Yep, that is indeed what I was thinking of (though I don’t have a link handy either).

Didn’t mean to imply that’s where experience levels were invented. The clarification is appreciated though.

And even thought I was alluding to that DQ comment, I’m sure it wasn’t the first game to adapt experience levels, and across the board making things easier wasn’t always the impetus.

Don’t know about CRPGs in particular, one way or the other. But in general I agree with you op.

If you level up, and it means your stats go up and all your enemies level up and stay at the same balance with you, it’s pointless. It still affords a moment of happiness ‘cool I levelled up’, but in a much less satisfying way.

The point of level up early in RPG video games was, to my knowledge, so that any one with time and patience could beat a game regardless of skill. The idea of level scaling is almost the exact opposite, to remove the advantage of levelling. They cancel out and both player level and enemy level should be removed if that’s happening.

That’s assuming a 1:1 unversal scaling though, which is rarely the case. In the details it can be tuned to something worthwhile - which enemies scale, how much they scale, etc.

Still, my thought is when games want level scaling, they should consider why. If you want players not to overpower enemies via stats, maybe get rid of the stats (or don’t change them on lvl up). Levels can still augment your player with new spells, unique abilities, or more options. Or maybe more carefully consider the placement of enemies and what their default level and stats are set at. Or maybe consider a lower level cap, or a lower range of stat values.

The possibilities are wide open, but level scaling done poorly can make level ups feel like a punishment.

I get this. Loved Tri and Freedom Unite, played a decent amount of 4, some of World, and barely started Rise.

They’re always exciting, and I don’t dislike any of the games, but it’s just a lot to get going, really invest the time, and get the value out of these.

The website https://nobsgames.stavros.io/ helps surface these, and let’s you filter out based on different things.

One that I like in particular is Gauguin. It’s a Sudoku-like with different math-y rules.

Anuto TD is a tower defense game that is also really good, but not so low stress.

Lichess, if you’re into Chess. It’s a great, no compromise, high quality app. Stressful if you get too worked up about competitive, but puzzles are at least relaxing.

Yeah, somewhat agree.

It’s great just to see it exist. And not every game needs to reinvent the wheel, especially when the series hasn’t had a game in 15 years.

But by the end of it, I was kinda left wanting some new hook.

Sylux showing up was a cool moment though. I didn’t expect them to honor that tease from Prime 3, and I appreciate it.

Ehh, I know it’s not the original source, but I saw it there. Then it was either link to that or Twitter.

Should be interesting.

I haven’t kept the closest eye on this - rumor is they’re planning to port more of their games to competing platforms, maybe allow 3rd party Xbox hardware, and phase out most physical Xbox games, right? Or am I way off the mark?