ITAJU'S PROFILE

author=Gourd_Clae
@Itaju Looking nice, Itaju! The only thing I can think to critique is that the little lift up to the tree house moves pretty slow. I guess it depends on how often the player has to use the lift, but I'd think that it would help to be a little faster.

It is a really pretty game that you're making though~<3

I make it slow on the first use so it feels EPIC when you are going up. And probably you can upgrade it pretty soon afterwards so it will move 2x or 4x as fast. :P

The follower system has been updated. It's not like a caterpillar anymore and has a more realistic feel.

Some insights on the tree house as well. There are some filter errors in the vid. I hope you don't mind.

author=LockeZ
Penalties for leveling up piss me off.

This thread was inspired by the recent expansion pack to Diablo 3, in which the game was changed so that the sole effect of leveling up is now that all of your equipment gets slightly worse. That's all. Nothing else. You gain no benefit whatsoever.

But aside from that horrifying worst-case example, there are a lot of games where the game penalizes you in subtler ways for leveling up. Making you gain less gold or AP unless you fight higher level enemies is a popular method of screwing you over. Once you're high enough level, it becomes almost impossible to gain money.

Many games use damage or hitrate formulas that divide by your level - so your chance to hit is based on the ratio of your agility stat compared to your level, for example. So if you gain a level, but don't gain any agility, your chance to hit decreases. This causes serious potential problems as you actually become weaker and weaker the higher level you are.

Enemies that level up with you are another popular gimmick. This is the bullshit Diablo 3's new expansion pack uses. You fight the same enemies no matter what level you are - they just grow in power to match your level. This means that leveling up makes you take more damage from and deal less damage to the same enemy. Sure, it might also unlock some new equipment - but getting that equipment will just put you back to the point you were at before you leveled up. Other games like FF8 will use a hybrid of this and a normal level up system - in FF8 every enemy has a minimum level, so you do have to level up to that point. It's used in FF8 to make sure you don't skip all the fights while also removing the benefit of grinding.

All of these penalties are seemingly designed to remove the benefit of grinding, so that players have to gain power by proving their skill and performing various tasks instead of by spending 150 hours slaughtering billions of identical rabites. A noble goal, but at what cost? Surely there are ways to do this without actually penalizing you for playing the game more. Like capping your level. Or not having levels in the first place.

Making you gain less XP if you fight lower level enemies is a different category of penalty in my mind - instead of penalizing you in one area of the game for progressing in a different area, the game simply provides diminishing returns on experience points. This seems completely fine to me, but maybe other people disagree? Can you explain why if so?

Dude, you are wrong.

Think of Blizzard / Diablo 3 what you want but this argument is invalid.

The only thing that actually gets worse is your Life Steal stat which is to be lowered my 10% every level until it reaches 0% effectivity on Level 70 (max level) so this imbalanced stats can be removed from the game.

Yes, the enemies level with you, but what you with each level is the possibility of wearing even more powerful armor than before (besides improving characters' stats and skill effectivity).

The increase of monster level by character level is just a different way of adjusting the monster level that usually rises during the course of an actual game. The difference is that you can't stay at any location and grind those weak Blobs for 2 hours so you have a level advantage for a short period of time afterwards.

Diablo 3 (and its predecessor Diablo 2) are games where fighting capabilities are determined by about 90% solely by equipment stats. It has always been like that and will always be). Level 1-60 (even without scaling monster levels) are not much of a difference than 61-70 from the equipment.

Your character could outlevel the monsters, yes. But if you didn't chose to find/buy/craft new items the monster will kill you pretty soon. It's not a penalty it's just how Diablo 3 goes.

If you don't like this, then Diablo 3 isn't for you. But don't pretend that Diablo turned the way you mentioned just since the latest expansion.

Much much better, bro.

There we have a little library.