Discuss: Level requirements for items

[ALEXz407]

It is interesting to hear your opinions about level requirements for equipping items in RPG-s.

Just wonder why this mechanic is so popular in RPG? I mean, if you can defeat hard enemies with low level character, why you must level up character to equip aquired rewards. I do not have any questions if item have reasonable restrictions based on characteristics, for example high STR for heavy armor, or high INT for magic things. But when it's just literally say "Hey, you must kill 100 boars to gain enough exp for equipping this item. Until then, just place this item in a backpack."... It's confusing a bit.

Applied to Gaias: if players can kill a crab boss with 3-4 lvl party, why they can not immediately equip dropped bow, and must continue leveling to lvl 5? Same thing with dungeon bosses: skilled party can handle bosses +4 lvl above them. Level requirements is just a thing that says "Wait, you did a good job, but I will allow you to claim your reward only when you gain recommended for this challenge level".

Yes, level restriction sets game pace, so you can not just run to the lumberjack camp and buy 25+ items. But is it really necessary? If player want to grind money and buy more powerful item, why game stops him? If party is skilled enough, why game doesn't allow them use their rewards?

The only thing that level restrictions do is preventing "power dressing up", so high levels can not just kill top bosses and drop items for twinks/newbies. But this can be handled with some scripting: for example items can be picked up only with characters that stands/dead (tomb stone) in a limitid range to a boss. Also, power leveling is a deliberate step for skipping low/mid game experience for reaching endgame faster. If player want this, why game must restrict this freedom?
And don't forget, equipped with "power leveled" items player will be more valuable for high level players. So it will add another depth to player interaction. ( well, exp reward still be the problem, because low lvl player will not receive anything, but this is topic for another discussion )

Summarizing: Without a level limitation on items, game could receive more rewarding game experience, give more fun for challenging bossfights and increase gameplay possibilities. Do you think the same thing?

Discuss

 

[Zwiebelchen]

The only thing that level restrictions do is preventing "power dressing up"

"Power dress up", as you call it is basicly the main reason why there is a level requirement.

Basicly, a highlevel weapon or armor on a lowlevel player throws the entire encounter balance out of whack:
A player could just linger in a game with some highlevels, grab one of the dropped items and then roflstomp half of the lowlevel content solo.
Yes, highlevel players can always help lowlevel players anyway, but this is okay as long as it only applies to the game in which that is actually happening. It adds to the social experience.

However, there is nothing social in grabbing an item, saving, joining a session with players of equal level and then using your OP gear to trivialize content. Actually, I'm pretty sure you would just annoy the fuck out of the other players who might enjoy a bit of challenge in their boss battles.

Level requirements sort of work as a gate to prevent players from skipping content. Of course, you can still leech that level 40 weapon as a level 1. But unless you can find some weapons of appropriate level along the road, that won't help you reaching level 40...
And by the time you actually hit level 40, the gear advantage is as huge anymore to spoil the challenge.

 

[Jumbo]

Yeah, this is not a good idea I'm sorry. I do however think that crab items should have req reduced to lvl 4. More often than not do people kill Crab at lvl 4 and then it's just annoying to wait using gear (Crab is actually challenging at that lvl due to poor gear and aggro capabilities, so it should be rewarded instantly to kill it). Also I think D2 should have Protector's drop reqs reduced by 1 or 2 levels since he is easily doable at that point.

 

[SHBlade]

The lvl requirement is to not annoy the shit out of me after getting full gears for my 25's lol (including legendarys)

 

[Zwiebelchen]

Yeah some level requirements are a little bit excessive, especially for the crab and wolf boss and even some purchasable items in Riversdale.

I'll reduce them as I see a lot of players killing the crab or wolf at lower levels.

 

[Jumbo]

What about Protector? I think lvl req for cleaver is 18 while people are often lvl 16 when first killing it.

 

[Zwiebelchen]

What about Protector? I think lvl req for cleaver is 18 while people are often lvl 16 when first killing it.

This is a very far stretch, imho, considering the Protector is multiple levels above that.

 

[Ihazdialup]

Basically what I read from original post was

OMG GAME SO HARD MAKE GAME EASIER FOR NOOBS!!

MAKE NOOBS OP AS FUCK BY LEECHING THEY NEED THIS!!

 

[BoxOfFaith]

If low levels can kill a higher level boss then they don't need new items anyway .

 

[Jumbo]

Well Zwieb. Perhaps make Protector harder then cause right now he is toast for lvl 16 people. An increase to his total hitpoints would be enough as lvl 16 healers will likely run out of mana if he has like 20% more hp.

 

[ALEXz407]

However, there is nothing social in grabbing an item, saving, joining a session with players of equal level and then using your OP gear to trivialize content. Actually, I'm pretty sure you would just annoy the fuck out of the other players who might enjoy a bit of challenge in their boss battles.

From this point of view requirements looks reasonable. I assumed that a player can only ruin his own game experience with high level items, but situation where he joins another party and annihilate everything is not good.

OMG GAME SO HARD MAKE GAME EASIER FOR NOOBS!!

MAKE NOOBS OP AS FUCK BY LEECHING THEY NEED THIS!!

As a side effect - yes.

If low levels can kill a higher level boss then they don't need new items anyway .

Situation A: 5 ppl party do quests and farm mobs until level 20-21, after that they go to D2, kill everything without problems from 1-2 tries, gain exp and dress up in new items instantly.
Situation B: 3 ppl party lvling until 16-17, buy potions and run to the D2. They play carefully and use controls, buffs, consumables. After 4-5 tries they defeat first boss in D2. At this point they receive: almost zero exp, item that they can not use until lvl 20, negative money result (mercs, potions, wipes). But, well, good portion of fun.
Situation C: 2 ppl friends party. One of them is 46 lvl Crus, and another is lvl 15 thief. For faster leveling this party use tactics from situation A: farm mobs of same level, then farm trash in dungeons, bosses as a side bonus for extra gold.

As you can see in all three situations parties defeated bosses. But from effort / reward side you can see that game doesn't reward but rather punish for challenges. So players should use one game designed way and don't turn from it.

What do you think about offset for level requirement based on item quality? For example level 20 boss will drop lvl 17 greens and lvl 18 blues. This will not "MAKE NOOBS OP BY LEECHING" too much and will add some reward for defeating bosses with low level characters / parties with big level spread.

Quality	Common	Uncommon	Rare	Epic?	Legendary
Offset	-4	-3	-2	-1	0
Or more rewarding	-7	-5	-3	-1	0

And from EXP reward. It's possible to grant 100% exp for defeating a higher level enemy if there are only lower levels in exp reward radius? And use current reward logic if there are at least one player character higher than +4 levels above killed enemy level. This will help to reduce gaps in +/-4 level parties and still will protect from power leveling.

With these changes you can go right off the bat and make some challenging runs in dungeons, and after that easily make quests and leveling with better equipment. Thus it turns out in second more hard way to play, that grants more fun from bossfights and speed ups leveling (quite controversial, because you will lost more time on bossfights and wipes, but still yes).

 

[Jumbo]

Tbh I think this is extra work for no/little extra gain.

 

[BoxOfFaith]

By challenging yourself, you should theoretically be increasing your fun/enjoyment from the encounters. There's no reason you need to be physically rewarded for doing such things.

 

[Zwiebelchen]

I will reduce some lowlevel item requirements, especially for the first three worldbosses and some D2 drops (within reason). I agree that it's frustrating if you manage to kill a boss with a party that is actually lower than the boss and then can not use any item drops.

 

[BoxOfFaith]

It was kinda funny going through all of the items to re-order them and kind of noticing a pattern of how they were introduced into the game. Some of those lower level d2 area items have very inconsistent level requirements it seemed xD.

 

[Jumbo]

hehe back when D2 was the endgame we thought we were so good when having Ancient One gear

 

[ALEXz407]

Small crazy idea: Generate level requirements when item drops

What does this mean?
Items do not have fixed level requirements. They instead generated when item drops with simple formula: " level requirement = mob level - 4 ".

Pros:
+ Player can instantly use new items.
+ Rewards for killing stronger enemies.
+ Prevents situation when high levels farm items for low levels to sell.
+ Adds new depth to itemization: for example, you can make ~45 blue item extra rare drop from lvl 40 mobs, rare from 45 and common from 50.
+ Fully transparent: you can pick up and use items from mobs up to +4, and can not from +5 and higher.
+ I guess some free space will appear when current connections in code " item_id = required_level " will be removed;

Cons:
- it is quite unusual behavior for RPG. (but it will not be noticed during normal play, because players usually stick to +2 +4 lvl mobs max)
- player can not pick up item if character level too low, it can be confusing a bit.
- possible way for cheaters, because level requirements exist when item dropped/stealed, not when loaded.

From technical side it will look like hashtable "item => required level". When player tries to pick up item, game simple compares level from hashtable with character's level.
Item can be removed from this table when it sold/saved/cleared/destroyed.
To prevent problems with stealing (stealed item dropped on the floor and you can not pick it up) you can allow to steal from enemies +4 level max.
Buyable items, consumables and resources doesn't use this requirements for obvious reasons.

What do you think?

 

[Zwiebelchen]

Hmm... I think this would be pretty confusing aswell as create inconsistency problems. Also, I'd have to save the item levels in save codes.

A system like that makes sense for randomly generated items as in Diablo 2. But it isn't practical for a game that has static itemization.

 

[BoxOfFaith]

Still think you're trying to fix something that isn't broken, sorry Alex .

 

[SHBlade]

Why do u still want to make Gaias easier? xD

 

[ALEXz407]

Also, I'd have to save the item levels in save codes.

Main idea here is that level requirements generated during playsession and you don't need to save them. Because player simply can not pick up item that he can not equip -> so he can not save it.
But yeah, it's unexpected behaviour for RPG, so it's marked as "crazy"

Still think you're trying to fix something that isn't broken, sorry Alex .

Just throwing ideas that:
1. Not been suggested earlier.
2. Will make game better in my opinion.
3. Will fit gameplay and balanced, once again in my opinion.

"... I'll be honest, we're throwing science at the wall here to see what sticks. No idea what it'll do. Probably nothing. ..." (c) Cave Johnson (Portal 2)

Why do u still want to make Gaias easier? xD

Why not?

 

[S0ulseeker]

Why do u still want to make Gaias easier? xD

Why not?

imo I want Gaias Harder, I remember when mobs outside of dungeons were basically as strong as mobs in dungeons.

I miss those days :<

Zwiebel you should have a vote option at the start of the game where majority rules to allow a increased difficulty on everything with higher rewards (better gold off kills/better drop chances with enemies having more HP or slight damage increase or extra abilities) mobs, dungeons, and bosses and have greater penalties on death.

Then when Heroics ever get added BAM double toughness. One could dream

 

[Zwiebelchen]

imo I want Gaias Harder, I remember when mobs outside of dungeons were basically as strong as mobs in dungeons.

I miss those days :<

Zwiebel you should have a vote option at the start of the game where majority rules to allow a increased difficulty on everything with higher rewards (better gold off kills/better drop chances with enemies having more HP or slight damage increase or extra abilities) mobs, dungeons, and bosses and have greater penalties on death.

Then when Heroics ever get added BAM double toughness. One could dream

Requires a shitload of new items, though. To be honest, this is usually the bottleneck of all those ideas.
It would be easy for example to add a heroic mode to D3 right now (as D3 is pretty much balanced in terms of difficulty already... except for the first boss, but adding a new ability to it is easy), but I'm lacking the items to support it.

 

[Jumbo]

Imo Gaias has a very good difficulty at the moment. The foothills bosses all provide a challenge at their corresponding lvl range. I only hope that the snow area will be harder in terms of everything including standard mobs. I remember when foothills were first released, we were a bit disappointed by the fact that the new 'high lvl' mobs (that was what we considered them as since we were used to D3 being the end) were basically just another bunch of trash mobs with (mostly) 1 ability.

Now at this point I think that it makes perfectly good sense seeing that foothills zone is a levelling area for mid-high lvls. The snow area is different however, as this time you are in a true endgame zone with lvl 50 content. In my opinion this requires a marked increase in mob difficulty (bosses too of course, but that is a trueism) with at least 2 abilities pr. Mob type - both deadly or at least time consuming if not handled properly. Also enough hp and dmg to ensure that these abilities cannot simply be ignored with high dps groups. At the lvls 46-50 you can expect, or rather demand, that people know how to play.

This does not equal 'ultra hard' mode, cause it shouldn't be based on having the best gear and fastest dodging reflexes - those things are reserved for the bosses - but simply common tactical sense which you have been practising since the first Crab and Wolf boss or at least since Bandit Cave.

If the new mobs will be just another bunch of trash it will be missing an opportunity to make a great endgame feeling to the area rather than 'just another area for the last 4 levels'. Perhaps a few mobs can be like normal trash, but at least a combination of the two types would be awesome. Also large groups of weaker enemies is an option, similar to the Fallen or Fetish in Diablo 2 - weak alone but dangerous in numbers..

 

[Zwiebelchen]

The 1.2B update will mostly provide leveling content towards level 50. So the "challenging endgame trash" probably won't be in this update. Remember that most people stop levelling at level 41-42 currently, as this is kind of the limit that trash mobs in 1.2A.

However, level 50 endgame content is scheduled for the update that comes after it.
I reserved a big part of the snow mountain area for level 50 exclusive solo content with a much higher difficulty, aswell as non-dungeon group content.

Don't worry guys; with repeatable quests and a bigger focus on crafting, 1.2B will provide lots of stuff to do outside of dungeoning.

 

[Jumbo]

You are wrong. Most people stop levelling at 45-46. Only after that it is boss fighting and quests only. Anyway, glad to hear those news.

 

[SHBlade]

Damn guys, I played Gaias today and I can say that there is no room for making it even easier xD