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Enemy Monsters - Easy to Hard and Up!

Luxury · 2000-08-22T13:04:26

One thing that I really don''t like about certain games are that all of the monsters are really weak at the beginning of the game, and then progressively increase as the game goes on. Now this is expected as the player is weak at the beginning of the game, and also strengthens up as the game goes on. Hence building up stats and experience and health. (Note: this is mainly geared towards linear RPGs) I want to see games more like real life. Where there might be many weak creatures in a certain area (rats or something), but then there would also be stronger enemies right there in the same area. (maybe a wolf, who feeds on the rats). Now if I were a player who just started the game, I would be enjoying leveling up and so on killing the rats, until I accidentally came across the wolf. OH NO! Pow! and I am hurt really bad. The reasoning for this is easy. Why would all of the stong creatures be where they are? Why would little rats with 6 HP be at the beginning of the game, and then there are other rats with 60HP at the end? Shouldn''t there be some sort of consistency here? Now many games are using a relative system. (This monster will be 2x more powerful that my current strength) This does not appeal to me either. Because again, it is very linear as to how far along the game I am. I have already made this post too long. I do not have a solution for this problem, so hopefully somebody will. My only thoughts are that at the beginning of the game, the percentage of weak to strong enemies is high, and generally lowers until the end of the game where there are many more strong enemies. This means running away a lot at the beginning and a lot of button smashing at the end. So I need to come up with another way. Let''s all try to come up with a solution! -Luxury

Game Design and Theory Game Design

Started by Luxury August 17, 2000 07:16 PM

11 comments, last by Luxury 23 years, 10 months ago

SteveBrown

122

August 22, 2000 11:36 AM

I think the idea of ratios for encounters with enemies is a good one. It still would make it kinda linear but it is better.

Maybe a good way of doing it would be to base a lot of the outcome of a battle on skill/tactic/strategy of the player instead of levels. In other words a low level character could still beat a medium-high level monster, if thet are careful and have a good strategy. Of course there would be no chance for a level 1 fighter to beat something level 100, but this would take some emphasis off of the levels as well.

Also, you could throw in extremely high leveled monsters in strange places as well, just to make the player have to do some running.

The player doesn''t always have to fight!

pax

122

August 22, 2000 12:52 PM

I think Asheron''s Call handles this fairly well. You find weak monsters near the cities and stronger monsters farther away from civilization. This is natural. The real threats will avoid society because society will attack them to preserve itself. If you want to fight the heavies, walk out into the wilderness and they''ll find you. For the newbies, they can gradually wander farther and farther from town to find harder and harder opponents. They also offer portals for quick transport from one city to the next without having to risk the wilderness in between.

Two complaints, though:

1) Fighting rabbits is just a little silly.

2) The heavies avoid most of the roads, too. Monsters would normally attack travellers on the roads as easier targets, rather than avoiding them like they do civilization.

Pax