Enemy Upscaling vs. Increasing Difficulty

[ahsanford]

I'm around L25, playing Story and Sword difficulty and I am a good 3-5 levels higher than the major plotline quests I am currently pursuing. Battles, contracts, etc. are getting quite easy as well.

The root cause is not the game being easy so much as I am OP due to doing side quests and leveling beyond the quests I am currently facing.

What's the best course correction at this point?

1) Only play plot quests -- no side quests or contracts -- until my level and the plot quest levels start to line up again?

2) Only do sidequests/contracts greater my current level.

3) Use enemy upscaling?

4) Turn up difficulty?

In truth, I guess I'm asking if I should do (3) or (4), and why you think I should do that vs. other options.

Thx
A

[spankautheros]

Play on blood and broken bones, feels like the perfect difficulty level for me. Also don't turn enemy scaling on, you will just kill the feeling of getting stronger that way.

[ahsanford]

Noir -- did just that and sure enough my first fight after that is a 2 v 1 fist fight, LOL

5 levels lower than me didn't matter as they mopped the floor with me.

- A

[spankautheros]

Originally posted by ahsanford:

Noir -- did just that and sure enough my first fight after that is a 2 v 1 fist fight, LOL

5 levels lower than me didn't matter as they mopped the floor with me.

- A

Ah, fist fights are bulljizzle at best: parry, heavy attack, rinse and repeat.
But that's the fun in blood and broken bones, you take a lot of damage even from enemies that are 8 or 10 levels under you, which forces you to make smart use of potions, signs, elixirs and oils. Also playing smarter at combat, waiting for enemy to attack, evading, and then delivering some hits, Dark Souls players feel at home.
I suggest you try that difficulty level for some time, see if you like it.

In my opinion, turning enemy scaling on is dumb unless you're almost at max level, you've done almost everything and all enemies are too underleveled.

[p00se2]

Originally posted by Noir:

Play on blood and broken bones, feels like the perfect difficulty level for me.

+1

its challenging and you still feel like a stronk witcher able to dish some good damage

[ahsanford]

So the pros-cons of enemy upscaling vs. difficulty raising are:

Upscaling:

Pros
1) game becomes more challenging
2) higher level dudes = higher level loot, more coin
3) quest experience might stay super low on a lower-level-than-you quest, but all fights will get you some experience

Cons
1) You can't one shot dudes 5 levels lower than you... because they no longer exist
2) Game becomes 'heavier' to slog through, random attacks are not 5 second annoyances anymore
3) If everything is leveled to your level, the perceived *value of leveling* is lost


Difficulty raising:

Pros
1) game becomes more challenging
2) If you want to feel powerful and steamroll much lower level dudes, you still can (though it is harder in general due to difficulty change)

Cons
1) Very little benefit in doing lower level quests -- little to no exp, dudes fought won't net you much exp
2) killing lower level dudes will net less exciting loot / less coin
3) Meditating no longer heals you


^^^ Did I get this right?

- A

[p00se2]

upscaling doesnt affect xp
i gained 1xp per kill on lvl20 mobs scaled to 30 on blood and sword difficulty
theres lots of guides/websites still saying you get more
but seems wrong

you can still 1shot when you know how to optimize for the big damage hits + crit
may be 1 - 2 hits or 1 and a half

not too sure about the rest and how difficulty affects things

[ahsanford]

Originally posted by 76561197962284653:

not too sure about the rest and how difficulty affects things :summeryeti:

I'm playing on Blood and Bones difficulty now -- can confirm that meditating does not heal. Looks like I'll finally work down that staggeringly large amount of food I've amassed over the first 25 levels.

This makes the 'food lasts for 20 minutes' skill (in the general skill tree) seem worthwhile. Virtually any food would fully heal you over time with that.

- A

[Sentient_Toaster]

Eh, at some point you'll probably have more healing options than you can exhaust between meditations. Like, aside from Swallow and White Raffard's, there's multiple decoctions (ekimmara and troll not requiring you to do damage to heal), and Golden Oriole becomes super-strong healing once you upgrade it to superior-grade and have at least one Devil's Puffball bomb left.

[ahsanford]

Ah, poisoning yourself to heal? Clever.

- A