Never liked level scaling.. It's a lazy pointless mechanic (in most cases)

[Holy Athena]

level scaling is just a lazy function designed by game developers to make the world feel stagnant, and remove the time required to balance things, while giving a false sense of accomplishment.

Nothing more, nothing less. It doesn't actually add anything of value to games, but takes away from it. (In most cases).

Arguably Skyrim where the world should feel somewhat the same, but you're still getting more powerful is done just about as perfectly as level scaling could be.

But the argument then is.. why not just keep everything the same power? Literally.. Then throw in some more powerful weapons and you literally have the same feeling and outcome.

Games with "level scaling" and upgrades, are literally just smoke and mirrors to make you think you're doing anything of value, when you're not. Literally.

---------------

I'd rather have a game where some areas are harder, or easier based on my level, skills, equipment, etc, than just always being this stagnant "same power" even though I'm upgrading things.

This opens the doors for mechanics like loss of ships, back up ships, etc. being options, and other game play dynamics you never see.. Lost a ship? Go buy a new one, but you may need to go back to weaker area's to get back up to where you were, and be safer next time and better prepared.

That and hundreds of other interesting and fun dynamic game-play that could happen, but not possible really with this level scaling stuff that's flooding gaming.

But currently it's just giving a false impression that your upgrades actually did something, when they didn't. The game just just dynamically matched it. Nothing more, nothing less.

[Johnny Hazard]

Despite many here disagreeing with you, OP, I am also one of the "level scaling" haters.
I'm an old guy, from Dungeons&dragons background. I always hated when a DM came up with an "upgraded goblin" to match the players levels. The rules of D&D were very tried and true, and was obviously pointless and foolish to try and raise monster levels too much, instead of picking a tougher enemy, or using a proper and solid reason (like an ancient artifact that gave too much power to a weakling enemy). You don't have level 1 dragons. You don't have level 30 dragons. You have dragonlings, dragons, and MOFO ancient dragons that kill you with one breath. Their levels? Who cares? They are TOUGH, end-game enemies.
So yeah, you could have an elite goblin (goblin hit die+1) at most, but after that, it would be better to go for orcs, hobgoblins, owlbears, ogres, giants, etc...

In ES2, things feel always equal. If the player takes the time to dismantle everything and craft gear to match his level, he will always have a balanced gameplay. Never the feeling of overpower. It's different. It's not the old style RPG gameplay.
Only near the level cap, when the player finds red items, will he start to get an edge over the enemies.

[Cosmic Cat]

You both made some good points!

For me the current system both has upsides and downsides. It's nice to have a decent "challenge" at all times, but on the other hand it's very unimmersive and too arcadey (stuff like being able to see levels of enemies).
And besides even if enemies are same level as you, if you use a "cookie cutter" setup with optimal equipment, you'll still win easily.

I tried Freelancer a few years ago (that old cult space game classic) and it didn't use the same system at all.
Your ship, gear and skill dictated how well you'd fare in various systems. You couldn't see levels of enemies, but you could scan ships to see what kind of equipment they carried.
I wish they let themselves get inspired by this system instead, because it was a lot more immersive in my opinion. There was no arbitrary fantasy "level" for NPCs.

I'm still hoping that modding will be a thing here (like they hinted at earlier in the EA) so people can make whole overhauls to the game, everything from simple mechanic changes to thematic overhauls (Star Trek/Star Wars etc).
I'd also like to fly a larger ship than a strikecraft/corvette or whatever this class is.

[Pappy]

I like all the comments in this thread which are much more just conversational and not this is bad or that this is better, but I think one thing that is being missed is the fact that this game at it's heart is a looter/shooter, it's not an RPG. When you make a choice like that you have certain trade offs that simply can't be undone and one of the trades off is a little bit of that immersiveness you get in an RPG is removed for the more action oriented looter/shooter model. I understand that's not everyone's cup of tea but to think that the developers are going to go away from that decision at this point in the development is unrealistic in my opinion so at best what should be talked about is how can the developers keep the looter/shooter aspect of the game which requires the level scaling that has been introduced while still trying to make it as immersive as possible. That's what needs to be discussed, not removing the level scaling which is not going to happen.

[Johnny Hazard]

I'll point out examples here:
1- Diablo - Enemy levels were fixed to the quest/dungeon level. When a player reached the end of normal mode, he/she was probably an OP character. Then he tried Nightmare game mode, and all the difficulty was revamped to a whole other level. Then, in Hell mode, all bets were off. Crazy difficult game to beat in Hell, unless using very specific meta-characters.

2- Path of Exile - Like Diablo, it uses enemies with levels fixed to quest level. If a player reaches chapter 4, and returns to chapter 1, he/she will mow down through it like a knife through butter. BUT, at the end of normal chapters, comes the end-game. This end-game is full of crazy hard things- deep mines with infinite levels, heists, mega-bosses and their revamped zones taken from old chapters. These enemies scale to the challenge level, not the player, so, for example, if the player goes too deep in the mines, he/she will be in trouble, finding the same enemies but with bigger stats and resistances.
Heists are simply... impossible. XD Too much, too many, too crowded, cpu overhead, lag, and all the consequences of a split-second insta-death blow.
And once again, to go through these end-game levels, players need specific meta-characters, and REALLY good items, found or bought in the online market.

3- The Witcher 3, wild hunt - I LOVE this game. Despite that, it's an example of enemies and npcs level scaling to Geralt's level. Yeah, it keeps the game fun, but breaks the immersion completely. How in hell do the guards always have 10 levels above Geralt, and still wait for the witcher to solve the realm's problems?
Solution? Mods. I play it with a mod that settles the levels of everything. And then, the game turns to GOLD.

4- Skyrim - Level scaling. Yes. The stupid puny robber will be level 70 when you reach level 70. Draugr deathlords with ebony blades will kill you with one blow. Unless you "cheat" by abusing the game. So, you either go for uber-smithing and uber-enchanting, and build yourself a godly armor and weapon, or... you use Mods.
I play Skyrim with tons of mods, most of them for adding great content. But one does adjust the level of enemies and keeps them from level scaling too much.

As a resume. In all games with level scaling, I usually opt for mods that allow me to correct it and make it immersive. But, I don't have any issues with games that push you too high on the end-game.
I played Everspace 1 in all the difficulty levels. The only one I couldn't reach the end was the infamous hardcore, probably because there was no rogue-like strategy in it. It was just a hellish run into doom, with random handicaps to make it worse. BUT I played it. At least to say I tried. It's kind of the "dark souls" version for space shooters.

[Pappy]

Originally posted by Johnny Hazard:

1- Diablo - Enemy levels were fixed to the quest/dungeon level. When a player reached the end of normal mode, he/she was probably an OP character. Then he tried Nightmare game mode, and all the difficulty was revamped to a whole other level. Then, in Hell mode, all bets were off. Crazy difficult game to beat in Hell, unless using very specific meta-characters.

Yes the original Diablo was like that but with Diablo III it was changed to scaling mobs and they got rid of the antiquated Normal, Nightmare and Hell playthroughs and now you just have 1 playthrough where you can set the difficulty to what you want and arguably is better gameplay mechanics than the original. Very similar to what they are doing here, in fact I would say D3 is the model they are going after.

[Johnny Hazard]

Originally posted by Pappy:

Originally posted by Johnny Hazard:

1- Diablo - Enemy levels were fixed to the quest/dungeon level. When a player reached the end of normal mode, he/she was probably an OP character. Then he tried Nightmare game mode, and all the difficulty was revamped to a whole other level. Then, in Hell mode, all bets were off. Crazy difficult game to beat in Hell, unless using very specific meta-characters.

Yes the original Diablo was like that but with Diablo III it was changed to scaling mobs and they got rid of the antiquated Normal, Nightmare and Hell playthroughs and now you just have 1 playthrough where you can set the difficulty to what you want and arguably is better gameplay mechanics than the original. Very similar to what they are doing here, in fact I would say D3 is the model they are going after.

Alas, Diablo 2 was THE Diablo GOAT
But... I must say I had even more fun with Path of Exile. Until I realized there were "money-metas" to the end-game.

[Unix]

Originally posted by Starlet:

I tried Freelancer a few years ago (that old cult space game classic) and it didn't use the same system at all.
Your ship, gear and skill dictated how well you'd fare in various systems. You couldn't see levels of enemies, but you could scan ships to see what kind of equipment they carried.
I wish they let themselves get inspired by this system instead, because it was a lot more immersive in my opinion. There was no arbitrary fantasy "level" for NPCs.

This is incorrect. In Freelancer the player has a level, and the enemies do too, and you can see their level when you target them. This signaled to players if they were under-leveled for an area and enemies.
Your point about equipment is accurate though. The game didn't use level as fundamental way of setting enemy capabilities - it ultimately depended on the equipment that both you and the enemy ships had. There was, however, a level restriction on what gear and ships the player could purchase, so the player's abilities were limited by their level in this way. It was used to prevent the player from becoming too powerful for the enemies they were encountering as the main story progressed.

[Molly House]

I dont think level scaling is always a bad idea, the thing is with this game, early game its too hard but end game its too easy.

I had a really rough time early game, but once i got to max level I'm practically unkillable

[Corrupted Slime]

Originally posted by Johnny Hazard:

As a resume. In all games with level scaling, I usually opt for mods that allow me to correct it and make it immersive.

Me too and by 'correct' I mean REMOVE. I can't stand leveled worlds in RPG games, it DESTROYS immersion. That's why I only play Witcher 3 with Enhanced Edition mod and Skyrim with Requiem mod.

[BunBun]

I bought this game and refunded it because if level-based scaling. I was curious if it had been modded or fixed.

Feeling like you're getting somewhere when you upgrade, only to STILL be behind, sucks.

Guess not.

[Johnny Hazard]

Originally posted by Corrupted Slime:

Originally posted by Johnny Hazard:

As a resume. In all games with level scaling, I usually opt for mods that allow me to correct it and make it immersive.

Me too and by 'correct' I mean REMOVE. I can't stand leveled worlds in RPG games, it DESTROYS immersion. That's why I only play Witcher 3 with Enhanced Edition mod and Skyrim with Requiem mod.

This. I did the same. Mods are a Godsend.

[Last_Misadventure]

Yeah, i'd like to see enemies have better AI, ships, and gear instead of just being "higher level". Higher skilled pilots might drop mines, or use damage amps or hull repair kits as well.

It makes sense that a pirate ace is going to have accumulated higher end equipment. If you go after a corporate security ship, you'd expect it to be relative to whatever it was protecting. Some iron shipment? Yeah, they probably won't spend much on escorts. But a super rare, expensive cargo? They'd pay for quality pilots and give them the best stuff they had.
For gauging enemy strength, the scanner idea is fine. They could also add a relative ranking icon to the ship when you target it that would show if it were about even, much lower, or much higher than you. This game is stated to be arcady by the devs, right? So that seems like a reasonable compromise.

I'm liking the game so far, but I also don't care for most scaling systems. The equipment scaling especially bugs me. Maybe if you were super smart and had resources, you could modify a Thermal Cannon to hit a bit harder, or have a little bit longer range, etc, but not infinitely. Just like in real life, devices that are massed produced typically have some room for improvement. If I were king of the game, I'd replace the crafting system with a "tinkering" system. Fabricating a whole weapon system in space, in your tiny fighter? Yeah, OK :)

[LanceShields]

Replying here because level scaling is bad. This is a known thing. Each area should have a certain level and once you get strong enough, they become easy. What's the point of leveling up and getting better gears if all you're doing is playing catch up?

[Kamuflaro]

I partially agree, but I really like level scaling enemies. If I want to feel almighty I use my ULT.
I like the idea of having easier and harder areas by scaling enemy stats and also having easier and harder areas by scaling AI and enemy composition.
I also don't need to see the enemy level. A brief warning by HIVE that I am not supposed to be here would suffice.

[Xayc]

The developers took the easiest route using level scaling. And I have noticed that the equipment starts to quickly become obsolete from this, and there is no joy in getting a new item with the desired characteristics. Yes, I can level up an item with crafting, but it can only be done once and requires a lot of red components. So you have to either allow leveling up an infinite number of times, or completely redo the entire mechanics of the gameplay. Nobody will do the latter, but it is quite possible to work with craft.

Separately, I would like to speak about the ships. To get a ship with the right passive skills, and a beautiful appearance, I had to travel between systems several hundred times, doing the work of delivery and protection along the way. All because I wanted to get a beautiful ship, with the right shape of the fuselage and wings. It was very difficult, but in the end I was sitting in the dream ship. I'm afraid to imagine if the developers raise the level of the ships and this will have to be done again. I would like to see the ability to change the appearance before buying, it would be very useful.