Baconsammy
Banned
Sounds like Sacred 2.
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Dragon's Dogma Demo Impressions
- Thread starter Bukana
- Start date
Eppy Thatcher
God's had his chance.
Yes .. hard set levels is the way to go. There is no better feeling than going back to a highly populated area of the game world that used to give you incredible amounts of grief and just wreck everyone there.
It's not like that, everything is at a set level at the beginning of the game. You don't know beforehand if the quest you're embarking on has creatures that are at a higher level then you. That's where the majority of the difficulty comes from.
Yep, all of the previews have made it clear that sometimes you will find that you absolutely have to retreat, find some lower level stuff to do and come back later. Which is exactly how I like it. As when you return and finally overcome the foe that previously squashed you in a couple of shots, you can actually appreciate the work you put in to level up. It's called great pacing and will make the open world that much more enjoyable.
MagicWithEarvin
Member
Yup, love this. Prefer it to enemies scaling to your level.
KO Traveling Hobo
Member
Why did level scaling even become a thing?
More accessible. Doesn't punish the casual for being careless and just running around with their heads cut off.
Riposte
Member
Level scaling can also make a game harder (since level systems almost inevitably make games easier). The main problem is that things scale down and the second problem is that they scale poorly.
Boss Man
Member
Level scaling just makes the entire notion of progress seem meaningless to me. I guess I get to look cooler and do cooler things, but my characters aren't actually any stronger.
I want to venture into a cave because of some extraordinary shiny an NPC told me about and get my ass handed to me. It makes it 100x more rewarding when I go back later after lusting after that shiny for days and training to finally be able to nab it. With level scaling you just stroll in there knowing that you're going to get it. There's almost no sense of accomplishment.
It's a lot more fun and interesting to decimate bunnies at level 50 and then have to run away from a skeleton because you aren't ready yet than it is to just kill bunnies in 2 hits and skeletons in 5 hits all the way from levels 1 - 100.
I want to venture into a cave because of some extraordinary shiny an NPC told me about and get my ass handed to me. It makes it 100x more rewarding when I go back later after lusting after that shiny for days and training to finally be able to nab it. With level scaling you just stroll in there knowing that you're going to get it. There's almost no sense of accomplishment.
It's a lot more fun and interesting to decimate bunnies at level 50 and then have to run away from a skeleton because you aren't ready yet than it is to just kill bunnies in 2 hits and skeletons in 5 hits all the way from levels 1 - 100.
See You Next Wednesday
Banned
There has been no game that implemented a level scaling system & had anything remotely resembling a hard difficulty.
They are easy when you are under-leveled & easy when you are over-leveled.
Ugh. The only reason I dislike having set levels is because you will eventually cap out, and the challenge will be gone. If everything scales to you, nothing will become obsolete. There will be no worthless, crappier areas to ignore. On the other hand, you can't venture out to "difficult" areas because they won't exist when level scaling is involved. As long as the game is well-tuned to begin with (enemies hit hard, you can't make that many mistakes), scaling would be totally fine. There really shouldn't even be levels to begin with, though. Character-oriented progression (learning skills, mastering vocations, equipment) should be more than enough. It works for Monster Hunter--enemies will be easier to kill later on, but that's mostly due to your equipment being better and your skill level improving as a player.
There are pros and cons to both methods. The only difference is that level scaling is normally not implemented too well in most games that utilize it. We won't really know what's best for this game until it comes out. It seems like some people want more of a classic RPG experience out of this, while others want it to be an action game. It looks like it could potentially appease both parties without compromising too much on either side if the demo is any indication.
Do we know if New Game+ really does have raised difficulty? Difficulty options would help mitigate leveling nonsense, otherwise it looks like the people who get bored easily will have to start playing with less pawns and refuse to use healing items. Hopefully the game is flexible enough to accommodate players who want to take it more seriously.
There are pros and cons to both methods. The only difference is that level scaling is normally not implemented too well in most games that utilize it. We won't really know what's best for this game until it comes out. It seems like some people want more of a classic RPG experience out of this, while others want it to be an action game. It looks like it could potentially appease both parties without compromising too much on either side if the demo is any indication.
Do we know if New Game+ really does have raised difficulty? Difficulty options would help mitigate leveling nonsense, otherwise it looks like the people who get bored easily will have to start playing with less pawns and refuse to use healing items. Hopefully the game is flexible enough to accommodate players who want to take it more seriously.
Can you give that power to me? I've been playing the demo on PS3 and 360 at least several times every day now and can't seem to stop, haha. Surprisingly still not bored. I keep discovering new things, too.
Baconsammy
Banned
For a completely open world game, it works well. For an open, yet linear world, this works better. If the world is big enough (World of Warcraft) and has enough areas with top level content, it's fun. But eventually you hit level cap and the game is repetitive and over and you move on.
Yeah I think it depends on how the level progression works, I don't like the idea of having levels too (more hp, better stats and generally just affecting the damage curve), they said you probably could only reach around level 100 in a playthrough so it's possible the leveling will slow down near that range, so I hope you can't grind too high and be too overpowered for the later stuff, but we don't know for sure and it could go both ways. If the world is big enough, having areas you could ignore won't be too bad, it would be better than having hard enemies everywhere when you just want to travel through to get to your destination.
They did say it gives player the freedom to just grind easy quests to make it easier if they're not good, but I hope there's some kind of a cap, I don't want to have to pace myself purposely or forced to finish the main quest before my level is too high.
No one has talked about new game + yet, I don't know how it will work, been asking at every stream and they seem to be "undisclosed information".
If there's no level scaling in a new game + then my speculation is that you could probably solo/duo the entire game with end game skills, but that kind of defeats the purpose of pawns and the replayability with that aspect.
Boss Man
Member
There are other, more creative ways to handle this though. For instance, the NG+ concept.
e: Haha, wow. That's what I get for not reading your entire post. Seems like you're familiar with it. Not seeing it as a solution to the "capping out" scenario though?
Baconsammy
Banned
Didnt they say the cap was 200 and we'd never get near it on the first playthrough? They must have a plan for future playthroughs that don't involve us simply destroying everything in sight. I hope.
Yea, lvl200 cap, if there's no scaling/difficulty in a new game+ you'll probably destroy most of the campaign at level100+, they wouldn't talk about how it would work, and reviewers don't seem to be mentioning anything about it either.
Supermanisdead
Member
I just hope shitty lowlevel monsters don't attack you when you go back to the early areas.
Could probably run past them, the developer playthroughs seems to do that a lot when they want to get to a boss quick.
Eppy Thatcher
God's had his chance.
I plan and exploding most of them. Unless there is an assassin - sword skill later on in the game like the striders or the fighters stinger style move. cut myself a path ...
I've decided pretty solidly that i'll be rolling a sword and bow as the assassin... with a shield in my inventory just in case. I know it's probably too much to ask for something like throwing knives but if i can just pimp a devlish fuckin one handed sword and go for max critical dmg kind of a build... i'll be playing my dream.
And i know someone said it earlier but seriously.. we need to start a Play with my Pawn! OT where we list our pawn names/jobs/levels so we can all go out and hire GAF squads to murder mythical beasts with.
One thing I'm worrying about is whether there are enough contents for us to take advantage of that, if it's like an offline mmo with a load of contents and gears, it would make sense, like they said if there are really "hundreds of hours" of contents, then it would be nice, but I'm extremely skeptical about that, journalists rarely comment on that either and they're often saying "game could be beaten in 25hrs for the main campaign", so I hope the sidequests are actually worth it, I don't want to buy DLCs to prolong the game either
Um, no.
Best example of this was unmodded Oblivion where if you just leveled up by using non combat skills you'd be boned later on.
Yeah, Oblivion also had an underlying issue on some missions where the allied AI didn't scale with you. I recall the Kvatch invasion being nearly impossible due to this if you leveled up a lot beforehand.
Just replayed it again. I can beat both demo quests in under 5 minutes 30 seconds.
I can tell that no matter how I try to resist, I will absolutely be buying and playing the shit out of this game. Honestly, I noticed both the tearing and what I consider a sort of crappy framerate on the 360 version. A lower framerate on the PS3 doesn't even seem worth trying to me... unless anybody recommends it's still worth it to check? I guess being a PC gamer really has spoiled me.
Oh well. The sword and shield warrior bores me, but the character in the griffon quest is very, very similar to the kind I want to make (I'd like to have some basic magic instead of a bow for range, is there a class that can do this). I will be fast, I will dodge all over the place and climb on things, enemies will barely realize I'm there.
How do I get rid of the pawns to try them solo for a challenge?
I can tell that no matter how I try to resist, I will absolutely be buying and playing the shit out of this game. Honestly, I noticed both the tearing and what I consider a sort of crappy framerate on the 360 version. A lower framerate on the PS3 doesn't even seem worth trying to me... unless anybody recommends it's still worth it to check? I guess being a PC gamer really has spoiled me.
Oh well. The sword and shield warrior bores me, but the character in the griffon quest is very, very similar to the kind I want to make (I'd like to have some basic magic instead of a bow for range, is there a class that can do this). I will be fast, I will dodge all over the place and climb on things, enemies will barely realize I'm there.
How do I get rid of the pawns to try them solo for a challenge?
Baconsammy
Banned
If the 360 framerate bothers you, don't go near the PS3 demo. You can pick up pawns and throw them. Find a cliff and toss away. On the first demo level you can throw the pawn immediately at the start and play the rest alone as long as you don't use the summon stone.
For prologue, you just need to grab Salde and toss him off the cliff at the beginning, and ignore the Rift stone, for the Griffin I think you have to find a rock and toss the mage over and over til he dies and do the same for the other dudes, I never bothered with that.
We'll need to wait until the game comes out to see if there are any framerate problems, since the demo is old and there are probably some changes and optimizations.
Ooh that sucks. Sorry to be late to the party. Is there any word on how big of a difference there will be?
Thanks for the tips on Pawn Murder.
No idea, there could be little to no difference interms of performance, we just know the demo is kind of old
Some videos seem to look smooth enough on the ps3 while some still has a bit stuttering here and there, a review seems to say it looks better on the ps3 too and gave it a higher score, lol, but said the 360 version is more stable, so I guess we have to wait for a comparison.
No idea, there could be little to no difference interms of performance, we just know the demo is kind of old
Some videos seem to look smooth enough on the ps3 while some still has a bit stuttering here and there, a review seems to say it looks better on the ps3 too and gave it a higher score, lol, but said the 360 version is more stable, so I guess we have to wait for a comparison.
It's perfectly playable. If nothing else it just made me want to be able to run it on my much, much more powerful PC. But I won't get into that for what I'm sure if the 20,000th time.
Eppy Thatcher
God's had his chance.
One thing I'm worrying about is whether there are enough contents for us to take advantage of that, if it's like an offline mmo with a load of contents and gears, it would make sense, like they said if there are really "hundreds of hours" of contents, then it would be nice, but I'm extremely skeptical about that, journalists rarely comment on that either and they're often saying "game could be beaten in 25hrs for the main campaign", so I hope the sidequests are actually worth it, I don't want to buy DLCs to prolong the game either
With the size of the team and how long they say they've been working on it i would expect it to work very similar to Skyrim as far as the length and such goes. I can scream through the main campaign there and beat it in a similar or shorter timeframe. Stuff like fallout as well ... but i happily spent more than 100 hours into most of those games.
And this is more FUN to play than any of those games. so there's that
edit: and in that timeframe find plenty of ways to kit out myself and my buddy. I know i'm lookin for your pawn... i'm more worried about being able to FIND peoples pawns... like if i can search for PSN friend or what...
With the size of the team and how long they say they've been working on it i would expect it to work very similar to Skyrim as far as the length and such goes. I can scream through the main campaign there and beat it in a similar or shorter timeframe. Stuff like fallout as well ... but i happily spent more than 100 hours into most of those games.
And this is more FUN to play than any of those games. so there's that
Yeah, I guess it's just hard to tell the scope of the game until you play it, I didn't think skyrim was suppose to be very long either, but all those running around, crafting and and rerolling another class end up giving me hundreds of hours of playtime, hopefully it'll be the case with DD too. Just reaaaaally hoping they get the new game+ and endgame or whatever it is right, since that's a really huge portion and will prolong the game by a lot.
Eppy Thatcher
God's had his chance.
Any new game+ which they've at least confirmed exists will be welcome after tailoring a character so much. I'm having visions of godliness... pulling some sword skill out on a cyclops at level 158 right at the knee. Drop to the ground stab in the face and move on. Serious legendary killer shit.
i'm still holding out for a bolt launcher or cross bow or - god help us - a very early or stylized gun to be an end game level 160+ kind of weapon. I want there to be those insanely epic high tier rewards. When I go pay a small fortune for a Ranger to accompany me to the late game I wanna see unique and dangerous pawns. Crossing fingers for sure.
Windom Earle
Member
Bad example. Xenoblade is an unbalanced mess in this regard. As soon as you do some side quests you're way overleveled for the majority of the game. At the same time there is no chance against high level foes because you can't even hit them.
sloppyjoe_gamer
Gold Member
Or maybe it will do like Dark Souls does...When i return to early areas later on when my levels are high and im super strong the enemies see me and just run the opposite way. Ex...rats.
Stolen from somethingawful, seems that the latest 8-4 podcast mentioned the demo is pretty old (the same as the one shown in whatever the last convention is), and he heard that the final game is more polished and optimized and stuff.
http://8-4.jp/blog/
http://8-4.jp/blog/
In streams and i think in the OXM videos was a sneak peek into the rift. it has a decent search funcionality. you can search every pawn you want, the more you filter, the less pawns you will find, sure.
and as a GAF Member i think no one here will have a lack of Pawn-hiring-possibilities
That's good news.
The Kingdoms of Amalur demo was pretty awful. PS3 version had a terribly wonky frame-rate, especially in houses and such. It'd shoot up to 50 or so, then plummet back down to 25-30. Your character would be jerking all over the place, it was very jarring. Also had a bunch of graphical glitches, and audio issues. None of which were present in the final build of the game, so I hope Dogma's final release is much more polished.
That's what the demo says, yes.
KO Traveling Hobo
Member
You can always write down the settings as a backup.
Fine Ham Abounds
Member
If this really does indeed have set levels for enemies, I'm even more hyped than I was after finally trying the demo.
Level scaling was a brilliant idea on paper for keeping games challenging. In practice though all it managed to do is make game worlds and character progress feel utterly flat and make leveling seem not only redundant but even counter-productive.
Level scaling was a brilliant idea on paper for keeping games challenging. In practice though all it managed to do is make game worlds and character progress feel utterly flat and make leveling seem not only redundant but even counter-productive.
Eppy Thatcher
God's had his chance.
I'm interested in what the Necromancy spell can do with Sorcerer
Would be pretty dope to have a small mob with you... 4-8 undead minions and your 3 pawns. Pretty brutal... just move through the forest murdering everything
That happened to me and I had to quit that character. A thief, who did thief stuff. Lock pick and sneak was hella high, but I couldn't kill squat at my level.
Nice! So it's going to have more story than something like Monster Hunter? I haven't been following any stuff about the narrative because I'm completely uninterested in that aspect of the game.
I also haven't even thought about the fact that loot could very well be a strong motivator for exploration. I guess I'm just so content with how the demo feels in terms of its physicality that everything else beyond getting new skills in each vocation seems oddly extraneous to me.
UGH I can't wait. Time will go faster when Diablo III comes out, but that's still 12 days away, haha.
((It means you should be able to play it a few times with enough differences to keep it fresh.
As for the score, the lowest game informer gives to anything that's not the absolute worst of the worst shovelware is a 7, so this game is just "good" to them.
Baconsammy
Banned
Yeah, GI gave Amalur an 8. If this is better than that, then I'm all in. Amalur was a lot of fun but suffered a ton of issues.