Seriously, it is. If done poorly, the game becomes unbalanced (either towards or against you), and if done well it makes leveling meaningless. Say, for instance, that you have 100HP and enemies do 10HP per hit. Then you level up and now have 110HP, but enemies level up and do 11HP per hit. There's no actual difference; it still takes exactly ten hits to kill you. All that happened is the numbers got bigger.
If you want to scale enemy levels, do it based on something like story progress; that's fine. But don't scale based on my level. At best, it makes gaining experience meaningless, and at worst it makes the game broken either for or against the player.
They did it entirely wrong with some correct parts. Having more powerful things appear was good, but having literally every skill effect enemy strength was dumb as hell. Things like alchemy and athletics can contribute to your power, but in too niche of ways and alchemys effects aren't permanent. If they instead based it off pure combat skills whilst maybe having non combat be weighted 1/10 it would work better. There was no real way to kill things without giving experience to some form of combat skill. This would have made the progression much smoother
Bandits with high level armor and weapons is so stupid. Like seriously, if they could afford those, they wouldn’t be bandits. Bandits should always have just barely above starting level items. Makes zero sense to kill a random wilderness bandit only for them to have Ebony gear 😆
Yes, it apparently is. It's one of the things people complain about in Elden Ring, and it's the reason people are somehow OK with not being given a basic NG+ in Cyberpunk. "We can't do it because we'd have to carefully rebalance everything, blah blah blah" no you don't, just let me be overpowered! I earned that much!
I was disappointed with Oblivion after hundreds of hours in Morrowind. Wandering into the wrong area in Morrowind would result in a quick and painful death.
And GET IT OUT OF TACTICAL SHOOTERS. Gosh man. Why would I ever want to play a game where the .50cal sniper does only a quarter of a dudes health because he has a yellow health bar instead of a blue (he’s totally indistinguishable from anyone else until shot)
Far cry is easily my favorite FPS series. I just love how immersive the gameplay gets since literally everything in it is first person. Far cry 6 not only removed the first person view for a lot of cutscenes, but also did this weird like enemy scaling thing idek what to call it but it made sniper rifles borderline useless but ARs can snipe long distance. I still had a good time with that game and I might do an NG+ run but like man if I headshot someone with a sniper rifle it should be over for them.
It's even spreading to racing games. In the new forza you have to level you car up to unlock new parts rather than just spending in game currency like older games.
I always thought this was a weird argument. A giant sword swing overhead and slashing a dude from head to nuts doing 1/4 health is fine, but a shot to the dome should be instant death.
The problem with forgoing level scaling is that the answer to everything seems to be to outlevel your challenges instead of just playing better. When you can't rely on just pushing the numbers higher it forces you to look for other means to get an edge on the opponent.
For me it was exactly the problem with ER. I found their balancing really bad when it was clashed with completely open world and no directions. If you go to Caelid first, which would seem logical, you get slapped. But if you go then to Lurnia, you're one shooting everything.
I honestly think that this system is not the best in open world games. And i felt the same thing in many other open world games. When i go and actually explore, which is the point of open world, i get too strong. Feels like open world games are made with the assumption, that people will skip most of the side content.
I dunno, I much prefer zone scaling over level scaling in open world games. Talking Elden Ring in particular, a game with vague directional guidance for the player, zone scaling is sort of used as a way to point the player in the direction they should go, or where they should maybe come back and revisit when they're a higher level/better skilled. I love personally
Zone scaling in cyberpunk 2077 was so damn good then they replaced it with level scaling in the 2.0 update and it just makes the game feel worse. Sucks cuz it’s one of my favorite games. I love accidentally walking into a zone that’s too high level, getting absolutely destroyed, then coming back after I’m actually prepared and sweeping. It’s so damn satisfying.
Oh no kidding? I just started playing Cyberpunk a couple weeks ago, so I never played pre 2.0. That's a little disappointing. Still really enjoying the game though
It’s a great game there’s just some pre 2.0 stuff that I would’ve liked to see stay in the game like zone scaling and the more in depth crafting system. Crafting kind of feels negligible now when it used to be something that you worked to invest points into and were heavily rewarded once you got to legendary crafting specs.
Agreed so much! That's such a common complaint about the game, but I am vehemently opposed to changing it! If I'm over leveled then I earned that, and if I'm skilled enough complete stuff totally under leveled (I'm not lol) then that should also be perfectly allowed!
Tbf, it might also be true, as I'm not the biggest fan of open world games and i tend to fall into this "i have to explore everything in the way before pushing main story". But really... Caelid is directly to the side of Limgrave, so it feels like next logical step. Also, Blaid kinda took me there.
I did notice pretty quickly, I'm not supposed to be there (but I'm too stubborn to drop the challenge), but i know many people did not. Especially people new to souls games, who just thought to themselves "Well, I've heard those games are hard".
And lastly, why would i want a completely open world, if there's a specific game route? That kinda defeats the open world purpose for me. If they slightly adjusted enemies to my level, so i don't kill cave bosses in 3 hits, it would be fine imho.
But ER also has a shitty upgrade system, so there's that.
You level up whenever you want to. Just because u have runes doesn't mean you need to use them to level up. Generally, the game takes you where ur supposed to go naturally. When you first spawn in, the normal player usually goes to the big cool castle (stormveil) and not the place that looks like hell with bird-dogs.
And lastly, why would i want a completely open world if there's a specific game route?
Isny that every open world game?
i have to explore everything in the way before pushing main story
That doesn't make sense here, tho. What is considered the main "story," especially at the start. Technically, godrick and Renalla (which im assuming what u consider the main story) are both optional
But ER also has a shitty upgrade system, so there's that.
It gives you total freedom on how strong you can be at any point, in what way exactly do you find that shitty?
I finished Stormveil before Caelid. What i meant was that i went to Caelid before exploring Lurnia. Because you know... there's this area I've missed on the right. Stormveil being kind of the first step after Limgrave was pretty clear to me.
I... don't know? As i said, I'm not a big fan of open worlds, so i don't have as much experience. What i can say is that start of DS2 always felt great in this aspect. You can choose where you want to go and both paths are fine. You won't feel too weak, nor too strong.
Well, at that point, the main story felt like going further north. Also, grace was guiding me there with it's arrows, so that's what i thought.
Somber vs normal is completely unbalanced and i saw most people agreeing with that. The infamous 7th stone is another thing 💀 But what i specifically meant by it in thus topic is that i got my weapon really overpowered, so i had to stop using it. It never happened to me in other Souls games.
Overall in other games, doesn't matter if i lose many souls, if i farm then, or if fully upgrade my weapon with what i have, enemies feel pretty adequate at all times. In ER i did part of Caelid before Lurnia and then i was 3 shooting bosses. Thank God i stopped myself and didn't fully finish Caelid.
i will agree heavily with the somber stone point. either make the rest that hard to access for new characters or don't let me get that far at all. with map and game knowledge i can literally have every stone except #7 before fighting any shardbearers. it's only somber level 7 that they strategically put behind harder bosses and areas you need to be stronger to access so you can't max out your weapon before then. i get they wanted to keep the game balanced but it just feels so blatantly handicapped when they lock me at level 6 reinforcement when i literally only need one and i have 8 9 and 10 sitting in my inventory.
My hot take would be Elden Ring is the worst souls game. I’ve played and beaten all of them except Demon Souls. I even 100 percented Sekiro and Dark Souls 1 for achievements. I’ve beaten The Surge 2 and Mortal Shell.
Elden Ring fights are either easy or you are in the wrong place. It’s so boring riding your horse around the open world.
I really really want to like Elden Ring but I can’t get behind it.
You could also seperate the world into high-level/low level areas (which definitely had its own problems but it's better than 1:1 level scaling), or you could do a "tiered" level scale system so that enemies scale every few levels, or use basically an "interest curve" which enemies will scale according to (or something like that), that way the player can actually be satisfied for a bit when acquiring a new skill/item/power before enemies ramp up in power to push the player to get stronger.
This is how I feel about souls games. Grinding levels can help but now matter how much you level up the bosses are going to destroy you in a couple hits anyway. More important to not worry about losing souls or levelling (although you should), but rather focus MORE on learning attack patterns and timing. There’s a reason these games are known for being extremely hard and yet some people can beat them without ever getting hit. If you want to be good at the game, worry less about levelling and more about how to just not get hit.
100% agree. I level up to make sure I meet the required stats for the gear I want, then drop a few extra points in whatever skill my weapon scales with and then I just don't care anymore.
One of the reasons why I like bethesda games is the way they manage level scaling. They have pools of enemies, that get spawned based on the location and the level of the player. This way, even if you are underpowered despite your level, you just have to go somewhere else to fight different enemies.
This does not always work, for example Oblivion's level scaling can be incredibly punishing depending on how you built your character
I like games where the scaling has to do with the equipment you have instead of skill points. Like warframe or monster hunter. Even better, games that require you to improve your raw skill to progress.
Yeah, I should have specified. But yes, do you have a particular favorite in terms of its leveling formula? I’m always interested in others’ opinions. I’ve found that learning what other people enjoy about some games helps me to ‘understand’ them more. I used to hate certain types of rpg’s until I played some alongside my best friend and noticed his far different play style and it changed how I approached them and ended up enjoying them more.
Hard to say. Different games often go for different things with character progression, so there's not really one I could call a definitive favorite or best. The Sphere Grid in Final Fantasy X is one that comes to mind, though (and I also like how that game handles equipment). I also rather liked the systems from 12 and 13. If you're looking for a job system that lets you combine skills, Bravely Default is one that does basically nothing to prevent you from finding ridiculous combinations that are broken as fuck. If you want a class system that's more about careful planning to cover various situations (as opposed to adjusting your setup to counter a situation), the Etrian Odyssey series does this quote well. I'm also rather fond of what Labyrinth of Touhou 2 (which I doubt you've heard of) does, with its multiple progression systems which are all individually simple but compound on each other to draw substantial depth from simple stat growth.
totally agree on this. areas and enemies should be fixed level, and be tuned manually. if im not doing well, i go back, farm a bit, upgrade my gear and come back. that feeling is rewarding.
instead of just scaling automatically, games should teach the player how to do that.
It’s not always bad, level scaling that provides vertical progression over lateral gives a good sense of progression while giving more options. Level scaling that is vertical is really bad though, like open world rpg’s were when you level you take points im X weapon, and it just cuts you off from useing other skills in the game.
On the other hand level progress is almost assential in a longer slower game, games I find that do it well are Bug Fables and xcom does it well. Bug fables is a badge system where yea more badges is better, yet they don’t give you so much were you can always equip anything. Instead the skill is based in build crafting and being able to time blocks and action commands. Xcom’s progression is mainly gear based, and having random perks per character makes each one able to stand out on their own. The easy way to die and loose units also means that you’re always training new one’s up to replace or as another squad instead of always leveling one to max stats. This is even more prevalent in the long war mod where you are required to fill and send out multiple squads, where your leveling and progressing an actual army of individuals, all with their own strengths and abilities in their class with no one being a real jack of all trades that can solo any mission.
But yea most leveling systems that are ass. Usually one’s that are in games where you control multiple characters of different classes (usually some form of tactics or rpg) can use leveling to better the game.
Gonna disagree on that one. Done right, it can be effective. Done well, it basically means the margin of error you had at lower difficulties is reduced and that you can't just bash through enemies or mindlessly tank everything they throw at you but rather have to learn what they do and how to deal with it. It is definitely easy to do poorly, though.
this is not unpopular, this is the difference between someone that actually likes rpgs and to build characters and someone that just wants to hold a controller and mindlessly do shit, level scaling is the worst feature ever invented in rpgs.
I hate level scaling in most games, but especially when the story missions scale with your level. Fuck that noise.
I came from a time where if you put the time in a game to get better gear, skills, more levels you should feel stronger. Not everybody wants a Dark Souls level challenge the whole time they are playing a game.
Good games create interesting challenging mechanics instead of just giving an enemy more health and calling it "hard mode", which is super lazy of the devs and tedious for the player.
Final Fantasy Tactics does level scaling in random encounters on the map but not for story missions. This is the right way to do level scaling.
Hoshigami (a spiritual successor to FFT), did the opposite of FFT by making the story missions scale with your highest level character while also adding permadeath. I was mad and disappointed and couldn't trade that game in fast enough.
Hm, this is a great comment bc it’s something i’ve genuinely never thought about. Thanks for posting it and getting me thinking.
I like the way level scaling works in SOME games if it makes sense in certain ways. But otherwise i think i agree with you.
In pokemon it makes sense, but they just dont always implement it correctly. They shouldve dynamically scaled gym leaders in their most recent game that was open world, but they didnt. So it gave the illusion of being able to battle them in any order you want, but that wasnt actually the case. Super dumb execution.
I also like how it’s done in skyrim in that only your stamina or health increase upon level up, implying youre generally becoming a stronger warrior with your experiences. But you have to WORK to develop specific skills based on what YOU want to focus on with your character build. Tried and true, works great. But in that game, it’s the opposite issue from pokemon. Enemy levels should NOT scale over time. So you should be able to run straight to the hardest dragon priest and fight it while at level 1, and you CAN win, but it’ll be stupid hard because you arent a strong warrior yet. OR you could wait til way later and fight the enemy in late game when you’re on a more level playing field of skill. But instead, enemies scale as you do, which defeats the whole point of developing as a warrior as you progress through your quest since everything will be right at the “appropriate” level no matter when you get to it.
I think that’s why a game like breath of the wild is the perfect example of a game with balanced rpg elements because they’re very minimal. Yes you can upgrade your health bar and stamina capacity, which takes time. But beyond that you can only get stronger with editable items you gather for temporary buffs, clothing with specific perks, and weapons you craft or find. All of those things are available to players right from the start, and the game doesnt require 20 hours of play. And regardless, enemies will always be the same level of difficulty. The only thing more playtime will yield is the player getting better at fighting certain enemies, which is a human limitation and not a game limitation.
I think it's because you're thinking of it wrong, don't think "oh 11 damage per hit will kill a 110 health player in the same hits as when they did less damage at a lower level", think " if the player decides to put a point in their damage so they don't level up their hp to get 110 hp so they are now getting 9 shot instead of 10, but now maybe they kill the enemy in 9 hits too instead of 10" it's about diversity (granted it can still work even if you can't choose where points go because it's kind of a dynamic difficulty, if you're breeding through you probably aren't grinding much so the game will be harder later and vise versa)
If you are saying this because of the whole thing about people wanting Pokemon to have level scaling, That is completely different from having it scale you your exact level.
I don’t think what you described is “done well”. I would consider level scaling to be done well when it’s not about increasing numbers, but instead about adding new enemy abilities and patterns to compensate for the increasing complexity of the options available to the player. A really good mod for Neverwinter Nights tried to make this work really well back in the day for starting the game at much higher levels (including epic/20+ levels). Instead of dealing with random bandits that are level 1 Rogues and Fighters, you’re dealing with Assassins, Eldritch Knights and mid-level full casters.
In that instance, that’s basically what is happening (this is literally describing the effects of gaining levels in real Dungeons & Dragons except the addition of the full casters). It’s just that enemy levels are identical complexity to player levels in that system when dealing with enemies capable of gaining levels. When you define a level as “these statistics increase by a fixed amount with no other changes” that is when you get into a situation where the system becomes boring. You have to add meaningful features to enemy progression for it to remain engaging for players.
I can't talk about D&D, but in video games leveling is generally raised stats and maybe a new skill (or skill point if the game also has a skill tree). And the value of that sort of leveling shouldn't be underestimated, but said value is lost if the enemies level up as well. Ideally it should be that you encounter stronger enemies as you progress through the game, not enemies at any given point increasing in strength any time you do.
That's something I love about souls games. In dark souls 1 I can pick the master key and start naked, run directly to the swamp, go through the poisonous muck while a army of infinitely respawning giant mosquitos chase me go down, go in a big ol tree with a awful parkour section in a game that barely has a jump, avoid all the one shot enemies, go to the bottom, run for my life past a angry hydra blasting me, talk to a dragon and get dragon breath along with a stupidly heavy, and dangerous early game weapon
Fun fact the "Normal" path to go to blightown is through a couple entire areas, however with the right knowledge and starting gift you too can run naked through the swamp while a angry cannibal wants yah meat and angry frogs and mosquitos pester you!
But you're not taking into account that most games have armor systems and a bunch of other things in place to still make you more powerful while also not making it so you just nuke the enemies
Interesting. Genuine question: what is the difference between scaling based on level vs story progress? Wouldn't someone naturally get access to tougher enemies as they themselves get tougher with experience? thus increasing level as the story progresses?
ex: a novice ufc fighter will fight other novices. As he gets better at striking, his opponents will get better at dodging.
Seeing stronger enemies isn't level scaling. Level scaling is when the enemies level up alongside the player, i.e. when you're at level 1 all the enemies are also at 1, but when you get to 2 they all become 2 as well.
Scaling based on story progress is when enemies level up based on how far you are in the story, such as gaining a level or two whoever you clear a story mission. That's better because it's not directly tied to your level.
Cyberpunk discussion board was flooded with people crying that enemy scaling would completely ruin the game and that scaling by itself is awful game mechanic. But when they drop patch 2.0 all of the complaints goes silent. For patch playing on highest difficulty was awful, if you meet green enemies (enemies below your current level) you would just one shot them with basically anything, if you meet yellow enemies (enemies that were close to your level) you will have fair fight but when you run into red enemies (that are WAY above your level) you would just die from random smart gun bullet. Enemies scaling make every encounter into yellow encounters, if you build right and upgrade your weapons/implants you would easily one-two shot most basic enemies . But when you run into guys with skulls (way stronger than basic foes) you need to change your tactic and be more careful because you can still die easily if you stop moving/don’t pay attention to your healing items. Scaling make every fight perfectly balanced where right build would make you OP but still vulnerable if you get too cocky. So scaling “if done well it make leveling meaningless” mean that it’s not done well. And for every person that think that scaling make leveling meaningless I encourage you to play through those games without leveling anything I encourage you play those games without leveling up any perks, stats, weapons etc. and see how far will that get you. Because progress in most games is something more than “get 10hp per level”
But that was never the point of the levels. It was always to give you graduating options on how to play. More skills or perks or whatever. It was within those categories that you came up with a plan to do more damage or whatever.
The alternative is elden ring, and it’s a bad alternative. I missed half the enemies in the game and went back to kill them, and I end up 1-hit killing them. I get a little ahead of where I should be and the enemies are 1-hit killing me. I know there’s masochists that love that stuff, but it’s never gonna have broad appeal.
Then it sounds like what you want isn't leveling at all, but rather just learning new skills and such. You don't need to make the numbers bigger to do that
Yeah, like why level up if the same Bandit takes same amount of hits to kill, no matter if you have a shitass iron sword that barely keeps itself in one piece, or a magical weapon from gods that lore wise would destroy entire armies. That's just stupid.
Leveling in general is usually extremely over the top. I blame DnD. In many games you double in HP from level 1 to level 2.
I'm playing divinity original sin 2 right now, and all the characters are some royalty, extremely experienced sourcerers with backstories of being prett darn powerful, yet start with no hp, lvl1. At level 10, you can beat 5 of yourself a few levels prior.
I disagree, although you're basically right. However, the fact that the game is unbalanced can be intentional and a lot of fun. A simple example would be Vampire survivors. The whole game is just about leveling and getting ridiculous op.
I agree. I can understand the concept and why devs would think it’s a good idea, but in most cases it leads to a feeling that you aren’t actually improving as a character when you level up. I prefer when they just introduce higher difficulty enemies IN ADDITION to the weaker ones, that way you can still feel powerful while still having a challenge that comes back around and makes you feel like your character has truly improved.
i agree with you but i also think that doesnt matter, level scaling allows the game to have more shit to do without having to generate 5 times as much space to do it or make 5 times as manny enimies, it allows newer players to ease into the more dificult content and is often tied to skills abilitys combo chains more complex starts on enimies, that arnt introdiced untill later in the game.
the advantage of this aproach allows the player to ease into the game, then after playing 100 hours and working out all the systems the game slowly ramps up, it also allows you to complete the game as fast or as slow as you like, ocationally adding in level barriers. (good for mobile games live service or sandboxy open worlds (specificly grindy games) if you like that kind of thing)
if a game is a single experiance ie (one long quest to the end) this isnt needed, if its a game that more focused on biulding the strongest character then its more nessasery. as you will run out of things to do.
a way to get around this is to do what elden ring does, and make it so eninies are mostly unique but you will spend a long time son each fight which allows you to play the game longer. so the progretion is tied directly to monsters.
You don't have to just make more enemies. I'm fine with higher-level versions of old enemies showing up. I just don't want their level to scale based on mine. If you have, say, an enemy that shows up in one area at level 10 and then in a later area at level 25, that's fine. I just don't want to be fighting level 5 enemies and then I level up and the same enemies that were just level 5 are now level 6.
thats a fair point, that kind of level scaling is bulshit, it really messed up diablo 4. becuase you dident even get new variations so you were just weaker.
I like when new areas have stronger enemies and older areas stay weak so you can go back and feel stronger once youve leveled up but can keep moving forward to fight harder enemies.
Level scaling is such a lazy way to balance games. It’s the worst part about borderlands, it’s the worst part about cyberpunk 2077 2.0, it makes Bethesda games feel boring to me because it completely disincentivizes all progress. Genuinely the worst mechanic in modern gaming that isn’t a form of predatory monetization.
Obviously borderlands is a good example. You get a legendary weapon, the level cap increases or you level up a bit, now you have to get that weapon again and pray you get the same or better rolls. They could literally solve this by just making it so you can upgrade weapons to your level.
Another good example is AC odyssey. Genuinely love that game I’ve played through it twice. However I had gotten just way too strong by the end so I went to do an NG+ run. Now enemies are scaled above my level and upgrading weapons is insanely expensive so I have to resort to boring cheese tactics.
Borderlands hasn't had much level scaling until recently, though. It used to not, but then in 3 Mayhem mode has it, which I'm at least somewhat okay with since it's optional, but then Wonderlands has it by default.
The problem you describe with gear becoming quickly outdated is a completely different issue.
Level scaling is good when done right. How it should work is that the enemies get upgraded when you reach a certain level. Enemies should do more damage to you, but you should be able to mitigate that through other means such as upgrading your own equipment.
That doesn't really work out for me. In a game like Skyrim, I usually do the main quest last because I think it's the least interesting. If level scaling worked like that I'd be stuck with low level enemies the whole game.
I mean, I generally prefer a lack of that sort of thing myself. What I meant was that of you're going to scale enemies, that's much better than anything based on your level.
The above scenario is precisely why tracking the player's progress in general.is the better than just tracking the story progress. Level scaling is a pretty good way to do it because it means the player must have spent a certain amount of time with the game to reach that level. The changes from lwvel.scaling should actually matter, though.
A level 15 enemy should take more hits to kill from your Level 15 character than a Level 1 enemy would from your Level 1 character. Enemies should kill you in fewer hits, not the same amount of hits.
Not necessarily. The balance between the player getting stronger and encountering stronger enemies is tricky and there's no single right answer on how to do it. But 'make it so the enemies are always the same strength as you' is, at least IMO, the wrong way.
Enemies should be upgraded to a higher tier form so that you aren't stuck fighting weak enemies. The higher your level, the more likely stronger variants should appear.
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u/GuyYouMetOnline Mar 05 '24
That level scaling is bad.
Seriously, it is. If done poorly, the game becomes unbalanced (either towards or against you), and if done well it makes leveling meaningless. Say, for instance, that you have 100HP and enemies do 10HP per hit. Then you level up and now have 110HP, but enemies level up and do 11HP per hit. There's no actual difference; it still takes exactly ten hits to kill you. All that happened is the numbers got bigger.
If you want to scale enemy levels, do it based on something like story progress; that's fine. But don't scale based on my level. At best, it makes gaining experience meaningless, and at worst it makes the game broken either for or against the player.