Global level / level scaling

[rich knot]

no, its because of how you made them

not because its you

[fierce badger]

That'd be a Fallacy as well

[rich knot]

if you were better at arguing your points we wouldnt be here

but alas

its already done

[fierce badger]

What isn't good about it? I'm applying reasonable arguments, logical claims and so on

[rich knot]

No, there was so much illogical bs in the drivil wrote that analyzing it isnt worth either of our time. From issues with LITTERAL REAL LIFE nature to not being able to piece together others analogies, its been a wild ride but at least throughout it all we have one constant, and that constant is, you don't have a position that you can be moved from. so were done.

[fierce badger]

Nothing I said was illogical, at least Not insofar snyone could successfully point it out.
Analogies that didn't work out.

Also, I didn't know having a firm opinion is a crime either

[rich knot]

You couldn't understand how me making an analogy on two objects moving different speeds applied to catching up to a nexomon. we dont have to grandstand at this point I think we are well past it. In either case, our conversation is at a close. Having a firm opinion isn't the same as having an Immovable stance (I promise its not something you want). Debate can only exist between one or more people with minds that can be changed, but as I pointed out a moment ago, neither of us have opinions that can be changed any longer. So have fun with whatever this is and was.

[fierce badger]

No, I did understand it, it just didn't mattered because cars aren't living beings and can just drive straight without any Input while animals can think, know things and perceive the world around them.

My stance isn't immoveable, it is simply firm. If your Arguments don't Work, there's no surprise it won't convince me.

No, debate can also exist between people where only one can his mind changed, and also one where none can be changed. Also, my opinion can be changed, it's just not that easy.

[ionic parcel]

@fierce badger so scrolling up, it looks like you've been arguing against quite literally every point people other than you have made for like a month and a half. Stop. Probably just going to lock the post if JV is done with it since I can't imagine he's getting anything useful from it anymore

[fierce badger]

Stop why? This is here to discuss Things, no?

I mean, it's literally called #1140572036599664691

[ionic parcel]

Right. Not design-argue-about-literally-everything

Be more civil

[fierce badger]

That's part of a discussion

I am civil. Argumenting every point isn't being uncivilized

[ionic parcel]

Even arguing this point. Magical

[fierce badger]

I mean, I'm trying to understand it.

[leaden ocean]

If everyone says that you go too far, and you need to calm down, do you think everybody else is wrong besides you ?

[fierce badger]

I think that there's nothing I can see where I went too far and why's that too far, and that I'd need to understand why and how it is too far to learn from this Situation.

[leaden ocean]

If I had to put my finger on or, it's that your way of thinking is too binary. Either something is wrong or right. You are passionnate about your ideas so you strongly defend them. You base everything on what you consider to be rational. When people have out of the box ideas, you are quick to dismiss them because you cant relate to them (no way to quantify something for example).

To clarify, not a diss, just trying to give sense to the situation

[fierce badger]

Only factual claims are considered binary. An objective claim is either wrong or right.

I'm not dismissing ideas because they are outside the box or because I cannot relate to them, I disagree with them because I don't like the idea.

The thing about quantifying was something different. We wanted to build a analogy between real life humans and levels, which is a quantity.

[fierce badger]

Got that, yeah.

[hot violet]

Elden Ring is an action game not turn base RPG even if you were over leveled if you don’t analyze the boss pattern and react in the right time you’ll get defeated so you can’t really compare it to turn base games like Nexomon and Pokémon

[fierce badger]

And do enemies have levels there?

[hot violet]

Don’t know haven’t played it

[fierce badger]

Ah, same.

[limber hatch]

Solid arguments against my personal opinion and what I enjoy. I stated a feature I would like because it would aid in my personal enjoyment and your response was to go off on me about how my enjoyment wasn't real and was fake because there wasn't some hard reward or difference for it. The literal only possible expected result of said argument being to convince me that my kind of fun was wrong since you clearly had no interest in my point that it is just what I enjoy. You just wanted to convince me that your point was right. And then when faced with the simple point of different people enjoy different things and I clearly wasn't backing down from my personal opinion you then proceeded to double down on trying to argue that the way I have literally enjoyed these kind of games, a method of play that dates back to the original Pokemon on gameboy and has brought me hours of joy across numerous games in the genre isn't actually real because you say so. And don't bother arguing further because honestly, I don't really care if you want to debate, present your "logic" or whatever else you wish to call it. Enjoyment is not objective. there is no solid or logical rhyme or reason. It's is a personal, malleable, subjective thing dependent on loose things like emotion and personal preference. Some people enjoy things because it gives tangible rewards, others enjoy it simply because it's fun. I enjoy feeling like I am building up my monsters in these games. The satisfaction in taking them from the lowest level to max level and knowing that I now get to enjoy playing with them at that level because I put the time into leveling them up myself. That doesn't need to be tagged, I don't need a pat on the back, the game doesn't need to congratulate me on it, there doesn't need to be some difference between my level 99 monster and another level 99 monster. I don't need any reward. I JUST LIKE IT. IT MAKES ME HAPPY. IT IS FUN. IT MAKES THINGS MORE ENJOYABLE FOR ME. Full stop, end of story.

And with that I'm sticking to other parts of the discord from here on because as said I'm not really interested in arguing this further.

[fierce badger]

Sounds like you completely misunderstood my argumentation despite me clearly describing it. Don't know how I could make it more clear than that.

But yeah, now it makes sense you got offended by it. Even though it, in its actual meaning, wasn't anything like that.

[spring moth]

Reposting my suggestion. Because.

The level scales based on story progression. Also, utilize an EXP system where the higher level you are against the opponent, the lower EXP you gain. And vice versa.

This allows low-level Nexomon in your party to level up faster and catch up with the rest of your team. While high level Nexomon won't get overleveled even if you avoid the main story for hours. I believe they did this with Pokemon in Gen 5.

How will the level scale after you reached a certain point in the story? I think it should jump 5-10 levels higher every time, depending on how many chapters/sections the game will have.

Furthermore, give max levels/cap for each tier (evolution stage) when it scales.

For example: in a 3-staged evolution line in the wild:

• Stage 1 only scales up to Lv30
• Stage 2 only scales up to Lv60
• Stage 3 only scales up to Lv90

For a 2-staged line:

• Stage 1 only scales up to Lv45
• Stage 2 scales up to Lv90

Meaning, early areas would likely have a max level of 30-45 since majority of wild Nexomon loitering about are Stage 1. Also, with the above, late-game areas would still be "harder". And early areas can still be good for "starting over" since you can just choose to encounter Lv30+s. Of course, the evolutions may also begin to populate previous areas the more you progress.

[leaden ocean]

I still think that is the best suggestion for wild encounters

[leaden ocean]

Here is my suggestion for tamers scaling :

To explain the Idea we will consider 3 Tamer tiers (obviously it could work with more than 3 lol) : Beginner, Adventurer, Elite

The first time you fight a Tamer, they are at the level reflecting where you are in the game.

In the Early game, you mostly fight Beginners, with maybe a few mini boss Adventurer class tamers thrown in. Beginners start with 2 Mons, Adventurers with 3, Elites with 4.

Everytime you rebattle a Tamer, they add a new nexomon to their team until they reach the max amount for their class (Beginners 4, Adventurers 5, Elites 6)

For the actual scaling, unless they are newly available tamers, Beginners will be one level tier behind the enemy level cap(5-10 levels behind like in Ross' explanation, but 5 seems more reasonable).If they are newly available, they will be at a level to reflect that part of the game
Adventurers will Always be at the same level as the current enemy level cap. For Elites, if you wish to rebatlle them, they will be one level tier above the level cap (so +5)

This makes scaling rather manageable and consistent and for people who want a challenge, they can rebattle the same tamers until they "unlock" their best team

[fierce badger]

Don't mind me, just reposting my idea like the others.

Okay, let's refine it then:

• Every tamer starts with a base level. That base level is scaled like without level scaling, so early game has low base levels and late game high ones.

• They earn xp from every battle you do, but not really much, until you outlevel them, where they gain the 'normal' amount of NPC levels.

• NPCs have categories based on their personality, Great tamers get more NPC xp than youngsters and beginners.

• NPC leveling is disabled from a relative limit, youngsters and beginners cannot level beyond 3 levels below you, elites cannot level 5 levels above you.

• This can work analoguous for wild Nexos, but allows a hybrid with either Fate's or Ross's system. I'd not hybridize with both though, that'd, despite the similarity, be a little messy. (That's just my opinion tho, do what you want.)

The NPC exp could have a modifier based on difficulty level tho, so could the caps he changed. The modifier could also be a Slider setting.

[hot violet]

Combine all 3 and lock this chat 😂

[fierce badger]

Like I said, it's just my opinion. And I guess hard to balance if you do mix all of it together somehow. But hey, if it works, then it works

[leaden ocean]

I would say that its all pretty similar, the only real difference is, do levels scale with story progression or with the players progression ? I would be ok with either way, personnally I prefer story scaling because it acts like goals to reach

[fierce badger]

I mean, yeah that'd work too. The downside is that if you decide to explore a lot before the next story beat, you might overlevel beyond the scaling. On the other hand, if your own experience is the thing that decides, you could if you explored a lot get struck at Lv99 for over half the story. A hybrid of both would actually be able to solve both issues.

On that mention though, there could also be soft border for your own Nexomon, at a certain point, they get barely any XP to avoid overleveling and getting the scale to 99 mid-way. However I feel like many wouldn't like that, so maybe base that on potential difficulty options

[leaden ocean]

I get what you are saying, but in that case, it's not possible to know how much the player can explore at a given time so maybe they wouldn't be able to explore alot, on the other hand, if the wild mons dont get scale, it would be hard to accidently overlevel

But yeah a soft level cap would be good

[fierce badger]

Not sure if it makes it impossible, in SV at least, I overleveled a lot just by exploring and did the League (supposedly L60) at L80+ because of that. There's no scaling in that game though, so I really can't tell if it's worse or better for that matter. A soft level cap would avoid the risk, but especially for those who don't want scaling levels, giving it as a hidden option based on difficulty setting should be good enough.

[hot violet]

I said this as a joke but now that I think about it I agree with Fate and I think it’s better to link scaling to the player progression

[fierce badger]

It can work given there's a soft level cap like I suggested, otherwise you can still outlevel through exploring. Ultimately a hybrid could work best, if done well.

How about there's the scaling system I said, but it is restricted by Fate's Story scaling?
So let's say everything starting from L20 to L40 starts scaling after the first big story beat, everything from L40 to L60 after the second, etc.
Basically, story milestones unlock more Levels being scaled, and sets a base level that overrides the original base level.
Within those ranges, the scaling works with NPC xp.

[leaden ocean]

I didnt play SV so i cant relate, besides that, this could work

[leaden ocean]

I know but it gave me an Idea anyway lol

[fierce badger]

If that helps, it's a open world game where you aren't really forced a particular order upon (but because there's no scaling you kinda have a forced order if you don't want to have a zigzag difficulty curve) and there's a decent amount of exploration possible. Wild Pokemon levels don't scale (they do to a small extent in the DLC) nor do Trainers, and your own Pokemon obey anyways, only traded have obedience based on gym badges.
Just in case this helps as a context to my statement.

[leaden ocean]

I heard about the issues, but since I havent experienced them my myself, I cant judge how bad it is, to be fair I thought the level scaling in gen 2 was really really bad, so if it's the same or worse, I get that 😂

[fierce badger]

I really can't reasonably compare it because one is an open world game, which means side-exploring is a thing, and the other a rather linear game. Also, leveling in Gen2 is slow while it is rather quick in SV.

[leaden ocean]

It was mostly in the sense that you battle alot of much lower level mons throughout the game with only spikes level increases for some bosses

[shy vector]

WHY IS THIS PAGE FILLED WITH SO MUCH WORK ON ONE THING AND BE DONE WITH THIS

[fierce badger]

Because it's something worth discussing maybe?

[tired scarab]

I loved nexomon when it first released. It was such a breath of fresh air from the normal pokemon grind. It actually felt like you were in a world where you needed to survive. But I’m probably in the minority so I won’t judge if other players think the level scaling is too much.

[shy vector]

Be done with it with something that everyone is ok with and be done with this

[leaden ocean]

We've pretty much agreed on how scaling could work, ironically you would know that if you read the last few posts 😂

[fierce badger]

That's exactly what we are trying to do: the most utilitarian system.
However this requires a decent amount of discussion and fine-tuning. Though as Fate said we seem to have reached a conclusion just before you starting complaining.

[shy vector]

Just get an idea and roll with it

I'm getting annoyed at seeing these paragraphs of texts every time I look here

[fierce badger]

That'd not work to satisfy the most amount of people though.

[fierce badger]

You don't have to follow this thread, you can also just leave and not look here. Seriously don't see the issue here.

[tight crag]

You don't see the issues with a lot of the things you talk about. so...

[fierce badger]

Most people don't see every issue on every thing, especially if it is your idea in the first place. I'm not omniscient either.

However that doesn't means someone who doesn't wants to read all of it has to read all of it, nor that they have to interact. And complaining because they do when they aren't forced isn't right either.

[sly goblet]

Personally I dislike level scaling, if I want my Nexomon to reach lvl 100 in the first forest and then be able to beat the entire game with fingers in my mouth, then it's up to me. I don't want to be forced to endlessly grind because the monsters I meet are always stronger and stronger which means that every 3 or 4 battles I will be forced to stop my trip and visit a healing place.

[fierce badger]

The issue with open world Games is that you easily overlevel without wanting to, making them remaining game monotonic without scaling applied.

A true open world is a world where you can do what you want, without it hurting the gameplay.

[tight crag]

I still think I would prefer the Xenoblade route of just having creatures of all level ranges in an area at any point in the game, at least when it comes to wild Nexomon. It'd certainly make the world feel more alive.
Areas meant to be considered more dangerous can have fewer lower level mons or more higher level mons, or both.
And an easy way to de-insensitivise picking on low-level mons to have drastically reduced XP gains and drops from beating Nexomon weaker than the player's average party level, while you're at it make it so toughing it against the stronger ones net you better rewards.
Another interesting way to do it (or you could add this to the previous mechanic) could be a karma system that makes NPCs dislike you for being a coward and a bully, and that would effect certain things like raising prices in shops, or refusing to let you take on a side quest because the quest-giver doesn't trust you.

Tamers having more simple scaling makes perfect sense. Especially in rematches. If you spent time grinding, they could've easily done the same.
That was one of the parts I liked in Extinction was seeing the other tamers actually get stronger around me, though it did make trying to get xp and money a bit more frustrating. lol

[torpid rapids]

I’ve seen a few rom hacks namely amalgamagenta have a grind zone where one could grind a fake mon just set for exp in the pokemon center. That reduces grinding while keeping scaling buuut it does feel like cheap grinding tbf

[tame tendon]

With level scaling you lose something like progression and the feeling of your monster getting better with respect to the area.

I think this is an important thing because the player/Tamer is actively making them stronger.

Fixed levels work really well in a non open world or a fixed path of progression but if we are truly talking about the open world then we need to ask some questions to implement the level scaling.

1. How are normal monsters in the area getting stronger?
   In nexomon extinction it certainly break my immersion and world building.
   This can be solved by having elite monsters surrounded by normal level monsters. Like you fight elite monsters when you level up and they provide more challenging

2. Levels no longer have the purpose of providing progression anymore if we make all monsters level scale

Levels were introduced in RPGs to provide a sense of progression. This was their main purpose for a long time.

Something else must replace the levels that provides a sense of progression.

3. With level scaling Dev's need to make a team for villains/gym leaders at every cut off level.

Like if the player challenges the gym battle at lvl 20, then the gym leader has to have level 20 team but if the player challenges at lvl 30 they need to have lvl 30 team. So in a way for every gym fight we make 10 levels of battle ai.

4. There is also the issue of players not having any build/team to take on specific area because of mechanical reasons.

Like you can't have good experience fighting fire types with grass type

5. Levels doesn't have to provide large difference in stats but noticable difference.
   What does this mean?
   Instead of vertical progression (higher level more power) horizontal progression (lower level still more power)
   Like monsters get more power with moves/abilities/items etc

6. Let players decide which move monsters can learn based on skill progression.

Like leaf blade can have different levels on power and you grind to make that move powerful instead of monster itself
Like in monster sanctuary

[tight crag]

That part about losing the feeling of actual progression was my very first complaint about level scaling lol
Having monsters of all levels out in the wild at once solves that too, while also showing you a tangible goal of getting strong enough to beat that one super high-level mon in the area.

[tame tendon]

It's my preference as well. But if the Dev's have an idea they want to do, I think they should go through with it
I also mentioned how we can have a sense of progression even with level scaling in above post

[fierce badger]

With level scaling you lose something like progression and the feeling of your monster getting better with respect to the area.

You still have that progression because levels increase.

I think this is an important thing because the player/Tamer is actively making them stronger.

Again, levels increase.

1. How are normal monsters in the area getting stronger?
   In nexomon extinction it certainly break my immersion and world building.
   This can be solved by having elite monsters surrounded by normal level monsters. Like you fight elite monsters when you level up and they provide more challenging

How does fixed level explain that? Every single Mon is in a fixed level range that magically changes a few meters aside. That makes less sense than having a variety and dynamic growth all around you.

2. Levels no longer have the purpose of providing progression anymore if we make all monsters level scale

That simply isn't true. Levels still show Progress.

Levels were introduced in RPGs to provide a sense of progression. This was their main purpose for a long time.

And still is the case.

Something else must replace the levels that provides a sense of progression.

Not really, no.

3. With level scaling Dev's need to make a team for villains/gym leaders at every cut off level.

Not necessarily, there are ways to just make them dynamic.

4. There is also the issue of players not having any build/team to take on specific area because of mechanical reasons.

Not really, No.

Like you can't have good experience fighting fire types with grass type

Which is exactly the opposite of the point anyways.

What does this mean?
That while levels make a noticeable difference, it isn't huge. Legends Arceus implemented that pretty well, even if not perfect.

[fierce badger]

You mean kind of a Tech Tree like Monster Sanctuary? Not exactly opposed to that. Much the opposite. I love tech trees.

I get what you mean with losing a sense of progression or levels losing meaning, but I don't see it that way.

Especially with the tech tree of Monster Sanctuary, levels still is a big progess point

[tight crag]

You still have that progression because levels increase.

It's only an illusion of progression if everything scales up to you no matter what.

Again, levels increase.

With scaling, there's effectively nothing the tamer can do that makes their nexomon any more special or stronger than their wild piers, outside of maybe the planned equipment system.

That simply isn't true. Levels still show Progress.

Again, only an illusion. There is no real upward progress when everything is still just as strong compared to you as it was before. The only real progression would be sideways progression, learning new moves and such, but even then the scaling nexomon would also get those moves since there's no nexomon equivalent to TMs or move tutors.

[tight crag]

I can see that you don't see it that way, but please understand you may be an outlier for having that perspective

[fierce badger]

Not an illusion, the levels increase. You progress by getting your levels Higher.

That is almost correct. The skills you use, equipment and strategy differ. Still, you're partially right, however that doesn't mean you don't Progress.

It's not an illusion that you gain xp and reach higher levels. And it isn't an illusion that reaching higher levels is a form of progression.
Progression isn't related to what others do. It's about what you do.

[tight crag]

Well thanks to scaling, technically 'what you do' will essentially never be 'enough'.
It doesn't matter if your level or stats increase because scaling enemies will always match you (Especially in a game without an EV-like system to differentiate between your mons' builds).
That is the illusion of progression, the stat increases trying to trick you into thinking you're getting stronger when, compared to everyone else anyway, you never left square one.

I feel the need to say that I believe some scaling system is almost necessary for an open world game, even Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom have a hidden XP system, but having everything match/slightly exceed your level at all times is the worst way you can go about it.

[fierce badger]

That's the Part I get what you're saying. The progress feels undone by the world scaling with you, but you still progress. It's just not as relevant as with fixed levels.

There's no illusion however, you are getting stronger. It's just that the world also progresses.

A slider option would then be good for both of us. It'd allow everyone to fine-tune scaling to their preferencies.

[tame tendon]

Both of you have different opinions on this matter and it comes down to personal preference imo.

The progression from level increasing is not sufficient for me to feel a considerable difference in fights when level scaling is done

[tight crag]

Even so, you still have to hash out how enemies are scaled.
Are they based on your highest-level party member, lowest level party member, or an average?
Is it even tied to your own levels, or is it based on story milestones, or some other indirect factor?

You'll also have to create separate teams for different story bosses when they can be fought in any order, with early-game versions having fewer nexomon on their team.

[tame tendon]

Also my bigger pain point for previous nexomon games was that there was no map
And it was really difficult to navigate especially in extinction
And we need to go towards no random battles 😭

[hot violet]

Haven’t we settled on this already? 😅 l think becoming much stronger than everyone else is what actually breaks the immersion since in real life people would ALWAYS try to get better and stronger in their profession and they don’t go oh this level is fine for me I’ll just stop training

Regarding the wild encounters then it can be solved in different ways I think the most logical one is to have the young ones being low leveled while the others being higher levels. The stronger you become then the rarer those low level young Nexomon become

[tame tendon]

It's true but at the same not everyone can become professional player

Pokemon games are still linear in their level design

Because they don't bother to improvise on it

[hot violet]

Well ya that’s why there was suggestion that the scaling could also depend on the trainer

Bad one won’t scale to the same level as elite

[tame tendon]

I don't like low level nexomon becoming difficult to catch if you are high level

In nexomon 2 we need to use food and costly traps to even get considerable amount of catching chance

[hot violet]

But it makes sense parents can sense how strong of a trainer you are and if you’re too strong then their young ones won’t be allowed to get near you only those who disobey their parents will show up

[tame tendon]

That's an interesting idea but at the same time why don't parent monsters attack you when you are low level as a lore point of view?

Your point only applies to one side only

That's why I think it's better to have an area like in Pokemon arceus legends where we have elites and normal mobs
The areas near the towns are safer than areas far away from towns

And bad environment conditions makes only high level monsters exist there

At the same time over leveling has to be taken care of, for that I think 🤔

The stats we get from levels are small increments. Suppose for example a lvl 1 nexomon has 10 stats and lvl 10 has 12 stats like that
So by leveling you get the progression of getting new moves and abilities but your stats won't be much better than wild ones and you can get knocked out by low level monsters as well

[fierce badger]

And that's fine. I disagree, and that's fine as well. But to say there's no progression at all while levels increase is factually wrong.

[fierce badger]

All of those are possible options. A Hybrid of those would also work well.

[fierce badger]

Not quite, you'd just need to Set their level to dynamic, and base their skills and Equipment on that level. Similarily to how BotW or TotK scale their items and mobs

[fierce badger]

What if the lower levels fight you by outnumbering you? Instead of having to fight a level 10 with your level 40, you fight 3 level 10s

[fierce badger]

Who says they don't?

[hexed berry]

remove level at all, so it will be move/itemization-wise to differentiate between battle style

evolution can be done with friendship/quest/anything you can think of

[fierce badger]

Wouldn't work. Moves are learnt by levels and making a quest for every Evolution would be bothersome.

[hexed berry]

it works because I have done it

just put some creativity and everything will works out

[fierce badger]

When I say it wouldn't work, I didn't mean there's no way to implement it, I meant it wouldn't be doable in a good manner.

[hexed berry]

this is not what I do but for monster taming style it might looks like this if I were developing one

learn move: your tamer have a "level/tier" and more move will be available as you progress, some would unlock from a quest. as how your "monster" learn it, just have a page that let you do it on it's status page or just have place for this like a move tutor/training room or anything you want

for evolution: friendship point/any point you want to call it that works like level without altering it's stat (or maybe manually add stat), doing a quest, or met certain condition

[hot violet]

If horde battles are a thing then ya that would solve this issue

[hot violet]

I didn’t say they won’t if you’re low level then strong Nexomon are rare and vise versa

[tight crag]

I'm not saying there shouldn't be scaling, just that a 1-1 level match is the worst way to do it.

[tight crag]

That's actually an exceptional idea.
Tamers meant to be gifted or especially skilled could scale faster than the 'casuals'.

[tight crag]

A milestone-based scaling system that also adds levels based on the player's party level?

[tight crag]

That still doesn't take into account that early-game bosses will have to have less nexomon on their team outright.

That's mostly what I was refering to

[tight crag]

Based on what we know, the player themselves will be using multiple nexomon at once themselves, so you would have to crank those numbers a bit lol

[fierce badger]

So instead of giving the monster levels, the trainer does. That doesn't gets rid of levels, it just moves subject.

[fierce badger]

That's just level without stat alteration. You're literally just changing how levels work, not getting rid of it.

[hexed berry]

when I say use creativity I really meant it

[fierce badger]

Yes, could work.
Say, a plastic relation. Within the range of your story milestone, levels scale normally, everything above your milestone range scales extremely slowly.
The scaling itself being based on your own xp gain.

[fierce badger]

meant but didn't do, not that easy, after all, huh? ¯_(ツ)_/¯

[fierce badger]

Do they? I don't see why.

[hexed berry]

the trainer "level" or in this case I will call it "tier" is not fighting monster then you get point to fill out your tamer level

[fierce badger]

Okay, 2v5 and 3v5/6

[fierce badger]

It doesn't matter how you call it or how you increase the level, it's still level based

[hexed berry]

idk if you at least know how game development works, that would sounds wider than "level"

[fierce badger]

Wider than level? No, not really. Level is a very wide concept, and a hell of a lot of concepts fit within it.

[hexed berry]

so our N2 protag gaining "bronze/silver/gold/GM" is a tamer level to you

you can do more with that badge but in N2 it's more story related ig

[fierce badger]

It's a Rank, Not a level. They aren't exactly the same thing, but closely related.

[tight crag]

If different nexomon have different growth rates, then you'd have to be careful when it's based on XP itself.
A team of slow-growth nexomon might never even match the levels of the opponents.

[hexed berry]

I literally say tier

[fierce badger]

You could scale the xp gain based on growth rates. Also, the same will apply to you as well.

[fierce badger]

So?

The tamer rank is a plot device that brings you story progress and in-lore permission to follow further in the story. It is uniquely provided by the story and only impacts the story.

[hexed berry]

so from my explanation tier = level but you just said rank is not a level

[fierce badger]

Because your explanation is just a level. You're calling it differently but it remains the same thing.

[hexed berry]

I literally just said tier is not the same as level there

[fierce badger]

It is.

Just a different name

[tight crag]

I was thinking more like "Enemy tamers scale to (appropriate level for respective milestone) + ?% of the player's party level"
The % can be unique for every tamer based on their in-lore skill level.
I'm not sure what you mean by 'above milestone range'

[hexed berry]

you can't overfarm tier but you can overlevel level

so tier still same as level to you

[fierce badger]

Well, every story milestone has a level range. Going above that level range is what I meant.

[fierce badger]

You can overfarm tiers, just like you can overfarm levels. You cannot overfarm the Tamer rank though

[fierce badger]

It's Literally used as the same thing, just called differently.

[tight crag]

Oh you mean when the player exceeds the milestone level.

[fierce badger]

Yes, then enemies scale less strongly for your level basis.

The ?% you named would be divided by 3 or so, for example

[hexed berry]

it's not, you can max out your tier without altering any stat, you level up your stat increase

simple as that

[fierce badger]

That's how levels usually works, but doesn't has to be.

Levels can also just give you an utility point and nothing else, still level-based

There doesn't even have to be a number or name affilated, it could just as well be "all x success Points you get an utility point"

[leaden ocean]

So since this discussion has been going on for too long, ive read what different people have been saying and i think Ive Come up with a solution that would make everyone happy

[hexed berry]

I like how you affiliate everything I say as level then you just casually says rank is not level there

[fierce badger]

Because it isn't. Again, Rank is a simple plot device.

The tamer rank is a plot device that brings you story progress and in-lore permission to follow further in the story. It is uniquely provided by the story and only impacts the story.

[hexed berry]

have you ever develop a game

[fierce badger]

Have you even read what I said?

[hexed berry]

it's not limited for plot

[fierce badger]

The rank concept is limited for plot, yes

[hexed berry]

in N2 it is used for plot but it is not limited for plot only, it just happen that N2 only use it as is

[fierce badger]

Sure, it can get some nice bonus effects just for being worth something, but it's ecistential reason is plot

[fierce badger]

Because it's used for that only

[hexed berry]

you can remove plot point for the rank tho, really it's all your creativity

[fierce badger]

How is the rank determined then, if Not by plot points?

[hexed berry]

maybe you can farm them like level, you just said it

[fierce badger]

Then it's a tier, not a rank. And that's just a different form of leveling

It's like in PLA where your character has a tier and it's increased by getting dex points

Unlocking new items to use as well

Increasing money gain and rising the capture level cap

[hexed berry]

it's like talking to ppl that says MP/SP/Mana is different thing because different developer calls it differently when the main point they use is for skill/special ability

[fierce badger]

That was a tiering system, even if it was called a rank. And that system is just another leveling concept.

[fierce badger]

Yeah, they are a different thing but the same concept and have the same utility. They are only different in name and specific working.

[hexed berry]

while in reality as developer, you can call it whatever it is and change what it does

[fierce badger]

Yes, but it remains the mana concept.

[hexed berry]

now you said it remains mana concept

I literally explain different concept and you still said mine is = level

[fierce badger]

Because yours is the same concept as leveling

It's exactly the same example as with mana

You made your own idea of a mana system, but it remains the mana concept

You can change the specifics by a lot, but the utility and broader working is still the same.

[leaden ocean]

For tamers :

The player has 5 possible ranks, according to game progression :

• rookie
• bronze
• silver
• gold
• master

Each enemy tamers is attributed a rank, if the enemy has the same rank, there mons are the same level as you, then +2 for each rank above you ( ex : you are silver with a lvl 20 team, bronze tamers have lvl 18, gold have lvl 22) if you lose against a Tamer, their level stays the same, even if you level up, until you can beat them. If people want to overlevel (for example being lvl 30 for a part of the game that should have level 20 nexomon, there is a cap for enemy tamers, for example recommended lvl+10 so that people who want to overlevel and breeze through the game have the option to do so without being a hinderance for people who want opponents to scale)

[fierce badger]

What exactly is that "a part of the game" with recommended level?

A story segment?

[hexed berry]

since idk how open-world or how linear is N3 is

[leaden ocean]

For wild Mons :

A similar system, where visible Mons are slightly weaker than the player (-2 lvl for example)
With stage evolutions, maybe depending on where you are in the game, first stages should be alot less like -5 or -10 levels

[hexed berry]

I pretty much can't say how I would suggest this

[fierce badger]

Based on that the devs are thinking about scaling, it'll be more than Scarlet Violet already lol

[leaden ocean]

Yes, it seemed pretty clear

[hexed berry]

I don't play SV so idk if SV is still as linear as old pokemon game like pre-determined gym order then E4

[fierce badger]

How about that:
Wild Mons can Spawn in any level from their starting level to your rank level -2.

The weaker ones either call for help to gang up on you, or flee asap. The stronger ones can be battled normally.

[leaden ocean]

Sure

[fierce badger]

It doesn't has a pre-determined order, but the levels are fixed so you're kinda still forced to do the order presented

[hexed berry]

or you can just roam the lands freely and the story order is whatever you like

[leaden ocean]

I cant stay, I have a power outage since this morning, I just came online to see what was going on the discord, ill leave you guys to discuss my Idea, if you like it

[fierce badger]

Also, was it ever said that there's some miniboss monster? Like Alphas in PLA?

[leaden ocean]

No

[fierce badger]

Sad, might be worth an idea as Well

[leaden ocean]

Neither denied nor confirmed

[hexed berry]

I played SwSh and there's blockage every now and then so it's pretty linear for me

[fierce badger]

Yeah, SwSh was linear

Even the map was almost always ine clear path

[tame tendon]

Check out cassette beasts

They did this

[fierce badger]

So? It's still a level system.

[hexed berry]

idk about cassette beasts but I'm sure it's not the same as what I envisioned my "tier" works as

[fierce badger]

From what both of you told, it sounds like it is

But Idk it either, so I could be wrong

[tame tendon]

In cassette beasts, the player transforms into the monsters so player level is the monster level. So if you find a cool monster you don't have to grind

[tight crag]

So I started playing Monster Sanctuary recently and something I noticed was pretty neat.
The enemies have some kind of scaling (I hope it's milestone-based or I'm screwing myself over by grinding to try and match the level of the monsters outpacing me), but the game is also a 2D metroidvania, and the mons are scaled when you enter the room they're in, and then stay at that level when you come back, even if you didn't fight them the first time around.

There's an NPC that can change this, increasing the minimum level of areas you already visited.

[tame tendon]

Yeah

[tight crag]

It's an interesting system for sure. Rather than scaling purely based on your level, it scales based on how many rooms you've visited that have monster encounters.
So it's tied to the game's progression via world exploration. The more places you've been, the stronger the new foes will be.

Some areas do have a minimum level though.

[tame tendon]

It also considers in lore that the places you visit hold stronger monsters as you progress

And it also removes difficulty of catching only higher level monsters available in high lvl areas by giving you eggs
And from the egg it's always the first form of evolution

I haven't seen nexomon use breeding yet or a similar mechanics

[leaden ocean]

When I suggested a gimmick where you would have to steal an egg from an overpowered nexomon in order to raise it, people hated the idea so I dont think a breeding mechanic will appear

Especially since the whole point of breeding in pokémon is get meta tier Mons, since ivs and evs arent a thing in nexomon

[tame tendon]

That's what monster hunter stories does

[leaden ocean]

It's a common mechanic found in games, but people on the suggestion kept saying that they wanted all encounters to be the same same for evolutions, just by level up, personnally I think there could be creative ways to spice up how you encounter Mons and evolve them

[tame tendon]

According to lore of nexomon there is no mention of how they reproduce or how new types are born

We just know that almighty doggy birthed all nexomon

But we do use egg 🥚 in nexomon 2

[leaden ocean]

It's a Fake egg though

[fierce badger]

Iirc, it also has it that you cannot catch wild Monsters, only collect eggs to hatch.

And those eggs automatically hatch into a level that's roughly your teams level, meaning you don't have to grind.

[fierce badger]

It's also used for chain shiny hunting and in my case for example, to complete the Living Dex.

[fierce badger]

But a true omelett for that lol

[leaden ocean]

True, forgot about breeding for shinies

Honestly, if a stolen egg turns into an OP mon, I wouldn't mind it if they started out at level 5 or something, so that you have to train it up

[fierce badger]

Meh, just sounds like needless additional grinding

[leaden ocean]

That's the point, if you want to use a powerful mon, you have to do the work to make it usable. It's a question of asking yourself if you want to use a mon enough to train it from nothing or not being bothered to

[fierce badger]

The thing is, it's just a waste of time to grind for something if it didn't need to be like that.
This applies to every Mon as well, not just to the super powerful ones.

[leaden ocean]

It's supposed to be a waste of time, raising a mon from scratch, it's rewarding hard work, I doubt I'm the only player who likes hard to raise mons to then be rewarded in putting in the effort

[fierce badger]

It's supposed to be a game, an Entertainment of time. Wasting time in a much boring way isn't the entertainment one wants if one plays a video games they have fun with.

[leaden ocean]

I dont agree, some people enjoy raising their Monsters until they reach the same level as the rest of the team, if all the Monsters you catch are all the same level, their would be no incentive to use pre evos, the optimal route would be to only catch nexomon that are in their final form

[tame tendon]

It's your personal preference

Ultimately it's a grind. It's fun the first time but not the 100th time you are doing it

It's more rewarding to make a build for the monster to play with it

I also get what you mean
Journeying with your monsters is something I also enjoy. You want that feeling of raising the monster. I think you can still do that.
Every game I come across gives the option to skip grind someway and it's by players consent most of the time

[fierce badger]

Well, you cannot find the final forms of anything, especially not in lower level ranges. Otherwise, yes, I see no point in catching the pre evos other than dex completion.

[fierce badger]

Also, easy fix:
Eggs hatch to a level close to yours for some reason, catches have the level they have.

[tight crag]

In Monster Sanctuary evolutions aren't automatically better than prevos due to having a different skill tree and no longer filling exactly the same niche in a party.
also eggs always hatch 2-3 levels below your party level anyway no matter where or when you got them.

[tame tendon]

Yeah that works pretty well for monster sanctuary and you can also use skill resetter for cheap

It's very friendly game

[tight crag]

This is also true, especially with level badges that put any monster that's behind your party into being just one level below.
There's definitely still a level of grinding though, when you explore a lot of the map and don't fight every encounter you see, the scaling can start to outpace you. That's what happened to me.

[tight crag]

Not every player is going to have the time to waste though

[leaden ocean]

The whole point is too have something OP that requires alot of preparation, if players want to spend the Time to train it up they Can, if players dont want to spend the Time to train it up, they dont use it, but fine if everybody else thinks that you should have everything be usable as soon as you get it fine.

In that case no reason to bother with alternative ways to catch nexomon, just make them findable in the wild, I think that would be a shame, but it seems to be what everybody wants

[hot violet]

It’s not that like do you remember how you find the legendary birds in Kanto? They acted as a reward for players who went out of their way to explore the world and yet when you captured them they were on level 50 you didn’t find them at level 5 and had to grind them to be usable

Having some Nexomon fill a similar role and have a unique way to find them is a great idea but they should be at a reasonable level

[leaden ocean]

True, however to balance the birds, like all legendaries, they require more experience to level up because of their experience group, taming a mon from level 5 when your team is lvl20-30 doesnt seem like that Big of a deal, but sure there could be an inbetween

[hot violet]

Well Nexomon having different experience growth curves shouldn’t be a problem to implement 🤷🏻‍♂️

[hexed berry]

it is, just have different exp group for legendary, special, pseudo-legend, etc

[leaden ocean]

It wouldn't be a problem to implement, but it's not necessarily the best option

[fierce badger]

This raises the idea, what if we have level badges? Expensive key items that increase the minimum level of new catches and hatches to a certain level? Like, one badge makes everyone at least L10, then L20. It can be turned off or not even bought in the first place.

The issue I see is that with that, you can catch a L30 and it directly becomes L80 with enough badges. Not sure if that's a good idea.

[fierce badger]

No, the whole point is to play with the Monsters you want.

I do think the stronger ones should be harded to obtain, but not to grind.

[fierce badger]

No, really not. What we're saying is just that not everyone wants to grind levels. The idea with special obtain methods is really good

(Sorry for the Ping)

[fierce badger]

That's also true, because for example in Pokemon, the pseudo is almost always slacking behind in terms of levels. Which can be annoying.

[hot violet]

Not a fan of this as like you pointed out you wouldn’t need to train any Nexomon since it automatically gains levels

[fierce badger]

I also said you could turn it off if you want to

And we could lock the purchase behind certain milestones

Like, you can only get as many badges so that you're always 20 levels below the "intended story level" or something

And only in postgame, when you're done with almost everything, can you get the remaining ones

[tame tendon]

It can also be made a difficulty setting and ppl can opt in to have the option to grind

[fierce badger]

Sure, sure, but then it really leaves no challenge at all

With the badges, you need to at least afford it

[tame tendon]

Personally I don't like grinds, they are meaningful when learning the game afterwards it becomes really boring and time wasting

Until we get a different experience (as in different quests/ways)of the game it's not worth it

My ideal World Would be like sword art online where quests are generated by a central ai and every time you play or do it. It's different and meaningful

Right now the only way to grind is to battle trainers/wild battles which can get boring(this depends on ppl's tolerance of grinding)after a while

[leaden ocean]

Central ai generated quests would be way too complicated to implement, however différent kinds of quests would be doable. A while back JV talked about majoras Mask style photography quests. There could also be bounties for rogue tamers, exploring a New area and selling the information to a cartogripher, participating in a tournament...

There could be an argument for implementing some kind of Tamer levels, with a skill tree for different aspects of the game, like flying, max speed for ground based mounts, catching rate, some way to increase the visibility of wild nexomon (range of them appearing on a mini Map, an indicator on the HUD that shows which nexomon are close by, or something else)...

[fierce badger]

Also, theyre bland and boring. No lore, no background thought, just a random fetch quest

[fierce badger]

Im always for Tech trees, so count me in on that

[tame tendon]

I am talking about the Central ai of the world like it guides the npcs and everything in that world progresses

No 2 quests will be the same

It doesn't exist yet but that will greatly increase the games

[leaden ocean]

It doesnt exist because it's not possible

[tame tendon]

I seriously doubt it. It's possible but not yet

[leaden ocean]

I Can guarantee it wont exist while nexomon 3 is being developed, so try to make realistic suggestions, otherwise we cant take them seriously

[tame tendon]

Oo
I was talking generally

[leaden ocean]

Fair enough but it's far too complicated a system to be worth it

[uneven dust]

the wait for nexomon 3 is killing me. i loved the first 2 games.

[tight crag]

Exactly.
Once you already have the monster, you should never be actively discouraged into not using it for something like not having the time to grind it to the rest of your party's level.

[tight crag]

Level badges in Monster Sanctuary act more like rare candies, just with the caveat that they cannot raise a monster's level to or beyond your current highest-level monster.
There is a variant without that restriction but those can ONLY be obtained once you have a monster at the game's max level, which is 42 in Monster Sanctuary.

[fierce badger]

I am aware, I wasn't suggesting level badges like in MSanc, but a level badge, an own idea

[tight crag]

Fair

[tight crag]

Would it raise the minimum level before/during battle, or would it bump up the caught nexomon once you caught them?

[fierce badger]

The idea was latter, but I guess both work

[fossil otter]

I’d change nothing at all. Keep the scaling, accept that you can’t please everyone and move along.

For players who want to grind (please see a doctor) and want to feel like it was meaningful, you can add post-game challenges or competitive focused elements of the game where grinding is advantageous, but in my mind getting through the main story, or for players who are on the casual side and uninterested in the competitive experience, which is surely the majority, scaling/designing for balance clearly makes the most sense

[tight crag]

Having scaling that's too aggressive can end up actually forcing grinding so be careful

And Extinction in particular had me underleveled even after I did grind and that's not fun.

[delicate night]

My only gripe with the scaling (which I think they fixed in an update) was sometimes the basic form wild nexomon got scaled out of availability. That is the only thing I want to not happen

[fierce badger]

They could make something like how BotW did, where there's always a certain place that doesn't scale a specific mob.

[fossil otter]

This thread is ridiculously long and I’m not reading everything from the top down.

Anyhow, pro scaling here. I liked what NM2 did. Could it be tweaked, sure, but the foundation is right. I want the game to be challenging at all stages.

[tight crag]

I just wanna jump in here and say that combining the slow experience gain with being caught at a significantly lower level is a recipe for a complete and utter grinding nightmare unless your game is equipped with a QOL method for quickly bringing a new mon up to speed with the rest of your team. (Like modern pokemon's EXP candies from raids or Monster Sanctuary's level badges)
The first is an understandable attempt to balance a naturally stronger mon like a legendary, the latter makes things more tedious, but still wouldn't be as bad.

[leaden ocean]

Dude ! Why did you ping me on a post I wrote a year ago ?

[tight crag]

Because I always forget to turn off pings. Sorry for that.

[leaden ocean]

Especially since you misunderstood what I said, anyway you woke me up, I'm not in a good mood so I'm not going to develop further

[final mason]

Just saw this thread, and since there will still be level scaling in Nexomon 3 I have removed it from my wishlist. Good luck with the game to the dev