Worlds

[Flatfingers]

Hmm. Puzzled moment.

If the world levels, rather than the (current) character or the player, and if the difficulty level of challenges (which I'm assuming are related somehow to the current "world level") tend to increase to the east of your character's current location, then how is the world persistent if the world-level gets reset on character death?

In other words, if I explore enough places with one character to get the world up to (say) level 20, and then that character dies, can I ever return with a new character to those previously explored locations (I assume the answer is "yes"), and if I do, will the challenge level of those places remain at what they were for my previous character (implying world-persistence)? Or will those locations reset their challenge level to scale to my current character's longevity?

I'm not trying to pick holes here, I promise! It's just interesting to wonder how these unique systems might interact. I figure I'm missing a whole lot of information that hasn't been revealed yet -- looking forward to learning more when the time is right!

[Invelios]

Hmm. Puzzled moment.

If the world levels, rather than the (current) character or the player, and if the difficulty level of challenges (which I'm assuming are related somehow to the current "world level") tend to increase to the east of your character's current location, then how is the world persistent if the world-level gets reset on character death?

In other words, if I explore enough places with one character to get the world up to (say) level 20, and then that character dies, can I ever return with a new character to those previously explored locations (I assume the answer is "yes"), and if I do, will the challenge level of those places remain at what they were for my previous character (implying world-persistence)? Or will those locations reset their challenge level to scale to my current character's longevity?

I'm not trying to pick holes here, I promise! It's just interesting to wonder how these unique systems might interact. I figure I'm missing a whole lot of information that hasn't been revealed yet -- looking forward to learning more when the time is right!

IIRC, x4000 said somewhere that character level transfers from character to character, so if your Lv 20 character dies, your new character is still Lv 20. I wish I remember which thread he said this in...

[Morslok]

Hmm. Puzzled moment.

If the world levels, rather than the (current) character or the player, and if the difficulty level of challenges (which I'm assuming are related somehow to the current "world level") tend to increase to the east of your character's current location, then how is the world persistent if the world-level gets reset on character death?

In other words, if I explore enough places with one character to get the world up to (say) level 20, and then that character dies, can I ever return with a new character to those previously explored locations (I assume the answer is "yes"), and if I do, will the challenge level of those places remain at what they were for my previous character (implying world-persistence)? Or will those locations reset their challenge level to scale to my current character's longevity?

I'm not trying to pick holes here, I promise! It's just interesting to wonder how these unique systems might interact. I figure I'm missing a whole lot of information that hasn't been revealed yet -- looking forward to learning more when the time is right!

IIRC, x4000 said somewhere that character level transfers from character to character, so if your Lv 20 character dies, your new character is still Lv 20. I wish I remember which thread he said this in...

It was my understanding that the specific character that you play as does not level. The world levels instead. Each character has a different name, and there are different crafting classes, but other than that they are essentially the same once you take control.

[BobTheJanitor]

As I understand it, it is YOU, the player, that levels. So any NPC you take over will be your level. If you're at level 20, every new character you get will be 20. I don't think everything in the world is equal to your level, per se. I've already mentioned in some other thread how Oblivion does this quite wrong and makes leveling seem pointless since everything you fight will be the same as your level no matter where you go. I don't think AVWW is going to be that sort of equal leveling system, but it is going to have something whereby the world levels up with you.

[Morslok]

As I understand it, it is YOU, the player, that levels. So any NPC you take over will be your level. If you're at level 20, every new character you get will be 20. I don't think everything in the world is equal to your level, per se. I've already mentioned in some other thread how Oblivion does this quite wrong and makes leveling seem pointless since everything you fight will be the same as your level no matter where you go. I don't think AVWW is going to be that sort of equal leveling system, but it is going to have something whereby the world levels up with you.

I apologize, the terminology I used was perhaps not the best. I was trying to say that rather than keeping track of a player's level (which would then be different for each player on a multiplayer server) there is a "global" level that is tied directly to the world. x4000 has said that the monsters and such in the world will not level equally with this "global" level, but they will get slightly tougher the higher this level is. In each self contained world, you would never go back to level 1, all progress is saved and persistent within each world, even if that progress was not your doing, you reap the benefits.

So, in other words, yes, it is YOU, the player, that levels, and WHAT the player levels is the "global" level, not his own individual level, nor the level of the character he plays. Player progression, "global" progression, and character progression are one and the same, represented by the "global" level, which can never decrease, nor reset.

[x4000]

Yeah, there is one overall "player level" number for the entire world.  There is also a "player experience" stat that is global for the world.  When any player does stuff that gains EXP, it goes into the global player experience pool.  When that's high enough, the player level flips up.  Now, the player level is a good thing, and boosts the stats, etc, of all the characters you control -- and the death of a character doesn't affect this, as others have noted.

There is also a "region level" number for each region in the world.  That determines the difficulty of the monsters.  Depending on how far you go in the various compass directions, you will find regions with differing region levels, indicating different difficulties.

As the player level increases, ALL of the region levels in the world will also increase, but far more slowly -- about 30% of the player-level increase, most likely.  That way things don't get so stupid easy in the starting areas, though actually they will still be quite easy because you'll be 60% stronger than them still.

That's not the entire system, but that's the basic gist, anyway.  Don't worry, I'm not afraid of anyone poking holes -- if you can, then that's something we need to fix, but so far nobody has.  There's just a LOT of gameplay mechanics we haven't publicly revealed yet, so a lot of the holes line up with that stuff.

[Flatfingers]

Ah, so -- separately tracked "player/world level" and "region level" control numbers, then. Thanks for the clarification.

That's a little more complex than either just a "world level" or "character level" approach. On the upside, giving every region its own challenge level should allow AVWW to avoid what we might call "the Oblivion problem" where everything scales to the character's abilities. That scaling thing didn't bother me too much, but as BobTheJanitor pointed out, a lot of people really hated that they couldn't get that feeling of growing in power that comes with returning to a location (that has a static difficulty level) to easily crush the challenges that previously had seemed very dangerous.

At the same time, regions are still keyed somewhat to player/world level, so previously explored regions don't become static "been there, done that" locations where once the content becomes too easy, it is forever too easy to be worth visiting again.

Nice design!

[x4000]

Thanks!

[ShinseiTom]

Actually, there is a question I had when I read about things leveling in older areas and coming back.  Sorry if this has been asked.

Why, other than if a settlement you made is close by, would you go back to an old area you already cleaned out?  Other than the monsters getting slightly stronger over time, will things like items also reappear slowly over time?  Such as that pile of junk you rifled through hours ago (possibly years game time, I'm not sure what the time scale in-game is either) perhaps having a few new nuggets of stuff you missed uncovered?

[BobTheJanitor]

I don't know why you'd do it specifically in game terms for AVWW, but I will say in general sometimes it's fun to be able to go back to an area that was deadly dangerous in the past to find that you can now carve through anything. For me, at least, one of the fun parts of RPGs or any game with advancing power levels is that you can go back and gauge your power against now weaker enemies. It's pointless, sure, but fun. When I used to play MMOs I would go back to starting areas when I was really bored and annihilate lower level creatures with AoE attacks. Why? Why not?

[x4000]

Part of it certainly is the fun-factor -- if I haven't been somewhere for six months of realtime, but I remember it fondly, it's neat to go back there.

But, in AVWW, it's also important.  When you die, you take on the persona of another character you'd interacted with.  If everyone at your newer settlements dies (ouch), then you're back to people in the older settlements that you haven't seen in a while.  Of course, you could just as well ask them to move, so it's not like you're tied only to the older places you've been at, but still.

A lot of the things about the benefits of settlements and about improving NPCs that you work with I don't want to get in to too much yet, because they are a bit speculative at this point.  But for one example, there will be certain "legendary" items and weapons and spells that require a specific type of craftsman, and improving certain NPCs in their crafting skills over a long period of time can pay dividends in that regard.

Granted, this raises a whole lot of other questions about fast-travel, crafting, and so on and so forth.  Some of those we have tentative plans for, other things we're waiting to solve when we see them in terms of actual implemented gameplay, and our "plans" are actually just a collection of ideas that seem promising, but which we don't yet  know which will be the best from.  AI War evolved like this, too, and I think it benefits the game -- anything that can be fully comprehended from day one can't be that original.

A lot of that sort of thing will shake out in the alpha and beta phases, and we'll definitely be accepting player ideas on how to keep things fresh and interesting, too.  There's nothing for adding variety like throwing hundreds of fans at a project each with their own ideas.

[Echo35]

But, in AVWW, it's also important.  When you die, you take on the persona of another character you'd interacted with.  If everyone at your newer settlements dies (ouch), then you're back to people in the older settlements that you haven't seen in a while.  Of course, you could just as well ask them to move, so it's not like you're tied only to the older places you've been at, but still.

So kinda like being able to choose your character from your allies/team/party/etc?

[x4000]

Sort of, yes.

[tigersfan]

One thing I'm not clear on from this thread. Sorry if I missed the answer somewhere. But, will we be able to create multiple simultaneous worlds if we want? Sort of like Minecraft allows for multiple worlds?

[x4000]

One thing I'm not clear on from this thread. Sorry if I missed the answer somewhere. But, will we be able to create multiple simultaneous worlds if we want? Sort of like Minecraft allows for multiple worlds?

As many as you want.