First of all I'm making a game and can't decide what my scaling should be.

basically I can't wrap my head around the fact of as the player gets a higher level he gets stronger.

I currently have

damage = global.level*10

so level 1 damage = 10
level 2 = 20
so on so on.

but is that really a nice scale? should it be higher or lower?

how about the exp required for the next level? how do i decide that?

what guidelines should I go by in order to know if this is a good decision or not?

Like I said I cannot grasp the idea in my hands. I know every mmorpg has a nice balanced scaling factor in the level system but I just don't understand it. what is a good rule of thumb to go by.

i dont play mmorpgs, so i'm going by diablo. instead of increasing damage per level, why not give stat points?

as for experience, look up diablo's data. do you want it to depend on your level and monster's level?

imo you should design it in such a way that it'll be easy for you to change. then make some basic linear scale like you do now and go ahead coding the rest of the game. this requirement can wait as long as it's modular. as you play it with other people, they'll give feedback on what they think is lacking

This post was edited by carteblanche on May 13 2013 11:27am

depends on the enemies he should encounter with every next level. It doesn't really matter if he gets +1 dmg and monsters get +1 life or if he gets 1000 more dmg and monsters 1000 more life ... its more of a style choice than anything.

Also most games have a lot more of different factors counted in, eg. strength, skills

exp can be simple, start with eg. 100 required for level 2 and then multiply by 2-5 for each next level.

yeah I was thinking about diablo as a guideline aswell.

when I play a game I know what dext does.. but actually know how it works in code? i have no clue whatsoever.
game is inspired by gauntlet/diablo that whole topdown shootemup playstyle with a mmorpg element



that exp suggestion is quite great. thanks.

Start googling game design. A lot of people go through this all the time and have submitted some pretty generic formulas for this kind of stuff.
I'm pretty sure a linear modifier is bad since you character will never feel like it's "progressed" if the things you fight scale the same way...

well I was thinking of making 1-10 a different way than 10-20 like a whole different area with different enemies that are harder to stay alive to and whatnot.

Well start looking a exponential formulas then. It'll help you scale up without having to do nasty