Monster Strength based on Party Level

[Golden Fish Entertainment]

So, we are aiming to have monsters grow more powerful as the party's average level increases. What would be the best method of achieving this?

 

[Andar]

That depends on your game.

Some games simply do this by railroading and balancing, as the player has only one way to go and will encounter new monsters on each new map.

Another way would be to use a script like Yanfly's "enemy levels", that makes the encounters scale with the party level

Still another way might be evented encounters, where the selected enemy for a battle is different depending on story progress, party level or whatever else.

Generally speaking, an automatic and simple system like the level-script is easier to implement, but also easier to abuse (grinding) and more difficult to balance.

On the other hand the methods where the developer selects the enemy are easier to balance, but a lot more work to implement.

 

[Golden Fish Entertainment]

No, the point is not to railroad the player. The point is to have a big world with lots of optional dungeons the player can explore at their leisure, and have the battles be challenging regardless of WHEN they do so.

 

[Tsukihime]

If by "method" you mean how you should actually implement it (rather than a design question) I would consider using formulas:


Param Formulas


Gold Formulas


Exp Formulas


So you can choose how you want to scale each enemy individually and have control over what you want to scale. Maybe slime should just remain weak no matter what.

 

[Andar]

No, the point is not to railroad the player. The point is to have a big world with lots of optional dungeons the player can explore at their leisure, and have the battles be challenging regardless of WHEN they do so.

Then your only way would be the second method I described - using a script to automatically scale the enemy, like it's done with Yanfly's enemy levels.

However, I have to admit that I don't like those scripts - I like open-world-type games, but I personally think that scaling enemies in that way destroys the game's reality, as the enemies you encounter on early parts of the map suddenly become stronger when you revisit that part of the game later.

I would rather prefer games that don't scale on the party level but on story progression - that can be done without railroading, if you put in the extra work.

For example, you can scale the enemy on the number of dungeons already visited/finished instead of the player level...

 

[kerbonklin]

Andar, Yanfly's script allows you to set max and min possible levels per enemy, to help with balancing. So it's fine,