Is there Level Scaling like D4?

[moody]

?

[andrew.thiele]

No, each zone has a specific area level that doesn't change and the enemies in that zone are that level.

The only exception to this is in the Endless Arena mode, which will scale it's level according to your character level but will eventually out-level you as you progress through the waves of enemies up to a maximum of level 100.

[oldschooldiablo]

Originally posted by moody:

?

No thank ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ God. Lvl scalling like that doesn't belong in diablo like games. Everything just feels the same.

[6l3h22]

The moment I became aware of the level scaling while playing D4, I started to lose enthusiasm for the game. I'm glad Last Epoch doesn't have it. I like the itemization in Last Epoch better than D4 also. It seems much more inspired.

Maybe it's something I can get used to with D4, but first impression is level scaling just feels bad and kind of seems like lazy design. It's sort of like the difference between modern and classical architecture. I have more fun with DII, Last Epoch, and POE then D4.

Maybe they will make improvements to D4 eventually, but right now it feels like too much of a soulless corporate product.

[moody]

Thank God. D4 was absolute BS with how that level scaling crap worked.

[Vandal]

If you tried to take DIV even a little seriously, you collected all the Lilith statues to give you stat boosts. Plus, you had full renown to give you several skill points despite being level one. Due to dynamic scaling of enemies, you began killing anything in one or two hits since the stat bonus was tremendous relative to your level 1 stats. Then, as you leveled up, the boost in stats became less and less compared to the stats your level gives you. The exact same creature in the exact same location ended up dying slower than you dealt with it at level 1. Leveling PUNISHED you. Getting weaker while leveling up has to be the most backward mechanic possible in a video game. Come on.

I wonder how some of the mechanics made it into the game the way they did with this growth in weakness as you level being just one of many examples. Another one is all characters sharing the same stash space despite the need to store a metric ton of items for imprinting purposes. Good luck if you ever want to make another character. Your stash space per character decreases by 1/n where n is the number of characters you have. Just utter mystery they designed it that way.

Another example is the need to melt away all unused legendary items for crafting materials, which are 100% essential for you to put on any new gear you find that that is rare since imprinting uses these materials. The end result is that you cannot keep legendary items unrelated to your build around for experimentation. Basically, you MUST either theorycraft to know 100% what build you will use before using any build, or you must follow a guide online. One of these is essential since you will be melting away tons of legendary items to try out any build. And if you go with the first route, it will feel pretty bad knowing you melted everything needed in your new build if you figure you need different legendary powers in your build or if you want to change your build entirely during the iterative process of testing and theorycrafting.

They allegedly fixed it, but uber uniques being literally unfindable is yet another mystery in design. Who was like, "OK, we will have these items that literally only 3 people in the entire server will get by the time the season ends. Yes, even those streamers that play thousands of hours will not find them."

Another absurd design was the enchanting price. A top player can probably reroll an affix once every hour or something. I don't know the exact amount of time, but the price gets into the millions of gold per attempt. The entire community thinks the price is ridiculous. With uber uniques and these reroll costs, it's as if they knew there wasn't enough content, and they thought putting in a "play the game for 1,000 hours if you want anything near maxed gear [or in the case of uber uniques, you just never get them so play forever]" would pump up the numbers, so the Director of the Diablo Franchise can reference hours played and get a fat bonus despite the majority leaving the game with a bad taste in their mouth and perhaps even realizing they should never buy another Blizzard game ever again. To be clear, these types of mechanisms do work to make a game enjoyable. It's the magnitude of rarity they chose that just defies all reason.

Then there is the overworld situation. Corporate suits obviously decided that essential since running into people at random = higher chance of people buying cosmetics. But basically no one likes running for 2 minutes to get somewhere. The pushback was so intense they ended up adding teleportation right to your nightmare dungeon despite that going against corporate interests (i.e. cosmetic sales). That doesn't fix all the poison of this "design" choice *cough* corporate suit *cough*. You still need to run around it randomly to find materials to upgrade your potion. Horrifically unfun. Another artifact of that choice? Dynamic leveling itself so that people of different level can be in the same area of the map. Also, Lilith statues (which were HORRIBLE). Also, huge monsters crawling out of the ground rather than realistically just being there. It looks so fake and MMORPG rather than Diablo or ARPG. It immediately killed my buzz seeing that.

Another issue is the absence of being able to power level your friends. It has always been an honor and a right to play 8 more hours than your friend and then absolutely destroy everything to level them up. With dynamic leveling, that is impossible unless we are talking you made it across difficulty tiers. If you're level 35 and they're level 1... well since they have Lilith stats, they'll actually be power leveling YOU instead. Complete rubbish.

My final complaint is about the items. IMO, an ARPG is about seeing a sweet drop, equipping it, and feeling its power. Their design pretty much messes up every part of that equation. You never see a sweet drop. Instead, you have to examine 10% vuln dmg and 5% crit chance and 10% crit damage versus 8% vuln and 8% crit chance and 8% crit damage. There is no immediate and simply understood satisfaction of finding a huge upgrade of an item. And since everything is so damn smoothly determined by an algorithm (levels, items), you pretty much never find a huge upgrade ever. Everything is always like 2% more of everything you need. Then, they also mess up the part about equipping it. You don't just throw it on. You have to smelt enough legendary items to be able to imprint (it is worst right when you start getting sacred or ancient items as the costs jump massively. This is the time when the equation of a good ARPG should have you foaming at the mouth, but they put a blockade there of course). You then have to find the item in your stash, extract the legendary power, and then imprint it. You're not done yet. You also have the upgrade it at the blacksmith, which takes even more smelted legendary items to do just to extra ♥♥♥♥ you over if you are into experimentation of builds. Boy, does it feel bad to find a better base and not have the materials to use it. You then have to farm and farm to find those materials. To sum, rather than the recipe discussed at the start of this paragraph, you have literal work ahead of you in terms of deciding to use the item, preparing the item, and finally, putting it on. I think it literally takes like 15 minutes to straight all that out, assuming you have the materials. Otherwise, it takes hours of farming after you already farmed the "awesome" rare that is only 3% more vuln damage compared to your last item.

There is simply no way to fix DIV. Most of this stuff is set in stone. It is the very base of the game. They'd have to release an update that removes the overworld to make progress toward fixing the issues and decide to redo the imprinting system. Not going to happen.

I don't work at Blizzard, so I can only guess. However, I would guess the main cause of all this is too many cooks in the kitchen with some of the cooks being crooks -- corporate suits that used psychological studies to design a cash cow rather than an earnest, enthused game designer creating a work of passion. I can just imagine a person happy they get to make DIV being told some of the design is set in stone by the corporate suit upstairs and to design around certain mechanics. I can also imagine, with a corporation that big, multiple people with differing ideas (even if legitimately enthused and earnest) coming up with ideas in isolation from each other and some higher up picking whatever without thinking of the end result, and as my little write up exposes, some end results were not thought about at all by leadership. That's because as you go up in pay, you're more likely to find someone whose pastimes include drinking 20-year old whiskey, popping a US$5,000 bottle of wine, golfing, going to the opera with their wife, and going on vacation to Hawaii or Paris with their family rather than sitting at a PC and playing a video game for 5 hours straight. They just don't know what they're doing, yet they have all the power.

[mayrc]

Level scaling is the worst you can do in any RPG. Because it totaly defeats the whole point of character progression and getting stronger.

[RodHull]

Originally posted by Vandal:

If you tried to take DIV even a little seriously, you collected all the Lilith statues to give you stat boosts. Plus, you had full renown to give you several skill points despite being level one. Due to dynamic scaling of enemies, you began killing anything in one or two hits since the stat bonus was tremendous relative to your level 1 stats. Then, as you leveled up, the boost in stats became less and less compared to the stats your level gives you. The exact same creature in the exact same location ended up dying slower than you dealt with it at level 1. Leveling PUNISHED you. Getting weaker while leveling up has to be the most backward mechanic possible in a video game. Come on.

I mean first of all no. It didn't.

If you were levelling in any sort of decent way you always far outstripped the generic world level content with gear and paragon bonuses. If your level 50+ character was killing things slower than level 1 then its a you problem, you built bad and were punished accordingly. Last Epoch on the other hand allows you to build bad and still reach end game. This is confirmed by the developers, Mike himself admitted you can deliberately 'build bad' and reach endgame (cause under the clever looking math its a terribly broken system)

What's even more fun is in LE cause their system is so oddly designed they had to jury rig difficulty into the end game, they do this with a trick called dynamic damage reduction. So rather than being honest and scaling the content, they do it the other way by dynamically reducing the damage you do to bosses as you start to do more. Again this is confimed and well documented. Look up Ravenkids thread on the subject its excellent and a real eye opnener.

Originally posted by Vandal:

Another absurd design was the enchanting price. A top player can probably reroll an affix once every hour or something. I don't know the exact amount of time, but the price gets into the millions of gold per attempt. The entire community thinks the price is ridiculous. With uber uniques and these reroll costs, it's as if they knew there wasn't enough content, and they thought putting in a "play the game for 1,000 hours if you want anything near maxed gear [or in the case of uber uniques, you just never get them so play forever]". To be clear, these types of mechanisms do work to make a game enjoyable. It's the magnitude of rarity they chose that just defies all reason.

Rerolling was addressed in latest patch, much cheaper now. Uber uniques are now farmable with targetted boss runs. They listened and fixed both issues. Unlike EHG who have bugs and issues remaining for years they haven't addressed.

Again odd you find this so egregious but let LE off for doing the same or worse. Do you know the drop rates of the best items in LE?? They are in the words of the developers only 'theoretical items people aren't supposed to find'

Side note about power levelling I'm glad it was nerfed its a cancerous way to play these games.

Originally posted by Vandal:

My final complaint is about the items. IMO, an ARPG is about seeing a sweet drop, equipping it, and feeling its power. Their design pretty much messes up every part of that equation. You never see a sweet drop. Instead, you have to examine 10% vuln dmg and 5% crit chance and 10% crit damage versus 8% vuln and 8% crit chance and 8% crit damage. There is no immediate and simply understood satisfaction of finding a huge upgrade of an item. And since everything is so damn smoothly determined by an algorithm (levels, items), you pretty much never find a huge upgrade ever. Everything is always like 2% more of everything you need. Then, they also mess up the part about equipping it. You don't just throw it on. You have to smelt enough legendary items to be able to imprint (it is worst right when you start getting sacred or ancient items as the costs jump massively. This is the time when the equation of a good ARPG should have you foaming at the mouth, but they put a blockade there of course). You then have to find the item in your stash, extract the legendary power, and then imprint it. You're not done yet. You also have the upgrade it at the blacksmith, which takes even more smelted legendary items to do just to extra ♥♥♥♥ you over if you are into experimentation of builds. Boy, does it feel bad to find a better base and not have the materials to use it. You then have to farm and farm to find those materials. To sum, rather than the recipe discussed at the start of this paragraph, you have literal work ahead of you in terms of deciding to use the item, preparing the item, and finally, putting it on. I think it literally takes like 15 minutes to straight all that out, assuming you have the materials. Otherwise, it takes hours of farming after you already farmed the "awesome" rare that is only 3% more vuln damage compared to your last item.

There is simply no way to fix DIV. Most of this stuff is set in stone. It is the very base of the game. They'd have to release an update that removes the overworld to make progress toward fixing the issues and decide to redo the imprinting system. Not going to happen.

Just wait till you find out that the best items in LE have 1 in 16 Quintilian drop rates (no joke) and that better yet they aren't even needed cause the game is so busted you can run endgame content naked cause most of you power comes from skills and simply 'not standing on the bad'

But yeah have fun with your odd double standards.

[mayrc]

dont even know what you talk about..... at the very second you put lvl scaling into a RPG its dead. Why even discuss around this? You dont need a bachelor to realize that level up heroes is pointless if all enemys level with you.

Everything else doesnt matter anymore at that point.

[Ravenkid9266]

Originally posted by mayrc:

Everything else doesnt matter anymore at that point.

I guess the other end is levels are meaningless on monsters and you can oh I don't know jump into monoliths as soon as possible because those levels don't translate into anything meaningful.

[RodHull]

Originally posted by mayrc:

dont even know what you talk about..... at the very second you put lvl scaling into a RPG its dead. Why even discuss around this? You dont need a bachelor to realize that level up heroes is pointless if all enemies level with you.

Everything else doesnt matter anymore at that point.

You don't understand how power accumulates in D4 and that's ok, just say that.

See in D2 this wasn't an issue, the game was designed as a linear experience and only in time did it take on cult status with people finding end game content where there was none. That doesn't fly these days, these days games like POE, D3/4 etc are designed around endless play. There is no way to do this realistically without scaling enemies. Even Grim Dawn the most old school of all ARPGs understood this and retroactively added scaling enemies into the game. And people who understand those games either don't mind or prefer it, leveling beyond a certain point stops being a source of power (in a well designed system) and instead your power is gained from perfecting your build, be that through skill synergies and clever interactions, or simply amassing better gear.

Now D4 has its issues, but the scaling is not one of them. The scaling is actually done really well imo.

To circle back to your comment, only in a system where gear is near meaningless would scaling be an issue. And LE fits that bill perfectly.

[TheLightningYu | Mike]

Originally posted by mayrc:

dont even know what you talk about..... at the very second you put lvl scaling into a RPG its dead. Why even discuss around this? You dont need a bachelor to realize that level up heroes is pointless if all enemys level with you.

Everything else doesnt matter anymore at that point.

I disagree. I would get this point if we would talk about a more traditional singleplayer RPG, very linear and it's more about the playthrough and finish the Campaign than longterm. I mean Open World RPG esp. if it's build around Sandbox still can profit from Levelscaling, because if you don't and set fixed Levels per Area, you kinda kill the purpose of Sandbox (freedom) and transform it to a theme park experience where you go a very linear progression Route. But anyway back to ARPG's / Hack'N'Slay / Diablo-like: Games like this often are build around Longterm and replayblity. How much Value or Worth does a World have, if you are limited from (mere fictional example to get my point across) 6 huge areas to 2 Areas, because 4 out of them are way to underleveld, you don't get any good loot drops anymore or exp (and they have to balance it that way, because who would struggle through high level areas if he would get the same reward for lowlevel trash area? simple balancing) and are very limited to do your farming routes / where you play.

And that's where level scaling comes in, it keeps all areas at all time relevant, don't force you in certain endgame modes you might not enjoy and overall enrich it by giving you more choices. Like as example: Grim Dawn, which is imho one of the best Endgame on the market, but it doesn't focus solely on a single thing, like let's ay - greater rift like in diablo 3, but you can decide - do you farming routes in each acts, boss-runs, secret bosses or nemeis, crucible (mode) or shattered realm(mode). And despite mobs leveling with you, it doesn't make the concept meaningless cause it still effects highly how you can fight monster... compare level 1 with monsters at your level versus max level with monster at your level and there is a huge difference considered how many (and what )skills you have access to, passives and such, plus Gear is one of the biggest influences anyway. And with that you really feel progression because you stomp based on your build and not based on a mere number cause outleveld.

I mean maybe it shouldn't be forced but rather a option or bound to difficulty (so everyone can opt out who really can't stand it), but i find level scaling esp. for games like Diablo and such especially important because it gives the world more value and replaybility and doesn't lmiit you so much; so any good ARPG kinda should have it.

[RhodosGuard]

I have always been a friend of level scaling, even though I can admit, it doesnt fit certain games.

I think the most important example of this, at least for me, is Dragon Inquisition of all things.
Basically, the game was built without level scaling. Each Area had Enemies of a certain level, and if you did them in certain orders, or aimed to complete them one after another, you'd run into things like: "This sub-area of the map is filled with level 15 enemies" or on the other end of the spectrum:
"This entire map was conceptualized for level 10, too bad you are already level 20"

And while I am likely to accept the first instance (basically telling you, that this area will become relevant later, I hated the second one. It meant that experiencing the plot/quests of an area boiled down to 1-2 shoting all enemies.

But, DA:I had what they called "Challenges" which you could enable, that would randomly add additional items to your stash in exchange for a higher challenge. One of it was always scaling enemies to your level, which meant you could do the areas/maps in any order you want to, without outscaling it and it becoming boring.

I think it really comes down to what you are looking for.
A lot of people are looking for a "power fantasy" where they are gods that just press 1 button to screen clear. And while I can see how this is appealing, my very own experience tells me, that there are also people who are immediatly bored by this.
I want my power fantasy to mean something. It should be earned, not given, and especially it shouldnt be an illusion that is created by not matching yourself against content reasonable for your progress.

Me absolutely dominating in an ARPG should be down to me having built well, knowing my capabilities and knowing game mechanics, not the game saying "here are some level 1 enemies, have fun little timmy"

[Koala 4peace]

Originally posted by RhodosGuard:

But, DA:I had what they called "Challenges" which you could enable, that would randomly add additional items to your stash in exchange for a higher challenge. One of it was always scaling enemies to your level, which meant you could do the areas/maps in any order you want to, without outscaling it and it becoming boring.

That was a cool addition. Pity that the game was mostly empty outside of the story missions.

I think that level scaling could be a good thing depending on how it is implemented. I rather have a small scaling with limits on each zone. But it is one of those things that are hard to make it work.