First a quick news: after thinking about it for several weeks, I finally decided to shut down my forums. As you can see, the blog now takes the place of the forums. So the correct URL for the blog is: http://www.winterwolves.net.
I’ve decided to replace the forums with my blog because:
- the forums were almost empty anyway
- the amount of spamming, despite I had tried every possible measure was insane (people spamming manually the forums – nothing you can do about that)
- I’ve decided that I have better things to do with my time, like making new games 😀
- people can comment and have direct contact with me with the blog anyway
update: I reinstalled my forums. Too many sites where linking to specific threads, like the walkthrough ones. So I decided to keep them, but will make them invite only. For direct discussion, better use the blog 🙂
Ok, now about the interesting stuff: I’ve been thinking to use autoleveling enemies in my upcoming RPG game Planet Stronghold. But what are exactly autoleveling enemies?
You know in RPGs, you usually start at level 1. You encounter the first enemies, and they’re usually challenging. But once you raise your level, once you’re level 10, if you get back to those level 1 enemies, they should be a piece of cake.
In my game, I’m planning to do like this: the enemies will mantain their original challenge rating even if your character/party levels up. An enemy that was tough at level 1, would still be a good challenge at level 10 (not as tough, but not totally harmless either).
Why I am thinking to adopt this system? Easy, because this way I can provide a constant challenge to the player. There’s nothing worse than having a random encounter and say “oh no, again those stupid easy enemies that will be killed with 1 hit.”
I am still thinking if to allow the player to choose between auto-leveling on/off in options for example, and I plan to use a global difficulty level for the game, so those who don’t like challenging fights don’t need to worry.
know what you mean about the weak enemies… I often just run when that option is available, as the act of attacking often seems like too much effort considering the exp/gold one gets from them.
auto-levelling sounds like a good idea.
thanks 🙂
I need to balance/test it carefully though. In general lower-level enemies will STILL be less challenging, but at least provide some fun and not be totally boring.
Send people to my forums instead? 🙂
I know an awful lot of people who really really hate autoleveling enemies, though. How are you supposed to feel like your character is growing and becoming more powerful if they never seem to make any real progress?
I’d often rather that sufficiently weak enemies just fled in terror and saved me the trouble of fighting them.
Hm yes good point, feeling “powerful” looks cool indeed! Since the game is mostly mission-based, and there aren’t many random encounter, I guess I’ll be able to avoid completely totally boring fights.
My goal is to have something like the Fallout 3 system, where the level progression / satisfaction is perfect (not impossible, but not too easy either).
And well about the forums people already ask most questions about my games there, so… 😀
Good luck on it, man!
If I were to make an RPG game, I would totally leave out the grinding, and make the characters level up just by… walking. Then only have challenging and strategic boss battles.
Hmmm… then again it would barely count as an RPG. Like Final Fantasy XIII, I’d call it an SCS game – Stroll, Combat, Story.
The characters will level up doing quests too. That’s why I also have non-combat Skills 😉
Like in fallout 3, you can have a quest to obtain some information, and you can either fight enemies or do some undercover action using your Science skill to hack some terminal and get big XP.