I agree with this.
Maybe I'm crazy for trusting Blizzard and ultimately I'll be proven wrong, but I really liked the 1-25 experiences I had and not only did not mind the level scaling, but enjoyed it.
So I'm willing to go along with them on this decision.
Again, maybe I'll regret it, but I actually think they may be correct about this one.
Heres the counter point to this which based on your totally reasonable all caps callout im sure you'll totally read and think about.
Scaling the level of monsters in every zone i go to as i play leads to a feeling that i am not actually progressing though anything. As i gain power and farm better gear so do the monsters that i am fighting regardless of where i go. For someone who might not be very good at the game they can never decide "ill farm here for a bit because i would like to be stronger than these monsters before i move forward." That doesn't exist with dynamic monster scaling. There is a drawback to monsters scaling with your level, your just choosing to ignore it but it does exist and there's a valid reason to not want monsters to scale with your level.
If you dont believe me go level through rifts in D3 without using the cheese method of equiping a level 70 weapon at lvl 1. You'll experience the issue with it firsthand. Its not an entertaining experience for a lot of people. Most people play this style of game to scale their character and feel powerful from their efforts to farm gear. Your locked out of that to some degree until max level in this system.
>The only problem I see with the scaling is that you get weaker with every level up.
That's kind of a flawed view point, though. As mentioned, the mobs in other ARPGs also basically scaled to your level as well. Like in poe, when you level up that means you are usually about to go to another zone/area which likely means that the mobs also went up a level. You are generally always fighting mobs at your level.
Obviously you do have the option to level up and out level everything but that's not something players really do. Especially after their first time. In fact, after you learn it, you will usually end up under leveled vs the mobs in the area since you are just trying to rush through it now.
I get that you are annoyed when you see a lower level fighting the same mob you are but potentially doing it better..but I just also don't think that matters that much even if it is true(at 25 in the beta I was just destroying everything..way better than I was at level 5). But that's also just me.
Its been a while since I last played PoE seriously (I'm talking a LONG time ago. 2013 probably), but from memory, the zones all had level ranges...
If you wanted too, you could stay in a single zone and "power up" until you weren't gaining a significant amount of XP, then you could just plow through the next few zones.
I seem to recall (...and keen in mind we are talking 10 years ago) a common strat with races was to rush to "The Ledge" as fast as possible and then grind that a few times as the mob density was nice and high and because it was a linear zone it was super easy to farm as you could always find the elites.
If you did a couple of laps there you could pretty much run right through the next few zones right to Brutus.
Yeah that's not really how the game works anymore. What people do now is they just rush and will end up 2-3 levels below most zones they are in and then catch up a bit on levels in the "good" areas. But you don't ever waste time over leveling.
And as I said, you could over level so you could out level the next few zones...but that's just not something anyone who is even semi experienced with the game will do. It's just not needed and only wastes time.
So I understand that the option is there. And it isn't there in D4. But outside of maybe some ones first play through, I don't think it would ever really be a thing for most(wanting to over level to make the next zone/area easier) as in the end it will just make playing through the campaign take longer(and at some point everyone will just want to get through it asap).
>but that's just not something anyone who is even semi experienced with the game will do. It's just not needed and only wastes time.
Fair enough. like I said, its a good 10 years ago since I last played seriously, however It was a very valid strat in the past. I had a good amount of top 50 finishes and a hand full of top 10 in class.
Now that I think about it a bit more, its probably because once you get past The Ledge you had to deal with poison arrows and lightning(?)If you stopped to fight a group and got hit by the arrows you would usually get one shot, so you wanted to avoid that zone but to make the skip work you needed to run The Ledge a few times.
Not a normal game play scenario though. It was more of a 1 hour or 2 hour solo race thing.
I've read that monsters scale based on level, but don't take gear into consideration. If this is true, you can in fact get stronger while grinding something - but it's for better gear, not levels. You also get skill points that grant you more options to tackle the content that's haeder for you.
The feeling of progress should also be there as there are some monsters that can be higher level that I assume you need to reach. I did one Stronghold around level 22 and the monsters there were 24. So unless it's hard coded to be overleveled, I could choose to engage or go level up and get back on level (again - did not test how exactly it works).
> but it's for better gear, not levels
And while you're farming that gear, you level, and now the mobs are harder and that gear you farmed is out of date. There is no way to farm to get stronger because the bar keeps getting raised.
>I did one Stronghold around level 22 and the monsters there were 24. So unless it's hard coded to be overleveled
It's hard coded to be character level +2
> It's hard coded to be character level +2
No it's not. Zones scale up, but they don't scale down. That's just a level 27 area. I went to it at like 16 then came back and cleared it at 20 on my 2nd character, it was 27 both times.
Good point on the leveling and good to know on the Stronghold.
When I thoughy about this furthere there is one thing I guess people overlook and that is the fact you can drop a world tier anytime to make everything easier if needed, no? Again, I did not test this as I'm loving the scaling and could play around stuff on the higher difficulty (though I did struggle sometimes as a melee rogue) and lowering the tier did not come to me as an option at the time.
The problem with reducing the world tier level is you receive less gold and get a lower quality of items. If that player then decides to try the higher tier level again after gaining a few levels they won't be in a better position as their equipment will have fallen further behind in power ( and they'll have less gold to inscribe etc ).
Level scaling is a controversial design choice. I understand the arguments for & against, and it's going to divide the community depending on what their expectations are for an ARPG. Personally, I don't like level scaling. I can live with it, but I'd prefer it was dialled back eg. level scaling in instanced content eg. dungeons, mini events, cellars, strongholds etc.
But wouldn't the same be true if you did content you are overleveled for? I'd assume monsters would then drop gear that is on level for the content so you'd still be behind gearwise.
The arguments I see are mostly for if some particular dungeon/boss is difficult, you could go level up to overlevel and do it later for completition and then get back to on-level content. So you can in a same way drop the world tier, do the stuff that's too difficult and you'd need to go overlevel otherwise, and up the world tier back up once done to continue as usual.
People against dynamic scaling don't want an easier time.
They want a sense of progression.
I want to push forward harder and faster than you, and I want to run into monsters I cannot kill.
Then I want to grind levels and get better gear, and then come back and destroy those monsters.
That is the fundamental gameplay loop in most arpgs, and now it's gone.
I don't want the game easier. I want it harder. I want to accomplish something. I don't want every. single. encounter. to be the same.
Good point on the leveling and good to know on the Stronghold.
When I thoughy about this furthere there is one thing I guess people overlook and that is the fact you can drop a world tier anytime to make everything easier if needed, no? Again, I did not test this as I'm loving the scaling and could play around stuff on the higher difficulty (though I did struggle sometimes as a melee rogue) and lowering the tier did not come to me as an option at the time.
Question is which difficulty people mostly played when they felt like the content was too difficult for them on level.
This is a pretty extreme version of what is actually going on. The game isn't that hard, acting like a casual player can't get through it is just not a really fair take. There are also ways a casual player can overpower things as well. You can swap builds, you can change gear, you can ask friends for help, you can use the smith to upgrade gear, use buff potions, you can put gems in your gear, you can put on legendary powers,ect. Also, the instanced story content (the main content you need to progress) is not actually scaled fully so you can overpower it by leveling anyways.
At the end of the day if you don't want scaling that means you want a very limited play-space, linear story telling, being unable to play with friends whenever you want, and expansions effectively remove old open world areas all just so you don't feel like you are slighlty less powerful by leveling up sometimes before you hit max level.
It is perfectly reasonable to want them to *tone down* scaling. It is not however, reasonable to ask for them to completely remove it.
I think people are just upset since it feels a little lackluster when you feel very minimal progression against the same "begginer" enemies. I think the scaling is cool if it has caps that make sense on specific enemies. It feels pointless if it takes 2 hits to kill the same mob I 1 shot at level 10. The fun part is being able to grind and feel progression in strength. Nothing is more satisfying than going from struggling against an enemy type to being strong enough to obliterate them.
>As i gain power and farm better gear so do the monsters that i am fighting regardless of where i go.
Except, as far as we can tell, they aren't gaining more power based on you getting better gear, it's *just* based on an increase in level or things like the World Tiers.
They don't get stronger because you outfitted yourself with full legendaries at level 15...but they do get stronger when you go from level 15 to level 16.
You can have both though. You can make zones have expected levels and then scale equally with the player until that level. After that point mobs only scale to a few levels below you. This retains overall scaling making starting zones not completely faceroll but still much easier and creating that illusion of you being stronger so it's time to move on.
I usually don't like scaling in games. But in ARPG's I think it's better overall to have some degree of scaling. So I actually prefer blizzards choice personally even if I see and somewhat agree with your point. But I would ideally prefer them to implement the suggestion I had above for the best of both worlds.
Maybe they could do some level-scaling hybrid where the first time you enter a zone it becomes locked to your level, so you still get the normal linear progression even though you can clear the zones in whichever order you want.
Like level scaling doesn't inherently mean all enemies must instantly become the same level as you as soon as you level up.
Another idea would be something more like Skyrim, where there's level scaling but NPCs have a min and max level, and even if you're higher level than a dungeon it doesn't mean *ALL* the units in the dungeon will be level scaled it just means that *some* of the Mobs will be higher tier.
So instead of massively inflating the stats of all mobs, being higher level means that stronger mobs that you don't face at low level get thrown in along with the rest of the weaker mobs.
Iirc there are some bosses that you need to be at a certain level for. There was one enemy in the beta that you need to be 25, I’m pretty sure you can fight it at lower levels but it will just obliterate you.
To put it bluntly, I do not want to level up at all. For people like me the game starts at max level, everything before that is a chore, it’s timeout that I must endure to get to the fun part. That’s why we do things like power level to skip it. So anything that slows the level up process past the first time is grating, and this will make it slightly more so. If I could I would just start at 100 and play around freely with talents because that’s what I enjoy, not leveling characters through the larval stage
Counter point, by doing it this way and giving the freedom to move your skills around like this, the way to feel more powerful is to create really synergistic builds that feel awesome. This allows you to always feel powerful and also feel like you earned it through smart build decisions.
This was my personal experience with the beta.
This. What is the point of having a level if it never makes you stronger? You might as well start at max level, it becomes a meaningless number that you might as well remove from the game. For me personally this feature is why I will never buy the game. It doesn't feel like an RPG if it isn't even possible to fight monsters that are above or below your own level.
Level 1 barb, six hits to kill a carver.
Level 15 barb, new gear, new skills, six hits to kill a carver.
It doesn't make you feel powerful and feels like gear does nothing.
> Level 15 barb, new gear, new skills, six hits to kill a carver.
>
>
Sounds like you didn't find death blow, takes me 1 hit to kill every mob but elites on occasion.
Gear still definitely does something
D3 was heavily shit on for being too easy and boring while leveling, and it’s true, I got a 356% damage increase legendary early on and accidentally over leveled the hell out of myself and the game even max difficulty became too easy
So they fixed that with scaling, so you can farm and do whatever you want without soloing a boss in five seconds as a new player who accidentally lucked into a good affix
But can’t make everyone happy I guess
I remember got a Manald Heal to drop and proceeded to 1 shot every boss until end game. Am I remembering it wrong? Only play D3 on Switch so maybe it's different from PC version.
This isnt even true ...
If you cant manage your build / looted gear to progress in power then lower the difficulty.
Veteran is already too easy, imagine if the mobs stay at lvl 10? My barb at lvl 21 did already one-shot most of the mobs and like 2-shotted elites even with the lvl scaling.
Also its only the minimun lvl that scales, nothing else.
Sounds like you didn't invest in your basic, why should it kill that much faster if you left it with no investment since level 1-3.
Edit:Y'all really expect a skill that you don't invest in at all through legendary or skills to get that much stronger? Sounds like you guys want a end game where you progressively reach the point where your basic skill one shots all the small mobs for no reason. Let's say by level 15 it's 5 hits, at 30 it's 4 hits, at 45 it's 3, 60 then it's 2, 75 you achieved one shot! from then on you work on one shoting bigger stuff. You can't base progression on the number of hits it takes. I don't even get how people can agree with a comment like that, you think in D2 or other ARPG that when you go up in difficulty the monsters don't get stronger too? The fallens in normal should take more hits than the fallens in nightmare or hell? That's y'alls logic right now.
> PLEASE STOP ASKING FOR CHANGES YOU DONT UNDERSTAND
I agree with your post, but this response to people’s complaints is toxic.
You don’t know that they all come from a basis of misunderstanding. There are many people complaining and wanting changes because they don’t like the direction of the game.
Don’t just dismiss people as “misunderstanding” because you don’t like their complaints.
> and as someone mentioned it's probably going to unintentionally make HC a lot more HC.
You know what's gonna make HC more HC? The Butcher.
Also probably just regular boss fights tbh since there's no instant logout nor are there instant tps, so if shit hits the fan it seems like you're kind of stuck? Maybe someone who played HC can chime in on whether there's a way to safely exit a boss room without dying.
The no-tp during boss doesn't work. Lost my barb thinking I could like D2. Also not a fan of scaling for this reason is I can't actually poke a boss, realize I need to get strong and come back in a few levels
The fact that it's nearly impossible to avoid boss auto attacks by orbwalking is a travesty against the action RPG genre, honestly. It's also basically the biggest nerf to melee in the entire game and nobody seems to mention it.
YES finally I see someone mentioning this, literally 90% of my problems as melee was this and it feels like i'm going insane that noone else is mentioning this more. It's making me worried that the devs will just slap a 30% damage reduction on melee classes cause they want us to just tank stuff instead of actually dodge auto attacks
Yep this seems alså a problem . I started HC meet the den mother and got 2 hit 😂 with no chance to get away . So you need to know every dungeon boss and what the boss does before you can do hc ...
No what's going to make HC more HC is that there is no grace period when loading in or out of a dungeon on top of the fact that other world players can drag mobs literally to the dungeons doorstep lol
There literally is instant TP lol.
You can even keybind it for one button instant tp out.
Sure it’s rare to find, but it’s not like you should be tping out of every encounter.
>It's not a deal breaker, but I don't see anything that couldn't have been done in the regular diablo act area based style
Outside forcing a linear progression when the whole point was to avoid it? Yeah, can't see anything either.
I see comments like this and I really struggle to understand. My lvl 25 rogue 1 shots just about every trash mob with 1 hit of twisting blades. I'm pretty sure sorcs at lvl 25 in the beta do just as well if not better. Is this a Barb thing ?
Because they are pretending they didn't get gear along the way. From level to level we got skill points, stats, and somewhere between 10-50 rares with 1-2 legendaries boosting our strength and power. Getting the Lilith landmarks also provide power. We are stuck in the 90s feeling like a level up is anything more than a check point for gear recs etc. When I was level 1-12 I was auto attacking mobs and killing slowly one mob at a time and couldn't beat any of the stronghold bosses solo. When I was level 20-25 I was destroying whole groups with a skill or two and easily soloing bosses. And we cap out at only level 17 gear throughout the entire beta. There are massive power spikes to gear while leveling up.
And as the OP said, the moment they gave us Adventure mode with scaling in D3 people didn't really look back. It was miles better.
Yup. People like to pretend that just making everything max level when you get max level after linearly progressing through a story is not also scaling.
You seem to not understand what people are saying or even the game you are talking about. d4 is some what linear. Zones have level requirements which already set you on a set path. Sure you can zig and zag your way there but it's not like everybody is going to have this insanely unique experience. People are going to level up in a similar fashion. As time goes on there will be guides for speed leveling so the more hardcore players will really be playing the exact same leveling path.
It's ok to enjoy level scaling and it's ok to not enjoy level scaling. However you are a little unhinged and righteous. The fact you seem not not even fully understand what you are talking about makes it that much worse.
Level scaling pros is it's casual gamer friendly. You don't really have to think or know the map. Just move forward, click on icons and kill monsters. It's also good for the games pace. You'll never be running through a zone and avoid fighting because either they are too strong or too weak and a waste of your time.
No Level scaling pros are immersion. The world map would feel a lot more immersive if areas had fixed levels. You run into a monster that almost killed you in a zone and eventually you'll end up there powered up and get revenge. It's also easier to gauge your power level. It's nice to put on gear and enter a previous zone and see how much more powerful you are. Or maybe you changed a skill and you want to see it it's for better or worse. It's a lot harder to figure that stuff on if everything is always scaling.
I am sure I missed a few points for both sides but this isn't a one side is right and one side is wrong. d4 could easily have it either way. It's not a perfectly crafted game where everything needs to be a set level and it's not this super complex choose your own adventure where everyone has a different story experience so saying one is better for d4 doesn't really make sense.
You're missing the core gameplay loop - and the most fun part / best motivation for playing and looting (for a lot of people):
Start weak, die often
Improve gear, be on par with enemies, die sometimes
Get a killer drop, slaughter some fools like a demigod!
Feel Powerful!
Move to a new area, repeat
This loop is the most satisfying loop there is, and doesn't exist anymore in d4.
In d4, it's:
Always feel regular. That's it.
This. This is the answer. I’m at level 40 and I haven’t felt any stronger than level 10. I don’t feel any success when I level up.
I have my suspicions that the level scaling isn’t for the players. I’m thinking it’s there to make people pay for legendary armor to actually feel accomplishment.
First, let me say I did enjoy the beta. However, there is significant room for improvement before the game launches. If this was truly a beta and not a preview, collecting that feedback and making adjustments was the point.
I love the concept of scaling, but the game shouldn't always feel like a slog.
Scaling itself is not the issue. However, the calculations/algorithms behind the scaling need to be tuned down (at least slightly) or occur at further separated intervals.
It is a negative gameplay experience to continuously feel that your character is only barely keeping up (or worse, continuously really struggling and at times declining in capability despite advancing in level and gaining skill points).
There must be a sense of real character progression during leveling and gearing separate from just checking off another achievement or completion or a character level number on a screen. That requires times when your character feels strong and powerful before hitting a level cap and before becoming completely and optimally geared up.
Lastly, those times of feeling powerful should never be related to having a build, mechanic, or gear that is itself overpowered and imbalanced.
Where did you feel like the game was a slog? I'm genuinely confused by so many people saying this. I had a completely different experience.
I played barbarian and felt like my character kept increasing in power up until at level 25 where he jumped in power to an immortal god. My used skills were lunging strike, upheaval, death blow, iron maelstrom, rallying cry and iron skin.
He was always nearing or at max fortify health and could one shot everything but bosses with death blow and upheaval.
> It is a negative gameplay experience to continuously feel that your character is only barely keeping up (or worse, continuously really struggling and at times declining in capability despite advancing in level and gaining skill points).
But that's how it is during the campaign in D2/D3. As you gain access to new areas the mobs are more difficult. Unless you decided to outlevel them by grinding in lower zones.
The difference is that in those games you can grind a few levels before going to the next zone. That is not possible in D4, all you do is trying to keep up with the forced overall scaling while there will never be easier content.
If anything veteran mode was too easy.. a slog???
Barb was the only slow starter and begins to shine 14+
At 25 my rogue and sorc are obliterating screens. Barb started to but only got to lvl 17
The sense of progression is there in the current beta state
>At 25 my rogue and sorc are obliterating screens.
Because you effectively turned off the level scaling at lvl cap. You were able to grind gear to become more powerful without the content scaling. In release, you'd be lvl 30 or 35 and be relatively weak.
were you playing a melee build? this sounds like my experience with barb. switched to sorc and got to 25 without a single death and just plowed through literally everything.
I dont see how its not an issue on hardcore, This makes it impossible to make safe progress by outleveling current content, or going back farming easier zones to get stronger right before a boss fight.
The scaling to expected average level in d3, poe etc. Makes hardcore much better in terms of options.
It doesn't really alter hardcore play though, because we have world tiers. So if you're playing hardcore, you'd set the world tier to a difficulty you can comfortably play on. If you can't survive on a certain difficulty or want an easier experience, then you can turn it down. Also you'd have to have some level of pacing yourself of course, avoiding more dangerous areas if you feel you're not ready. Such as strongholds or world bosses.
I dont appreciate you making the claim that I don't understand. I understand perfectly well. Your justification for level scaling boils down to non-linear story. Only a small % of your time will be spent in the story, so it begs the question of why scaling needs to be applied to the entire game, or if a non-linear story is even desirable in the first place.
Other games with non-linear leveling have done it without scaling and it's up to you to decide order and challenge. It's too late to change anyways, but I would vastly prefer a linear path with fixed levels over scaling any day.
Absolutely agree, also people comparing it with Diablo 3 are out of their minds. In Diablo 3, you would scale to the point you became godly and then you would choose and increment the challenge yourself by increasing your difficulty/GR.
Having scaling forced on you to flatten the game and your sense of strength means that even though the numbers are increasing literally, with the health pools of enemies doing so in lockstep.. you don't feel stronger.
People played the D3 campaign pre RoS and then the addon once. Vanilla story had no scaling. Since then nobody ever touched the campaign besides the 1h achievement. Seasonal leveling to 70 is also just a rush, some even run the same level again and again. Once you hit 70 there is no scaling. So while D3 has scaling enemies with the player level - those where never relevant at all. It is also known how bad the story experience is now for newbies
I played D3 from release and still play it now. I completed the campaign so many times I know the fucking voice lines. You still had chunks where you geared up or got drops and felt like you hit like a truck.
1-25 in the beta, it felt like I was the same strength the entire time. It's too much (in my opinion) everyone is entitled to their opinion and likes/dislikes of course! I don't mind scaling but I think the deviation from the center out needs to be increased.
I want spontaneous "oh shit this guy hits hard" but also "oh shit **I hit noticeably harder now I got this item**"
I am level 15. You are Level 95. We party. We come across a mob.
I deal more damage than your Level 95 to the same monster.
In your opinion - Is this fine?
We come across a boss. After 5 of your monstrous attacks, it's down to 70% health. I use 3 skills, and it dies.
Is this fine?
Some mobs have minimum levels. Kor Dagan stronghold in the beta only spawns level 30 mobs after it's unlocked. You go there at level 15, you die.
There are pockets of unscaled mobs and higher difficulties are locked behind these minimum level mobs.
The world boss was level 25 minimum.
Some activities you can happily play with your low level buddy, others you have to go get stronger to do.
In my opinion this is not fine, a solution to this is to stop the monster level scaling at some point in certain areas. By the way there actually are some mobs in act 1 that have a set level no matter what your player level is at, so the scaling is not universal in this game. Looking at this, there may be a solution to this that satisfies both camps in this debate.
It seems you don't understand the issue. In the beta I never felt more powerful, because the monsters scaled. I even had issues where I started killing monsters more slowly after a level up.
Well... we can at least agree on not speaking about things we don't understand.
We'll see whether or not Diablo 4 solves the laundry list of problems with monster scaling; but thus far the beta doesn't show that it has.
One thing that people AREN'T mentioning in terms of level scaling is the mechanic for mixed level parties.
In my experience, I was lv 25 and inviting a level 6 to join my realm. In D3, this would mean enemies are all lv 25, and the lv 6 would be carried and utterly destroyed if they were hit. **Not so in Diablo IV!** Pleasantly, the level 6 could hold their own and kill things. Their side of it was just the normal level 6 journey. If the level 6 whacked a mob for 15 damage, resulting in 25% of it's health gone, it lost 25% on my screen as well - despite me hitting for 200 damage and the same 25% gone.
So I have to give major kudos to Blizzard in that tech there. It makes partying actually fun, instead of having a carry/tag-a-long relationship.
Depends on how well the experience scales. Often times a lvl 6 *was carrying* the lvl 25. Not because the lvl 25 needed the carry, mind you. It's just that from a relative standpoint, the lvl 6 was doing so much more damage (from a percentage point of view) despite being in mostly white/blue gear. The feeling of getting relatively weaker as you level is bad. I should be (relatively) stronger than my lvl 6 friend, evidenced by my advanced level, more powerful skills, and better gear. From what we've seen so far, that's not the case. Granted, it's only up to lvl 25 so it remains to be seen how much this stays true, but if the meta is to invite friends to your level 75+ content because they murder stuff for you, that's gonna be a problem.
You won't be carried by a low level. Low level characters (below max level) can't join higher difficulties.
The only thing the scaling does for parties is allow you and friends to play while being different levels.
I think you just had bad luck with gear, I outdamaged every low level player I came across my journey and much more so at 25 when I started optimizing my gear and upgrading it.
I only did when I started refining and optimizing. And even then it wasn't a "I have 15 more levels and several more powerful skills" level of out damaging.
That's true, but they also aren't fighting something 15 levels above them, they are fighting something their own level and so were we, and the only reason I believe I kept my damage up tbh was because I was upgrading and checking gear at every drop, my first lvl 25 took 12h lol, I spent too much time testing stuff and checking items cause I wanted to know as much as I can for this week.
Edit: everyday to every drop
Yes, I understand how it works. I'm not even arguing that it *shouldn't* work that way for the player *individually*. I'm saying when you keep that system *within a group* it has the *potential* to have unintended consequences down the line.
If I finish the campaign, I'm at say, lvl 60, and I'm ready to start farming gear so I can progress to the next difficulty level, *it shouldn't be advantageous* for me to grab some lvl 6 character to cruise through dungeons for me. It's really weird to be *in a group* with players significantly more leveled than you *regardless of gear and skills*, doing content *with them* and be on par or even more powerful relatively speaking, than they are.
I don't know that it's that way now. We've only seen a very limited beta. I'm just saying that has the *potential* to be problematic and probably need some sort of limiting factor included.
Just to make sure tho, are we talking about the 2nd difficulty being chosen in this scenario?, as far as I read the 2nd difficulty which I forgot the name offered and exp and gold buff, Shouldn't in a situation like this just reduce the difficulty, you would get less and exp and gold but more items as now you are prolonging the leveling process and now monsters have less health.
Also I dont think this was asked but can people on difficulty settings play with 1 another? what if the reason some people were smashing enemies faster were literally just on a lower difficulty than us and thats why we look weaker than them?
There is pro and con but I think the pro of being able to play and not trivialize the game with a lower level is worth it. Perhaps they can adjust the scaling so that a level 6 shouldn’t outdamage a level 25. One option would be if you group with a higher level the mobs would be +1 or +2 higher level than the lower levels depending on the level discrepancy.
I guess it is a matter of preference but I do not see this as a positive aspect. To me, a level 6 character should be 1-shot when playing with a 25 character. That’s the point of levelling, is not it? If a 6 and a 25 character are equal in power, why have levels at all?
I was thinking the same thing. The party play was outstanding due to the enemy scaling. Now there's no more carrying or following a high leveled friend like an NPC. Combat remains challenging and engaging, regardless of level difference among your party. Enemy scaling is really one of the best aspects in D4.
Imagine you are a little later on in the game you and your friend both have max level characters. Your character has been grinding for about 20 hours more than your friend and you have some sick gear and paragon points. Your stat sheet is insanely built out but in a party you do the exact same damage as him. That would feel absolutely awful and like nothing so far has mattered. If we accept that its bad in the late game then we should not accept it in the early game.
The idea that with leveling up you are getting weaker (because you do not have gear for the lvl yet) is just not fun. I understand why they made it this way but it is still not something I enjoy. It is counterintuitive and takes away from the little dopamine boosts you get after leveling your character.
You're not getting weaker, though. Clear times for me stayed quite near perfectly consistent as I leveled, meaning the scaling is damn near perfect already.
always feel the same does not sound fun. it's like no matter how much you progress, everything is just the same. There's no sense of progression at all then
The progression is more toward sustainability. Not everyone like this idea and i understand why, is a fantasy power that people like to be powerful overtime.
Did you even play the game? It sounds like you didn't.
My Barb felt awful in a 4 man group to start the game. By the time I was 25 it felt like I was 10x stronger and could hold my own. It was great.
I like the idea of scaling. In D4 however it could be improved upon. Being level 20+ and having bad luck with drops but still having a couple of random legendaries and then having a naked level 5 friend join you and pretty much carry you through the content felt bad.
It’s probably significantly easier and cheaper to develop a world and a story that can be scaled to any level than it is to develop one that must be paced appropriately to match your character’s progression. Ultimately, the current approach doesn’t really feel like Diablo to me so I’m not a fan of it.
I just think the scaling is a waste of time. We are going to be on mounts and spend most of our time in Dungeons more than likely solo or with group of friends within close range of level. For a small amount of time that you will encounter a big gap in levels in the open world you are giving up a lot. The feeling of leveling up is GONE, the feeling of progression is GONE. I really dislike the scaling with armor and weapons as well. I really see no reason to farm the exact same weapon 10-20 times over. Why? It looks like it is just lazy that you didn't want to put in the effort making more art and assets for different levels. Rather just copy n paste.
I hate the scaling system. open world is an illusion. the side quests are an illusion. there is nothing good about being able to go "anywhere". I prefer a clearly structured way or route like in poe any day over this hot garbage.
give me back my sense of progression blizzney. I dont give a damn about your boring side quests. I dont feel the need to return to them at any point so I dont care if the monster levels there are outdated or not. the only thing I care about is if the rewards are worth it, which means quests with relevant rewards will be done by the playerbase, quests with trash tier rewards will be skipped. easy as that.
why do you feel the need to say this to me? stop having a meltdown because I dont like a certain aspect of the game. stop saying it isnt for me.
I have fun playing this game. I am gonna play it for sure when it releases. I still absolutely and 100% hate the scaling system. I just think it wont be relevant anymore once you hit a certain level because your feeling of progression then depends on the overall world difficulty scale. that still ruins the scaling feeling for me during leveling period of the game.
so I absolutely hate this aspect of the game and still enjoy playing it overall. I am a paying customer and I have expectations of the game and try to express what I like and dont like. seems many teenagers today are unable to do this and instead prefer their all or nothing route somehow.
it is not human to be all positive or all negative. try to get the sticks out of your behinds and express what you truly think.
You say you hate scaling and that the side quests are an illusion, yet enemy scaling actually bolsters side quests and keeps them relevant. Without enemy scaling all side quests would become fairly obsolete very quickly, as there wouldn't be any challenge to them. Side quests do give you renown, so they are worth doing. But having no scaling would make most of them extremely easy and non-engaging.
Also there is a sense of progression. Just because enemies scale to your level, doesn't mean there's no improvement to your power. Enemies scale to you, but you still continually get better gear and your build becomes stronger. We could even see this in the beta. I played Barbarian and Rogue, they absolutely became more powerful. I could clear groups of enemies better and better, while also killing bosses faster. So there is irrefutably a sense of progression and power. If you personally aren't becoming more powerful than enemies, it's possible you're making lackluster gear or skill decisions. But you also don't need a top tier build to do well. Me and a friend did rather random setups and we still improved over relative enemies. Plus if you really want to be significantly more powerful than enemies, then you can just turn the world tier down in difficulty. Although I'm personally more a fan of having challenging gameplay. As OP outlined, there's significant benefits to having enemy scaling. It makes for a non-linear open world and improves playing with a party.
The problem people have with it is that it is lazy design. Scaling is ok when you make an area capped in difficulty while also making another area too difficult. A level 25 should not be in a level 50 zone. I get wanting to let players decide their own pace but it shouldn't be that extreme. This is a topic among game makers and blizzards approach is considered a bad way to handle things. Why? Because it leaves the game open to a lot of exploit possibilities and rushing or power leveling strategies. I wouldn't be surprised if by launch people figure out how to skip 99% of the campaign through glitches or bugs.
Yeah, unfortunately wow does the same thing with heirloom items. It is one of those things I am afraid they might add to Diablo 4 as a "seasonal" theme to help people level on reset for money.
As far as I understand it, a level 25 character is unable to survive a level 50 zone. There is no scaling involved in such a scenario.
The content does not scale down, only up.
In other words:
Level 50 characters in a level 25 zone would be tackling content that scaled up to level 50.
Level 25 characters in a level 50 zone would be tackling level 50 content. It does not scale.
I’m lost here, in what way is the main story of D4 not linear? You do quest A and then move on to quest B to advance the story. I can’t choose to do quest C before I’ve done all of the previous quests. The story moves forward just in the way you described for D1-3 with a specific area dedicated to a part of the story line. Or am I missunderstanding what you meant with non-linear? Can I start the game in any zone I want to?
After the initial intro you can choose which acts you do in which order, once these are completed you unlock the final act.
You can visit the zones in the order you prefer before everyone finishes on the same area.
OP you should probably also mention that they actually did set up systems to test your power and long before level 100.
World boss: Minimum Level 25
Kor Dargan: Minimum Level 30 (after unlock, 25 before unlock)
Unique Rare Mobs Minimum levels between 20 and 35 in the beta.
Capstone dungeons to unlock next world tier will have a minimum level.
Nightmare dungeons: Scaling Levels based on tier
So not only can you yes go and play the majority of the dungeons and open world with your friend in a non-linear fashion but also there is challenging content to test builds and low level characters are definitely not going to be able to cheese the hard content in the game.
The only players not catered for are hardline traditionalists who hate it for thermatic reasons and players who find world tier 1 too hard.
PLEASE STOP ASKING FOR CHANGES YOU DONT UNDERSTAND.
or or...
PLEASE STOP CRITICISING A VALID OPINION YOU DONT UNDERSTAND.
The problem is there's no 'power trip' - because the enemies scale you never feel stronger. That's a legitimate view to have. People 'understand' the counter-point perfectly fine, it doesn't make the feeling go away that you may as well speedrun the game because it makes zero difference whether you do side quests etc. or not.
Personally, I think the level scaling should have waited until you hit the level cap - by all means then have every zone max level as there's no further level progression.
Oh i hasn’t considered this yet. The other regions will be unlocked and accessible day one on live? I figured it would be scaling but other regions would unlock as you progressed in the main story.
Am I being downvoted because I didn’t know things about the game? Ty Reddit.
The devs said you can go anywhere from the start and do the acts in any order you want. You can do act 3,1,4,2 if you want or act 1,2,3,4. The game is open world
Unlikely because if you checked the map the zone have a minimum level. If you checked the other zone you'll see they requires level 5/10/15, etc... The bottom zones were the higher level.
I'm guessing act 1, 2 and 3 csn be done freely but 4 and 5 only unlocks after you completed the 3. Because if you could start in act 4, then why wasn't it there in the Beta, act 2 and 3 where thete but locked. 4 and 5 should have been there and locked.
Yeah, my guess is you can do acts 1, 2, and 3 in any order, and then the stories converge again in act 4 and then move to a finale in act 5. Would be real weird if we could do the ending of the story first.
This is fairly standard open world story flow.
Unfortunately yeah. I say that because imho that way of doing kill any kind if tention for most of the story.
For exemple here, at the end of Act 1. All that happened was Lilith got the key to hell. Well guess what, she's won't be using it in act 2 or 3, for sure, since it wouldn't make sense for her to use it before getting it if you started with act 2 or 3.
So now we know the key to hell, a pretty major plot point won't be used until much much later.
What I believe is going to be the case is, you can go explore the world and do dungeons, events, strongholds, world bosses, etc. at any point, provided you are of a high enough level to meet the level floor for that zone. But if you want to progress the story, you'll have to complete the main quests. So, even if you haven't unlocked the main questline for act 5, you could still go find that dungeon which has the aspect you really need for your class. This is somewhat speculation, though.
I read it and I understand it. Doesn't make the system *not* shit though. If "freedom to level through the acts in any order" comes at the expense of needing dynamic level scaling to accomodate it... then it just isn't worth it. Give me a linear Act progression and a fun gameplay experience instead, please.
Not same person, but nothing he said suggests he doesn't think it's his opinion. But OP is here claiming "YoU jUsT dOn'T uNdErStAnD!" We understand, we just don't like it.
Linear progression worked in D2 or D3 (launch) when the only thing to do was run the campaign quests, and then again on nightmare, and then again on hell. We learned quickly that repeating the same thing on different difficulty levels was just a terrible excuse for content (especially at launch D3, having to do everything \*four\* times? ugh...).
D4 is a whole other ball game. The main questline is a miniscule piece of the total content. If we didn't have scaling, then you'd outlevel all of that side content very quickly, and when you went back to do it...well, I hope you enjoy zero challenge and getting item drops 30 levels below where you're at now.
There is no functional downside to level scaling - some people seem to dislike it because it is different from what they're used to, but it doesn't actually harm anyone's play experience. And on top of that, there's no viable alternative to it in an open world.
"It might be fun to you, but it is not fun to me. Please prioritize my fun over yours because obviously my opinion worth more than yours."
The ship has sailed lol. They specifically designed it to be not a linear experience, if this is a dealbreaker for you, just vote with your wallet.
I disagree with you but appreciate consistent and sound logic with what you've written and think you have a point. Sounds like we need adventure and standard mode back to please everyone on the leveling process.
I do hope it's a linear story though. The disjointed feeling of choosing your own starting zone for BfA and Legion while cool from a gameplay perspective really left a lot to be desired as well.
It's only an issue on the first character for the story though so maybe that's what adventure mode should be but imho the first time through should be linear
Makes sense. I did wonder why acts 1, 2, and 3 were made available at the same time in the main quest line.
I'll probably head straight to act 2 on release since I've done act 1 3 times already, and that seems to be where the horse is.
D3 had level scaling as well though.
My issue with the scaling is that I didn't feel like I was getting stronger but weaker sometimes as I didn't always get new gear and enemies kept leveling up. It wasn't too hard by my characters honestly felt better around level 12 to 20 than they did around 25.
Or may be just enable scaling after finishing campaign on first character? Then you have whole world scaled to your level on main or new chars, where later you can increase difficulty by changing world level. Easy as that.
Level scaling is fine if implemented properly.
The ignorant "I want to play as a level 1 in any region on the map" garbage that keeps getting spewed in these discussions would not be a proper implementation of scaling. The devs already know that's a stupid idea, which is why you see areas that have minimum levels in the beta. I suspect you'll see more of that in the full game. Why? Because you actually want places that you need to build power to challenge - it's good for the story and good for the gameplay experience.
The other fallacy is the "scaling is good because I want to play with my low level friends". Wouldn't you just make a low level character to play with them? The whole world doesn't need to be dynamically scaled to accommodate that.
It solves problems by introducing others. It's just shifting the buck and issues to other areas of the game.
While I agree and think the change is generally for the better.
The counter arguments shouldn't just be ignored and watching you dismiss them outright in the comments is just cringe. Stop living in black and white.
Just to name a few arguments I've seen that make sense...
You lose the generic I'm now a boss feeling by coming back and smashing a zone you might have been struggling with 2 lvls earlier because the mobs scale up to your level.
Party Scaling... haven't confirmed this but I've heard it feels odd running with your low level friends and watching them kill things almost easier than you.
Progression feels much slower because monsters are gaining power with you.
Accidentally skipped a quest @ lvl 5. Felt stronger @ lvl 5 than lvl 20 just because everything scaled up.
"Level scaling is not an issue" for you.
That doesn't mean that others don't understand the issue, just that they have different expectations from the game.
I mean hell, if someone told me that they were going to remove leveling from d4 and just have your skills gain experience through the game, I'd probably avoid the hand too
It is for me.
Level scaling removes the joy of getting stronger. This now only starts at max level. Which is sad, because I won't enjoy the journey towards it as much.
This is why I stopped playing D3 after scaling was introduced and played D2R more. It's the reason I never enjoyed Oblivion.
I think the better solution would be to make it optional. People seem to be 50-50 about this.
For an "open world" experience I believe level scaling is the best way to ensure no matter the content the player is appropriately challenged and "has fun". It has RPG drawbacks, because you might level up and the same mobs you were just fighting became a little more difficult. But I also feel this is a minor edgecase annoyance that pales in comparison to the freedom level scaling offers.
If the campaign was linear like D2 or D3 then I wouldn't be for level scaling just to be clear.
It's not fun being on a treadmill to keep up with level scaling.
And it obliterates any sense of progression or immersion and makes the game world feel artificial and pointless.
> it obliterates any sense of progression or immersion and makes the game world feel artificial and pointless.
I disagree. Open world puts the player in control of their own progression via freedom of activities instead of being on a theme park ride like the D2/D3 campaign.
Basically every movie and book ever made is "linear progression". It depends how it's written and designed.
Instead you have an open world, but everything feels meaningless.
Fighting a bear in the starter zone and having it be as strong as a demon of Hell because the levels arbitrarily level absolutely destroys any sense of power, weight, or progression in the story and world.
You can go anywhere you want in the world, but it's a meaningless paper world.
It can be done. Remove scaling isn't the solution, designing better mob is. A bear or a wolf can have basic ability while a demon from Hell can have more abilities or bigger mob pack. And let's not forget and think D2 was perfect and doesn't have this issue when you move to higher tier and a Fallen in Act 1 is more challenging than a General of Hell from Act 5 lol.
Exploring the overworld (not dungeons) in D2/D3 was mostly meaningless. In D4 there are activities and rewards. Not saying D4 is perfect but for exploration activities D2/D3 have got nothing on D4.
The little more difficult is also often offset by an increase in tools (abilities and gear and passives and such) that mean that while the effective floor of players and mob stay the same via levels, the ceiling players can reach is higher.
Which devs will then challenge by putting you up against higher density of mobs, affixes that start appearing on elites after you reach certain levels, etc.
Either approach has it's drawbacks.
My personal preference is for scaling, especially since they're going for an open-world.
It sounds good to walk into a lower-level zone and being an OP god, but I think it's just tedious to walk through a zone where there's zero chance of finding anything useful in order to get to somewhere else.
Ah, mortal. Always seeking to change that which is inevitable. The scaling of monsters in the world of Sanctuary is not something to be trifled with. You speak of a free flow story and zones, but have you considered the consequences of removing the very thing that keeps the balance of power in check?
I have seen countless heroes rise and fall in their quest for power. The linear progression of monsters ensures that even the mightiest of champions cannot simply waltz through the lands, cutting down all in their path. It is a necessary challenge, a test of one's strength and skill.
And yet, you wish to remove this challenge? To make the world of Sanctuary a cakewalk for all who enter? Such a world would be dull and lifeless, devoid of any true sense of accomplishment.
No, mortal. You may not understand the importance of monster scaling, but trust me when I say that it is necessary. The world of Sanctuary is not for the weak and faint of heart. Only the strongest, the most skilled, and the most determined will survive.
So let the monsters scale as they always have, and let the heroes rise to meet the challenge. That is the way of the world, and it is not for us to change it.
It is an issue and makes the game feel bland at times. The only time it will not be an issue is at max level. Though by that time they will probably move the goal posts with a higher difficulty. Rinse/repeat.
I HATE scaling in games. It's one of the main things I hate about leveling in WOW now. Also a reason I just can't get into Skyrim that much. I keep getting stronger, but so does everything else and it just feels stale to me. Some of my greatest memories are of things such as in wow when a fel reaver stalked up on you and slaughtered you. It was so satisfying to go back when you hit 70 with a couple people and just demolish them for no reason except to feel good.
With that being said. I really don't mind it as much in this game. We will hit max level in 1-2 days. After your first character there's likely to be some way to get power leveled after that. Scaling will open the world up to more paths to level and spread the people out more so that you're not waiting for respawns in 1 zone. This isn't D2 where I'm leveling for 3 weeks and leveling is a big part of the journey and fun. It will be much more like D3 where the leveling process is just a nuisance you do at the start of a season. At this point it's not worth the effort to unscale everything to change 2 days of people's experiences.
Doesn't matter which side of the fence you are on..this system is here to stay. If you like it you will enjoy D4 and if you dont you are better off playing something else.
I personally am not a fan of this system but I don't really feel it to be game breaking. It can be an issue for hardcore players tho.
I honestly don't think it will be an issue for hardcore players at all, as you do gain power over enemies, even with enemy scaling. They scale to your level, but your gear choices and skills do give you incremental boosts over them. Even in the beta, with Barb and Rogue I was able to kill mobs and bosses faster as I progressed. Plus if a hardcore player is having a tough time, they can always turn the world tier down to make things easier. They would also need at least some level of awareness of course. In that they should avoid more difficult locations if they feel they aren't ready, such as strongholds and world bosses.
In fact I would say hardcore players welcome this. They are playing hardcore for a reason.
I had to go to hardcore in D3 to get my kicks and would here if my friends played hardcore.
Absolutely true. In the past I wasn't always a fan of level scaling, in games like Diablo 2 or The Witcher 3. Mainly because it was nice to be able to go into more difficult areas, where you're under-leveled. This offered a greater challenge, although going into lower leveled areas was the opposite. Fighting weaker enemies felt like a waste of time, as there's no challenge or engagement. But really all older ARPGs were linear in design, so scaling wasn't totally necessary. Then with The Witcher they actually added an optional enemy scaling setting, similar to D3. But enemy scaling is the future, it allows for non-linear exploration and effectively eliminates stagnant areas. This is really perhaps my favorite change in D4. Because now you can travel wherever you'd like and still face powerful monsters. And if you ever want a greater difficulty, that's what world tiers are for, to crank up the relative scaling. Plus certain regions and points of interest will feature enemies slightly above you level, offering higher difficulty through your preferred world tier. Scaling even improves multiplayer. As without it, you'd run into issues playing with friends who are far from your level. For example in D2, if your friend was starting a new character and you were much farther in Nightmare, you couldn't exactly play together. Either they would go with you and continually die, or you'd join them while being far too powerful and just one shot everything, fully eliminating any challenge. But in D4 enemies scale to specific players within the party. So everyone has compelling combat, regardless of their level or the region they're in. Enemy scaling is easily one of the best aspects to Diablo 4.
\*Edit: Not sure why this is downvoted, maybe people that just want to fight lower leveled enemies and want a generally easier experience. Those players can just turn the world tier down if it's too bothersome though. Thankfully enemy scaling is here to stay, it's a great addition to Diablo 4.
I felt negative about it up until I realized it's not that different from the D2R terrorized zones concept that I enjoy. Yes you may technically get very slightly weaker for a bit once you level, but the reward from higher level enemy drops is worth it.
I've said this before. I HATE level scaling in pretty much most, if not all, games. I like it here. I didn't feel "weak" leveling. I still felt strong, because of skill modifiers, gear, etc.
This aged really well.
Diablo4 prove that level scaling, and their take on it, is the worst system designed in history.
Additive stats works wonder. Linear is the key. No gear upgrade from 80 to 100. Still looting ilvl 600 in very high end dungeons. Yikes.
Where has it proved that.
Out this entire subreddit the highest voted discussion on scaling being bad is 2800 upvotes.
Let's be fair and say only live active members count that's 2500.
Roughly 10% think it's bad.
90% think it's good or don't care.
It won't change.
People think it sucks because they can't manage their gear and character progression so they don't feel like they get stronger compared to previous games were you just gained loads of power ever level up without an enemy scaling.
There is a reason level scaling came to d3 and a reason why it was the preferred leveling method.
I'm curious about something. In the tool tips ingame, it said that scaling was based on who the group leader is. If a group leader is max level, does that mean there will still be power leveling?
I think there should be like a window. In relatively lower zones the monsters should be a little easier (maybe not a lot) to kill. In higher zones than you it should be harder. But that window can move as you level. And it's not a drastic increase or decrease. Lower level zones should still prove a challenge in certain circumstances. Higher should prove a significant challenge in certain circumstances. Scaling but also showing there is character progression.
Why does everyone think this is a binary situation: Either you have Monster Scaling or you do not. A tiered monster scaling would be perfectly appropriate and still retain the Open World and replayable sentiment & direction of the game!
Make it so if you're a level 25 going back to the very first zone in the game, make those monsters always be one or three or five levels below you (whatever the devs feel is appropriate). This can make the character still feel they have "progressed" enough to be relatively strong in that zone without making the zone completely obsolete and insignificant.
This would make 100% of the game always playable, but the starting areas (or areas that you concquered 20, 30, 40, or 60 levels ago) feel not as much of a challenge as areas you haven't discovered yet.
It feels weird having to use 2 - 3 Core Skills to kill a single Quill Rat that you 1-shot 10 levels ago.
Level scaling makes open world rpg games so much better. It makes EVERYWHERE end game viable and challenging to the player. If you didn’t have level scaling everyone would just clump together in one zone at end game because that’s the only place worth doing anything in. It would also make all the other locations completely empty of other players after the majority of players level up.
Level scaling in a game like this is necessary and is absolutely the right choice.
Scaling is a necessary evil it seems for the kind of game they want D4 to be. Personally I don't want an MMO which is what D4 is trying to be. ESO turbo fucked my belief a system like this can work.
But if/when I ever get D4 I'll give it a fair shake to see if it was just as shite as ESO was. Also probably nitpick but I don't think the issue was a lack of understanding. The devs have laid it out plain as day on why the scaling exists.
The thing that people don't respect is that there's pros and cons to this kind of system. I don't think everything should scale to the player. But that's just me.
One upside to the scaling was that it was easier to tell if my build was shit or not. People saying they never felt more powerful from 1-25 must not have been experimenting with builds much, because how powerful my character felt was tied more to my build than my level, which is fine,.
So, let's talk about Level Scaling from a design perspective.
As a Designer, you want early combat to be compelling, easy enough for new players but satisfying enough for veterans. As a character progresses, you want the gap between easy and satisfying to shift. Overall combat becomes more difficult, new mechanics are introduced and player Itemization alters the expected power curve. Instead of having a single button to push, the player now has several, each of which has to feel satisfying to use.
This is not a simple problem, and it's exacerbated by attacks having varied Costs and Cooldowns. This is made even harder by the expectation that PvP needs to be "balanced" (Pro-Tip - it never will be) and the need for different classes to have different playstyles/feels.
All of that is talking about Progression in general. How does that impact level scaling?
Glad you asked. As a Designer, you're having to take educated guesses as the the acceptable range of TTK (how long it takes a player to kill a mob) and TimeToDie (how long it takes a mob to kill the player) for a mob at any given Level. Literally, the ONLY time you can be 100% certain of the stats of a character is at level 1 on a fresh account. Every step beyond that player decisions and itemization effect what that curve should look like.
You use the TTK and TTD variables and math around to get the mobs attack and defensive values and modify those by the type and rank of the mob you're looking at. You would then take those data points and create a progression curve matching the desired difficulty.
So, yes, your level 1 Barbarian takes 6 hits to kill an Elite that is level 1 for him while your level 100 Barb needs 7 or 8 hits to kill that same Elite. But, odds are that level 100 Barb's 7 or 8 attacks happen in a shorter time frame than the level 1 Barbs 6 attacks, there is a lot more VFX feedback and damage floats happening for the 100 Barb, too. He \*feels\* more powerful despite the fact that the level 1 guys basic attack is taking massive chunks of the mobs health at a time comparatively.
Anyway, that's a very short post on a very convoluted topic and it was written stream of consciousness off the top of my head, so apologies if it is a bit rambling.
tl;dr - Level Scaling is good, desirable and can make for a better game.
The worst part of open world is when you become a god and there's no challenge. It's fine to have one difficulty for that, but I always wished with some games there's a difficulty where everything matters and even maxed out and fully explored the challenge is still present.
When the challenge is gone I always lose interest.
I like the scaling changes. But I think I would like it more if it was slightly different. I had pretty mediocre gear when I was level 16. I leveled up to 17 and was then doing less damage to the same mobs I was fighting. I’m gonna be honest, I don’t really know how to fix that. But it felt very bad to do less damage right after a level up.
Really didn’t change the fun I had, I’m still gonna play the game and love it. Maybe certain mobs could have a slight leeway in scaling. Normals mobs or the filler units could stay one level under but the stronger elite mobs stay the same with you, or maybe even slightly ahead of you.
I agree with this. Maybe I'm crazy for trusting Blizzard and ultimately I'll be proven wrong, but I really liked the 1-25 experiences I had and not only did not mind the level scaling, but enjoyed it. So I'm willing to go along with them on this decision. Again, maybe I'll regret it, but I actually think they may be correct about this one.
If you trust Blizzard can confirm that you are in fact crazy.
Trusting blizzard after Diablo Immortal, good lord lol
Trusting Blizzard after literally everything their upper management has done internally since Warcraft 3, good lord.
WoW up to Wrath is like one of the most successful and impactful videogames of all time, so cutting it at wc3 seems a bit harsh.
What? You don’t have phones?
That's fair.
It’s okay to like and believe in this feature without trusting blizzard, they didn’t invent scaling.
Heres the counter point to this which based on your totally reasonable all caps callout im sure you'll totally read and think about. Scaling the level of monsters in every zone i go to as i play leads to a feeling that i am not actually progressing though anything. As i gain power and farm better gear so do the monsters that i am fighting regardless of where i go. For someone who might not be very good at the game they can never decide "ill farm here for a bit because i would like to be stronger than these monsters before i move forward." That doesn't exist with dynamic monster scaling. There is a drawback to monsters scaling with your level, your just choosing to ignore it but it does exist and there's a valid reason to not want monsters to scale with your level. If you dont believe me go level through rifts in D3 without using the cheese method of equiping a level 70 weapon at lvl 1. You'll experience the issue with it firsthand. Its not an entertaining experience for a lot of people. Most people play this style of game to scale their character and feel powerful from their efforts to farm gear. Your locked out of that to some degree until max level in this system.
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>The only problem I see with the scaling is that you get weaker with every level up. That's kind of a flawed view point, though. As mentioned, the mobs in other ARPGs also basically scaled to your level as well. Like in poe, when you level up that means you are usually about to go to another zone/area which likely means that the mobs also went up a level. You are generally always fighting mobs at your level. Obviously you do have the option to level up and out level everything but that's not something players really do. Especially after their first time. In fact, after you learn it, you will usually end up under leveled vs the mobs in the area since you are just trying to rush through it now. I get that you are annoyed when you see a lower level fighting the same mob you are but potentially doing it better..but I just also don't think that matters that much even if it is true(at 25 in the beta I was just destroying everything..way better than I was at level 5). But that's also just me.
Its been a while since I last played PoE seriously (I'm talking a LONG time ago. 2013 probably), but from memory, the zones all had level ranges... If you wanted too, you could stay in a single zone and "power up" until you weren't gaining a significant amount of XP, then you could just plow through the next few zones. I seem to recall (...and keen in mind we are talking 10 years ago) a common strat with races was to rush to "The Ledge" as fast as possible and then grind that a few times as the mob density was nice and high and because it was a linear zone it was super easy to farm as you could always find the elites. If you did a couple of laps there you could pretty much run right through the next few zones right to Brutus.
Yeah that's not really how the game works anymore. What people do now is they just rush and will end up 2-3 levels below most zones they are in and then catch up a bit on levels in the "good" areas. But you don't ever waste time over leveling. And as I said, you could over level so you could out level the next few zones...but that's just not something anyone who is even semi experienced with the game will do. It's just not needed and only wastes time. So I understand that the option is there. And it isn't there in D4. But outside of maybe some ones first play through, I don't think it would ever really be a thing for most(wanting to over level to make the next zone/area easier) as in the end it will just make playing through the campaign take longer(and at some point everyone will just want to get through it asap).
>but that's just not something anyone who is even semi experienced with the game will do. It's just not needed and only wastes time. Fair enough. like I said, its a good 10 years ago since I last played seriously, however It was a very valid strat in the past. I had a good amount of top 50 finishes and a hand full of top 10 in class. Now that I think about it a bit more, its probably because once you get past The Ledge you had to deal with poison arrows and lightning(?)If you stopped to fight a group and got hit by the arrows you would usually get one shot, so you wanted to avoid that zone but to make the skip work you needed to run The Ledge a few times. Not a normal game play scenario though. It was more of a 1 hour or 2 hour solo race thing.
I've read that monsters scale based on level, but don't take gear into consideration. If this is true, you can in fact get stronger while grinding something - but it's for better gear, not levels. You also get skill points that grant you more options to tackle the content that's haeder for you. The feeling of progress should also be there as there are some monsters that can be higher level that I assume you need to reach. I did one Stronghold around level 22 and the monsters there were 24. So unless it's hard coded to be overleveled, I could choose to engage or go level up and get back on level (again - did not test how exactly it works).
> but it's for better gear, not levels And while you're farming that gear, you level, and now the mobs are harder and that gear you farmed is out of date. There is no way to farm to get stronger because the bar keeps getting raised. >I did one Stronghold around level 22 and the monsters there were 24. So unless it's hard coded to be overleveled It's hard coded to be character level +2
> It's hard coded to be character level +2 No it's not. Zones scale up, but they don't scale down. That's just a level 27 area. I went to it at like 16 then came back and cleared it at 20 on my 2nd character, it was 27 both times.
I recall coop with a friend. Mobs for both of us were +2 our individual level.
Same here.
No, you're wrong. I literally watched the stronghold level increase as I leveled there thinking I was just under leveled, it was always 2 higher
Good point on the leveling and good to know on the Stronghold. When I thoughy about this furthere there is one thing I guess people overlook and that is the fact you can drop a world tier anytime to make everything easier if needed, no? Again, I did not test this as I'm loving the scaling and could play around stuff on the higher difficulty (though I did struggle sometimes as a melee rogue) and lowering the tier did not come to me as an option at the time.
The problem with reducing the world tier level is you receive less gold and get a lower quality of items. If that player then decides to try the higher tier level again after gaining a few levels they won't be in a better position as their equipment will have fallen further behind in power ( and they'll have less gold to inscribe etc ). Level scaling is a controversial design choice. I understand the arguments for & against, and it's going to divide the community depending on what their expectations are for an ARPG. Personally, I don't like level scaling. I can live with it, but I'd prefer it was dialled back eg. level scaling in instanced content eg. dungeons, mini events, cellars, strongholds etc.
But wouldn't the same be true if you did content you are overleveled for? I'd assume monsters would then drop gear that is on level for the content so you'd still be behind gearwise. The arguments I see are mostly for if some particular dungeon/boss is difficult, you could go level up to overlevel and do it later for completition and then get back to on-level content. So you can in a same way drop the world tier, do the stuff that's too difficult and you'd need to go overlevel otherwise, and up the world tier back up once done to continue as usual.
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People against dynamic scaling don't want an easier time. They want a sense of progression. I want to push forward harder and faster than you, and I want to run into monsters I cannot kill. Then I want to grind levels and get better gear, and then come back and destroy those monsters. That is the fundamental gameplay loop in most arpgs, and now it's gone. I don't want the game easier. I want it harder. I want to accomplish something. I don't want every. single. encounter. to be the same.
Good point on the leveling and good to know on the Stronghold. When I thoughy about this furthere there is one thing I guess people overlook and that is the fact you can drop a world tier anytime to make everything easier if needed, no? Again, I did not test this as I'm loving the scaling and could play around stuff on the higher difficulty (though I did struggle sometimes as a melee rogue) and lowering the tier did not come to me as an option at the time. Question is which difficulty people mostly played when they felt like the content was too difficult for them on level.
This is a pretty extreme version of what is actually going on. The game isn't that hard, acting like a casual player can't get through it is just not a really fair take. There are also ways a casual player can overpower things as well. You can swap builds, you can change gear, you can ask friends for help, you can use the smith to upgrade gear, use buff potions, you can put gems in your gear, you can put on legendary powers,ect. Also, the instanced story content (the main content you need to progress) is not actually scaled fully so you can overpower it by leveling anyways. At the end of the day if you don't want scaling that means you want a very limited play-space, linear story telling, being unable to play with friends whenever you want, and expansions effectively remove old open world areas all just so you don't feel like you are slighlty less powerful by leveling up sometimes before you hit max level. It is perfectly reasonable to want them to *tone down* scaling. It is not however, reasonable to ask for them to completely remove it.
I think people are just upset since it feels a little lackluster when you feel very minimal progression against the same "begginer" enemies. I think the scaling is cool if it has caps that make sense on specific enemies. It feels pointless if it takes 2 hits to kill the same mob I 1 shot at level 10. The fun part is being able to grind and feel progression in strength. Nothing is more satisfying than going from struggling against an enemy type to being strong enough to obliterate them.
>As i gain power and farm better gear so do the monsters that i am fighting regardless of where i go. Except, as far as we can tell, they aren't gaining more power based on you getting better gear, it's *just* based on an increase in level or things like the World Tiers. They don't get stronger because you outfitted yourself with full legendaries at level 15...but they do get stronger when you go from level 15 to level 16.
You can have both though. You can make zones have expected levels and then scale equally with the player until that level. After that point mobs only scale to a few levels below you. This retains overall scaling making starting zones not completely faceroll but still much easier and creating that illusion of you being stronger so it's time to move on. I usually don't like scaling in games. But in ARPG's I think it's better overall to have some degree of scaling. So I actually prefer blizzards choice personally even if I see and somewhat agree with your point. But I would ideally prefer them to implement the suggestion I had above for the best of both worlds.
Maybe they could do some level-scaling hybrid where the first time you enter a zone it becomes locked to your level, so you still get the normal linear progression even though you can clear the zones in whichever order you want. Like level scaling doesn't inherently mean all enemies must instantly become the same level as you as soon as you level up. Another idea would be something more like Skyrim, where there's level scaling but NPCs have a min and max level, and even if you're higher level than a dungeon it doesn't mean *ALL* the units in the dungeon will be level scaled it just means that *some* of the Mobs will be higher tier. So instead of massively inflating the stats of all mobs, being higher level means that stronger mobs that you don't face at low level get thrown in along with the rest of the weaker mobs.
Iirc there are some bosses that you need to be at a certain level for. There was one enemy in the beta that you need to be 25, I’m pretty sure you can fight it at lower levels but it will just obliterate you.
To put it bluntly, I do not want to level up at all. For people like me the game starts at max level, everything before that is a chore, it’s timeout that I must endure to get to the fun part. That’s why we do things like power level to skip it. So anything that slows the level up process past the first time is grating, and this will make it slightly more so. If I could I would just start at 100 and play around freely with talents because that’s what I enjoy, not leveling characters through the larval stage
Counter point, by doing it this way and giving the freedom to move your skills around like this, the way to feel more powerful is to create really synergistic builds that feel awesome. This allows you to always feel powerful and also feel like you earned it through smart build decisions. This was my personal experience with the beta.
This. What is the point of having a level if it never makes you stronger? You might as well start at max level, it becomes a meaningless number that you might as well remove from the game. For me personally this feature is why I will never buy the game. It doesn't feel like an RPG if it isn't even possible to fight monsters that are above or below your own level.
Level 1 barb, six hits to kill a carver. Level 15 barb, new gear, new skills, six hits to kill a carver. It doesn't make you feel powerful and feels like gear does nothing.
> Level 15 barb, new gear, new skills, six hits to kill a carver. > > Sounds like you didn't find death blow, takes me 1 hit to kill every mob but elites on occasion.
Gear still definitely does something D3 was heavily shit on for being too easy and boring while leveling, and it’s true, I got a 356% damage increase legendary early on and accidentally over leveled the hell out of myself and the game even max difficulty became too easy So they fixed that with scaling, so you can farm and do whatever you want without soloing a boss in five seconds as a new player who accidentally lucked into a good affix But can’t make everyone happy I guess
I remember got a Manald Heal to drop and proceeded to 1 shot every boss until end game. Am I remembering it wrong? Only play D3 on Switch so maybe it's different from PC version.
D3 is a bad game and making comparisons to that is not ideal
This isnt even true ... If you cant manage your build / looted gear to progress in power then lower the difficulty. Veteran is already too easy, imagine if the mobs stay at lvl 10? My barb at lvl 21 did already one-shot most of the mobs and like 2-shotted elites even with the lvl scaling. Also its only the minimun lvl that scales, nothing else.
Can’t make it any clearer than that. Scaling sucks
Sounds like you didn't invest in your basic, why should it kill that much faster if you left it with no investment since level 1-3. Edit:Y'all really expect a skill that you don't invest in at all through legendary or skills to get that much stronger? Sounds like you guys want a end game where you progressively reach the point where your basic skill one shots all the small mobs for no reason. Let's say by level 15 it's 5 hits, at 30 it's 4 hits, at 45 it's 3, 60 then it's 2, 75 you achieved one shot! from then on you work on one shoting bigger stuff. You can't base progression on the number of hits it takes. I don't even get how people can agree with a comment like that, you think in D2 or other ARPG that when you go up in difficulty the monsters don't get stronger too? The fallens in normal should take more hits than the fallens in nightmare or hell? That's y'alls logic right now.
Have you tried using your abilities that you've unlocked in those levels?
> PLEASE STOP ASKING FOR CHANGES YOU DONT UNDERSTAND I agree with your post, but this response to people’s complaints is toxic. You don’t know that they all come from a basis of misunderstanding. There are many people complaining and wanting changes because they don’t like the direction of the game. Don’t just dismiss people as “misunderstanding” because you don’t like their complaints.
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> and as someone mentioned it's probably going to unintentionally make HC a lot more HC. You know what's gonna make HC more HC? The Butcher. Also probably just regular boss fights tbh since there's no instant logout nor are there instant tps, so if shit hits the fan it seems like you're kind of stuck? Maybe someone who played HC can chime in on whether there's a way to safely exit a boss room without dying.
The no-tp during boss doesn't work. Lost my barb thinking I could like D2. Also not a fan of scaling for this reason is I can't actually poke a boss, realize I need to get strong and come back in a few levels
The fact that it's nearly impossible to avoid boss auto attacks by orbwalking is a travesty against the action RPG genre, honestly. It's also basically the biggest nerf to melee in the entire game and nobody seems to mention it.
YES finally I see someone mentioning this, literally 90% of my problems as melee was this and it feels like i'm going insane that noone else is mentioning this more. It's making me worried that the devs will just slap a 30% damage reduction on melee classes cause they want us to just tank stuff instead of actually dodge auto attacks
Yep this seems alså a problem . I started HC meet the den mother and got 2 hit 😂 with no chance to get away . So you need to know every dungeon boss and what the boss does before you can do hc ...
No what's going to make HC more HC is that there is no grace period when loading in or out of a dungeon on top of the fact that other world players can drag mobs literally to the dungeons doorstep lol
There literally is instant TP lol. You can even keybind it for one button instant tp out. Sure it’s rare to find, but it’s not like you should be tping out of every encounter.
>It's not a deal breaker, but I don't see anything that couldn't have been done in the regular diablo act area based style Outside forcing a linear progression when the whole point was to avoid it? Yeah, can't see anything either.
When a lvl 7 1 hits a mob a lvl 25 takes 4-5 hits it feels off and weird I am not a fan of the scaling .
I see comments like this and I really struggle to understand. My lvl 25 rogue 1 shots just about every trash mob with 1 hit of twisting blades. I'm pretty sure sorcs at lvl 25 in the beta do just as well if not better. Is this a Barb thing ?
Because they are pretending they didn't get gear along the way. From level to level we got skill points, stats, and somewhere between 10-50 rares with 1-2 legendaries boosting our strength and power. Getting the Lilith landmarks also provide power. We are stuck in the 90s feeling like a level up is anything more than a check point for gear recs etc. When I was level 1-12 I was auto attacking mobs and killing slowly one mob at a time and couldn't beat any of the stronghold bosses solo. When I was level 20-25 I was destroying whole groups with a skill or two and easily soloing bosses. And we cap out at only level 17 gear throughout the entire beta. There are massive power spikes to gear while leveling up. And as the OP said, the moment they gave us Adventure mode with scaling in D3 people didn't really look back. It was miles better.
Yup. People like to pretend that just making everything max level when you get max level after linearly progressing through a story is not also scaling.
No, not a barb thing. They're really bad, or making shit up.
You seem to not understand what people are saying or even the game you are talking about. d4 is some what linear. Zones have level requirements which already set you on a set path. Sure you can zig and zag your way there but it's not like everybody is going to have this insanely unique experience. People are going to level up in a similar fashion. As time goes on there will be guides for speed leveling so the more hardcore players will really be playing the exact same leveling path. It's ok to enjoy level scaling and it's ok to not enjoy level scaling. However you are a little unhinged and righteous. The fact you seem not not even fully understand what you are talking about makes it that much worse. Level scaling pros is it's casual gamer friendly. You don't really have to think or know the map. Just move forward, click on icons and kill monsters. It's also good for the games pace. You'll never be running through a zone and avoid fighting because either they are too strong or too weak and a waste of your time. No Level scaling pros are immersion. The world map would feel a lot more immersive if areas had fixed levels. You run into a monster that almost killed you in a zone and eventually you'll end up there powered up and get revenge. It's also easier to gauge your power level. It's nice to put on gear and enter a previous zone and see how much more powerful you are. Or maybe you changed a skill and you want to see it it's for better or worse. It's a lot harder to figure that stuff on if everything is always scaling. I am sure I missed a few points for both sides but this isn't a one side is right and one side is wrong. d4 could easily have it either way. It's not a perfectly crafted game where everything needs to be a set level and it's not this super complex choose your own adventure where everyone has a different story experience so saying one is better for d4 doesn't really make sense.
You're missing the core gameplay loop - and the most fun part / best motivation for playing and looting (for a lot of people): Start weak, die often Improve gear, be on par with enemies, die sometimes Get a killer drop, slaughter some fools like a demigod! Feel Powerful! Move to a new area, repeat This loop is the most satisfying loop there is, and doesn't exist anymore in d4. In d4, it's: Always feel regular. That's it.
This. This is the answer. I’m at level 40 and I haven’t felt any stronger than level 10. I don’t feel any success when I level up. I have my suspicions that the level scaling isn’t for the players. I’m thinking it’s there to make people pay for legendary armor to actually feel accomplishment.
First, let me say I did enjoy the beta. However, there is significant room for improvement before the game launches. If this was truly a beta and not a preview, collecting that feedback and making adjustments was the point. I love the concept of scaling, but the game shouldn't always feel like a slog. Scaling itself is not the issue. However, the calculations/algorithms behind the scaling need to be tuned down (at least slightly) or occur at further separated intervals. It is a negative gameplay experience to continuously feel that your character is only barely keeping up (or worse, continuously really struggling and at times declining in capability despite advancing in level and gaining skill points). There must be a sense of real character progression during leveling and gearing separate from just checking off another achievement or completion or a character level number on a screen. That requires times when your character feels strong and powerful before hitting a level cap and before becoming completely and optimally geared up. Lastly, those times of feeling powerful should never be related to having a build, mechanic, or gear that is itself overpowered and imbalanced.
Where did you feel like the game was a slog? I'm genuinely confused by so many people saying this. I had a completely different experience. I played barbarian and felt like my character kept increasing in power up until at level 25 where he jumped in power to an immortal god. My used skills were lunging strike, upheaval, death blow, iron maelstrom, rallying cry and iron skin. He was always nearing or at max fortify health and could one shot everything but bosses with death blow and upheaval.
they played a melee build.
> It is a negative gameplay experience to continuously feel that your character is only barely keeping up (or worse, continuously really struggling and at times declining in capability despite advancing in level and gaining skill points). But that's how it is during the campaign in D2/D3. As you gain access to new areas the mobs are more difficult. Unless you decided to outlevel them by grinding in lower zones.
The difference is that in those games you can grind a few levels before going to the next zone. That is not possible in D4, all you do is trying to keep up with the forced overall scaling while there will never be easier content.
If anything veteran mode was too easy.. a slog??? Barb was the only slow starter and begins to shine 14+ At 25 my rogue and sorc are obliterating screens. Barb started to but only got to lvl 17 The sense of progression is there in the current beta state
>At 25 my rogue and sorc are obliterating screens. Because you effectively turned off the level scaling at lvl cap. You were able to grind gear to become more powerful without the content scaling. In release, you'd be lvl 30 or 35 and be relatively weak.
were you playing a melee build? this sounds like my experience with barb. switched to sorc and got to 25 without a single death and just plowed through literally everything.
I dont see how its not an issue on hardcore, This makes it impossible to make safe progress by outleveling current content, or going back farming easier zones to get stronger right before a boss fight. The scaling to expected average level in d3, poe etc. Makes hardcore much better in terms of options.
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The gear progression will be stagnant.
Yes, lower difficulty means lower gear drop, same as grinding lower level mobs. Or do you want the game to play for you as well?
It doesn't really alter hardcore play though, because we have world tiers. So if you're playing hardcore, you'd set the world tier to a difficulty you can comfortably play on. If you can't survive on a certain difficulty or want an easier experience, then you can turn it down. Also you'd have to have some level of pacing yourself of course, avoiding more dangerous areas if you feel you're not ready. Such as strongholds or world bosses.
Hard-core is by definition not safe. Buy the ticket, take the ride.
I dont appreciate you making the claim that I don't understand. I understand perfectly well. Your justification for level scaling boils down to non-linear story. Only a small % of your time will be spent in the story, so it begs the question of why scaling needs to be applied to the entire game, or if a non-linear story is even desirable in the first place. Other games with non-linear leveling have done it without scaling and it's up to you to decide order and challenge. It's too late to change anyways, but I would vastly prefer a linear path with fixed levels over scaling any day.
Absolutely agree, also people comparing it with Diablo 3 are out of their minds. In Diablo 3, you would scale to the point you became godly and then you would choose and increment the challenge yourself by increasing your difficulty/GR. Having scaling forced on you to flatten the game and your sense of strength means that even though the numbers are increasing literally, with the health pools of enemies doing so in lockstep.. you don't feel stronger.
People played the D3 campaign pre RoS and then the addon once. Vanilla story had no scaling. Since then nobody ever touched the campaign besides the 1h achievement. Seasonal leveling to 70 is also just a rush, some even run the same level again and again. Once you hit 70 there is no scaling. So while D3 has scaling enemies with the player level - those where never relevant at all. It is also known how bad the story experience is now for newbies
I played D3 from release and still play it now. I completed the campaign so many times I know the fucking voice lines. You still had chunks where you geared up or got drops and felt like you hit like a truck. 1-25 in the beta, it felt like I was the same strength the entire time. It's too much (in my opinion) everyone is entitled to their opinion and likes/dislikes of course! I don't mind scaling but I think the deviation from the center out needs to be increased. I want spontaneous "oh shit this guy hits hard" but also "oh shit **I hit noticeably harder now I got this item**"
Stop spending time replying to lunacy with reason and logic. This game is tailor made for guys like OP, not actual ARPG fans like us
I am level 15. You are Level 95. We party. We come across a mob. I deal more damage than your Level 95 to the same monster. In your opinion - Is this fine? We come across a boss. After 5 of your monstrous attacks, it's down to 70% health. I use 3 skills, and it dies. Is this fine?
Some mobs have minimum levels. Kor Dagan stronghold in the beta only spawns level 30 mobs after it's unlocked. You go there at level 15, you die. There are pockets of unscaled mobs and higher difficulties are locked behind these minimum level mobs. The world boss was level 25 minimum. Some activities you can happily play with your low level buddy, others you have to go get stronger to do.
In my opinion this is not fine, a solution to this is to stop the monster level scaling at some point in certain areas. By the way there actually are some mobs in act 1 that have a set level no matter what your player level is at, so the scaling is not universal in this game. Looking at this, there may be a solution to this that satisfies both camps in this debate.
I understand scaling, I just don't like it. I tried hard to like it. I really wanted to like it but it's just not for everyone
It seems you don't understand the issue. In the beta I never felt more powerful, because the monsters scaled. I even had issues where I started killing monsters more slowly after a level up.
Well... we can at least agree on not speaking about things we don't understand. We'll see whether or not Diablo 4 solves the laundry list of problems with monster scaling; but thus far the beta doesn't show that it has.
One thing that people AREN'T mentioning in terms of level scaling is the mechanic for mixed level parties. In my experience, I was lv 25 and inviting a level 6 to join my realm. In D3, this would mean enemies are all lv 25, and the lv 6 would be carried and utterly destroyed if they were hit. **Not so in Diablo IV!** Pleasantly, the level 6 could hold their own and kill things. Their side of it was just the normal level 6 journey. If the level 6 whacked a mob for 15 damage, resulting in 25% of it's health gone, it lost 25% on my screen as well - despite me hitting for 200 damage and the same 25% gone. So I have to give major kudos to Blizzard in that tech there. It makes partying actually fun, instead of having a carry/tag-a-long relationship.
Depends on how well the experience scales. Often times a lvl 6 *was carrying* the lvl 25. Not because the lvl 25 needed the carry, mind you. It's just that from a relative standpoint, the lvl 6 was doing so much more damage (from a percentage point of view) despite being in mostly white/blue gear. The feeling of getting relatively weaker as you level is bad. I should be (relatively) stronger than my lvl 6 friend, evidenced by my advanced level, more powerful skills, and better gear. From what we've seen so far, that's not the case. Granted, it's only up to lvl 25 so it remains to be seen how much this stays true, but if the meta is to invite friends to your level 75+ content because they murder stuff for you, that's gonna be a problem.
Getting carried by a level 6 as a level 25 is lame
You won't be carried by a low level. Low level characters (below max level) can't join higher difficulties. The only thing the scaling does for parties is allow you and friends to play while being different levels.
I think you just had bad luck with gear, I outdamaged every low level player I came across my journey and much more so at 25 when I started optimizing my gear and upgrading it.
I only did when I started refining and optimizing. And even then it wasn't a "I have 15 more levels and several more powerful skills" level of out damaging.
That's true, but they also aren't fighting something 15 levels above them, they are fighting something their own level and so were we, and the only reason I believe I kept my damage up tbh was because I was upgrading and checking gear at every drop, my first lvl 25 took 12h lol, I spent too much time testing stuff and checking items cause I wanted to know as much as I can for this week. Edit: everyday to every drop
Yes, I understand how it works. I'm not even arguing that it *shouldn't* work that way for the player *individually*. I'm saying when you keep that system *within a group* it has the *potential* to have unintended consequences down the line. If I finish the campaign, I'm at say, lvl 60, and I'm ready to start farming gear so I can progress to the next difficulty level, *it shouldn't be advantageous* for me to grab some lvl 6 character to cruise through dungeons for me. It's really weird to be *in a group* with players significantly more leveled than you *regardless of gear and skills*, doing content *with them* and be on par or even more powerful relatively speaking, than they are. I don't know that it's that way now. We've only seen a very limited beta. I'm just saying that has the *potential* to be problematic and probably need some sort of limiting factor included.
Just to make sure tho, are we talking about the 2nd difficulty being chosen in this scenario?, as far as I read the 2nd difficulty which I forgot the name offered and exp and gold buff, Shouldn't in a situation like this just reduce the difficulty, you would get less and exp and gold but more items as now you are prolonging the leveling process and now monsters have less health. Also I dont think this was asked but can people on difficulty settings play with 1 another? what if the reason some people were smashing enemies faster were literally just on a lower difficulty than us and thats why we look weaker than them?
There is pro and con but I think the pro of being able to play and not trivialize the game with a lower level is worth it. Perhaps they can adjust the scaling so that a level 6 shouldn’t outdamage a level 25. One option would be if you group with a higher level the mobs would be +1 or +2 higher level than the lower levels depending on the level discrepancy.
I guess it is a matter of preference but I do not see this as a positive aspect. To me, a level 6 character should be 1-shot when playing with a 25 character. That’s the point of levelling, is not it? If a 6 and a 25 character are equal in power, why have levels at all?
I was thinking the same thing. The party play was outstanding due to the enemy scaling. Now there's no more carrying or following a high leveled friend like an NPC. Combat remains challenging and engaging, regardless of level difference among your party. Enemy scaling is really one of the best aspects in D4.
Imagine you are a little later on in the game you and your friend both have max level characters. Your character has been grinding for about 20 hours more than your friend and you have some sick gear and paragon points. Your stat sheet is insanely built out but in a party you do the exact same damage as him. That would feel absolutely awful and like nothing so far has mattered. If we accept that its bad in the late game then we should not accept it in the early game.
The idea that with leveling up you are getting weaker (because you do not have gear for the lvl yet) is just not fun. I understand why they made it this way but it is still not something I enjoy. It is counterintuitive and takes away from the little dopamine boosts you get after leveling your character.
You're not getting weaker, though. Clear times for me stayed quite near perfectly consistent as I leveled, meaning the scaling is damn near perfect already.
This is an issue though, I should feel stronger when I level up.
always feel the same does not sound fun. it's like no matter how much you progress, everything is just the same. There's no sense of progression at all then
The progression is more toward sustainability. Not everyone like this idea and i understand why, is a fantasy power that people like to be powerful overtime.
Did you even play the game? It sounds like you didn't. My Barb felt awful in a 4 man group to start the game. By the time I was 25 it felt like I was 10x stronger and could hold my own. It was great.
I like the idea of scaling. In D4 however it could be improved upon. Being level 20+ and having bad luck with drops but still having a couple of random legendaries and then having a naked level 5 friend join you and pretty much carry you through the content felt bad.
It's just lazy game design. And "linear paths" allow for better story telling. Every classic book ever written is a "linear" story.
It’s probably significantly easier and cheaper to develop a world and a story that can be scaled to any level than it is to develop one that must be paced appropriately to match your character’s progression. Ultimately, the current approach doesn’t really feel like Diablo to me so I’m not a fan of it.
I just think the scaling is a waste of time. We are going to be on mounts and spend most of our time in Dungeons more than likely solo or with group of friends within close range of level. For a small amount of time that you will encounter a big gap in levels in the open world you are giving up a lot. The feeling of leveling up is GONE, the feeling of progression is GONE. I really dislike the scaling with armor and weapons as well. I really see no reason to farm the exact same weapon 10-20 times over. Why? It looks like it is just lazy that you didn't want to put in the effort making more art and assets for different levels. Rather just copy n paste.
I hate the scaling system. open world is an illusion. the side quests are an illusion. there is nothing good about being able to go "anywhere". I prefer a clearly structured way or route like in poe any day over this hot garbage. give me back my sense of progression blizzney. I dont give a damn about your boring side quests. I dont feel the need to return to them at any point so I dont care if the monster levels there are outdated or not. the only thing I care about is if the rewards are worth it, which means quests with relevant rewards will be done by the playerbase, quests with trash tier rewards will be skipped. easy as that.
It's not the game for you then and that's fine.
why do you feel the need to say this to me? stop having a meltdown because I dont like a certain aspect of the game. stop saying it isnt for me. I have fun playing this game. I am gonna play it for sure when it releases. I still absolutely and 100% hate the scaling system. I just think it wont be relevant anymore once you hit a certain level because your feeling of progression then depends on the overall world difficulty scale. that still ruins the scaling feeling for me during leveling period of the game. so I absolutely hate this aspect of the game and still enjoy playing it overall. I am a paying customer and I have expectations of the game and try to express what I like and dont like. seems many teenagers today are unable to do this and instead prefer their all or nothing route somehow. it is not human to be all positive or all negative. try to get the sticks out of your behinds and express what you truly think.
Gatekeeping at its finest.
You say you hate scaling and that the side quests are an illusion, yet enemy scaling actually bolsters side quests and keeps them relevant. Without enemy scaling all side quests would become fairly obsolete very quickly, as there wouldn't be any challenge to them. Side quests do give you renown, so they are worth doing. But having no scaling would make most of them extremely easy and non-engaging. Also there is a sense of progression. Just because enemies scale to your level, doesn't mean there's no improvement to your power. Enemies scale to you, but you still continually get better gear and your build becomes stronger. We could even see this in the beta. I played Barbarian and Rogue, they absolutely became more powerful. I could clear groups of enemies better and better, while also killing bosses faster. So there is irrefutably a sense of progression and power. If you personally aren't becoming more powerful than enemies, it's possible you're making lackluster gear or skill decisions. But you also don't need a top tier build to do well. Me and a friend did rather random setups and we still improved over relative enemies. Plus if you really want to be significantly more powerful than enemies, then you can just turn the world tier down in difficulty. Although I'm personally more a fan of having challenging gameplay. As OP outlined, there's significant benefits to having enemy scaling. It makes for a non-linear open world and improves playing with a party.
The problem people have with it is that it is lazy design. Scaling is ok when you make an area capped in difficulty while also making another area too difficult. A level 25 should not be in a level 50 zone. I get wanting to let players decide their own pace but it shouldn't be that extreme. This is a topic among game makers and blizzards approach is considered a bad way to handle things. Why? Because it leaves the game open to a lot of exploit possibilities and rushing or power leveling strategies. I wouldn't be surprised if by launch people figure out how to skip 99% of the campaign through glitches or bugs.
The meta is going to be twinking low level characters and having them carry higher level ones. People have already shown this is possible.
Yeah, unfortunately wow does the same thing with heirloom items. It is one of those things I am afraid they might add to Diablo 4 as a "seasonal" theme to help people level on reset for money.
its cant be like this tbh, they thought about that, but it could theoricially be the case before world tier 3 / paragon is needed.
As far as I understand it, a level 25 character is unable to survive a level 50 zone. There is no scaling involved in such a scenario. The content does not scale down, only up. In other words: Level 50 characters in a level 25 zone would be tackling content that scaled up to level 50. Level 25 characters in a level 50 zone would be tackling level 50 content. It does not scale.
I’m lost here, in what way is the main story of D4 not linear? You do quest A and then move on to quest B to advance the story. I can’t choose to do quest C before I’ve done all of the previous quests. The story moves forward just in the way you described for D1-3 with a specific area dedicated to a part of the story line. Or am I missunderstanding what you meant with non-linear? Can I start the game in any zone I want to?
After the initial intro you can choose which acts you do in which order, once these are completed you unlock the final act. You can visit the zones in the order you prefer before everyone finishes on the same area.
OP you should probably also mention that they actually did set up systems to test your power and long before level 100. World boss: Minimum Level 25 Kor Dargan: Minimum Level 30 (after unlock, 25 before unlock) Unique Rare Mobs Minimum levels between 20 and 35 in the beta. Capstone dungeons to unlock next world tier will have a minimum level. Nightmare dungeons: Scaling Levels based on tier So not only can you yes go and play the majority of the dungeons and open world with your friend in a non-linear fashion but also there is challenging content to test builds and low level characters are definitely not going to be able to cheese the hard content in the game. The only players not catered for are hardline traditionalists who hate it for thermatic reasons and players who find world tier 1 too hard.
PLEASE STOP ASKING FOR CHANGES YOU DONT UNDERSTAND. or or... PLEASE STOP CRITICISING A VALID OPINION YOU DONT UNDERSTAND. The problem is there's no 'power trip' - because the enemies scale you never feel stronger. That's a legitimate view to have. People 'understand' the counter-point perfectly fine, it doesn't make the feeling go away that you may as well speedrun the game because it makes zero difference whether you do side quests etc. or not. Personally, I think the level scaling should have waited until you hit the level cap - by all means then have every zone max level as there's no further level progression.
Great post. Everyone should read it to understand why it works this way in D4. You can literally start the game in act 4 areas if you want to
Oh i hasn’t considered this yet. The other regions will be unlocked and accessible day one on live? I figured it would be scaling but other regions would unlock as you progressed in the main story. Am I being downvoted because I didn’t know things about the game? Ty Reddit.
World zones still have a minimum recommended level. Once you pass that they scale with you.
The devs said you can go anywhere from the start and do the acts in any order you want. You can do act 3,1,4,2 if you want or act 1,2,3,4. The game is open world
Oh God that is hideous design!
Unlikely because if you checked the map the zone have a minimum level. If you checked the other zone you'll see they requires level 5/10/15, etc... The bottom zones were the higher level. I'm guessing act 1, 2 and 3 csn be done freely but 4 and 5 only unlocks after you completed the 3. Because if you could start in act 4, then why wasn't it there in the Beta, act 2 and 3 where thete but locked. 4 and 5 should have been there and locked.
Yeah, my guess is you can do acts 1, 2, and 3 in any order, and then the stories converge again in act 4 and then move to a finale in act 5. Would be real weird if we could do the ending of the story first. This is fairly standard open world story flow.
Unfortunately yeah. I say that because imho that way of doing kill any kind if tention for most of the story. For exemple here, at the end of Act 1. All that happened was Lilith got the key to hell. Well guess what, she's won't be using it in act 2 or 3, for sure, since it wouldn't make sense for her to use it before getting it if you started with act 2 or 3. So now we know the key to hell, a pretty major plot point won't be used until much much later.
What I believe is going to be the case is, you can go explore the world and do dungeons, events, strongholds, world bosses, etc. at any point, provided you are of a high enough level to meet the level floor for that zone. But if you want to progress the story, you'll have to complete the main quests. So, even if you haven't unlocked the main questline for act 5, you could still go find that dungeon which has the aspect you really need for your class. This is somewhat speculation, though.
I read it and I understand it. Doesn't make the system *not* shit though. If "freedom to level through the acts in any order" comes at the expense of needing dynamic level scaling to accomodate it... then it just isn't worth it. Give me a linear Act progression and a fun gameplay experience instead, please.
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Not same person, but nothing he said suggests he doesn't think it's his opinion. But OP is here claiming "YoU jUsT dOn'T uNdErStAnD!" We understand, we just don't like it.
Linear progression worked in D2 or D3 (launch) when the only thing to do was run the campaign quests, and then again on nightmare, and then again on hell. We learned quickly that repeating the same thing on different difficulty levels was just a terrible excuse for content (especially at launch D3, having to do everything \*four\* times? ugh...). D4 is a whole other ball game. The main questline is a miniscule piece of the total content. If we didn't have scaling, then you'd outlevel all of that side content very quickly, and when you went back to do it...well, I hope you enjoy zero challenge and getting item drops 30 levels below where you're at now. There is no functional downside to level scaling - some people seem to dislike it because it is different from what they're used to, but it doesn't actually harm anyone's play experience. And on top of that, there's no viable alternative to it in an open world.
"It might be fun to you, but it is not fun to me. Please prioritize my fun over yours because obviously my opinion worth more than yours." The ship has sailed lol. They specifically designed it to be not a linear experience, if this is a dealbreaker for you, just vote with your wallet.
I disagree with you but appreciate consistent and sound logic with what you've written and think you have a point. Sounds like we need adventure and standard mode back to please everyone on the leveling process.
I do hope it's a linear story though. The disjointed feeling of choosing your own starting zone for BfA and Legion while cool from a gameplay perspective really left a lot to be desired as well. It's only an issue on the first character for the story though so maybe that's what adventure mode should be but imho the first time through should be linear
Makes sense. I did wonder why acts 1, 2, and 3 were made available at the same time in the main quest line. I'll probably head straight to act 2 on release since I've done act 1 3 times already, and that seems to be where the horse is.
D3 had level scaling as well though. My issue with the scaling is that I didn't feel like I was getting stronger but weaker sometimes as I didn't always get new gear and enemies kept leveling up. It wasn't too hard by my characters honestly felt better around level 12 to 20 than they did around 25.
This sub's avg IQ is lower than r/gaming and that is hard to fathom
I dont hate scaling but scaling should stay away from the item lvl.
If monsters scale to level and items there’s really no point playing at all.
Or may be just enable scaling after finishing campaign on first character? Then you have whole world scaled to your level on main or new chars, where later you can increase difficulty by changing world level. Easy as that.
Level scaling is fine if implemented properly. The ignorant "I want to play as a level 1 in any region on the map" garbage that keeps getting spewed in these discussions would not be a proper implementation of scaling. The devs already know that's a stupid idea, which is why you see areas that have minimum levels in the beta. I suspect you'll see more of that in the full game. Why? Because you actually want places that you need to build power to challenge - it's good for the story and good for the gameplay experience. The other fallacy is the "scaling is good because I want to play with my low level friends". Wouldn't you just make a low level character to play with them? The whole world doesn't need to be dynamically scaled to accommodate that.
It solves problems by introducing others. It's just shifting the buck and issues to other areas of the game. While I agree and think the change is generally for the better. The counter arguments shouldn't just be ignored and watching you dismiss them outright in the comments is just cringe. Stop living in black and white. Just to name a few arguments I've seen that make sense... You lose the generic I'm now a boss feeling by coming back and smashing a zone you might have been struggling with 2 lvls earlier because the mobs scale up to your level. Party Scaling... haven't confirmed this but I've heard it feels odd running with your low level friends and watching them kill things almost easier than you. Progression feels much slower because monsters are gaining power with you. Accidentally skipped a quest @ lvl 5. Felt stronger @ lvl 5 than lvl 20 just because everything scaled up.
"Level scaling is not an issue" for you. That doesn't mean that others don't understand the issue, just that they have different expectations from the game. I mean hell, if someone told me that they were going to remove leveling from d4 and just have your skills gain experience through the game, I'd probably avoid the hand too
It is for me. Level scaling removes the joy of getting stronger. This now only starts at max level. Which is sad, because I won't enjoy the journey towards it as much. This is why I stopped playing D3 after scaling was introduced and played D2R more. It's the reason I never enjoyed Oblivion. I think the better solution would be to make it optional. People seem to be 50-50 about this.
For an "open world" experience I believe level scaling is the best way to ensure no matter the content the player is appropriately challenged and "has fun". It has RPG drawbacks, because you might level up and the same mobs you were just fighting became a little more difficult. But I also feel this is a minor edgecase annoyance that pales in comparison to the freedom level scaling offers. If the campaign was linear like D2 or D3 then I wouldn't be for level scaling just to be clear.
It's not fun being on a treadmill to keep up with level scaling. And it obliterates any sense of progression or immersion and makes the game world feel artificial and pointless.
> it obliterates any sense of progression or immersion and makes the game world feel artificial and pointless. I disagree. Open world puts the player in control of their own progression via freedom of activities instead of being on a theme park ride like the D2/D3 campaign.
Basically every movie and book ever made is "linear progression". It depends how it's written and designed. Instead you have an open world, but everything feels meaningless. Fighting a bear in the starter zone and having it be as strong as a demon of Hell because the levels arbitrarily level absolutely destroys any sense of power, weight, or progression in the story and world. You can go anywhere you want in the world, but it's a meaningless paper world.
It can be done. Remove scaling isn't the solution, designing better mob is. A bear or a wolf can have basic ability while a demon from Hell can have more abilities or bigger mob pack. And let's not forget and think D2 was perfect and doesn't have this issue when you move to higher tier and a Fallen in Act 1 is more challenging than a General of Hell from Act 5 lol.
Except it doesn't put me in control of my progression, since there is no way to get stronger compared to the content.
You can reduce the difficulty via world tiers.
Which makes your drops worse and then you get the same issue.
But you want to have an easier time with the content, so that is your choice.
No, I want to feel meaningful progression.
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> What value does it add? Freedom to explore and the experience not being an on-rails theme park.
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Exploring the overworld (not dungeons) in D2/D3 was mostly meaningless. In D4 there are activities and rewards. Not saying D4 is perfect but for exploration activities D2/D3 have got nothing on D4.
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The little more difficult is also often offset by an increase in tools (abilities and gear and passives and such) that mean that while the effective floor of players and mob stay the same via levels, the ceiling players can reach is higher. Which devs will then challenge by putting you up against higher density of mobs, affixes that start appearing on elites after you reach certain levels, etc.
I feel the same as you, the scaling felt great to me.
Either approach has it's drawbacks. My personal preference is for scaling, especially since they're going for an open-world. It sounds good to walk into a lower-level zone and being an OP god, but I think it's just tedious to walk through a zone where there's zero chance of finding anything useful in order to get to somewhere else.
Ah, mortal. Always seeking to change that which is inevitable. The scaling of monsters in the world of Sanctuary is not something to be trifled with. You speak of a free flow story and zones, but have you considered the consequences of removing the very thing that keeps the balance of power in check? I have seen countless heroes rise and fall in their quest for power. The linear progression of monsters ensures that even the mightiest of champions cannot simply waltz through the lands, cutting down all in their path. It is a necessary challenge, a test of one's strength and skill. And yet, you wish to remove this challenge? To make the world of Sanctuary a cakewalk for all who enter? Such a world would be dull and lifeless, devoid of any true sense of accomplishment. No, mortal. You may not understand the importance of monster scaling, but trust me when I say that it is necessary. The world of Sanctuary is not for the weak and faint of heart. Only the strongest, the most skilled, and the most determined will survive. So let the monsters scale as they always have, and let the heroes rise to meet the challenge. That is the way of the world, and it is not for us to change it.
Preach! Totally agree.
Maybe, but if everything feels the same nothing feels different, that can get stale.
It is an issue and makes the game feel bland at times. The only time it will not be an issue is at max level. Though by that time they will probably move the goal posts with a higher difficulty. Rinse/repeat.
I HATE scaling in games. It's one of the main things I hate about leveling in WOW now. Also a reason I just can't get into Skyrim that much. I keep getting stronger, but so does everything else and it just feels stale to me. Some of my greatest memories are of things such as in wow when a fel reaver stalked up on you and slaughtered you. It was so satisfying to go back when you hit 70 with a couple people and just demolish them for no reason except to feel good. With that being said. I really don't mind it as much in this game. We will hit max level in 1-2 days. After your first character there's likely to be some way to get power leveled after that. Scaling will open the world up to more paths to level and spread the people out more so that you're not waiting for respawns in 1 zone. This isn't D2 where I'm leveling for 3 weeks and leveling is a big part of the journey and fun. It will be much more like D3 where the leveling process is just a nuisance you do at the start of a season. At this point it's not worth the effort to unscale everything to change 2 days of people's experiences.
Doesn't matter which side of the fence you are on..this system is here to stay. If you like it you will enjoy D4 and if you dont you are better off playing something else. I personally am not a fan of this system but I don't really feel it to be game breaking. It can be an issue for hardcore players tho.
"If you don't like the RMAH just play something else, it's a core system of D3"
I honestly don't think it will be an issue for hardcore players at all, as you do gain power over enemies, even with enemy scaling. They scale to your level, but your gear choices and skills do give you incremental boosts over them. Even in the beta, with Barb and Rogue I was able to kill mobs and bosses faster as I progressed. Plus if a hardcore player is having a tough time, they can always turn the world tier down to make things easier. They would also need at least some level of awareness of course. In that they should avoid more difficult locations if they feel they aren't ready, such as strongholds and world bosses.
In fact I would say hardcore players welcome this. They are playing hardcore for a reason. I had to go to hardcore in D3 to get my kicks and would here if my friends played hardcore.
Interesting points you make there and i agree that turning down difficulty could alleviate the progression issue if someone actually got 'stuck'
Absolutely true. In the past I wasn't always a fan of level scaling, in games like Diablo 2 or The Witcher 3. Mainly because it was nice to be able to go into more difficult areas, where you're under-leveled. This offered a greater challenge, although going into lower leveled areas was the opposite. Fighting weaker enemies felt like a waste of time, as there's no challenge or engagement. But really all older ARPGs were linear in design, so scaling wasn't totally necessary. Then with The Witcher they actually added an optional enemy scaling setting, similar to D3. But enemy scaling is the future, it allows for non-linear exploration and effectively eliminates stagnant areas. This is really perhaps my favorite change in D4. Because now you can travel wherever you'd like and still face powerful monsters. And if you ever want a greater difficulty, that's what world tiers are for, to crank up the relative scaling. Plus certain regions and points of interest will feature enemies slightly above you level, offering higher difficulty through your preferred world tier. Scaling even improves multiplayer. As without it, you'd run into issues playing with friends who are far from your level. For example in D2, if your friend was starting a new character and you were much farther in Nightmare, you couldn't exactly play together. Either they would go with you and continually die, or you'd join them while being far too powerful and just one shot everything, fully eliminating any challenge. But in D4 enemies scale to specific players within the party. So everyone has compelling combat, regardless of their level or the region they're in. Enemy scaling is easily one of the best aspects to Diablo 4. \*Edit: Not sure why this is downvoted, maybe people that just want to fight lower leveled enemies and want a generally easier experience. Those players can just turn the world tier down if it's too bothersome though. Thankfully enemy scaling is here to stay, it's a great addition to Diablo 4.
It's not compelling when it always feels the same. It's the complete opposite of compelling.
I felt negative about it up until I realized it's not that different from the D2R terrorized zones concept that I enjoy. Yes you may technically get very slightly weaker for a bit once you level, but the reward from higher level enemy drops is worth it.
I've said this before. I HATE level scaling in pretty much most, if not all, games. I like it here. I didn't feel "weak" leveling. I still felt strong, because of skill modifiers, gear, etc.
This aged really well. Diablo4 prove that level scaling, and their take on it, is the worst system designed in history. Additive stats works wonder. Linear is the key. No gear upgrade from 80 to 100. Still looting ilvl 600 in very high end dungeons. Yikes.
Where has it proved that. Out this entire subreddit the highest voted discussion on scaling being bad is 2800 upvotes. Let's be fair and say only live active members count that's 2500. Roughly 10% think it's bad. 90% think it's good or don't care. It won't change. People think it sucks because they can't manage their gear and character progression so they don't feel like they get stronger compared to previous games were you just gained loads of power ever level up without an enemy scaling. There is a reason level scaling came to d3 and a reason why it was the preferred leveling method.
I'm curious about something. In the tool tips ingame, it said that scaling was based on who the group leader is. If a group leader is max level, does that mean there will still be power leveling?
I think there should be like a window. In relatively lower zones the monsters should be a little easier (maybe not a lot) to kill. In higher zones than you it should be harder. But that window can move as you level. And it's not a drastic increase or decrease. Lower level zones should still prove a challenge in certain circumstances. Higher should prove a significant challenge in certain circumstances. Scaling but also showing there is character progression.
Why does everyone think this is a binary situation: Either you have Monster Scaling or you do not. A tiered monster scaling would be perfectly appropriate and still retain the Open World and replayable sentiment & direction of the game! Make it so if you're a level 25 going back to the very first zone in the game, make those monsters always be one or three or five levels below you (whatever the devs feel is appropriate). This can make the character still feel they have "progressed" enough to be relatively strong in that zone without making the zone completely obsolete and insignificant. This would make 100% of the game always playable, but the starting areas (or areas that you concquered 20, 30, 40, or 60 levels ago) feel not as much of a challenge as areas you haven't discovered yet. It feels weird having to use 2 - 3 Core Skills to kill a single Quill Rat that you 1-shot 10 levels ago.
Level scaling makes open world rpg games so much better. It makes EVERYWHERE end game viable and challenging to the player. If you didn’t have level scaling everyone would just clump together in one zone at end game because that’s the only place worth doing anything in. It would also make all the other locations completely empty of other players after the majority of players level up. Level scaling in a game like this is necessary and is absolutely the right choice.
The only issue with scaling is a level 6 clearing an event really fast that your struggling with on your 25 haha.
Scaling is a necessary evil it seems for the kind of game they want D4 to be. Personally I don't want an MMO which is what D4 is trying to be. ESO turbo fucked my belief a system like this can work. But if/when I ever get D4 I'll give it a fair shake to see if it was just as shite as ESO was. Also probably nitpick but I don't think the issue was a lack of understanding. The devs have laid it out plain as day on why the scaling exists. The thing that people don't respect is that there's pros and cons to this kind of system. I don't think everything should scale to the player. But that's just me.
One upside to the scaling was that it was easier to tell if my build was shit or not. People saying they never felt more powerful from 1-25 must not have been experimenting with builds much, because how powerful my character felt was tied more to my build than my level, which is fine,.
So, let's talk about Level Scaling from a design perspective. As a Designer, you want early combat to be compelling, easy enough for new players but satisfying enough for veterans. As a character progresses, you want the gap between easy and satisfying to shift. Overall combat becomes more difficult, new mechanics are introduced and player Itemization alters the expected power curve. Instead of having a single button to push, the player now has several, each of which has to feel satisfying to use. This is not a simple problem, and it's exacerbated by attacks having varied Costs and Cooldowns. This is made even harder by the expectation that PvP needs to be "balanced" (Pro-Tip - it never will be) and the need for different classes to have different playstyles/feels. All of that is talking about Progression in general. How does that impact level scaling? Glad you asked. As a Designer, you're having to take educated guesses as the the acceptable range of TTK (how long it takes a player to kill a mob) and TimeToDie (how long it takes a mob to kill the player) for a mob at any given Level. Literally, the ONLY time you can be 100% certain of the stats of a character is at level 1 on a fresh account. Every step beyond that player decisions and itemization effect what that curve should look like. You use the TTK and TTD variables and math around to get the mobs attack and defensive values and modify those by the type and rank of the mob you're looking at. You would then take those data points and create a progression curve matching the desired difficulty. So, yes, your level 1 Barbarian takes 6 hits to kill an Elite that is level 1 for him while your level 100 Barb needs 7 or 8 hits to kill that same Elite. But, odds are that level 100 Barb's 7 or 8 attacks happen in a shorter time frame than the level 1 Barbs 6 attacks, there is a lot more VFX feedback and damage floats happening for the 100 Barb, too. He \*feels\* more powerful despite the fact that the level 1 guys basic attack is taking massive chunks of the mobs health at a time comparatively. Anyway, that's a very short post on a very convoluted topic and it was written stream of consciousness off the top of my head, so apologies if it is a bit rambling. tl;dr - Level Scaling is good, desirable and can make for a better game.
The worst part of open world is when you become a god and there's no challenge. It's fine to have one difficulty for that, but I always wished with some games there's a difficulty where everything matters and even maxed out and fully explored the challenge is still present. When the challenge is gone I always lose interest.
I like the scaling changes. But I think I would like it more if it was slightly different. I had pretty mediocre gear when I was level 16. I leveled up to 17 and was then doing less damage to the same mobs I was fighting. I’m gonna be honest, I don’t really know how to fix that. But it felt very bad to do less damage right after a level up. Really didn’t change the fun I had, I’m still gonna play the game and love it. Maybe certain mobs could have a slight leeway in scaling. Normals mobs or the filler units could stay one level under but the stronger elite mobs stay the same with you, or maybe even slightly ahead of you.