either had the levels or you didn't. It was something that enforced a certian linear progression to the game - you couldn't "skip around" to more advanced dungeons because the monsters inside would fuck you up unless you had the levels (and often items) to handle it.

Nowadays, you tend to have a more diversified manner of "progression" depending on games rathr than simply levelling, and this has adulterated things somewhat. "Skills" are one path (which I suspect was what Stark was commenting on - skill vs level) or "Item creation" type games where you gather materials and "create" more advanced gear once you get the right shit (which in some games can make levelling up totally irrelevant.) The diversifcation has adulterated the purpose of levels - sometimes they still have value in making your character tough, but usually the differences in capability are only noticable if you get alot of levels (10 or more) compared to other options (IE the right kind of skill or crafted weapon.) and usually the only point of levels is ot raise your HP or MP (or MP analogue) and in some game you can even get around THAT with skills.

I do think levels have become less significant, just as game stats have lost significance. I mean, shit, how many RPGs nowadays give you any real idea what stats do, or their importance? Usuallly the same stats imrpove either by weapons or items anyhow. It's more like they simply include stats and levels simply because they've become synonymous with a role playing game (EG "its not an RPG unless you gain levels and have certain stats like strength or intelligence or whtaever.") alot of this is ismply because RPGs aren't what they used to be too - you have a few "types" of RPGs: action games with some RPG like elements, JRPGS which are basically adventure games (IE linear story paths and some puzzling) with RPG elements (often they're the most hybridized of the lot, but they still more often deal away with character classes), strategy RPGs (which are the only single player RPGs that give you party options and character design usually.. they probably are the most "classicly" RPG of the lot but still can be abused and levels matter fuck all.). Oh, and MMORPGs, but many are basically singleplayer action RPGS now that simply force you to pay more for your addiction.

Levels probably have been degraded simply to counterbalance the inclusion of "skill" or "item creation" systems (or both) to probably prevent overpowered characters, but again we get to the "well designed system" condition - it probably CAN be done if your developers are intelligent. But if they're too ambitious, or lazy, or stupid then it will stay broken no matter how you nerf levelling or whatnot., (and you *HAVE* to balance out the item creation or skil system for it to work - something that not all games do.)

[Marcus Aurelius]

But really, when looking back on games that started "levels" like PnP RPGs, you find that early PC/console RPGs completely missed the point. Never in a campaign did our GM say "This guy is too tough for you to beat, so go grind some levels for a few sessions while he waits around." A good GM (or game dev) should keep the player from running into shit they can't handle unless the PC is going out of his way to get himself killed.

That sounds like a bit too much handholding to me. A good GM or game developer should give you good hints that perhaps you shouldn't fight this guy. If you are too stupid to get the hints, you should get one or at the most two good chances to escape (although that is not strictly necessary in computer games, since you should have saves). If you still refuse to believe that the enemy is too hard for you, you deserve to die. It happened to me or some of my pals a few time in PnP RPGs and we never accused the GM for it, since it was obviously our own stupidity.

[Sarevok]

Is it not obvious scaling enemies based on player stats is a bad idea ? It destroys the whole point of leveling up. Why reach level 50 when you can not nuke a room full of level 1 mooks with area of effect spells or powers? And besides variable difficulty mooks just reeks of retarded enemy design. Suppose for instance you got a npc enemy character that fight as level 5, level 15 and even level 25. So why does not he clobber everyone with maximum power ? Why is he holding back so newbies can kill his uber high level ass ? This kind of suspension of disbelief breaking shit kills the mood for rpg adventuring because you know everything you do is fake and scripted to happen instead of earning wins through superior fighting.

[Vendetta]

On the other hand, most linear game progression is based on the concept that it should start out easy and increase the challenge as the skill of the player increases.

So whilst it's nice to think "I am a level 50 pwnmaster now, I can destroy things that would have handed me my level 1 noob ass", it's a situation that should never arise, because the game should be designed to make the player work harder the further they get.

So actually, the problem with scaled critters is not that they keep up with the player's increasing power, it's that they only keep up, encounters should be progressively ahead of the scaling curve so that they challenge the player more.

[Steel]

On the other hand, most linear game progression is based on the concept that it should start out easy and increase the challenge as the skill of the player increases.

So whilst it's nice to think "I am a level 50 pwnmaster now, I can destroy things that would have handed me my level 1 noob ass", it's a situation that should never arise, because the game should be designed to make the player work harder the further they get.

So actually, the problem with scaled critters is not that they keep up with the player's increasing power, it's that they only keep up, encounters should be progressively ahead of the scaling curve so that they challenge the player more.

Thats something that should occur, but only in the correct relative sense. Moving forward vs everyone else moving backward? What I mean by that is that it shouldnt be that the player getting better makes the same enemies tougher, but rather that as you get stronger you fight different people in different places. This is more of a problem in the situation where you become objectively massively tougher and stronger rather than more subtly capable. If the mechanics are such that your high level character can stand there for 5 minutes while a 1st level character smacks them to no effect then there are always going to be problems. If advancement focuses on becoming more accurate, sneakier and smarter as you advance then its much easier to see how high level characters fit into the world.

[charlemagne]

So actually, the problem with scaled critters is not that they keep up with the player's increasing power, it's that they only keep up, encounters should be progressively ahead of the scaling curve so that they challenge the player more.

I disagree a bit there. I think in RPGs, especially of the open world variety, there should be a level threshold that "normal" critters, say wildlife like wolves or the occasional common bandit, don't pass. It's always felt silly to me when, like in Oblivion (or, for that matter, most MMORPGs, where wolves come in all level ranges), a stupid wolf can take 5 hits from my Rusty Sword of Suck, and hours of playtime later it can take also 5 hits from my Enchanted Titanium Sword of Win.

Of course there still should be challenge, but what's the point of becoming a level 50 Uberwarrior when every enemy you meet is also a level 50 Uberwarrior, or even beyond that?

[GuppyShark]

Whilst it looks like a shooter, it's really a Diablo game (not that most fucking 'gaming journalists' are smart enough to catch on). However, people are complaining in previews that you can't kill some enemies without levelling up, and that you can shoot guys and have them not take damage because you're too low-level (bear in mind this isnt a to-hit issue, it's just a damage/level issue, as the game uses FPS stuff for accuracy).

I think this would be less of a complaint if it was not a guns-based game. I haven't heard people making this complaint about Champions, for example, which is obviously part of the four-colour superhero genre.

Gun games do not tend to have such accepted 'fantasy' elements as player level. People will accept 'ack I can't kill it is too tough' for a character with a sword but will not accept it for someone with a gun (because obviously bullets are the same no matter who is using them).

[Stark]

Guns, or first person? The RPG leveling thing NEVER makes sense, even with swords. I think people just dumb enough to judge things by their existing expectations rather than learning, as I discovered by revisiting Far Cry 2.

[Sarevok]

I disagree a bit there. I think in RPGs, especially of the open world variety, there should be a level threshold that "normal" critters, say wildlife like wolves or the occasional common bandit, don't pass. It's always felt silly to me when, like in Oblivion (or, for that matter, most MMORPGs, where wolves come in all level ranges), a stupid wolf can take 5 hits from my Rusty Sword of Suck, and hours of playtime later it can take also 5 hits from my Enchanted Titanium Sword of Win.

Of course there still should be challenge, but what's the point of becoming a level 50 Uberwarrior when every enemy you meet is also a level 50 Uberwarrior, or even beyond that?

The solution is ridiculasly simple. At higher char lvls you need tougher enemies. So you fight high difficulty enemies. Low level characters can be nuked at will but they no longer give you xp,

Diablo 1 did this wonderfully. You started by facing skeletons and undead. Then progressed to tougher foes like goatmen,nightmares,demons etc. Eventually you face elemental beings and by end game must fight hell knights, mages and sucubbi. Interestingly you never gain any experience from killing an enemy more than 10 levels below you. So you cant genocide early levels with your with chain lightning spamming sorceror and grind away On other hand felling a lightning demon with a low level warrior is worth as much as a minor boss in xp.

[charlemagne]

The solution is ridiculasly simple. At higher char lvls you need tougher enemies. So you fight high difficulty enemies. Low level characters can be nuked at will but they no longer give you xp,

Exactly, which is why levelling wolves are stupid in games like Oblivion. And for MMORPGs, well the devs just have to get creative and invent stronger monsters to fight as you level up, instead of plastering every map with the same beasts +x levels.

[PeZook]

I also think that some players tended to dislike the artificial and fake distinction between low level areas and high level areas.

Why is Starting Wood full of tiny spiders, while the Ending City Of Doom has level 666 bandits?

It's illogical and ruins SoD. It makes players complain and mock the idea. Developers see this, get sad, and try other things. Most of which are retarded - when all you have to do is split the map in a more thoughtful fashion, which has the added side effect of keeping levelling rewards (the player can see he's a badass mofo now throughout the game) up and making the whole game just plain better.

[Sarevok]

The solution is ridiculasly simple. At higher char lvls you need tougher enemies. So you fight high difficulty enemies. Low level characters can be nuked at will but they no longer give you xp,

Exactly, which is why levelling wolves are stupid in games like Oblivion. And for MMORPGs, well the devs just have to get creative and invent stronger monsters to fight as you level up, instead of plastering every map with the same beasts +x levels.

Yeah. At least they could swap the color palette and make red wolves, blue wolves, gold wolves etc with each being tougher. But oh noes ! They will use same exact enemy over and over and then wonder whats wrong with the game when same wolf can be killed by char level 1 hero for easy xp and somehow eat an end game badass wearing armor of invulnerium.

[TheFeniX]

That sounds like a bit too much handholding to me. A good GM or game developer should give you good hints that perhaps you shouldn't fight this guy. If you are too stupid to get the hints, you should get one or at the most two good chances to escape (although that is not strictly necessary in computer games, since you should have saves). If you still refuse to believe that the enemy is too hard for you, you deserve to die. It happened to me or some of my pals a few time in PnP RPGs and we never accused the GM for it, since it was obviously our own stupidity.

It's not hand-holding if you refuse to just spawn unbeatable enemies or if you, using random encounters, to give the player an INT check to see if they realize they can't win if a random spawn is well above their level.

The problem is most video-game RPGs need to be treated as though the player were completely new to whatever campaign you happen to be playing. I know that goblins are easy fodder and orcs are a bit tougher in most D&D campaigns. But in old Final Fantasy games, you could be in one square and fighting pathetically weak enemies, walk one over and you're fighting enemies that you can't damage and likely can't run from.

In Final Fantasy 12, I even ran into this situation. The first time I left the city, I ran into a huuuge T-Rex looking thing. I was pretty sure I shouldn't fuck with that guy, so I left him alone. Later, I was fighting in some field (on like the first "real" mission). I'm fighting enemies and see this group of wolf like humanoids which are no scarier or bigger than the shit I've been killing. So, I attack and both my party members get one-shotted and I lose about an hour and a half of play time. That's the kind of shit I'm talking about where there's no warning of you about to get your ass kicked for doing what you have to do in those RPGs: grind.

[Covenant]

In a CRPG where the world's already made, I disagree with scaled levelling. In such a world, you are probably advancing through the story and seeking power as you advance up whatever paths are available to you. Those available paths, while not hand-holding, should be clearly defined by the kind of shit you're encountering. If you decide to pick a Woodsman lifestyle, and spend time hunting in the woods, collecting pelts, and building your little mountain shack, you should be more than a match for a deer. A wolf should be dangerous, but killable. Bears should make you run and seek a defensible position. Ogres, Knights on horseback, and Dragons should still exist in the world--but should be beyond your ability to kill. It shouldn't be a matter of "Too low a level to damage" but the fact that you simply have not done the things to get the skills, get the powerful magical weapons, and developed the relationships with other characters that would empower you to be able to take on things above your current ranking.

The wolves are still wolves, bears are still bears, and dragons are still too big to take on. You're not "handholding" and you're not forcing the player to grind and you're not making them start in one zone where all the monsters are level 1. What you can do is just make it clear what to fuck with, and what not to. When you're level 1, you avoid big monsters. Make running away an important skill for commoners, as it should be. When you're level 10, you might go after Ogres, but you don't poke your nose into crypts or cavemouths littered with bones. It's so not necessary to scale the monsters. Start the player off doing things at the borders of Scary Person Land, hiding to get a drop on three goblins on a road, and later on let them charge into mobs of twenty. Let there be areas that are dangerous--ruined cities that house the restless angry dead, mountains where giants live, dark and violent stretches of ancient forest. This is totally understandable to a player and builds a 'game awareness' of sorts. You walk through the forest until the trees get closer, it gets darker, and you no longer hear the sound of birds. You decide this is a dangerous area and back out, or move through quietly. It's not dissimilar to reality. When I'm out in the woods I keep aware because while a coyote is absolutely no threat to me a bear would be. If the player is in a world where the ecology includes dragons and there are cults of demon-summoning madmen, then there probably going to be parts of the forest to avoid, and dangerous neighborhoods to stay out of.

That's just intuitive, and it's a much better game mechanic than having everything keep pace with you. Just let the player's power entitle them to go to more places of the world. I mean, honestly, you think people ENJOY being attacked by bandits or wolves on the road? The worst parts of Oblivion were the idiotic dashes through the woods because the roads weren't safe to walk on without being harassed by useless, idiotic trash. At level 1 a bunch of bandits might be an interesting, exciting encounter. When I'm on horseback with flaming swords and glittering armor, I'd expect the level 1 bandits to pick a different mark, be slain with stupendous ease, and for the stupid, stupid wolves to just find a rabbit to attack. Nobody wants to fight trash, so keeping everything levelled just makes more of the worthless 'trash' dangerous and time consuming.