Level scaling ruins the game

[Bloodartist]

I didn't know 2.0 was adding level scaling, but that's like the BEST POSSIBLE THING THAT COULD HAPPEN TO THIS GAME.

I'm ALL for it. Thank you CDPR for eventually finding your way. Of course, I'm a proponent of fully level-less systems, but level scaling is the next best thing.

OFC the original Cp2020 rules and CP red rules don't have levels in them. For any UNEDUCATED PERSON who thinks that levels have something to do with roleplaying games or progression in general.

I hope this is the start of something wonderful if CDPR takes uses this in their other games in the future. CDPR has been really conservative in their ways, but that is not always a good thing. Its far easier to balance games when characters don't have an artificial "boost everything" buff added to them every once in a while in comparison to the game world. It also allows you to fully "go anywhere" in a game world because all the enemies will always be an appropriate challenge.

I'm waiting on phantom liberty and bugfixing before I fully invest into a new playthrough, but level scaling was wonderful news and I'm confused it wasn't advertised more. It completely changes the game experience from "on rails" (players are herded by different level areas) to "full freedom".

 

[moonknightgog]

It's more realistic

Oh yeah, it's very realistic when you have low level gang members suddently become super hard to kill with insane health and armor because they are encountering a max level V. Or the opposite, Arasaka and Militech members with low health and almost no cyberware because they are encountering a low level V. Or when to kill somebody you need to shoot them in the head 4-5 times.

Post automatically merged: Sep 23, 2023

Its far easier to balance games

Level scaling doesn't introduce balancing, it just flattens the difficulty and progression curve by making all enemies the same strenght of your character, regardless if it makes sense for them to be. Imagine Kingdom Come Deliverance having silly bandits become as strong as Cumans in the late game. It's a disaster.

 

[Wenceslaus]

I personaly hate it and consider it extremly anti RPG mechanic unless you play DIablo or Borderlands.
In my opinion, it push the game more towards generic procedural looter shooter. It makes combat bullet sponge and feel slightly ridiculous.
End game V with best chrome should just steamroll over most of the enemies. High level locations should be there for challenge.

CP2077 seems strangely divided to me. On one hand there is 1st person only perspective, focus on story, enviroment and all to support immersion at maximum.
Then combat starts and the game mechanics that feels extremly gamey makeing the first part fade away.

I would not say it ruins the game in general though. There are a lot of people who want more skill/metagame even in expense of less PRG/authenticity.

Can't imagine I will play with this thing on and I don't want to miss on the expansion. Hope this is moddable at least.

Level scaling doesn't introduce balancing, it just flattens the difficulty and progression curve by making all enemies the same strenght of your character, regardless if it makes sense for them to be. Imagine Kingdom Come Deliverance having silly bandits become as strong as Cumans in the late game. It's a disaster.

Actually, events in KCD did have this to some degree. That is why sometimes 3 peasants could kill you in late game.
Open world bandis did not though.

 

[Notserious80]

I would say a on/off setting would probably be best. Everybody gets what they want..

 

[TroyVi]

Character progression is a very important element of the RPG genre. It's the journey of your character going from total rookie to master, and traditionally this reflects on the difficulty curve. You start the game with an incompetent character and everything is difficult, then you character become more and more competent and things become increasingly easier. The pre 2.0 Cyberpunk was like this. Your V starts low level and combat and stealth and netrunning are hard, and then V increases in experience, buys more and more cyberware, and everything become easier. There's a very good sense of progression in there.

But level scaling ruins it. Now every enemy is as competent as V regardless if it makes sense for them to be (gonks like Valentinos can stand their own against a level 50 super augmented V). It completely removes the sense of progression, it makes V's abilities feel weaker and the enemies become bullet sponges. As a result the game feel samey and it flattens the difficulty curve. It's a dirty way of bringing balacing to the game, regardless if the game actually needs it.

It's an horrible decision and I hope it will be made optional in the near future.

Agreed. Thought I knew what to play this weekend. Instead, I'm waiting for a mod or some option to have fights with different difficulties. Both easier and harder enemies depended on the type of enemy.

 

[Hypie]

I dont understand what the "easy / normal / hard / very hard" option is for if the enemies scale with you anyway.....

 

[LeKill3rFou]

I dont understand what the "easy / normal / hard / very hard" option is for if the enemies scale with you anyway.....

Hum... In higher difficulties, enemies deal higher damages and likely have higher health too. So level scalling doesn't change anything for the "difficulty" itself. In easy, at the same level (your level) enemies are "easy" to deal with (low health / low damages), while in very hard, they are more difficult to deal with (high health / high damages).
Seem obvious to me

 

[Zaphier]

RPG's that need level scaling are mostly bad designed. I play action games if I like to have all enemys on same "level". Make it at least optional in case people like level scaling like in racing game some people like that cars wait for them or are close behing them. It is the point of a RPG to grow stronger as your enemy and one sign to see that is the level difference.

 

[Hypie]

just threw 3 blades headshot into a normal gang member, he ran up to me looking like something from nightmares and 5 more bullets into the head where needed. yeap level scaling seems awful.

 

[-Nailes-]

I dont like level scaling.

Part of the game is levelling, when I reach level 50, the game is mostly over. I'll go back and hit the lower level enemies and see the progress of the character, feel really powerful and then start a new playthrough. Because usually once I've reached level 50, aside from an ending, there is nothing more for me. By the time you reached level 50, you've done at least three quarters of the gigs anyways.
If all the enemies just rubberband alongside you, there is much less of e progression feel. You never really grew and became stronger. You are nothing special which goes in against the idea that V becomes a living legend in NC.

From a purely gameplay perspective I understand level scaling, from a roleplay perspective its bad and destroys the immersion. I'm glad Bethesda gradually gave up on it and sad to see it introduced here.

If I want a challenge, I'll go straight into high level zones after doing the heist(to get V's car for example).

 

[R001c]

Anyone remember that other time when we argued this the other way round?
I've been a role player for a long time. There is no right answer to any question. Gaming is not a religion there is no credo, no testament and there is no dogma.

EDit: I will say this though; there's a lot less room for cheese in the combat system now.

 

[Sleggow]

"Very Hard" does not mean all enemies scale to your level.

"Very Hard" means AI with better reactions, more damage and higher health (not bullet sponge) at their respective levels.

 

[gabeee19]

Character progression is a very important element of the RPG genre. It's the journey of your character going from total rookie to master, and traditionally this reflects on the difficulty curve. You start the game with an incompetent character and everything is difficult, then you character become more and more competent and things become increasingly easier. The pre 2.0 Cyberpunk was like this. Your V starts low level and combat and stealth and netrunning are hard, and then V increases in experience, buys more and more cyberware, and everything become easier. There's a very good sense of progression in there.

But level scaling ruins it. Now every enemy is as competent as V regardless if it makes sense for them to be (gonks like Valentinos can stand their own against a level 50 super augmented V). It completely removes the sense of progression, it makes V's abilities feel weaker and the enemies become bullet sponges. As a result the game feel samey and it flattens the difficulty curve. It's a dirty way of bringing balacing to the game, regardless if the game actually needs it.

It's an horrible decision and I hope it will be made optional in the near future.

Please, an option to turn off the level scaling!!

 

[LeonidLoren]

Absolutely in love with the 2.0 update. I'm playing on very hard and have no problem killing enemies whatsoever. People think that enemies scaling to your level makes them somehow equally as powerful as you which is not the case at all. The player will always remain stronger. This sounds more like a skill issue. I suggest you keep playing and get more familiar with the update or lower the difficulty.

 

[GrimReaper801]

Absolutely in love with the 2.0 update. I'm playing on very hard and have no problem killing enemies whatsoever. People think that enemies scaling to your level makes them somehow equally as powerful as you which is not the case at all. The player will always remain stronger. This sounds more like a skill issue. I suggest you keep playing and get more familiar with the update or lower the difficulty.

This mostly stems from other games which definitely did level scaling wrong.

Say you look at a game like TES: Oblivion, you're essentially the same as every enemy. You were just smarter because you were human but it did kill the sense of progression you should feel between being level 1 and level 50. Bandits were wearing the same high level, supposedly ultra rare, armors you were and using the same weapons. Bar some uniques, there was nothing differentiating you from the enemies. Things like that led to level scaling earning a bad reputation and a lot of gamers immediately take out the pitch forks the minute they hear a word they don't like, regardless of if it's an actual issue or not.

In my experience, it's clearly not a problem in CP2077. You have access to enough tools/gear/skills/cyberware to really differentiate yourself from enemies and create a clear sense of progression. I was a bit worried about level scaling at first too, I admit I too was worried it would kill the sense of progression but it clearly doesn't.

 

[moonknightgog]

You have access to enough tools/gear/skills/cyberware to really differentiate yourself from enemies and create a clear sense of progression.

Does it matter when you can take on Arasaka or Militech as a level 5 gonk? even when you reach level 50 and install tons of Cyberware, there is nothing you can do that you couldn't do at level 5.

 

[Jimmy_Goldenhand]

Level scaling gives better fights. You'll still roll on enemies, but you need to do it with a plan: it's way better.

 

[GrimReaper801]

Does it matter when you can take on Arasaka or Militech as a level 5 gonk?

Right, because you couldn't do that before? You could, it was just longer to kill enemies.

even when you reach level 50 and install tons of Cyberware, there is nothing you can do that you couldn't do at level 5.

Now that is just plain wrong.

By 50 you'll have access to a whole bunch of special skills and abilities that should definitely change how you approach combat and will definitely make you stronger than enemies.

 

[moonknightgog]

because you couldn't do that before?

No, you couldn't, at least not at the max difficulty (which is how it was meant to be played). Try going against the Militech outpost in the badlands as soon as you start Act 2 in 1.63, see how long you last.

 

[cammoking123]

Level scaling in an RPG is perhaps the stupidest design decision one can make.

The point of an RPG is, aside from roleplaying, leveling up and progressing your character to become stronger and feel those changes over time.

Having enemies scale in level with you removes this aspect of an RPG.

Reading about how hacking is now atrocious because of this scaling (and skill tree overhaul) reinforces this being a bad decision.

I was waiting for the 2.0 update to really play, but after seeing the changes.. I can confidently say I'm sticking with 1.63 until they overhaul this overhaul.

The sense of leveling up, progressing, and getting stronger is still there. If fact I would say V's growth is much more noticeable 2.0. Instead of getting a small damage increase or a small stat boost for some other ability, you gain more tangible returns that will effect the way you play. I put points into tech and body, was able to increase my cyberware capacity and I gained unique abilities like powerslamming the ground or picking up enemies and throwing them into enemies. Hacking is the same way. You get more tangible growth instead of the simple 10% damage increase. Whoever said hacking is "atrocious" is flat out wrong.

Level scaling is fine. It's not perfect, but it's far more immersive and realistic than the idea that V is only person alive improving his abilities while the rest of the world stands static. And fodder enemies are still pretty easy to kill, so lets not be overdramatic. This isn't like the Witcher 3 where level scaling makes it hard to kill even trash enemies like rats.