Rubberbanded Leveling In Games - My Current Pet Peeve.

[Starbird]

Well, a pet peeve of mine for a long time actually.

By rubberbanding I basically mean that monsters level up with you, so that as you get stronger, they get stronger. I hate this.

Some games made it work. Baldur's Gate 2 and a few of my other longtime favorites did it but very cleverly, with some encounters that involved much nastier monsters if you were above a certain level.

Other games did it very badly, like Oblivion (I remember always doing a certain campaign mission asap because after a certain level it was bloody impossible).

I know that it's hard not to use rubberbanding in open world games because players would wander off the beaten path and die horribly and get annoyed - but this is where you use indicators and recommended level zones etc.

Does anyone else feel this way?

 

[Glaice]

Monster scaling was always irritating, older games and some new games do it better or right.

 

[Wan Shi Tong]

I'm some kind of freak of nature in Skyrim, because I like to level up my blacksmithing skill first. I run around role playing as an orc armor merchant that never kills anything unless he has to. The problem is that blacksmithing levels you up just like any other skill, so after a while my game becomes unplayable. I've looked around for a mod that would suit me but still haven't found any yet.

 

[Starbird]

Monster scaling was always irritating, older games and some new games do it better or right.

Like...?

Skyrim did it okay. After mods. Diablo currently does it okay - but that's just during the 4 hour race to endgame. Aside from that I can't think of a game where it wasn't a dealbreaker for me to a greater or lesser extent.

I'm some kind of freak of nature and in Skyrim, because I like to level up my blacksmithing skill first. I run around role playing as an orc armor merchant that never kills anything unless he has to. The problem is that blacksmithing levels you up just like any other skill, so after a while my game becomes unplayable. I've looked around for a mod that would suit me but still haven't found any yet.

I'm doing something similar at present! A good trick is to install SKSE and the community uncapper and edit it to give you a lot of health per level.

 

[Shadow-Phoenix]

I sometimes dislike rubeberbanding but Diablo 3 feels okay to me but at the same time I don't want all games to go back to the old ways where I go to one area and get insta ganked and I end up having to spend a good portion grinding away into boredom in order to get past one little place, I absolutely hate grinding in most games than I would rubberbanding.

 

[madwarper]

Other games did it very badly, like Oblivion (I remember always doing a certain campaign mission asap because after a certain level it was bloody impossible).

Impossible?

I suppose it could be slightly difficult if one doesn't know how to properly level up their character, but what was more disappointing about Oblivion was that you were playing a spreadsheet, rather than a game.

I don't really mind having enemies that level up as you do, else you're going to have areas that are well below your level and aren't worth doing anything in, or you're going to have areas well above your area where you'd be slaughtered just for going near.


Also, "Rubberbanding" is when you're playing a game, your character gets stuck, it shows you visually progressing, but then you get snapped back to the place where you character got stuck, usually in MMO's.

 

[Azure-Supernova]

Yeah, it can be a real pain in the ass, Oblivion especially. Normal or under and you can get away with just levelling as normal and playing through on your gear alone. But the higher difficulties require you to level very specific way. My experience when shoving the difficulty slider all the way over resulted in an Excel spreadsheet for min-maxing my stats, only to barely keep my head above water in most fights anyway thanks to the x6 multiplier that enemies get at that difficult. But that's probably the most extreme example I can think of. It worked better in Skyrim and the alternative is a lot of redundant areas at higher levels.

 

[Smooth Operator]

Well it's one of those cheap padding techniques, a poor substitute when you don't have time/money to design stuff.
The reason it works better in BG is because (as far as I've noticed) only random encounters will have enemies scaled, on top of that a fighter of level 1 or level 10 will come with gear that is aeons apart so you are never really looking at the same enemy with merely a bullshit stat change.
Where as TES does exactly that, the enemies don't change one ounce and no area is pre-defined, they just arbitrarily get better stats with each of your levels and that is all the effort anyone put into it... that is the most awful cheap ass shit you can pull.

 

[Trinket to Ride]

I personally hate it. One of my favorite things in JRPGs is going back to the first few towns/dungeons late game and just steamroll everything. Playing through Skyrim multiple times, I don't think I ever once felt like I was actually getting stronger. I was just keeping pace with the local bandits.

I just kind of feel like, "What's the point?" If they do that to prevent you from grinding and just out-leveling all your problems, why even have a stats/level-up system at all? Why not just keep all stats (yours and enemies) the same throughout the game?

 

[Altorin]

Other games did it very badly, like Oblivion (I remember always doing a certain campaign mission asap because after a certain level it was bloody impossible).

Impossible?

I suppose it could be slightly difficult if one doesn't know how to properly level up their character, but what was more disappointing about Oblivion was that you were playing a spreadsheet, rather than a game.

I don't really mind having enemies that level up as you do, else you're going to have areas that are well below your level and aren't worth doing anything in, or you're going to have areas well above your area where you'd be slaughtered just for going near.


Also, "Rubberbanding" is when you're playing a game, your character gets stuck, it shows you visually progressing, but then you get snapped back to the place where you character got stuck, usually in MMO's.

Rubberbanding is used in a lot of different contexts, but is chiefly about arbitrarily keeping things "even" so that the conclusion of whatever you're doing is as climactic as possible. The Blue Shell for instance is a Rubberbanding mechanic, or the mechanic in Street Fighter where attacks deal more damage if you're lower on life. What you're describing is server Desync. That might be called "rubberbanding" by some, but in gaming, it actually tends towards this.

 

[ElMinotoro]

I just play Fallout New Vegas. Deathclaws kill me just as easily on any level.

 

[PainInTheAssInternet]

The only game I've played where rubberband AI wasn't used (or maybe it was and I'm very unobservant) is in Borderlands. I actually ran up against a brick wall early on because I thought the enemies would all be at my level. I didn't realize I had to level up and then come back. It wasn't until my friend pointed it out to me that I realized why all my attacks were shit. Came back after completing other quests and then steamrolled them.

In defence of rubber-banding the skill levels, it makes it easier to design and consistently more challenging to the players to do that. Maybe a level cap on certain enemies in certain areas would do well, because it doesn't make sense that the mice in the tavern at the beginning have trained as hard as you have.

 

[solemnwar]

Yea I wonder why you would even have levels if you aren't actually getting stronger in relation to the game's world. Future Elder Scrolls games might benefit from a system of improving skills through use, so you could blacksmith all day, and it wouldn't make a difference, though how much you fight with certain weapons might.

Hmmm, maybe they could keep "crafting" skills separate from "combat" skills. So things like levelling up your magic, armour skills, archery, etc, would effect the mobs, but things like speech craft and the like would level up something more behind the scenes? Not sure how that would work, I don't have even the slightest clue how game design works.

OT: I don't really mind for the most part. I barely notice in Skyrim since pretty early on I managed to murderfuck everything I come across. I have this problem with Fallout 3 and NV, too (deathclaws and yao gui not withstanding). I as actually play 3 recently and went "damn I'm just destroying everything today I should up the difficulty to hard or something!". Imagine my shock when I found out I was already on "hard". Bumped it up to very hard but that didn't change much. Could've used a bit more rubber banding, maybe.

 

[NateA42]

They put it into Runescape with some bosses. I won't forget dying to that Witch lady in the "new" "remade" version of Black Knight Fortress. I shouldn't have to pay attention to my computer while doing a novice quest. Hell, even some stuff half your level now can cause some real damage if you don't constant mash your keyboard.

 

[Ragnoon]

What about racing games?, I have played numerous racing games where the rubber band on the ai is just ridiculous, I enjoy the effort putting in a good lead only to have them right behind me in two corners, need for speed games are particularly bad at this.

 

[Callate]

Yeah, Oblivion drove me a little nuts with that, especially when I still felt duty-bound to close the Oblivion portals. (Great, I can still do it, but now it takes five times as long... I have to fight three times as many demons... And as a reward, I get yet another of an item that I have in surplus. Great...)

Also, "Rubberbanding" is when you're playing a game, your character gets stuck, it shows you visually progressing, but then you get snapped back to the place where you character got stuck, usually in MMO's.

Actually, the first use I heard of the word was in racing games- a computer-controlled opponent, who ought to be hopelessly behind if they were driving as they were seen to drive previously and/or obeying the physics of traveling around the curves and obstructions behind the player, still somehow manages to suddenly keep up and even surpass the player's vehicle. I.e., as if their car was attached to the player's car with a rubber band.

(There are jokes about such things occurring in "the real world" that probably predate that usage.)

I don't have any big objections to such a metaphor being used with respect to RPG leveling; it illustrates the similar, salient point pretty well, to my mind.

 

[Sock-Puppet]

For me the worst is Final Fantasy, any of them. Sure the stories might be great but when I go back to a previous location and the monsters are constantly popping up I want to be able to defeat them in one blow. Yet because of rubberbanding I can't, monsters that I defeated on Lvl. 1 are still strong enough to defeat me. It destroys the sense of accomplishment entirely.

The only game the has the perfect monster set-up for me is dragon quest. After a while they actually start avoiding you because you are stronger than they are. This gave me a massive sense of accomplishment, as well as easy spots to level up the weaker characters.

 

[Trippy Turtle]

Heh. I beat Oblivion and most of the DLC before I figured out how to level up.

I don't mind it though. If they get the difficulty right then it means a good level of challenge the whole way through. If they make it too easy or too hard though, you can no longer fix that by over levelling or under levelling. I noticed in Destiny the missions were too easy so I always made sure to do them at two levels below the recommendation. Forced me to fight strategically. Of course in a section meant to be hard I was pretty screwed because of it.