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Thoughts On Game Design
As you read this, there is a bitter, acrimonious debate going on about some topic you've never heard of. That's the Internet for you. But today's angry debate is about Elder Scrolls: Oblivion and the levelling system.
Elder Scrolls is an RPG, and like most RPGs it involves a character slaughtering things, getting experience, and levelling up. The more levels you have, the more powerful you are... Or, at least, that's the way it's supposed to work in most games.
See, in your standard RPG, the land you explore has been carefully studded with monsters of various levels; a monster with more levels than you is going to rip you to shreds, whereas a monster with fewer levels is no challenge at all. Some dungeons are high-level crawls, whereas others are traipses in the park. The drawback of the pre-placed monsters is simple: what if the character wanders into the wrong dungeon? Getting slaughtered by a level 30 monster when you're level 5 is no fun. There have been a variety of approaches to prevent the player from inadvertently walking into his death; there's the traditional Japanese method of forcing the user through a linear experience (you simply can't get to a Level 5 dungeon until you've completed an area that will get you to at least level 5), which is effective but limits player creativity, since he's railroaded into one path. There are games that allow you to wander, but also allow you to see at a glance how powerful a monster is, so you can judge when to get the hell out of dodge. And there is the level approach, where you clear a floor of a dungeon that's roughly in your range (with a couple of uber-powerful, but defeatable, monsters, and some no-brainers), only to get the key to the next and more powerful level.
And then there's Oblivion's approach.
In Oblivion, the level of the monsters in any given area depends on how powerful you are. If you're a level 1 character wandering through the woods, all you'll see are rats and deer. If you're level 5, you start to see boars and the occasional bear. At level 10, it's mostly bears and mountain lions, and so forth. The treasure you get also depends on your level, so you start out with low-grade armor at Level 1, but by Level 10 you're starting to get the good heavy stuff you need to survive. The automatic challenge adjustment means that you're never in over your head in Oblivion, since any dungeon you walk into is beatable, and it never gets so easy that you can just breeze by a section.
In theory, this is a great design, since it means that you can walk anywhere and not have to worry about exploring. In practice? Well, it needs some help.
While I like the idea of a challenge that never ends, in practice it's a bit tedious. Part of the thrill of getting to Level 45 is that you're an uber badass, and it's fun sometimes to go back to an area that absolutely kicked your ass when you were Level 10 and blow everyone away with a wave of your pinky. You never get that with the auto-adjust system, since every place you walk into is filled with the same challenge, which means you always feel a little underpowered.
Also, there's the fact the table that generates the loot is a little bit off. The monsters you face at levels 10-20 are almost overpowering at times, and you don't yet have the magic swords and shields you need to survive their onslaught. It gets better once you get the phat lewt, but I spent a lot of time running away from things and hiding, which was highly annoying.
And lastly, some places should be challenging... and since you don't level up until you sleep, you can pretty much control the flow of the whole game just by controlling your level. The Level 1 monsters are ludicrously easy - which is as it should be, since you're still learning the combat system, but it also nerfs wide sections of the game. If you want, you can complete the main quest and save the world from global destruction by Level 3 (and a lot of people have, because it's easier than when you're level 30). There's an arena of the best warriors in the whole damn country, and you can fight your way through twenty rounds of "increasing" challenge without any difficulty at all, as long as you never hit the sack and thus gain a level. There are people who've become Grand Champion Arena Masters in the first hour of Oblivion, which cheapens the game.
In the end, I think the Oblivion levelling system would be great for random dungeons, but there should be some challenges that only high-level players face. I've been doing my nightly grind in Oblivion, trying to become a Super-Kewl guy so I can face the Uber-Bad demon, and it just feels stupid to realize that not only could I have done it all when I started the game, but it would have been easier. That's not a win for me - and judging from the outcries in the Elder Scrolls forums, it ain't a win for a lot of people, too.
Tags: elder scrolls: oblivion, game design
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