Now that we know a little about how soloing and group play will work regarding npc levels, I think it is a good opportunity to discuss what happens when something is way bellow your level (or grey [see what I did theire with the title]).
What happens when I run near an enemy that’s ten levels bellow me? What about 25 bellow? Could a wizard tank a named that’s half his level? Those are the type of things I wish to discuss.
Personally, I think creatures should stay a threat for a considerable time bellow one’s level, especially the higher you get. My level 25 ranger might have an easy time soloing in a level 15 dungeon, but he should be on hit toes to not bite off more then he can chew. He could possibly fight two or three at a time but if more show up he could get overwhelmed. I really hope levels don’t magically make us better even without gear or ability upgrades. My level 30 cleric should not be hugely better to a level 25 clone of myself. Yes I might have a bit more resources at my disposal but simply having more levels should not make a mob that much easier for me.
I do however think agro range should be affected by level. If a level 30 gnoll attacks my level 30 pally at 50 meters, then when he is level 40 that gnoll might only agro from 40 meters. This would become the most valuable when running across the open world. Those grey conned wolf won’t jump you normally but if you run right into them they will attack.
What I really hope not to see is a level 50 collecting up whole sections of a level 30 dungeon because he has become a god simple because his level is higher.
A common approach is to have any enemy attack in a dungeon regardless of level, but in landscape to have attack ranges much smaller as the level differerence increases or to have "grey" mobs never attack.
Is this logical - of course not. But it makes it easier to explore the world without constantly being bothered by enemies that are neither challenging nor rewarding while also making it hard for solo players to do anything much in dungeons until so overleveled they have no use for anything there. Is this the best approach - maybe not but that isn't the prime focus of your post.
I agree that having character combat abilities increase dramatically with levels is not ideal. In theory.
But I think that outside of dungeons characters should be able to explore areas before being 30 levels higher than the locals. I think that characters should be able to gain experience and loot in areas before being 30 levels higher than the locals, as long as the solo experience is kept slower and less rewarding than the group experience. If that means that my character is Godslike in power compared to a mob 5 levels lower - so be it.
To me the "good" of avoiding forced grouping outwieghs the "good" of focusing on gear and abilities not just on levels.
This comment presupposes that the game will have most or all overland mobs designed for groups to fight rather than follow the approach suggested by some of us of having at least some overland areas in all zones able to be dealt with "at level" without a group.
Xonth said:Could a wizard tank a named that’s half his level?
This depends on how they interplay the 'chance to hit' and how much 'dmg per hit' based on level instead of just Armor Rating. In most games as you start to out level an enemy, their chance to hit you drops signifigantly, as well as their max dmg. A level 10 skeleton might hit a level 10 Wizard (with say 50 Armor) 70% of its attacks for 30 dmg a swing. But that same level 10 skeleton on a level 40 Wizard (still with only 50 Armor) might only hit 15% of it's attacks for only 3 dmg a swing max. This means that even without upgrading any of his gear, this skeleton becomes simply an annoyance rather than a threat.
Some games though don't do this, and instead only factor Armor rating when calculating 'to hit' and 'dmg per swing'. This means that the Skeleton would continue to hit for 30 dmg and hit 70% of his swings on that Wizard if he never upgrades his gear. Obviously his HP will be higher from his levels, so he will survive longer than he did at level 10 and so there is still less risk, but the Skeleton will still be smacking him just as hard and as often as it always did.
Since we know Pantheon will be using Skill ratings for things like Offense, Defense, and 1 Hand Slashing etc... It's likely Pantheon will be going the route of level differences making a difference to 'chance to hit' at the least. If your Defense skill is much higher than the enemies Offense and Weapon skill, he will likely miss a lot.
Joppa also explained to us long ago that they will be using these 'Skill' ratings to limit how much benifit you get from a high level item on a low level character. This means that if you give a level 10 player a sword from a level 50 named boss, his low weapon 'Skill' rating will cap his max damage with that weapon. So this may also play into max damage one can do to an enemy who's defense is much higher as well.
On that same note, high end armor might have scaled back Armor when worn by a player with a low Defense skill. Although Joppa suggested that the 'stats' from said item like Str or Dex might not be scaled. So Twinking will still make you stronger, but will just have limits.
When the idea of "horizontal" leveling was bandied about, this is kind of how I envisioned it. That so-called "newbie" monsters could still kill you, but as you progress you don't go from level 1 to level 30 rather you horizintally level. So when faced again with the newbie Mob, you get better at killing it, faster, more efficiently, perhaps instantly. If you went at it half-heartedly you would suffer some damage still. Your levels are in your skills, spells and progression, and not necessarily in your number. Likewise the exp ratio would also be relative to skill ratio. This would keep the apprehension / situational awareness level up however there is some psychological gratification to seeing the progress in a level. So as desirable as an outside the box MMO leveling system of "horizontal " leveling with no increase in character number/age might be, the prevailing zeitgeist is to show character increases and have that directly impact the environment to the kind of situation you refer.
Horizontal leveling definitely would be a good thing. We don't yet know how it would work though. It could be almost entirely gear based or based on supplemental character abilities.
Thus - zone X could have enemies immune to damage other than from fire. Horizontal leveling could consist of slowly getting weapons and gear that do more and more fire damage and protect more and more against what these enemies do. Or against the climate of this zone. Even if the "leveling" does not involve gaining levels.
Or there could be an alternate advancement system. Killing these enemies gives points in a "zone x tree" which gives access to ability to do more damage and take less damage even without new gear.
I prefer to see games that don't put their thumb on the scale in any additional way to compensate for level differences. In the worst cases level scaling puts every mob in the game at the same level as you, but there are many types of soft scaling that are not good as well. Scaling makes levels matter more than anything else, more than equipment, skills, stats, armor rating, abilities... all of it. It makes gaining levels the most important activity, minimizing anything else that takes place until "end game", a meta that is bad for games in general and seems to run counter to the core principals.
Level-based combat simply uses (mob level - your level) in the to hit calculation. It might also include damage reduction using the same function. For example -10% chance to hit per level difference, as well as -10% damage per level difference. So you would have a 90% chance to miss a +9 mob, and have your damage reduced by 90% if you do hit. Skill-cap based combat is effectively level-based combat with a second layer of complexity obscuring it. Assuming a traditional model where combat skill caps increase by 5 per level, at any given level your hit chance starts out effectively being 1 character level lower, and scales up as you increase it 5 increments until you are fighting at your actual level.
There are many knobs to turn here to achieve a level-difference hit chance target using the difference between "combat skill" and "armor class". Lets say you have a 50/50 chance to hit something with the same AC as your CS, and it goes down by 1% for every point your CS is under their AC. If skill caps go up 5 per level then it would be impossible to hit something 10 levels higher than you. You can dial the starting chance to determine the level range you want hits to be possible within. There is no need to add additional hit modifiers based on level difference because the skill caps are already a level proxy.
At the opposite end you often see XP or loot scaling down for mobs below your level. If mobs above your level are exponentially harder to kill, and mobs below your level give exponentially fewer rewards, then the players are effectively being funneled into a narrow pre-designed path of level-appropriate play experience. The level-difference as the dominant combat factor could be tuned down to allow other factors to matter more, but that is rarely the case in mmo's. Based on level alone (not stats, gear, abilities etc.), should a level 2 be 1% more powerful than a level 1? should it be 10% more powerful? Should it be 100% more powerful? Should those increases stack up or scale up? Should a level 20 be 10%, 100% or 1000% stronger than a level 10? How much will equipment matter? Will a level 10 character wearing all level 20 gear stand a chance against a level 20 wearing all level 10 gear?
If Pantheon follows a traditional path here, I expect to see gear, stats, skill, and strategy play a role in how effectively players can handle same-level mobs, or mobs within a pretty narrow band, but make little to no difference in fighting mobs outside of that band.
To the OP's question, there would not be 50 shades, but 3.
Trivial - Where your level difference has determined you will win.
Consequential - Where you are in the prescribed "level-appropriate" range and your gear, skills, past achievements, strategies, and choices will decide if you win.
Impossible - Where your level difference guarantees that you will lose.
It's an area where I think things must be 'gamified' for the health of the game.
It annoys me that a certain level difference might mean a zone is suddenly no longer even inconvenient, never mind dangerous, to just run through the middle of, but of course, it would cause chaos to appropriate level characters if a high level character runs through a zone and drags every monster after them (and would also lead to multiple power-leveling tactics).
It annoys me that level difference in some games has an artificial effect on resistances and hit chances, but I see how it can be necessary. I don't want it to be obviously hyperbolic, but I see how it being linear makes designing the game very difficult. I never really had a problem with zergs taking on high level monsters, but also never had a big problem with it being 'handled'.
Yes, 'greying out' monsters makes sense. VR should do what they have to 'for the good of the game' in this regard.
There needs to be rules about level difference that effect difficulty, aggro, loot, etc.