Dynamic Difficulty Levels: PvE game design theory at work (Destiny)

by Ragashingo , Official DBO Cryptarch, Tuesday, December 26, 2017, 13:22 (2467 days ago) @ Kahzgul

I absolutely hate overleveling. Both because too often I've experienced it as a crutch necessary to simply comple games (lookin' at you Final Fantasy XIII... no I don't want to grind 20 more hours to make this random fight or boss fight beatable without perfect tactics and luck). I am of the opinion that it give game developers, especially RPG developers, an easy out of "oh, they'll just grind and come back" when really they should have made the content progression more even.

I've also experienced overleveling turning what should be challenging, dramatic moments into lame knife through hot butter-y cheese fests (lookin' at you Skyrim and the time Alduin went down to a single base level arrow during the final boss fight.)

For Destiny, that often has me playing along side others, having someone who put more time in being able to lol-skate through enemies that I can't hurt has exactly zero appeal to me. And I have little sympathy for someone who refuses to meet a reasonable level of gitting good.

So yeah, levels / power levels are pointless busywork, but no, overleveling sucks in just about every way and really shouldn't be a thing.