Please Explain Leveling Items & Zone Difficulty

[Scorpion62]

Hi everyone. Can someone give a brief overview of what leveling up weapons -vs- armor -vs- stats does and what effect those upgrades have on a zone level?

Also, any basic recommendation for a new player as to what not to do... i.e. - don't level up just 1 weapon to max as it will do xxxxx, or similar.

Thanks in advance for any advice.

[Pia'sharn]

From what I played, it seemed best to focus on upgrading whichever two weapons you were most comfortable with, and either the shotgun or coachgun, because you'll find cases where it seems like that is the only thing that will do any kind of respectable damage to certain enemies/bosses. Similarly with the armor, just kinda pick a set whose bonus you like best. I wore the ex-cultist stuff through the whole game, for example.

You'll hit a ceiling eventually with upgrades. Meaning, there is a maximum level to weapons and stats. So, if you play the game a lot, you'll eventually just be able to upgrade whatever you want.

I don't feel qualified to get in depth on the specifics of stats though, or their impact on zone level, as I sorta just quit playing at some point before the end. Hopefully someone else can weigh in on that.

[SapphireSouls]

Your highest upgraded item = your gear score, which in turn determines enemy difficulty.
Traits/total trait level DO NOT affect enemy level in your world.

Basically as you said, don't rush a single weapon/armour piece in upgrades. Upgrade evenly and enemy level won't spike

[belangf]

Like Sapphire says, your single highest equipment decides the enemy level. However it is important to always upgrade at least one equipment from each slot to the same level (long gun, short gun, armor, helmet and boots). Loot drops are calculated based on the average gear score, which is the highest from each slot in you inventory (not necessarily equipped).

Upgrade require different types of iron:
+1 to +5: iron
+6-10: forged iron
+11-15: galvanized iron
+16-20 hardened iron
This is important because the next tier of Iron only show up in loot when your average equipment is high enough. For example, you won't get much Hardened Iron unless you have one of each gear at +15.

By the way, Boss weapon (crafted from a Boss item) can only be upgraded to +10, but the actual gear score for that item is double the indicated value.

There is also a minimum enemy level for each area. For example the last boss of Earth will be at least 5. The final boss of the game is about 12 minimum, I think. You can reach the last boss with +20, but there is really no advantage because then it will just be scaled to +20.

[pcdeltalink]

So I won't repeat what the others have said but rather add what no one has mentioned so far for some reason.

If you toggle advanced stats in the menu screen you'll see an offense and defense thing in the bottom left corner. This tells you how your gear is compared to the area you are in.

Red arrows pointing down indicate that your gear is underleveled for the current area. Green arrows pointing up indicate you are overleveled. Having a grey bar and no colored arrows means your gear is where it should be.

I only upgraded my weapon, and only by 1 level, if it showed I was underleveled. For defense being underleveled I tended to ignore it (unless I died a lot) or I would only upgrade 1 piece of my armor, never all 3 at once. Reason I ignored defense is to try to keep scaling lower as long as I could and you're not supposed to be taking hits anyway.

Even now after all the time I've put in this game I think my highest weapon is still only +14. Armor I think might be around +10 (I use basic Hunter Armor).

[Diaboliko]

There was some reddit post which Im sure one can easily google. Things which were told you here are misleading.

Oh there it is
https://www.reddit.com/r/remnantgame/comments/crs0i3/level_scaling_information/

[Scorpion62]

Thank you every one!

[Iddin]

From Leto's Lab update patchnote

Added limited level classes to avoid getting overleveled gear in Adventure Mode and other people's games

From Diaboliko's reddit link

EDIT: We are making adjustment to co-op scaling so I'm holding off on explaining it until those changes are in. However, that stuff is coming very soon, so please be patient! =)

Maybe the devs can chime if they did make changes with gear/level scaling, maybe update the post on reddit since it is pinned on the the subreddit sidebar, meaning everyone will refer to that, even if it is no longer revelant because of updates pushed.