Quote from: ForeverZer0 on April 19, 2012, 09:36:26 pm
You are forgetting the number one con: game balance.
Giving the player access to areas that have stronger enemies, ones with better goodies and experience, easily allows the balance of your game to be thrown off.
Yes, that is true. Very very true. I try to balance this in several ways while endeavoring to maintain the illusion of freedom.
1.) I make it difficult to solo the game.
Very difficult. The game's main story involves meeting new characters, and joining forces to meet challenges. The way the characters level their stats, even being 2x the level you need, you probably will still die without backup. This is one of those "save often" games.
Thus, if you try to break the game, the game breaks you. Soviet Russia, etc, etc. The increased freedom has a lot of risk involved.
2.) Any area with significantly strong monsters gives you a "heads up" that you are "in over your head." (Event's that measure your level, trigger a cutscene where an ally, or bystander warns you of great danger. This can be useful if the minimum level to survive isn't reached by the main character.) I don't stop you, but if you wanna suicide into a dragon's den, more power to you, lol.
3.) High priced, high-power loot will come from quests, where the rewards and EXP will grow as you level up and progress through the chapters, (which can be level dependent based on events if I see it necessary to do so.) I don't want to go full-on level dependency, but like in just about all games, the good stuff comes later, but never grants you an OP weapon or skill.
4.) Leveling comes from three sources: Quest-related battles, random encounters, runestones.
>The quests will provide the bulk of your EXP, thus keeping you from needing to grind on monsters unless you choose to.
>The random encounters provide some leveling, allowing you to "top off" you party levels, and power up if you want to skip side quests.
>Runestones are locations scattered all over the place that grant small EXP, Parameter boosts, etc.
5.) I do boat loads of battle-testing using a wide range of gear, party levels, skills, etc to try to find ways to "cheat," and then correct them.