Tiny Diggers – An iPad Construction Truck Game for Kids Age 2-5

I was reading the back end of PC Gamer this month and Desslock had an article about how he did not like how Oblivion level scales the difficulty of the bad guys based on your level. I for one had to disagree with the article. I tend to like the escalating difficulty of enemies in a game. It keeps things a bit fresh.

But let’s go back a step. What do we mean by level scaling? Well, at the beginning of a game, you normally fight some easy to beat goblin or hobo. They are pretty easy to beat, with little hit points or defensive capabilities. And you leave the area with some minor experience that has built you up. Now you are at level 10 and you come back to that same area, but instead of finding simple goblins and hobos, you find knights and ogres. A lot more difficulty, but it matches your current level of skill. This level scaling can be found in Oblivion, and I for one, think it helps keep the game from getting boring and allows you to always be gaining experience significant to your level.

The main complain that is had in the article is that this never gives you a chance to go back and kick serious ass on the things that were a challenge to you at one point in the game. This is true and to some degree, I do find that this can be a lot of fun. But it can also become very repetitive. How many times can you go and have fun taking one swipe and killing something instantly, because you are so much more powerful that it. This fact is especially true in a game where you might be travelling back to a certain region again and again.

Also, a game that does not level up the difficulty in your enemies can be a detriment to your character leveling up. A good example is Might and Magic 6: A Mandate from Heaven. I had spent a lot of hours building up my characters and had a lot of time and effort into the game. I was nearing the end of the game wandering through the northern frozen lands, when I found out I had to figure out how to open a door. I could never get it open. Finally, I found out that I needed a perception skill that I had failed to get Master rated in. Now at this point, my characters were way up there in level. I needed to gain about two to three million experience points to continue it seemed like, so I start killing anything I can find as I randomly walked the map from top to bottom. I finally gave up on the game, because everything I tried to kill would give me minimal experience at best. It was just going to become a level grind to get to where I needed to be, so it was easier to just give up on the game and ask a friend about the ending.

Now if the enemies would of level scaled to where I was in the game, I would have never been stuck, because I could have fought foes that were my equal in strength and experience. It would have made getting the levels I needed a lot easier and faster than spending weeks fighting characters that were mere nothings at that point.
Now Fallout 3, which is coming out next year, is suppose to use a system that will do away with the level scaling that was ever present in Oblivion, but it will tweak the formula, and in this case I think I can live with the modification, with a reservation.

In Fallout 3, the way that it is explained, the level of characters in an area will scale to what level you are currently at when you enter an area. It will continue up in difficulty while you are in the area and then lock at that difficulty when you leave. This is a novel approach and will give you a sense of what difficulty each level will have in regards to when you entered it. And it could beat the issue that I had before, because running around the wilderness in an area that you entered when you are a high level will create a scenario where you will fight characters that will be near your equal and get you that experience you so desire. But I do see a slight flaw in this method that could be used to someone’s advantage. What if you go to a difficult area on the map, walk in and walk out. It would lock that area as a simple area, even though it should be a difficult area of the game. Is there a way to defeat this kind of chicanery? It is a question I would love to pose to Bethesda.

Let me know what you think of this issue and what styles do you prefer.