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

by Kahzgul, Tuesday, December 26, 2017, 13:49 (2365 days ago) @ Ragashingo

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.

So you're opposed to taking the time to outlevel content because you just want to finish the story now even though you're not leveled enough, rather than engage in sidequest type activities?

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.)

Wait, so you spent a lot of time in sidequest type activities which resulted in you outleveling content, and you're opposed to having been given extra levels for the time you spent in the game? This is literally the opposite of what you just said about FF XIII.

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.

Didn't you just say you were opposed to meeting a reasonable level of gitting good for FF XIII?

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

I think that intentionally allowing players to overlevel is a good thing, but scaling your leveling exp structure such that you naturally overlevel without trying to is a bad thing. You want to be able to play in areas which naturally challenge you rather than find that you can't catch up to challenging content because you're always overleveled, nor do you want to feel like you always have to grind for levels in order to advance the story. It's a delicate balance, to be sure, but one which is often attainable in sandboxy loot-based RPGs.

If its not entirely clear from my post, I think the implementation of levels in Destiny is nonsensical, and the game would be better served by removing them entirely.