So how exactly does the scaling in this game work?

[Cha0zb0rn]

Hey,

I just played around a bit with cheatengine and realised something very depressing.
I dumped all scrolls into survivability and brutality and ran a tactics build while altering the tactics value too 30,40,50 and 99 after I had an iffiy feeling with the last bosses health. cuz even when I run a 20 tactics glasscannon build I didn't seem to get any dmg onto the boss.
Here is what happened: Even the weakest enemies were able to almost one-shot me while I was saved by some kinda mechanic that prevents instant death by leaving you at 1 hp. The more stats I put into tactics the stronger the enemys grew. I didn't reach the Hand but it is kinda obvious that something is very wrong with the scaling in general. Are the devs actually trying to force players into balanced builds? That would be extremely poor game design. Even the bosses HP scaled to a point. I killed the incomplete one at 40 tactics and it took way longer then it should have, almost as long as it took me with the usual 7-9 tactics I have at that point. I mean I dealt 40K crits at that point and he still took quite a few of those. The assassin at 99 Tactics was easier but still took a few hits. Yet both bosses instantly brought me to 1Hp when they hit me once. And I had 10 and 12 in brutality and survival when I fought the assassin....I really don't get what the devs are thinking....

I don't complain cuz I love to cheat so much, I got to the hand without cheating easily, but whats the whole point in building up single stats when the game punishes you actively for doing so? Bosses take the same % dmg anyway while only normal mobs seem to die faster. Yet everything becomes more deadly. That would explain y Survival builds are so successful, just outtanking the opoonents while they keep low dmg is viable yet the most boring playstyle I can imagine in a game like dead cells...

[KoUJkoDeBo4ka]

Yap, unfortunately scaling is a thing. And, as was discovered by someone before, the scaling values refreshes when You enter a new zone. The gimmic is, that mobs are scale to some extend to Your stats, that You have in the beggining of the stage. Thus, while You are taking scrolls and getting more damage, You are surpassing their scaling. But when You enter a boss room, the boss itself scales to Your stats. That's genuinely depressing, because You can't do 1-stat glasscannons anymore, because it cost You absolute perfection to not ever get hit, but the extent of time required to kill the bosses are relatively similar regardless of the build. Thus, the meta is highly forced to synergies, such as +n% damage on Burning\frozen\slowed\stunned\poison\bleeding target. While I can admire the change of pace, because this gives brutality and survival weapons a chance to shine and kinda balances them to at least pair with Tactics, this is still kinda fishy move from the developers. Especially if You take to consideration, that, as it seems, game have a tendency to give You dual-stat scrolls, that, more often than not, will offer You the choice between 2 of the off-stats wich does not benefit Your current weapon, thus, providing You with only HP, and in the same time provide enemies with both HP and damage.

[Cha0zb0rn]

We have a 4 tier difficulty scaling system in the game now, why is this still a thing? That would be the perfect opportunity to add fixed stats for opponents....

Can't be so hard to shift weapons and abilitys around so that all buildpathes have viable choices? Tactics have clearly the strongest tool at their disposal, bows deal the same dmg as melee weapons without drawbacks and the fire and forget turrets make most of the game a piece of cake until you get to the last boss where they suddenly deal no dmg anymore if you go glasscannon....on the other hand finding as good weapons,abilitys or granades in other pathes is quite difficult. Ice grande is nice but that's pretty much it. Not because the other stuff is weak but if you got to drop to a floor full of different opponents they wont let you survive or kill opponents fast enough, especially if you run a hybrid build. this leads to a forced speedrun system which sucks a lot. Guess i gotta wait for the full release and hope some things will change again in the future.

[nairobi]

They scale slower than you.

[KoUJkoDeBo4ka]

I started a clear save file just for lolz and science. What can I tell. Started from a scratch, got all the way to the Hand, died because of
1) On this brand first run I only got 2 upgrades for the healing flask, so only 2 chugs
2) Hand's 2-hit combo, where he swing his weapon once and then does a fast ground smash, is broken, because the first hit deals damage before the animation starts. Fix would be loved, I could've defeat him on the first try shall I not be smashed with this specific move for a three times.
It almost feels like on No-Cell difficulty the scaling is ok. I suppose, the problem with the scaling in the high-cell difficulties is caused due to the similar reasoning, why getting 30+ stats in one attribute makes weaponary busted. Because it always increase weapon damage for a 15% but not from a base damage, but the CURRENT damage. Thus, at some inescapable point the scaling goes nuts. And so does the scaling of enemies hp and damage, and not only because we take a ridicilous amount of stats for our damage increase, but the fact that enemies are scaling for both damage and hp for EACH AND EVERY BLOODY SCROLL. So, simply put, the way to outsmart the scaling is to go survival-based builds, because that way we both build damage and somewhat of a considerable amount of health, that allows us to actually par with the damage increase of the enemies. But each and every off-stat taken is a punisher in a long run.

[KoUJkoDeBo4ka]

Originally posted by alaah:

They scale slower than you.

Well, not the Hand, I would say.

[ChaosSabre]

The problem with that is that you are using Cheat Engine. That's the anti tamper mechanism. If you crank your stats so do enemies as well.

[Entropie]

Originally posted by ChaosSabre:

The problem with that is that you are using Cheat Engine. That's the anti tamper mechanism. If you crank your stats so do enemies as well.

Got any source for that claim?

[WingedKagouti]

Originally posted by Entropie:

Originally posted by ChaosSabre:

The problem with that is that you are using Cheat Engine. That's the anti tamper mechanism. If you crank your stats so do enemies as well.

Got any source for that claim?

I have personal experience with that, I have tried bumping all stats to/above 30 before entering an area and enemies started doing enough damage to 1-shot me with modified 30k+ health.

[nairobi]

Bul​lsh​it. If you pump your stats using res.pak or get 40+ stats legitimately, it's all the same as if you used CE.

[Cha0zb0rn]

The only anti tempering mechanic i'm aware of is that the stats get reset to it's original values as soon as you enter a new location, pick up items or pick up scrolls. I've read through a number of forums now and it's safe to assume that the stats are linked in a way and the basevalues are not easily accessible so they can't be altered permanently via memory hax (e.g. CE). yet altering the display values seems to affect the current levels dmg multiplier for players and monsters. Because of this it's pretty difficult to write a godmode script by altering the health display value since when you have "infinite health" bosses will have it as well. even if you boost the stats your health wont be affected in any way, only the dmg rises. Smells like a lot of sphagetti code to me.

[Entropie]

I would consider the implications for legit play more relevant though.
Does anyone know how the scaling works exactly or can link that here?

For example, it would be very relevant to know if enemies scale with your highest stat or the total sum of stats.

[KoUJkoDeBo4ka]

Originally posted by Entropie:

I would consider the implications for legit play more relevant though.
Does anyone know how the scaling works exactly or can link that here?

For example, it would be very relevant to know if enemies scale with your highest stat or the total sum of stats.

They scale with the total summ, as it seems. Well, I do not have any sort of data on that matter, but doing few experimental runs I found out, that game tends to give You twin-stat scrolls more often if You only bump one stat and skip the others. That is especially inconvinient when You are doing survival build, because survival gives You both considerable amount of health and damage, so You have less interest in picking up other things, especially if You are aware that this will hurt You in a long run. And I can tell, that, regarding the twin-stat scrolls, it was more often the asassin's scrolls, wich offers either tactics or brutality, wich I posessed no interest in gaining. That way it felt easier to break trough the enemies and bosses even. Seems like the enemies are scales with each stat You gain, and so it is more benefitial to focus hardly on one stat, and maybe bump the other one for some health, because in case of You trying to make a triple stat, You gain NUMBERS of hp, but that hurts Your damage output and survivability considerably. And another thing, as it feels, 30+ points into a single stat makes Your damage output quite insane, up to the point, where the enemies feels like they have less health, because of how much damage You're dealing. And also, as it seems, the meta changed in a way that You can burst enemy in the minimum amount of time possible by using either synergies, crit multipliers, or, more benefitial, both in the same time. That I found out on the Asassin. What I did is I got one run with spiked boots, that had only their flat damage, and then another one with boots, that gave Me +175% on frozen and +100% on burning. that gave Me an ability to wipe the Asassin out of existence BEFORE she even tried to shout her "let's finish this!". As it seems, the scaling considers your damage and stats, but it does not considers synergies and crit multipliers.

[nairobi]

Their dps scales by 9% per stat, and their hp scales by 8%. However, there are also secondary vars called MobScaleMulPerTier and MobLifeScaleMulPerTier, respectively valued 0.55 and 0.12, which are explained as follows:

Aucune idée de comment expliquer ça ici en 2 mots

Ask deepnight to explain this in more words.

[Entropie]

Not quite sure I get the secondary vars, is that just the scaling due to stage progression maybe?

Also, that seems like putting points into a stat that does not boost your damage will be uniformly conterproductive when the hp gain is less than 9% (and effectively counterproductive even ealier of course).

That seems like a really wonky mechanic to me.

[Shucks]

I dont know what you guys are talking about. Even on 4 boss cells im weak in the first stage, average in the second, overpowered in the third, than running over everything until the hand of the king who actually requires some sort of dodging since i basically one shot the assassin with literally every build.

Even if there is scaling they clearly dont scale even close to your power level since you one shot everything after the first 2 stages even elites on the hardest difficulty.