Leveling Up is just bad?

[bun E]

I'm confused, is there supposed to be a benefit to leveling up?

I get mastery points from doing things in the world and contract things, which does make me more powerful, but everytime I level up, enemies level up the exact same amount, which is a net negative since my weapons don't level up along side me.

It seems to just be a draw when I spend resources to level up my gear as I level, but obviously its annoying to do that more than once every 3 or so levels.

Not saying the game is too hard or anything, I just think the way scaling works and interacts with leveling is interesting because it seems to just be a ploy to make you spend resources upgrading things and is using the idea that "my level went up so I must be stronger" from pretty much every other game to carry the idea that leveling up is good.

Almost reminds me of Oblivion where the game was easier at level 1 because of how scaling worked.

[5ean5ean]

Leveling up increases your base stats.

[bun E]

Escrito originalmente por 5ean5ean:

Leveling up increases your base stats.

As it does for the enemies too no?

[Weltall8000]

Escrito originalmente por bun E:

Escrito originalmente por 5ean5ean:

Leveling up increases your base stats.

As it does for the enemies too no?

Appears enemies scale once you get up to their level.

Great game, dumb, superfluous mechanic.

[5ean5ean]

Escrito originalmente por bun E:

Escrito originalmente por 5ean5ean:

Leveling up increases your base stats.

As it does for the enemies too no?

I mean your damned if you do damned if you don't. If enemies don't scale the game becomes a joke when a level 50 character stomps enemies that are still at level 10.

The only real solution is to just git gud.

[katzenkrimis]

Escrito originalmente por bun E:

I'm confused, is there supposed to be a benefit to leveling up?

Not saying the game is too hard or anything.

Reminds me of Oblivion where the game was easier at level 1 because of how scaling worked.

On the hardest settings this game is certainly most difficult at level 1. I died a hundred times learning how to play the game.

Now in the fifties, using a Kusarigama, nothing can kill me.

So, yes, there is a reason to level up. However, I levelled up so fast that I'm now well into my fifties with two provinces left to explore. It's not perfectly balanced, which is why enemies need a boost to keep up with you.

I level up my gear every time my character levels up. If you don't, it'll take too long to kill enemies. You want to be efficient in combat.

The way I see it, you get copious amounts of XP for doing the simplest of things. It doesn't always feel earned. That's the main problem.

Other than that, it's an Action/Adventure game. All Action/Adventures become too easy once you fill a skill tree. Witcher III became a joke once you hit level 15.

[Shin Happens]

The game does get easier the more you level up. Your gear and skills far outpace any increased health pools the enemies may have. Level 1 Naoe gets destroyed when she walks through the front door of a castle. Level 60 Naoe with mastery points waltzes into a castle through the front door, kills everyone and then has some nice tea in the afternoon.

The thing is: the more you level up and play the more engravings you will get and those engravings can make a huge difference and at times even be real game changers. If the enemies were not leveled up as far as health is concerned you would kill everything with one strike. Even so Naoe can kill virtually everything in 5-10 seconds (activate skill, have weapon and gear with proper engravings and merrily stab away and target will die in record time).

[ZemX]

Escrito originalmente por katzenkrimis:

Now in the fifties, using a Kusarigama, nothing can kill me.

So, yes, there is a reason to level up.

This is my experience in EVERY game that has level scaling yet somehow people complain about it in every game forum with this same idea that somehow leveling up is pointless if the enemies scale up too.

The point is all the new abilities you get. They generally always end up outpacing the level scaling to the point you're absolutely going to be much more powerful relative to the bad guys at max level than you were at level 1.

Every. Game.

[BrokeToRichAgain]

Bro, the game is easy, the leveling system is just outright awful. I have the game on my PS5 Pro, been playing since launch, and only have 20ish hours clocked in because it requires more effort than my actual real life job!!! I sometimes fall asleep while doing boring quests just to level up, and then when I level up the enemies are a dozen levels higher preventing me from finishing the story mode. I’m just gonna set the difficulty to the easiest so I can just finish the game. It’s a good game with BORING quests required to complete a fun storyline. I don’t have 100 hours to level up. If it was GTA 6 I’d play for 100 hours but riding around on a horse doing the same thing over and over? ♥♥♥♥ No

[bun E]

Escrito originalmente por 5ean5ean:

Escrito originalmente por bun E:

As it does for the enemies too no?

I mean your damned if you do damned if you don't. If enemies don't scale the game becomes a joke when a level 50 character stomps enemies that are still at level 10.

The only real solution is to just git gud.

I never said it was hard, I just said I think the levels are useless/placebo. Pretty much everyone is only saying that you get skills and engravings, but none of that has anything to do with leveling up, which is the subject of this discussion. Both of which you get from exploring the world, whereas I'm specifically talking about the level mechanic.

I still don't really get it, I think its just to nag you to use resources to level up gear, which is annoying but way better and less expensive than it was in Odyssey at least.

[bun E]

Escrito originalmente por ⓀⒾⓦⒾ‰:

you shouldnt upgrade gear at all until at least 50+ you get new gear constantly which makes anything youre using irrelevant within the hour

if you stop trying to micromanage your stats and play the game using what you get o the fly you might start to stress less about self inflicted issues

I pretty much only upgrade my stuff once every 5 or so levels. I play on expert and pretty much exclusively Naoe, found some synergy with vaulting and a Tanto that does weakpoint attacks multiple times and the game has kinda been a breeze since level 15ish? I'm not stressed about it, its a lot better than Odyssey was in terms of micromanaging and affording gear.

I just realized that everytime I level up in this game theres no obvious benefit, and there are immediate downsides.

[ZemX]

Escrito originalmente por bun E:

I still don't really get it, I think its just to nag you to use resources to level up gear, which is annoying but way better and less expensive than it was in Odyssey at least.

It does that but also a few other things. For one, it's a level gating mechanism that prevents you from visiting the game's higher level areas and quests until you've leveled up enough. In other words, it's a way of "earning" the end game.

Leveling up grants one Mastery point which you can spend on skills. So it's not completely unrelated. It's true most of your MP will come from other sources, but it's not nothing what you get from leveling too.

Lastly, and this may seem trivial, but level is just plain a measure of progress. You can call it Pavlovian if you want, but leveling up is a little reward granted for playing the game. People like leveling up.

Sure, they could have gotten rid of leveling entirely and then gone Valhalla's route with gear upgrades but I have to believe they didn't just go back to more Origins/Odyssey way of handling gear levels for no reason. Probably their data told them players preferred more loot-filled games like Origins/Odyssey over straight just collecting resources for upgrades like in Valhalla.

[Shin Happens]

Escrito originalmente por bun E:

I never said it was hard, I just said I think the levels are useless/placebo. Pretty much everyone is only saying that you get skills and engravings, but none of that has anything to do with leveling up, which is the subject of this discussion. Both of which you get from exploring the world, whereas I'm specifically talking about the level mechanic.

I still don't really get it, I think its just to nag you to use resources to level up gear, which is annoying but way better and less expensive than it was in Odyssey at least.

I believe the leveling system exists so you are forced to play regions in a certain order, making sure you get somewhat of an intended experience.

The skills you get via level up DO make a difference though, so I wouldn't say the level up mechanic is entirely pointless.

I mean, we've had this in basically all AC RPG games? Regions you technically speaking can go to any time you like but the levels of the enemies are so high you hardly make any damage and most can one shot you.

One could argue Ubi should find more innovative ways to make sure players have the intended experience and do not accidentally trigger endgame content or meet late game enemies early on.

Elden Ring had it pretty much figured out... just have the player meet some OP enemy that destroys you until you are convinced and think to yourself "ok, maybe I should not go there and level up first". Instead or putting arbitrary level numbers on the map. And even then they had the courtesy to allow players to circumvent boss encounters entirely to get access to other parts of the map pretty early. If you absolutely wanted to.

[5ean5ean]

Escrito originalmente por bun E:

Escrito originalmente por 5ean5ean:

I mean your damned if you do damned if you don't. If enemies don't scale the game becomes a joke when a level 50 character stomps enemies that are still at level 10.

The only real solution is to just git gud.

I never said it was hard, I just said I think the levels are useless/placebo. Pretty much everyone is only saying that you get skills and engravings, but none of that has anything to do with leveling up, which is the subject of this discussion. Both of which you get from exploring the world, whereas I'm specifically talking about the level mechanic.

I still don't really get it, I think its just to nag you to use resources to level up gear, which is annoying but way better and less expensive than it was in Odyssey at least.

Welcome to the world of Loot based RPGs. Literally every single one of them do it. Ubisoft is just extremely generous with skill points which is a good thing.

[Simbolic]

Had to do the same thing in ACO, some of my gear/weapons. I have upgraded 50+ times in a row.

[Mu'Ammar of Carthus]

Loving the game, but I'd love it much better without all this pseudo RPG nonsense, tbh.
Especially since it always comes at the cost of anti-immersive elements in combat, like a smaller combattant just magically poising through Yasuke's attacks to throw their own.