Do you like the item scaling system?

[TouPoutsou]

Do you like the item scaling system?

First of all i want to thank CDPR for delivering one of the greatest RPGs of all time, since it has many aspects of the RPG subgenres(Narrative, sandbox, hack 'n slash) and it does them all from decent to amazing. It is the first game that achieves that in my book. Other games have tried, like Kingdom of amalur, and have failed for the most part.

Now to the point, how you guys feel about the loot scaling system? I have mixed feelings about it. On one hand, i think it is a good way for somebody to costantly find some upgrades, especially if he is mainly focused on the main quest, and does not bother too much about exploration and crafting. On the other hand it contradicts what Developers said, about the best gear being available through crafting. It also in a way makes crafting useless, since in 1-2 levels, your crafted gear will become useless by some random loot you will find, or even buy. Even the elite witcher weapons, which we' ve been through hell to collect, craft and upgrade them, in terms of damage, by the time you will finish the main quest and be level 35+(currently 37) become inferior to random weapons i find in caves, or even just being sold by merchants(which is weird to say at least).

Personally i feel that item scaling should stay in the game, since without it, the game might face balancing problems, but i beleive some adjustments should be made, in order for crafted gear, which are much harder and more expensive to get, and they do not scale, overall to be superior in general. An idea would be for not crafted gear to not have any rune slots at all, and the extra features(like crit damage etc.) to be able to roll only about half the value of crafted weapons. Also items should not scale beyond level 30 at this state of the game(which of course should change when an expansion is introduced, or an NG+ option).

 

[Tangsta]

Yeah I agree the Witcher gear should be the best in the game, bar none. A scaling system is fine but they need to allow Witcher gear to scale with level as well.
Still, I'm going to wait for the mod that makes the starting armor the most badass in the game, since it's still the best looking armor, imo!

The weapons I'm actually fine with, since I think Geralt can output plenty of damage as it is. I'm actually finding I have to switch back to level 1 weapons to get a decent fight out some bosses and creatures. I'm playing on Blood n Bones and the enemies in this game can hit really hard, but rarely have the HP to match.

 

[Tuco]

Yeah I agree the Witcher gear should be the best in the game, bar none.

I strongly disagree, on the other hand.
I think it should be a competent end game option, as it is, but ideally there should even more powerful and well hidden treasures in some remote area of the world.

Oh, and no matter how I look at it, I don't like the scaling loot a single bit. Not in concept/lore, nor in practical gameplay-related terms.

Actually, more in general , I think the game could work better in man yways with a more "horizontal" growth rather than the "vertical" increase in power you now experience scaling levels, but that's probably a long discussion to have and this is not the thread for it.

 

[Smurfin]

That's why I prefer if The Witcher 3 is like a Zelda game where there is no level, everything is balanced from the start and pure against AI, no distraction of getting better weapons or other stuffs. Then put powerups around places.A sword is a sword, sure some swords are of better quality but it can still do the job no matter how damaged it is.

 

[Tangsta]

Perhaps they can have sorceresses like Yennefer or Triss temper armor to make them more powerful? I think aesthetics plays a large role in battles, as shallow as that sounds. For many, looking the part is just as important as battle proficiency so a way to improve your 'favourite' armour might be the way to go.

Taking on a Elemental Golem in pantaloons just doesn't sit right with me.

That's why I prefer if The Witcher 3 is like a Zelda game where there is no level, everything is balanced from the start and pure against AI, no distraction of getting better weapons or other stuffs. Then put powerups around places.A sword is a sword, sure some swords are of better quality but it can still do the job no matter how damaged it is.

Even in Zelda there are weapon upgrades and combat progression. You get better swords and shields as you progress, as well finding new equipment.

 

[Vatt_ghern]

I think there is too much magic/unique weapons and armor to be found, game feels like Diablo at times. It takes away from the uniqueness of the loot when you find something unique in every other treasure chest. The Witcher set treasure hunts are fine but the random stuff you find should be scaled back.

 

[Smurfin]

Even in Zelda there are weapon upgrades and combat progression. You get better swords and shields as you progress, as well finding new equipment.

Yea, but it's due to progress, and enemies in the next area of interest is already scaled to the new weapon damage or other upgraded items as well. Or the previous area is now made easier at a fixed value with the new sword, with level, once you reached 35, lv 5 wolves became sheep.

 

[trae]

I don't like the item scaling, but stuff like that can't be considered in isolation, it's part of the overall power scaling.

I strongly dislike the kind of exponential power progression, where gaining N levels makes you A[SUP]N[/SUP] times more powerful. This leads to silliness like a high-level item/creature being 50 times more powerful than a similar low-level one, which makes absolutely no sense, fantasy world or not. But more importantly, while it seemingly makes it easier for the devs to balance encounters, in reality it just completely screws up the impact of both difficulty settings and player skill, because any difference in either can be made up just by leveling up a couple of times.

I feel like loot and power progression have been totally blown out of proportion in modern RPGs, and because of that, the players have been forgotten. It shouldn't be just the main character's power level that unlocks access to late-game content, but the players getting better at the playing the game. And this requires that there's vastly less drastic difference between a high-level character and a low-level character (or item or enemy or whatever).

Just in comparison: in Baldur's Gate 1, a basic sword dealt 4.5 points of damage on average. A totally awesome, end-game sword would deal maybe 7.5 damage on average, that's a difference of 67%. I don't even dare to calculate the difference in TW3, we're talking about completely different orders of magnitude.

 

[Tangsta]

Yea, but it's due to progress, and enemies in the next area of interest is already scaled to the new weapon damage or other upgraded items as well. Or the previous area is now made easier at a fixed value with the new sword, with level, once you reached 35, lv 5 wolves became sheep.

The problem I have with this system is that it requires a lot of balancing for each area, which is fine for a Zelda game but incredibly difficult for a massive open world. Witcher 3's balancing system requires you to take note of level requirements for weapons and enemies. I prefer this method since it respects my intelligence enough to let me figure things out on my own. Levelling up is a reward system, that when done well, is miles better than being cuddled all throughout the game, no offence to the Zelda games, which I do love. It's also a means to control the pacing of content, much like how Zelda is designed, but this system provides more control to us as players.

I think W3 manages to pull off a fine balance between item customisation and skill-based combat. It'll just require more tweaking since it is a more complex system.

 

[Smurfin]

The problem I have with this system is that it requires a lot of balancing for each area, which is fine for a Zelda game but incredibly difficult for a massive open world. Witcher 3's balancing system requires you to take note of level requirements for weapons and enemies. I prefer this method since it respects my intelligence enough to let me figure things out on my own. Levelling up is a reward system, that when done well, is miles better than being cuddled all throughout the game, no offence to the Zelda games, which I do love. It's also a means to control the pacing of content, much like how Zelda is designed, but this system provides more control to us as players.

I think W3 manages to pull off a fine balance between item customisation and skill-based combat. It'll just require more tweaking since it is a more complex system.

That's because of level, and Gear level requirements, without all that we can just do any quest anytime anywhere on the map which suits the open world theme. Instead we have to keep track on the level warning shown on each quest while actually we can do any of them in any order as we like if the game isn't a level based game.

But TW3 is made with level based in mind, so like you said it requires more tweaking, as long as it's balanced then it's all good. I ever fought a high level endrega or something and it took me soo loong but I enjoyed it. It felt good dodging and rolling its attack patterns and finally killed it. That's probably a good example of a working 'balance'.

 

[TouPoutsou]

My main problem is why bother getting into all the trouble finding a diagram and crafting it, since in like 2 levels i will find random loot that will completely outclass it. Also at level 37 i can find swords that completely outclass witcher swords in terms of damage, while they also have rediculous extra features like 80%+ crit damage and even 3 sockets.

Also there is a problem with the Cat swords. Griffin and bear swords are pretty build defining if you wanna build around signs or adrenaline accordingly, but cat school? They do not give much. Some crit chance(low to justify the use of it), a specific sign increase intensity and some bleeding which is useless, since most cat users will spec into the guaranteed chance to bleed anyway. Cat school is basically the rogue gear, so it should give really high amounts of crit chance, or some insta kill chance as an example. If you are focused on melee DPS character, all witcher swords are being outclassed in the endgame by loot possibly guarded by 5 drowners, and that's a downer really. Developers should stick with they original plan, which was the best gear to be crafted.

 

[Smurfin]

My main problem is why bother getting into all the trouble finding a diagram and crafting it, since in like 2 levels i will find random loot that will completely outclass it. Also at level 37 i can find swords that completely outclass witcher swords in terms of damage, while they also have rediculous extra features like 80%+ crit damage and even 3 sockets.

Exactly, I just stick to one Griffin set and ignore the rest, there is no point anyway, the weight limit also doesn't support collecting stuffs, unless they give us stash.

 

[Akimb0]

Weapon (Item) Scaling ruins the game for me [New loot = worthless]

Not sure if this is just OCD about wanting to be the most efficient or wanting the "best" loot or what, but basically finding new "named/legendary/relic" items that are worthless due to scaling kinda annoys me...

Woo, I found a named weapon!

It's 4 levels below me and worthless...Woo I found another named weapon...It's 3 levels below me and worthless...

And so on and so forth.

I end up wondering what the point of me finding loot, that isn't a schematic is? It's always going to be several levels below me, therefore too weak to be of any use...

I killed an enemy 8 levels higher than me, recieved a weapon 4 levels lower than me...at least have the items scale to my exact level please!

Even if it was a higher level and I had to wait to use it, that would be preferable.

But what if I want to use a weapon at a higher level because I like the mods on it...e.g. Harvall and its burning? I can either loot it early, or I have to save before I loot anything, see what the item is, then decide if I want to go back later in the game to scale it? Oh but wait, it would still scale below my level and be useless...

So a few ideas:

1) Have gear scale to your current level.

then

2) Have a function on smiths to upgrade a weapon to your current level. (So you can keep that sword you like all the way through the game, this would also be a retroactive fix for existing playthroughs.)

 

[Exentryk]

Equipment scaling and level lock out is the worst design choice in Witcher 3.

 

[Sigma_Primaris]

Not sure if this is just OCD about wanting to be the most efficient or wanting the "best" loot or what, but basically finding new "named/legendary/relic" items that are worthless due to scaling kinda annoys me...

Woo, I found a named weapon!

It's 4 levels below me and worthless...Woo I found another named weapon...It's 3 levels below me and worthless...

And so on and so forth.

I end up wondering what the point of me finding loot, that isn't a schematic is? It's always going to be several levels below me, therefore too weak to be of any use...

I killed an enemy 8 levels higher than me, recieved a weapon 4 levels lower than me...at least have the items scale to my exact level please!

Even if it was a higher level and I had to wait to use it, that would be preferable.

But what if I want to use a weapon at a higher level because I like the mods on it...e.g. Harvall and its burning? I can either loot it early, or I have to save before I loot anything, see what the item is, then decide if I want to go back later in the game to scale it? Oh but wait, it would still scale below my level and be useless...

So a few ideas:

1) Have gear scale to your current level.

then

2) Have a function on smiths to upgrade a weapon to your current level. (So you can keep that sword you like all the way through the game, this would also be a retroactive fix for existing playthroughs.)

That feeling when you found a big unique relic sword at the end of a dungeon that is ~20 dmg stat weaker than the basic (but also relic level) sword you just stole from a dead Witch Hunter...

Completely agree with you.

 

[moonknightgog]

No, I don't like the scaling system.
I completed the quest related to Hattori, a level 24 quest when I was level 15.
And I got a level 15 sword.....

...

I throw it out because a Novigrad generic sword was more powerful than that....I don't know even why I did that quest, at this point...

 

[riotamus]

I find the entire item leveling system the most disappointingly bland and incongruous part of the game.

 

[DPVenom]

I don't like it mostly because unless you play the game in a certain way it becomes boring and unrewarding. I salvaged countless relics and unique items simply because, at the time of me finding them, they are completely useless to me. As i've said before I am not too keen on the whole "avoid level scaling like the plague" philosophy because it doesn't work so well in open ended games unless it is very carefully used and it is not in The Witcher 3.

 

[AVMC]

What is it the Skellige swordsmen say? "A sword isn't worth shite if a weak arm's swinging it."

I think the auto leveling really is an attempt to keep that true, but it doesn't quit hit the mark. I discussed this with another poster in another thread and they were very insightful about it. [can't remember the name, will edit if I remember, sorry!] I think the problem is that the enemies scale to such huge numbers of armor and health. It'd been better not to scale enemies up so high and not use huge amounts of health and dmg output as the "difficulty". Then you wouldn't have to scale a weapon just so you can keep up.

There are ways of increasing difficulty by increasing monster tactics and techniques... that way, as you get better at the game, you constantly run into differing techniques that make you think about what to do. Not just dodge/roll, attack, dodge/roll, attack....

EDIT: Forgot to say I'm mainly referring to Death March...

 

[Sainur]

I'll give you a pretty sad example, was fighting a level 13 Foglet boss yesterday in the Velen swamps as part of a quest, I was level 10 myself and playing on Death March. You'd think you would get a pretty decent reward, but noooo, what do I get? A level 7 sword and useless armour vendor trash. Whoopty fucking doo.