Honestly, I think NPC scaling is the worst thing that ever happend to gaming. At all. Worse that microtransactions and loot boxes together.
NPC scaling is just lazy and it ruins games.
Pretty much all RPGs have player progression, and player progression means that the player character gets stronger over time. Gets better gear, learns better skills, new perks. And thats good, its a major driving element in RPGs. It gives you a purpose.
But player progression poses a problem for game design: If the player gets stronger then he will need stronger enemies, right? Lets call this the power level problem
The traditional solution to this problem is simply populating the game world with different groups of enemies, with a different power level, dwelling in different areas. Start the player in an easy area and let him make his way. That works really well. Its the way it was in CP until a week ago, and it did work pretty well.
Sure in open world games you have the problem that some players might take more optional content then others, thus getting stronger then other players at the same stage/ in the same area. In case of CP there was a certain lack of strong enemies and a surplus of weak enemies in late game, if you did everything. A minor issue, I just dialed up the difficulty mid game.
The lazy solution is just coupling the strength of NPCs to the strength of the player. On first glance it solves all problems. But on closer inspection it solves none, and creates a multitude of new problems.
1. It negates progression. If the player gets stronger and the NPCs get stronger as well, the player isn't really getting stronger. He might deal a higher damage, numerically, but the effect is still the same. The game cheats the player out of his progression. And that makes a large part of the game mechanics completly pointless.
Example 1: The last time I played Skyrim (2nd playthrough) I didn't got far. Maybe level 10? I had just leveled up, got a new fancy sword AND I had unlocked a perk for that sword. Awesome, right? So I went into the next dungeon. Same general style as the one before, same 'set' of enemies. Draughr. But literally every enemy had just been replaced with the next stronger iteration of them. A bit bigger, 50% more HP. Before I needed 10 hits to kill one, and now I again neeeded 10 hits to kill one. I never finished that dungeon. I stopped halfway through, and uninstalled a week later. Never touched it again.
2. It forces you to do silly meta games. Typically the NPC level is just bound to the player main level. Lazyness. But player main level isn't necessarrily bound to effective combat strength. That means, that in order for the player to actually get stronger, he needs to get stronger FOR THAT LEVEL. But if on the other hand the player makes progression choices that are not super rational, thought through, maybe out of role playing considerations... then the player will get weak FOR THAT LEVEL. And thats why NPC scaling doesnt actually solve the power level problem. A player thats not meta-gaming will soon find himself in a world were he is outleveled by anyone. A painstaking min-maxer will find himself getting stronger then anyone.
Example 2: Skyrim again, first playthrough. Somwhere around level 20 I started messing around with alchemy. Was nice, fun. Collecting ingredients, mixing them together, trying to create something usefull. Did this for a few hours, just for fun. But I leveled up while I did this. When I got back to work, into the next dungeon, I didn't stand a chance. All enemies were suddenly far stronger, because I was a higher level. I was outclassed. So I was forced to strike back. I took some time to study the skill tree, and finaly I closed the unholy trinity of crafting, alchemy and enchantment. Combining all three I crafted an echanted sword with 50 times more dps then any regular weapon. That big bad dragon in the end? One strike, dead. Made the whole game super boring, thats why I started a second playthrough.
In CP I started a new playthrough on thurstday, my V is now level 15.
I'm easily one-shooting NPCs with a silenced pistol. And I wont tell you how.
3. It ruins the ingame power plausibility. In the game there are NPCs that are supposed to be strong, and NPCS that are supposed to be weak. In a realistic setting you might at least argue that they are all humans, and a bullet to the head will kill every single one of them. But not so in a Cyberpunk setting. Here we have beings, merged from flesh and chrome, that can easily shrug of 10 headshots. Take Adam Smasher. This thing isn't human anymore, its a cybernetic one man army. Or at least it should be. But thanks to NPC scaling he is bound to your power level, so if you meet him early he'll be just weak. Laughable weak.
On the other hand if you meet a random small gangster towards the end of the game he'll be automatically super strong. Simply because you are.
It totaly breaks the immersion.
Example 3: Oblivion. Very early in game I came out of that capital, and on a crossing I was abushed by three bandits. Three pretty lame bandits, bad skills, bad eqippment, but it was 3 of them and I was level 2. Was a hard fight but i won.
A few weeks later I came to the exact same crossing, and I was ambushed by... three bandits. This time I was level 80 wearing full deadric armor. And so were the three bandits. Each of this bandits was stronger than an average deadric demi-god, wearing armor that was worth more than a small kingdom. Was a hard fight but i won.
And that's why I hate NPC scaling.
