Design: Principles - Scaling

Following on from yesterday's post, I'm making a very important statement about a very significant topic. Be warned, this post is a little long...

Scaling
Scaling of encounters has a bad name, and I'd say that's because of one big name RPG - The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion. Oblivion was a fairly bad example of what happens if scaling is done wrong, but I believe it is possible to do some scaling and have it work.

Believe it or not, there are actually a few fights in my Fate of a City module that are scaled, and the scaling is based on the player's party size and/or character level. This was mainly because if a character reached some of those fights solo, they couldn't possibly tackle a full complement of enemies, but similarly, with a party of 3 they became fairly trivial if the combat was balanced for a solo player. So keeping this in mind, here are two simple rules to keep in mind regarding scaling in an RPG.

1) Only ever scale upwards.
2) Only scale key fights.

I'll explain why.
1) Scaling should never make encounters easier. There's nothing more ridiculous than being told how fearsome a location is only to fight that it's populated with nothing more than a few kobolds that die with a single sling bullet to the head.

People should not be rewarded for doing something that they've been warned repeatedly that they shouldn't, as that just encourages them to keep doing it, and overall the story and the setting become significantly weaker.

2) Key encounters are either fights that are with key plot figures, or fights that have to be fought and will "weaken" a character for a major fight to come.

These are the tools to make the player really feel like they are fighting a truly powerful enemy, and to make them feel like they have accomplished something when they finally defeat their opponent(s).

If the player simply waltzes through without even breaking a sweat, then the thrill of the battle and the threat of danger aren't there, which means that the game doesn't have the same level of excitement.

Oblivion got scaling wrong on both of these points. For starters, you could go pretty much anywhere you liked on the map whenever you wanted and you would generally face monsters that you had a pretty good chance of defeating. Not facing additional danger because you're going deep into the wilderness where no-one has ever been in years is bad because you exploring the unknown doesn't have the element of danger that it otherwise would. A green adventurer going deep into the highlands knows they are not going to be attacked by some minotaurs in the mountains, only a lone wolf that they can easily dispatch.

Secondly, the mid-to-late game felt ridiculous. Suddenly all bandits were wearing amazing armour worth thousands of gold pieces, Daedroth and Atronachs roamed the countryside freely, and Daedra Lords guarded every Oblivion tower. What happened to the Clannfears and all the other weaker Daedra? Even worse, where did all these people and monsters suddenly appear from? It broke the realism completely (as much as it exists in a fantasy setting), and made fights longer and more tedious by arbitrarily increasing their difficulty.

Scaling must be done for a concrete gameplay effect, but the realism of the setting must take precedence over that, meaning that there must be a cap on the scaling. Having enemies that are renowned for their weakness suddenly becoming powerful enough so that they rival the player ruins realism in a terrible fashion. Furthermore, if the heroic player can only barely defeat a group of goblins, why aren't these same goblins overrunning the cities, seeing as they typically exist in ridiculously large numbers?

In short, combat scaling should be restrained, and ideally, completely invisible to the player. If it's not, then it becomes obvious what is happening and the realism of the setting is completely broken, and overall the game is less fun for the players. And when it comes down to it, games are made for the players, so the ultimate aim is to please them.