Level scaling ruins the game

[Chessala]

I'm not sure what legend are we supposed to be when everyone is the same as us (with a few exceptions). CDPR's logic is that everyone can perform open heart surgery like we do.

A lot has to change to get me away from 1.63, and if that disappears, I'll never touch this game again... or any of CDPR games. [...]

 

[RoastAndToast11]

I FULLY disagree with the OP of this thread.

Before 2.0, V was (mostly) forced to venture into ONLY certain areas of the Night City map where she/he was adequately leveled to handle the local enemies. This made early game exploration and geographical progression options very limited, at least on 2nd or 3rd (and so on) play-throughs. And perhaps even worse, once V reached Level 50 (before 2.0), the enemies in almost all areas were super weak.

Now, in 2.0, the player can decide to go wherever she/he wants, right from the start of Act Two. And, additionally, if one wants to save Kabuki for last during a play-through, it can still be challenging, instead of a cakewalk.

For anybody whining about not being able to greatly over-level V and then trounce every enemy everywhere by using sneezes and flatulence… the game offers a Difficulty Setting. It’s right there! In your Settings Menu. If you want Easy mode, set it to “Easy”. Problem solved.

 

[MartineDee]

Except that when you level up, you aquire more great abilities, more and better cyberwares... In short you become more and more powerful and not just with damages, also in the way you can kill enemies. So no matter if the enemies scale to your level, you really feel the progression, I would say, even more than before

How people feel is set out by them and only them. So, no, telling others they 'really felt' something doesn't make it so. It denies and minimizes how other folks feel and thus is toxic. There's always the option to agree to disagree, and that is okay. Playing on repeat your own positive take on level scaling in responses to others (such as quoting/pinging them) won't make people feel better or change their takes, it will just shut them down and disengage them. That is toxic, too. Give everyone equitable space to express their gaming experience.

Though, the huge 2.0 nerf of the level progression fruits is hardly just a feeling; it's a factual state of things.

 

[Spectral_Warrior]

The complaint is about the opposite: It's all too *easy* now, no need to use different tactics, or come back later.
With level scaling, all the fights are about same difficulty.

From the beginning the complaint was that the game was too easy. The only change this levelscaling would generate is that you can venture into down town straight away, which in principle I find a good change.
Before 2.0 you basically had to venture each of night city's districts in a clockwise rotation.

So to me... if I go by your logic, the game went from easy already to easy all the time.
...except when the complaints show up (mostly for the harder difficulties) that build have become worse, most notably netrunner. This sounds contradictive to me.

 

[Restlessdingo32]

I'm not sure what legend are we supposed to be when everyone is the same as us (with a few exceptions).

I mean... it could be argued you're not supposed to become godlike in this setting in the first place. Night City is supposed to be dangerous. You're supposed to think twice before talking shit to a handful of gang members on the street. They might be sporting some hardware.

Sure, V can push the legendary merc route. Bullying the enemies in the game because you outpace them isn't exactly noteworthy or legendary though. Consistently destroying them when there is a very real possibility they can kill you... That's legendary.

How people feel is set out by them and only them. So, no, telling others they 'really felt' something doesn't make it so.

While true, level scaling doesn't necessarily remove all sense of progression. A suitable analogy would be stacking blocks of some size on top of each other in two distinct columns. One represents the player. The other represents the enemies. The blocks represent the levels. Nothing explicitly requires those blocks be the same size. Each stack could even grow in a non-linear fashion.

Most perceived drawbacks to this global scaling can be addressed via similar means. Games with sub-par scaling don't do so. Respectable implementations would do so. In almost every case the perceived problems with it aren't due to the concept. They're due to the implementation. Yet, most of the hate against it points at the concept.

It's valid to feel it ruins the game. It's also valid to think the implementation is well done. But... when being critical or supportive of something it's best to point in the right direction.

 

[Liquidcyberpunk]

i love it.

 

[LeKill3rFou]

How people feel is set out by them and only them. So, no, telling others they 'really felt' something doesn't make it so. It denies and minimizes how other folks feel and thus is toxic. There's always the option to agree to disagree, and that is okay. Playing on repeat your own positive take on level scaling in responses to others (such as quoting/pinging them) won't make people feel better or change their takes, it will just shut them down and disengage them. That is toxic, too. Give everyone equitable space to express their gaming experience.

Don't take it bad, I did not want to say how you must feel or deny how you feel about it. If it's what my post let suppose, I'm sorry
Indeed it's only my feeling and my experience after a fresh start and about 30 hours of playing time. For me, level scaling doesn't remove the feeling of progression, but it's also because of the new cyberware system and the new skill trees. In fact, my character seem to get better improvements than before, each time I level up and/or upgrade my gear/cyberwares.

If they added the current level scaling "alone" (i.e to the old cyberware and skill trees), it would be the worst, sure.

 

[Paszkowski]

I FULLY disagree with the OP of this thread.

Before 2.0, V was (mostly) forced to venture into ONLY certain areas of the Night City map where she/he was adequately leveled to handle the local enemies. This made early game exploration and geographical progression options very limited, at least on 2nd or 3rd (and so on) play-throughs. And perhaps even worse, once V reached Level 50 (before 2.0), the enemies in almost all areas were super weak.

Now, in 2.0, the player can decide to go wherever she/he wants, right from the start of Act Two. And, additionally, if one wants to save Kabuki for last during a play-through, it can still be challenging, instead of a cakewalk.

before 2.0 I was playing on Very Hard difficulty all the time since the beginning, and I had no problem in deciding where to go, no problem at all fighting enemies in all parts of the map. It's weird you people had this problem and were visiting only certain areas while fearing to visit others.
Weapons in 1.63 were just hitting much better without that rubbish scaling of everything, I had much more fun. Now it's all so predictable and in fact became boring, I know what to expect, all the mystery is gone.

 

[FoXaH047]

Level scaling is anti RPG at it's core. If everything levels up with you than what's the point of leveling up to begin with? Might aswell just remove levels and have the game be skilled based. But in Cyberpunk skill check also scale now, which makes it even worst. It's lazy. It's catering to the lowest denominator. CDProjeckt obviously doesn't want to make a RPG, they want an action adventure game but like to call it and RPG because RPGs sell well, action/adventure don't.

 

[warlock75]

Level scaling doesn't work on a world level, if you think about it. Gangs fight each other for territory all the time, the strongest hold the area. It's why the City Centre had the highest level gang, because they're the only one's strong enough to keep it. Now if everyone is the same level, where's the justification? They all seem to have the same cyberware and weapons, what's stopping a bigger gang taking over if not might?

 

[jcthrawn]

On the paper, I agree enemy level scaling in RPG is lazy game design. But after having finished a new game in 2.0., I must confess it actually felt real good . Before, late game was so easy combats felt meaningless. This time, I made a gunslinger/sniper built with no cyberware (and then with the new rules nearly no armor), meaning you die with two bullets but deal deadly headshots (for "normal" ennemies, but you have to strangle or multi-heashot "strong" enemies) : enemy level scaling really made it a real fun challenge until the end. There was really no feeling of "no progression" here, and no incentive not no level up : since perk tree doesn’t give you just bonuses anymore, but unlocks meaningful new actions for your built that enemy IA is just not able to play with, you in fact progress by developing a playstyle with coherent weapons, mods and actions rather than with mean stats (stealth crouch-sprinting is great, focus and deadeye make gun combats real fun, strong dashes are the only way to win against bosses with this build, more health items charges save you in late game, etc.). Enemy level scaling may be lazy in "normal RPG", but it felt real great in Cyberpunk, and maybe this could be done in other FPS RPG. Could CDPR just remove levels ? Here it’s mostly a good mechanism to cap perk tree (with great stats bonuses only actionable with cyberware now linked with Cool level, Body level, etc., which I did no use). Good side-effect for the open world feeling too : you can now chose to go in every district soon in the game, and there is no more absurd city map with districts full of weak street thugs and others with superhero gangoons (in such a situation why aren’t the stronger gangs owning the whole city ?).

 

[HisShadowX]

I feel the same way. Imagine I am one of those people who have Cyberpunk on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, and also PC. I actually beat the game originally on PlayStation 4 after spending nearly 200 hours on the game suffering through crashes.

And yeah, I was also one of those disappointed people who felt lied to about what we were promised way back during the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 era where we did not get what we were promised. And it seems things were changed to kind of focus on the Hollywood stars.

Now, I've adapted. I loved playing the game on PlayStation 5 and cross-play with my PC, which I have everything on ultra settings. Yes, I have that good of a PC, but there's something about playing using a DualSense controller that just makes the game feel unique. But yeah, there's multiple ways where I've played the game. And now, level scaling completely breaks the game to me.

I actually preferred the PlayStation 4 version that constantly crashed every 15 to 20 minutes than level scaling where you never feel like you're improving.

 

[LeKill3rFou]

In fact, if I may, I wonder if we even talking of the same "feeling of progression" about level scaling, because if it's the case, sure we can't agree...

For those who think the level scaling ruins their game, they want enemies very powerful on the map, enemies who they can' defeat early/mid game, but as their character progress through the game, they finally manage to defeat them (to summarize^^).

In my case at least, it's not really the same. My character started very weak, but when I first unlocked the perk to deflect bullets with my katana, I feel a huge step in my character progression. The same when I installed my first Sandevistan, a real game changer during the fights. And so on, each time I unlocked perks, installed new cyberwares or new weapon tiers. So no matter what level enemies were, I regularely feel my character progression during fights.

Does it make sense or it's really dumb?
(For those in the first case, sure, level scaling ruins the game^^)

 

[okayusername]

I am also very against level scaling and am very disappointed they added it.

I'd like to address a couple of points by the pro-scaling crowd.

1) Scaling is good because it allows you to explore the whole city from the beginning.
I don't disagree with this. Being able to access the whole city from the beginning is a good thing. However, this would still be possible without level scaling. Just have different leveled quests and activities in each area. Perhaps a star system for quest difficulty. 1 star = level 1 - 10, 2 stars = level 10 - 20; stuff like that. I'm sure someone else could think of an even better system.

2) Just play on easy
I don't want a game that is always easy. I want a game where I can weigh risk versus reward -- do I dare try fighting some stronger enemies for better equipment? or do I take it safer and fight someone around or lower than my level? I don't want a flat difficulty curve no matter where it lies on the difficulty scale. I also want to feel more progression -- going from a low level street gang member level of strength to Adam Smasher level strength with cyberware out the wazoo is fun to me.

I like the new skill tree and the way it prioritizes new abilities over stat boosts. I don't mind at all if a max level player can't one-shot everyone, even the weakest enemies. But I do not like the way that enemies get magically stronger as you do. Especially if you want to play a weaker build. If you get a half-step stronger every time you level up but your enemies are getting a full step stronger every level, then you're actively getting weaker. I have an admittedly bad analogy: imagine a game with two skills; swordcraft and magic. At level 1 each is equally powerful and you two options when fighting. Imagine leveling up nine times and spending all your points on swordcraft -- you have 10 swordcraft vs level 10 enemies. You are perfectly matched, but your magic is now useless. If you spend half your points on magic and half on swordcraft you're only level 5 on each, so you have both options but your enemy is now much stronger than you at level 10.

There are plenty of games with difficulty scaling based around leveling that isn't pure level scaling. Skyrim and Fallout 3 use this and it's fine. In those games, as you reach certain level milestones, stronger enemies start appearing. For instance, basic bandits start to be joined by higher tier bandits as you level up. But the regular bandits don't get any stronger (iirc). I really hope CD Projekt adds a new mode that either gets rid of level scaling or adds a different type a la Skyrim/Fallout 3.

 

[VanillaBaron]

In fact, if I may, I wonder if we even talking of the same "feeling of progression" about level scaling, because if it's the case, sure we can't agree...

It's hard to judge individual feelings against other's feelings, but I would say that the kind of progression that you are talking about, also existed pre-2.0. Like, we used to be able to feel that kind of progression, staying in the same level zone, by improving skills, improving weapons and hacks, and gaining perk abilities. But we could also feel progression by increasing our character level, while staying in same level zone. Or going back to lower areas after we became more bad-ass. Now though, we only get the first kind of progression.

Neither the pre-2.0 or post-2.0 systems are realistic, and we should abandon any hope that any system ever will feel 100% realistic. Neither system is completely broken, they both have good points that can be said about them. And although I think the ideal solution - in a single-player game - is to be able to toggle level scaling on and off, that would make it near-impossible for CDPR to balance everything, and would require, I am sure, an enormous and perhaps prohibitive amount of work.

Maybe modders will be able to recreate or approximate the pre-2.0 system, but for the most part we will have to accept that this is the game that 2.0 and Phantom Liberty is, and get on and play it, because I don't think CDPR will walk back this change, no matter how much backlash there is. I don't like it but it is early days, and after playing through the expansion I may look back and think that it wasn't that big of a deal.

 

[LeKill3rFou]

It's hard to judge individual feelings against other's feelings, but I would say that the kind of progression that you are talking about, also existed pre-2.0. Like, we used to be able to feel that kind of progression, staying in the same level zone, by improving skills, improving weapons and hacks, and gaining perk abilities. But we could also feel progression by increasing our character level, while staying in same level zone. Or going back to lower areas after we became more bad-ass. Now though, we only get the first kind of progression.

Not sure what's the best. Now, after 50 hours and reaching level 40+, I would say both are fine for me (but I include cyberwares/skill trees in the equation because it's a part of the progression feeling for me).
Just my opinion, but I think early/mid-game, the old system was a bit better because you were able to encounter high level enemies (higher than you), so a bit more challenging. The current system is a bit better end-game, because with the old one, above level 35, it offered no challenge at all (It was just beating very, very low level enemies. I mean, unlocking a perk to get 5% more damages when you already easily destroy enemies, well...). Before, my only "challenge" at the end of the game was to not being detected.

I didn't play all games, but the best system I know, it's in Kingdom Come... I don't think enemies have any level, just best gears and best skills (From the "unskilled" peasant, to the well-equipped thief, to the knight in heavy armor and long sword). It's the same gears and skills you can get/learn, so no matter your level, from the beginning until the end of the game, every fight can be a piece of cake, a real challenge or just a quick death.

 

[VanillaBaron]

I do not disagree that the new skills and trees offer more 'feeling of progression' than the pre-2.0 trees. But they still have a limit, and there was more to the feeling of progression than just skill progression. There used to be skill progression, and equipment progression, and levelling progression (my stats vs enemy stats). They worked together to create the overall progression. My opinion is that the improvement in skill progression has not compensated for the loss of levelling progression. How much of a problem it is for me, it is still too early to tell. It will not stop me playing, that's for sure.

 

[FirebloodFox]

I greatly prefer the new system. Always seemed funny to me that some gangs in effect would be much weaker than others as well.

 

[tavellone]

I greatly prefer the new system. Always seemed funny to me that some gangs in effect would be much weaker than others as well.

Well the idea that the same gang you fight as a rookie merc also seems to upgrade its tech, skill and strength at the same rate you do is even funnier in my opinion.

 

[SlyNine]

Agreed, Every time I level up, It's more like leveling down in the skills I'm not focusing on. Now I'm further than ever from hacking a car.

Post automatically merged: Oct 1, 2023

All these comments for this? Why don't you just remove Level scaling completely? What's the point of having level scaling? So when I level up, now cars take even more RAM to hack?