Item and enemy level scaling rant

[Pred]

This has been brought up before, but unlike I'd want to state it.
I'm really into this game but trying so hard to force myself into exploring and doing side quests.
I'm lvl 22 and I'm doing everything I've left undone at Velen. But 99.9% of the time the rewards are worthless, seriously. Not just talking about side quests, but undiscovered locations, and even those places that are hard to find and don't have the question mark on 'em. I'd like to have a new armor and weapons now and then. The stats don't have to be amazingly good, but they don't have to be amazingly bad either, which they are.

I get level 10-15 gear in which the only worth of it all are a few crows the vendors give me for them. This gives me a feeling that it's all useless and a waste of time of course. It also tells me that I should've done all this before, and it's too late now, but that's just horse ♥♥♥♥, what kind of an RPG whould do this, especially Witcher 3, which has overwhelmingly lot of content? Why should I do stuff on this game if I'm not rewarded sufficiently? It's one of the golden rules of game designing to reward players satisfyingly and keep them interested!

Then there's the enemies. Like I said, I'm in Velen, and as level 22 most of the enemies are ridiculosly easy, about level 2 to 10. This wouldn't be a problem either if the enemies would scale with you. And then there's enemies that are ridiculosly difficult, you just fight them for a while and you'll realize that it's impossible to defeat them at this point, even with all gear and oil and potion you have, unless I was incredibly good at dodging and had the patience of a buddhist monk, and wanted to waste 15 minutes in the enemy, so in theory, every enemy is defeatable. Like a random 30 or so leveled Grave Hag, at the very west of Velen. This wouldn't be a problem either if they scaled with me, this particular enemy could still prove a challenge but be a fair fight.

I know the reason for this of course. The game has an MMO type world level scaling. The level of enemies, quests and items are set, they don't scale with you. With the exception of SOME items. WHY PUT THIS SYSTEM IN A SINGLE PLAYER GAME? Why not use the same old progressive level system that nearly every other modern open world RPG uses (Skyrim)?
All it does is render all the stuff you haven't done fast enough, completely boring, worthless and a waste of time. This game has such rich side quests that it's an enormous waste because you're getting rewarded for nothing. And THIS is definitely my biggest problem in this game. Any one else feeling like ranting in the comment section? Please do.

[jclosed]

I don't need instant gratification to enjoy an quest. The quest itself is the reward. If every place you discover would give you better stuff, you would get an insane level of gear within an few hours of game play. You just cannot get better stuff every time again and again.

Face it - just like in real life you sometimes have to work hard for an lousy reward, and sometimes you are just plain lucky and find a real gem. But even stuff that's worthless for you can be sold for sometimes an nice price (and sometimes not, but hey... that's life you know).

The same goes for the level of enemies. Sometimes you have an easy job and beat the hell out of those foe's, and sometimes you have bad luck and you get slaughtered. Tough.. but again.. That's life..

So - no. I have no problem at all with finding useless low value stuff. It makes finding real good stuff so more rewarding. Yes, you have to work for it and have to be lucky, but I think I would not enjoy this game as much if I always get the best reward for anything I do..

[Vladimir Taltos]

There is a mod to set custom exp levels. Im doing a playthrough with it now and i have not over-leveled a single quest yet. It is eaisily adjustable too, so you can tweak it to your liking whenever.

[jclosed]

Originally posted by Papanak:

Witcher 3 is awesome.
But it is an open world RPG with MMORPG mechanics made by developers of linear open area RPGs...
You can imagine why this is a problem.

Well - if you know an better way?
And please don't say someting like (enemy) level scaling, because that's about the worst solution, and gets boring as hell fast.

[Coco]

as much as i like to disregard complaints about this game, i fully agree with you.

too bad the developers wont listen to the steam forums.. try to post this thread on the official cdpr forums and maybe youll get somewhere.

best regards

[Exarch_Alpha]

Yes the levelling up of weapons is awful/idiotic/annoying (choose bad word). But impossible to change at this stage.

Regarding enemies I beg to disagree a bit. Levelling up ALL enemies is bad and besides you are´nt supposed to go back to ALL areas in Velen, but only the ones you still need to do something. If you aren´t using fast-travel and insist to fight level 5 wolves, you are doing it wrong.

[Pred]

I said the gear doesn't have to be amazingly good, but it doesn't have to AMAZINGLY BAD either. Just something so I could change my gear now and then, have some variety, and not to mention the aesthetics. Everyone wants their Geralt to look cool :P but that's beside the point. It's also a little silly that you find armors and weapons everywhere but as I said, like 99.9% of them are getting sold as junk. The main problem is indeed the scaling, the MMORPG system. But that can't be changed anymore. Just have to sweep every area clean when I venture in to the next one, if I'm having another playthrough. Just like you'd do in MMORPG. No sense going back to the old level 1 zone doing quests you haven't done before when you're level 50 or so on. But there's a reason this type of system exists, it's meant for multiplayer, because level scaling wouldn't really be possible if there were more than one player in the world.
But that's the part I can't fathom. Why use this system in a singleplayer game?

[Pred]

Originally posted by Exarch_Alpha:

Regarding enemies I beg to disagree a bit. Levelling up ALL enemies is bad and besides you are´nt supposed to go back to ALL areas in Velen, but only the ones you still need to do something. If you aren´t using fast-travel and insist to fight level 5 wolves, you are doing it wrong.

Level up enemies that are too low for you and level down enemies that are too high for you, just to keep a slight balance, not to make it easier. That's the scaling I was talking about.

I insist on going to undiscovered locations and doing side quests and contracts. That's all I insist.

[Revolucas]

Then what is the point in having levels at all? May as well be no character progression and skills are given to you as you progress the story.

[Pred]

Originally posted by ๖ۣۜRevolucas:

Then what is the point in having levels at all? May as well be no character progression and skills are given to you as you progress the story.

It's called progressive leveling system. Skyrim for example does this. There's a lot of coding involved. But to put it simply, the trick is to keep the game balanced, not too easy, not too difficult.

[Pred]

Papanak, what the ♥♥♥♥ are you smoking?
All games, as you said, are "based on numbers".
All games are done by "just writing down a code based on numbers".

[Pred]

All games are lines of code. There is no alternative :D
You're talking about level up systems in general, right?

[Duncan]

Originally posted by Pred:

All games are lines of code. There is no alternative :D
You're talking about level up systems in general, right?

He talks about numbers being hidden from player. In this case enemies are differentiated visually or with different names, tags etc.
When numbers are on the surface, enemies are differentiated by plain numbers next to their names, its kinda boring.

[Pred]

Originally posted by Duncan:

Originally posted by Pred:

All games are lines of code. There is no alternative :D
You're talking about level up systems in general, right?

He talks about numbers being hidden from player. In this case enemies are differentiated visually or with different names, tags etc.
When numbers are on the surface, enemies are differentiated by plain numbers next to their names, its kinda boring.

Of course, understood. But that's just the way RPGs are. Stats, levels, buffs, classes and what not. I think this is digressing.

[Exarch_Alpha]

Originally posted by Pred:

Level up enemies that are too low for you and level down enemies that are too high for you, just to keep a slight balance, not to make it easier. That's the scaling I was talking about.

I insist on going to undiscovered locations and doing side quests and contracts. That's all I insist.

I´d agree if you were forced to fight enemies ten levels higher than you.

You aren´t.

The game has issues but that one is only on your head. All open world games have stuff that becomes trivial and others you have level up before facing.

Just as it stupid to have basic steel sword gain "levels", so is making wolves level 30. So one thing the game does right, the other... it doesn´t.

[Pred]

Originally posted by Exarch_Alpha:

Originally posted by Pred:

Level up enemies that are too low for you and level down enemies that are too high for you, just to keep a slight balance, not to make it easier. That's the scaling I was talking about.

I insist on going to undiscovered locations and doing side quests and contracts. That's all I insist.

I´d agree if you were forced to fight enemies ten levels higher than you.

You aren´t.

The game has issues but that one is only on your head. All open world games have stuff that becomes trivial and others you have level up before facing.

Just as it stupid to have basic steel sword gain "levels", so is making wolves level 30. So one thing the game does right, the other... it doesn´t.

I want to quote something I googled because I'm lazy:

"At its core as a design choice, level scaling is meant to keep the challenge of the game at roughly (EMPHASIS ON "ROUGHLY") the same level from beginning to end. In theory, as the player character grows in power, he or she should be able to tackle increasingly powerful enemies; the game will make adjustments based on the character's current level, thus maintaining an even playing field. "

Of course these rules should be maintained within reason. Not bandits or wolves becoming unrealistically poweful beyond absurdity. All I'm asking is a little balance, this game has little of it, because it uses the MMORPG leveling system. At the core of the problem we should look at rewards from quests, and the enemies associated with the quest, unlike the random wolves you mentioned, I agree with you on that. There shouldn't be a "suggested level" for quests. The quests should scale with you to keep them enjoyable, challenging and fair. So you wouldn't have to worry about doing them later.