Issue with levelling System

[Jirodyne]

I do agree with the leveling system. Not with the puzzles, I love the puzzles. But the leveling system, I feel is weaker than in LoG 1. In LoG 1, except in very very few places, when you killed an enemy it was dead. Gone. So if you killed everything from floor 1-5 you would have at max "X" exp, and everyone would be "X" leveled. So to balance this, the higher floor enemies were stronger and different. The enemies all had a level, and they didn't get stronger. So enemies became easier the more you leveled, especially when you leveled in magic to help clear lots of enemies quickly. This also made it so the Comunity could make even MORE stronger enemies in stronger dungeons so you can take your high level party and keep leveling up. Your level and skills depended on how deep into the game you were and it was balanced around that.

LoG 2 tho, is set to be 'non-linear' and it can't be that if some enemies in areas were just too strong and out leveled you. So instead from what I have seen, everything levels with you. Or most of the enemies do anyways. Enemies that are hard at level 1, with a rock as your weapon, is still hard at lvl 18 with wearing heavy armor and throwing out bolts of lightning. Also enemies respawn everywhere, so you can grind and gain even more levels. But to a limit without cheating. In LoG 1 they wanted you to end at around X level, so all the enemies in the game combine'd experience got you to that level and no higher. In LoG 2, they make it impossible to get to the next level without grinding a really really really REALLY long time. Effectively, people can't make dungeons that are harder or weaker in LoG 2 since the enemies level with you. And because of the 'soft cap' People can't make higher level dungeons for higher level groups, because it's impossible to legitly get that much exp going threw a dungeon and killing a few enemies along the way.

[Palandus]

I think we are now getting off topic, but I concede that this game mirrors a lot of the 80s Dungeon Crawlers (none of which I've played). I'm a mid 90s Dungeon Crawler where puzzles were basically nonexistent.

However back on topic, I remember Almost Human making a blogpost on the Skill System and here it is (Dated Oct 17, 2013) = http://www.grimrock.net/2013/10/17/skil ... explained/

If you look at the great looking skill system in that blog and compare it to what we ACTUALLY got in Grimrock 2, you will see that in an earlier build it seemed like there was FAR MORE customization with skills, even having race-specific skills.

I wonder why they changed it...?

Like as an example all it took for 2 Skill Points to get Ogre's Grip (whereas now we need 5 skill points to get it), or it only took 2 skill points to get heavy armor (whereas now we need 4 skill points). In that build of the game, EACH skill point was extremely valuable, whereas now, they feel less valuable. Also note, that they got rid of a bunch of cool skills like Leadership and Shield Expert.

When I bought the game, I was looking forward to THAT skill system not this hunk of junk that we have now. That's where the majority of my gripes are coming from with the Skill System. We were given a look at what the new skill system would look like and it looked AWESOME. Back then 1 skill point did a lot of things. I just want to know why they scrapped something that looked great and implemented something new that makes the whole skill system and levelling feel tacked on.

Basically in that blog post they state they wanted to make each level up feel valuable, and for some reason went a complete 180 and scrapped it so that each level up felt meaningless.

[Phitt]

I think we are now getting off topic, but I concede that this game mirrors a lot of the 80s Dungeon Crawlers (none of which I've played). I'm a mid 90s Dungeon Crawler where puzzles were basically nonexistent.[...]
Basically in that blog post they state they wanted to make each level up feel valuable, and for some reason went a complete 180 and scrapped it so that each level up felt meaningless.

What means 'valuable'? If you let people have the heavy armor perk with only 2 skill points you'd either have a 'system' like in Elder Scrolls games (where you can become the ultimate god of everything) or you'd end up with characters that level up 3 times throughout the game only. Skill points are a lot more valuable now than they were with the slightly messy system in LoG 1 where you could basically split up skill points and distribute them among several skills.

Devs need to find the right balance between the amount of level ups and the benefits you get from leveling up. Level up 50 times in a game and get a tiny bonus only each time or level up 3 times per game and get a huge bonus? The way it is now looks good to me - you level up about 11-13 times in a normal game and each time you get something meaningful for it.

That said I do not 100% agree with the way perks are distributed, for example armor skill level 5 is pretty much useless and I guess almost no one would pick that. But those are relatively minor complaints.

And the Dungeon Crawler genre this game is based on basically died in the mid 90s, the last mainstream game of its kind was Stonekeep, which was released in 1995.

[minmay]

I think we are now getting off topic, but I concede that this game mirrors a lot of the 80s Dungeon Crawlers (none of which I've played). I'm a mid 90s Dungeon Crawler where puzzles were basically nonexistent.

However back on topic, I remember Almost Human making a blogpost on the Skill System and here it is (Dated Oct 17, 2013) = http://www.grimrock.net/2013/10/17/skil ... explained/

If you look at the great looking skill system in that blog and compare it to what we ACTUALLY got in Grimrock 2, you will see that in an earlier build it seemed like there was FAR MORE customization with skills, even having race-specific skills.

I wonder why they changed it...?

Like as an example all it took for 2 Skill Points to get Ogre's Grip (whereas now we need 5 skill points to get it), or it only took 2 skill points to get heavy armor (whereas now we need 4 skill points). In that build of the game, EACH skill point was extremely valuable, whereas now, they feel less valuable. Also note, that they got rid of a bunch of cool skills like Leadership and Shield Expert.

When I bought the game, I was looking forward to THAT skill system not this hunk of junk that we have now. That's where the majority of my gripes are coming from with the Skill System. We were given a look at what the new skill system would look like and it looked AWESOME. Back then 1 skill point did a lot of things. I just want to know why they scrapped something that looked great and implemented something new that makes the whole skill system and levelling feel tacked on.

Basically in that blog post they state they wanted to make each level up feel valuable, and for some reason went a complete 180 and scrapped it so that each level up felt meaningless.

It doesn't sound like you looked at that blog post for very long. The skill system shown is almost identical to the current one, it just has skills that are split up when they don't need to be. In that blog post you can see that ogre's grip requires prior investment in two-handed weapons. In the released Grimrock 2, ogre's grip...requires prior investment in two-handed weapons. Leadership and Shield Expert are still in the game! They were just moved to a book and a class, respectively. There are still race-specific bonuses. So unless you're really frustrated that you can't spend a skill point for 1 point of strength, I don't see where you're coming from.

I also don't get the complaint that the LoG1 skill system was better. The new one is just a streamlined version of it, perhaps with better balance in some places. In Grimrock 1 you trained one skill to a breakpoint then repeated for the next skill. And the choice of skill was almost always obvious, since everything that wasn't a weapon or spell skill or assassination did nothing in practice. It's similar in Grimrock 2, but you don't have to click as many times because skills aren't filled with levels in between that do literally nothing. I'm not fond of Grimrock's skill system (or any skill/leveling system in any other action RPG I've played) but it certainly hasn't gotten worse.

[Palandus]

Ah but here is the thing, in the original Grimrock 2 system, each level up was meaningful with a benefit at each level. There was less of the incremental upgrades as we have it now. If you notice the Armor skill in that blog post it only granted you the benefit of using the armors NOT +5% Armor each level. The old system was less about incremental upgrades and more about meaningful choices EVERY level instead of +5% Armor Protection each level up.

Ahh that explains a lot then. Dungeon crawlers for my generation were more for "Power-Gamers" rather than "Puzzle-Lovers". That would explain why I don't understand Grimrock too well.

Also what happened to Race-Specific Skills or Class-Specific skills? Those would have be nice to see rather than anyone can be anything as it currently stands.

[Palandus]

It also doesn't sound like you looked at it very long either.

It is not even close to being identical to the same system. Differences:

Old Grimrock 2 System:
-> Very few incremental upgrades
-> No little benefits for a skill up; each skill up gave something valuable and not an increment.
-> It was a skill tree, similar to how Diablo 2 did it. We don't have a skill tree now.
-> It was 3 skill points to max out a skill. Its 5 now, with a lot more filler slots. People complain about there being NO BENEFIT TO MAXXING OUT A TREE, because the maxxed out value is a filler slot. People don't want filler slots. The old system DID NOT HAVE FILLER SLOTS. I don't know how much more obvious I can be about this.
-> It took less skill points to accomplish more. 2 Skill points = Ogres grip. Now its 5 Skill Points. This allows those 3 skill points to be invested in other skills than wasted in Two-Handed.
-> The old system made it so that people could utilize their skill points better RATHER THAN SPECIALIZE ALL THEIR POINTS INTO A TREE. 5 Skill Points is 5 levels or the equivalent of 20 points in Grimrock 1. They wanted to avoid SPECIALIZING in GRIMROCK 2 and instead went back to the whole Specializing all your points into 1 or 2 trees, rather than in that blogpost of being able to spread out your points over several skills.

Ahh whats the point. You aren't going to listen to me anyway.

[Dr.Disaster]

However back on topic, I remember Almost Human making a blogpost on the Skill System and here it is (Dated Oct 17, 2013) = http://www.grimrock.net/2013/10/17/skil ... explained/

You realize that this blog entry was an entire year before release? Back then AH thought they had the first version of a reworked and functional skill system so they gave us a glimps on their early alpha ideas how things might be and since then a LOT has happend!

[msyblade]

Personally, I think a lot of the people that care enough about the Grimrock world to be mainstays here on the forums, are 30-45 year olds who remember playing Dungeon Master when they were 9 or 10 years old, and just being blown away by how amazing it was. It could cause fear and elation like no other digital product of the time (or a long time after). After that was the Eye of the Beholder series, Lands of Lore, Stonekeep, even Bloodwych to a degree. The point is, Grimrock is the latest in an entire genre of games that I'm afraid you missed the bus on. The entire genre is "Puzzle-centric", that is who the game is for, people who love and miss the bygone glory days of this exact type of game. I'm afraid you are just wanting for a different genre altogether, the hack and slash genre. There are hundreds upon hundreds of games for you to choose from in that category, Grimrock is not one of them. I feel that level progression is fine, battles are difficult, but not overwhelming or frustrating. The party is not underpowered, unless the player makes a mistake in building their characters. The alternative would be that the party is too powerful in comparison to the monsters/traps, and the challenge would be removed. Granted, in the hack and slash genre that is standard balancing. If you like, you can send me your save file and I'll make your characters level 1000. Then you can play it with an invincible party, and a walkthru open in front of you, however I don't think that sounds like a very fun time. This genre is simply not your cup of tea, maybe go DosBox Dungeon Master or EOB, You're gonna need a walkthru though, Puzzles everywhere!

[minmay]

Ah but here is the thing, in the original Grimrock 2 system, each level up was meaningful with a benefit at each level. There was less of the incremental upgrades as we have it now. If you notice the Armor skill in that blog post it only granted you the benefit of using the armors NOT +5% Armor each level. The old system was less about incremental upgrades and more about meaningful choices EVERY level instead of +5% Armor Protection each level up.

Somehow I doubt that every skill in the old system had a unique benefit at every level. I certainly hope you didn't get some crazy new special ability for all 29 skill levels shown in the screenshot plus however many more existed for races/other classes - that would be the kind of disgusting feature bloat you only expect to see in a badly managed OSS project. I also don't think "armour weighs less, in a game where weight is almost entirely meaningless" is more exciting than +5% protection.

If you look at the great looking skill system in that blog and compare it to what we ACTUALLY got in Grimrock 2, you will see that in an earlier build it seemed like there was FAR MORE customization with skills

Also what happened to Race-Specific Skills or Class-Specific skills? Those would have be nice to see rather than anyone can be anything as it currently stands.

So you said that the old system looked like it had more customization than the new one. Now you're complaining that the new one has too much customization. ???

Old Grimrock 2 System:
-> Very few incremental upgrades
-> No little benefits for a skill up; each skill up gave something valuable and not an increment.
-> It was a skill tree, similar to how Diablo 2 did it. We don't have a skill tree now.
-> It was 3 skill points to max out a skill. Its 5 now, with a lot more filler slots. People complain about there being NO BENEFIT TO MAXXING OUT A TREE, because the maxxed out value is a filler slot. People don't want filler slots. The old system DID NOT HAVE FILLER SLOTS. I don't know how much more obvious I can be about this.
-> It took less skill points to accomplish more. 2 Skill points = Ogres grip. Now its 5 Skill Points. This allows those 3 skill points to be invested in other skills than wasted in Two-Handed.
-> The old system made it so that people could utilize their skill points better RATHER THAN SPECIALIZE ALL THEIR POINTS INTO A TREE. 5 Skill Points is 5 levels or the equivalent of 20 points in Grimrock 1. They wanted to avoid SPECIALIZING in GRIMROCK 2 and instead went back to the whole Specializing all your points into 1 or 2 trees, rather than in that blogpost of being able to spread out your points over several skills.

How are you getting all of this from one screenshot? I see no evidence of there being few incremental upgrades, "no little benefits" (indeed, two of the benefits shown in the screenshots, armour weight reduction and strength+1, are incredibly tiny in the released game), 3 skill points always being the maximum, or no filler slots. The skill "tree" structure, as I mentioned, is imitated very closely by the current system; previously you needed two-handed weapons skill to get ogre's grip, now you need heavy weapons skill to get ogre's grip.
(Also almost all the level 5 bonuses in the release version are really good, only the resistances and ogre's grip are kind of mediocre. There are a few skills with no special level 5 bonus but athletics and concentration don't have meaningful special bonuses at all, so that just leaves armor, missile weapons, dodge, accuracy.)

BTW the old skill system (or what you imagine of it) would be easy to implement in a mod, and I don't recall any blog posts guaranteeing it would be in the release version.

[Cadfan, The Silent]

Ok so I agree with a few of your points but I am confused on others. I dont get how getting ogre grip and stuff like that sooner makes it more valuable. Sure it makes levels more valuable but traits become less value and that trait isnt special anymore. Also grimrock is an oldschool game it is unforgiving and hard for some. I disagree with people who compare it to skyrim if it is similar to anything I think it is more like dark souls. When you talk about dungeon crawlers being about loot and enemies I think you are mixing dungeon crawlers and rouge likes/rogue lites. I love puzzles in this game and yes I understand yor points they aren't easy. I used to be one to look up stuff in games and I hated myself for it. I pushed myself and know I am the one explaining puzzles to people on live streams and stuff. Try solving puzzles yourself until you absolutely cant figure it out. If you are really struggling step away and take a break. I dream about this game it is an obsession and I end up dreaming about the puzzles I am stuck on. I have grown to love this game and I just want more of it lol. This game is very similar to d&d imo and I do agree with the xp ideas. I have empathy for you but I disagree with some things. This game is not all about combat it is about exploration and puzzle solving. Combat is just a slice of the pie. Maybe this game isnt your favorite flavor of pie but I love it and many others do. This thread has gotten a little angry I think we need to all chill out. Pardon me if I mispelled anything I am on mobile and pardon me if I read any posts wrong and got mixed messages.