Two questions state of the game upgrades and RNG

[thee.alemaozinho]

Hi,

I just started playing and read some reviews, thus I have two questions (answers on this forum regarding this seems to be some while ago, so I wanted to know, whether things have changed):

Upgrades: is it still true, to delay the upgrades as long as possible? And what counts? The highest level of my gear, or is it the average? I assume it counts for gear in possession, not only equiped. Do boss weapons count differently?

RNG: are there still the areas with heavy RNG, e.g. some merchant where 3 RNG conditions have to be fulfilled so you can trade with him?

Thx!

[ODTech]

Iirc it's the highest piece of gear you have level wise. Not sure about boss weapons.

The merchant in question is from swamps of coruses dlc Iskal queen quest line. Maybe read up on it, i'm not too clued up on the details of the merchant.

[Joreck]

upgrades: yes, enemies will scale to your level (Gear Score: visible in main menu, it's a weighted average of the most upgraded item of every weapon and armor equipment slot) whenever you enter a world for the first time. campaign has minimum levels too, which you can see here: https://www.reddit.com/r/remnantgame/comments/s7dqcy/comment/ht9beaj/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3

basically, upgrade whenever you feel underpowered. if you're really struggling at a boss, you can either overlevel yourself in the knowledge that it may be temporary, or switch to adventure mode to find more encounters, items and traits (enemies don't scale to traits).

As for RNG, there are still some outliers but it's usually not bad. I recommend that you play through the game as it is before worrying about finding one or the other item. balance is great and builds are varied. Once you do go about hunting down the last few items rng hasn't given you yet, there are tools and players with backed up saves to help you out.

[Joreck]

oh yeah, boss weapons count double - a +2 boss weapon is equivalent to a +4 regular weapon.

[thee.alemaozinho]

Thx for the answers.

I have to admit, the implementation of those 2 factors eventually took the fun out of the game, at least for me. I like to play solo only, so either there should be a sense of progression or interesting environments to explore. The first I don't really get (it is, in fact, encouraged not to upgrade the gear, I get it that I can upgrade traits), the 2nd I do not feel with randomized environments and copied assets / segments.

I did 2 dungeons in the 4th world, and I could clearly see the segments in the 2nd dungeon pieced together from what I had experienced in the 1st dungeon. That really made it completely uninteresting for me.

I can see that maybe this works well for multiplayer, maybe there these factors are less aggravating or even encourage players to stay longer for replayability.

[GenSec39]

Originally posted by thee.alemaozinho:

Thx for the answers.

I have to admit, the implementation of those 2 factors eventually took the fun out of the game, at least for me. I like to play solo only, so either there should be a sense of progression or interesting environments to explore. The first I don't really get (it is, in fact, encouraged not to upgrade the gear, I get it that I can upgrade traits), the 2nd I do not feel with randomized environments and copied assets / segments.

I did 2 dungeons in the 4th world, and I could clearly see the segments in the 2nd dungeon pieced together from what I had experienced in the 1st dungeon. That really made it completely uninteresting for me.

I can see that maybe this works well for multiplayer, maybe there these factors are less aggravating or even encourage players to stay longer for replayability.

Probably a year ago, or little less, I had a conversation on this forum with a man, who had the same "problem" as you. He, just like you, read reviews with above-mentioned issues, and somehow this situation totally discouraged him to actually play the game and have fun. "Problems" turnt into actual problems. He thought that he is playing not how it was intended or doing something totally wrong.

In fact, while there is indeed some truth behind these issues - their significance is absolutely overestimated. Yes, your gear level affects the world around you. But! - it is really important only if you are playing on highest difficulties and especially on that one with one life. I played entire game, and discovered that there is an issue with gear level only after I finished the game... from reviews and forums lol.

Is there RNG for events and items? Yep! But! - there is only one hardcore RNG based event with 3 conditions. Only one. Among dozens of other events, weapons, bosses and items to discover. Almost everytime you reroll the world - you find something new. Few events will require some luck, but that definitely won't ruin your life.

Verdict. Play the damn game. Stop overthinking about gear, RNG and stuff. Just play how you want, solo or co-op, explore, grind, test different builds, make different choices, have fun.

[FlynnTheFearless]

The game has a built in auto gear level up on any purple gear items such as sniper at the church every time you pick one up. Second it's best to throttle your level at a level you pre choose. If your twinking a level 5 gear score character youll struggle in campaign near corsus youll notice the enemies continued to level up beyond you. However in adventure mode they will continue to spawn at your level range no matter what level you are on what world you picked as your adventure. There is no RNG merchant you have to get 3 stars aligned thats purely for what sounds like queen graveyard and infector. It's a side thing to get the ring. Overall you should refrain from leveling any gear past 10 or 15 until your traits are all unlocked and most maxed. Level 20 is for maxed out traits which is why you always see level 20s run into level 1s games due to their inability to function in theirs. This also means they are heavily increasing the level of the level 1's game over the players ability. So don't do this. Items only auto upgrade to around 5 or 10 forget which.

[de.lorca]

Gear lvl is an average

technically yes it's a little bit more optimal to delay upgrades but it's such a minor optimization it's not worth worrying about, upgrade wenever you can is completly fine

as for the merchant RNG it's mostly salty completionist's yes some as in less than a handfull of secrets take a bit more effort to complete than most but they are secrets for a reason it's completly optional

[thee.alemaozinho]

Thx everyone for your answers. But, if you don't mind, that begs the question, at least for me:

If every zone adapts to my gear level, why having an upgrade system in the game at all?

I mean, the most I can achieve is a short term advantage in one zone / boss, where I got the first time and the zone level is fixed. Upon entering the next zone, every advantage of upgrading the gear is gone.

Or do I see this the wrong way?

[Deathwing Zero]

Most traits are percentage based. If your gun at level 0 does 100 damage, and you max out +damage trait so 20%. That's 120 damage. If the gun then does 1000 damage at level 20 then that's now +200 damage. Not counting enemy resistances and weak points. Basically, the power of your traits scales with the level of your gear. The two systems work together. The only reason enemies scale with you is so that you don't steamroll the game just because you went around Earth and broke a few chairs.

Also each area in the game has a _MINIMUM_ gear level. The boss at the end of the first world is 5. Do you NEED to be at gear level 5 to win? No, but it can help. You can ignore the person saying to never upgrade to +20. I typically have 1 or 2 weapons to +20 by the end of the third world. Upgrading evenly helps a lot.

So, can you outlevel and steamroll the game to triviality? No, not really. You can, however, get stupidly powerful. Combine that with a mod or weapon that applies corrosive to enemies and they fall apart just by you looking in their general direction. Ignore the scaling system. It's not a problem in the slightest. Unless you progress too far and don't upgrade your stuff. In which case you're in challenge run territory.

[de.lorca]

Originally posted by thee.alemaozinho:

Thx everyone for your answers. But, if you don't mind, that begs the question, at least for me:

If every zone adapts to my gear level, why having an upgrade system in the game at all?

I mean, the most I can achieve is a short term advantage in one zone / boss, where I got the first time and the zone level is fixed. Upon entering the next zone, every advantage of upgrading the gear is gone.

Or do I see this the wrong way?

no but you may as well ask why games have progression systems at all

[thee.alemaozinho]

Originally posted by seigneur.de.lorca:

Originally posted by thee.alemaozinho:

Thx everyone for your answers. But, if you don't mind, that begs the question, at least for me:

If every zone adapts to my gear level, why having an upgrade system in the game at all?

I mean, the most I can achieve is a short term advantage in one zone / boss, where I got the first time and the zone level is fixed. Upon entering the next zone, every advantage of upgrading the gear is gone.

Or do I see this the wrong way?

no but you may as well ask why games have progression systems at all

Well, in other games where enemy levels are fixed and make an upgrade, I usually feel the difference for the next few maps or so. E.g., enemies that took 3 hits now only take 1 or 2 until they are finished and so on. In this game, however, this effect lasts only until the next loading screen of a new map (I suppose going back to former maps will not change the level there). So this is what really bothers me, the very short term, that the upgrade only has seemingly an effect on the current map, and after that, it's all for naught.

But as was said above, since it also scales with traits, it is ok.

[de.lorca]

Originally posted by thee.alemaozinho:

Originally posted by seigneur.de.lorca:

no but you may as well ask why games have progression systems at all

Well, in other games where enemy levels are fixed and make an upgrade, I usually feel the difference for the next few maps or so. E.g., enemies that took 3 hits now only take 1 or 2 until they are finished and so on. In this game, however, this effect lasts only until the next loading screen of a new map (I suppose going back to former maps will not change the level there). So this is what really bothers me, the very short term, that the upgrade only has seemingly an effect on the current map, and after that, it's all for naught.

But as was said above, since it also scales with traits, it is ok.

fixed difficulty systems have just has many problems if you put them under the same lvl of scrutiny

[thee.alemaozinho]

Originally posted by seigneur.de.lorca:

Originally posted by thee.alemaozinho:

Well, in other games where enemy levels are fixed and make an upgrade, I usually feel the difference for the next few maps or so. E.g., enemies that took 3 hits now only take 1 or 2 until they are finished and so on. In this game, however, this effect lasts only until the next loading screen of a new map (I suppose going back to former maps will not change the level there). So this is what really bothers me, the very short term, that the upgrade only has seemingly an effect on the current map, and after that, it's all for naught.

But as was said above, since it also scales with traits, it is ok.

fixed difficulty systems have just has many problems if you put them under the same lvl of scrutiny

I don't deny that. But for me this is a matter of personal preference, how it subjectively feels to me.

[Yes, I have a Mic.]

Originally posted by thee.alemaozinho:

Thx everyone for your answers. But, if you don't mind, that begs the question, at least for me:

If every zone adapts to my gear level, why having an upgrade system in the game at all?

I mean, the most I can achieve is a short term advantage in one zone / boss, where I got the first time and the zone level is fixed. Upon entering the next zone, every advantage of upgrading the gear is gone.

Or do I see this the wrong way?

There are minimum levels for each area. So if you try to take on the final boss or the undying king without level 20 gear you're at a disadvantage. Its not about giving you an advantage, its about you avoiding a major disadvantage.
But yes, if you reach level 20 then all areas will adjust accordingly.

If you want the biggest advantage possible look up the minimum levels for areas and level your gear for the next levels minimum before you fight the boss for your current area.
One thing the game also doesn't adjust for is traits. If you increase your health, stamina, healing effectiveness, damage output, anything through traits then there is absolutely no adjustment made by the game for it.

Theres also the matter of synergies; the bright steel ring that sets your dodge to its fastest regardless of encumbrance is incredibly powerful when combined with leto's armour regardless of level. If you wanted to you could even top it off with burden of the reckless which gives you a default 25% health regen on a perfect dodge. Add the nightmare spiral that grants health when damaging enemies with firearms and I would say the undying king needs to abdicate the throne to you.