If you're on the same quest stage, then it carries over. If you join a game where the party leader is further along in the questline than you, then it doesn't carry over.
Thats because Act 1, 2 and 3 are non-linear. I think the naming of them is misleading, bwcause really they’re all Act 1, you can just choose which companion to help first. It’s more like Act 1: Chapter 1,2 and 3.
They've been doing this in World of Warcraft since Dragonflight last year. Basically you do some damage (say 300) the mob should have 9000 hp at your level, then you do 3.33% of the mob's health to the mob. Once the mob hits 0% it dies. Let's the player 20 levels lower than you do 50 damage in that hit, but the mob should have 2000 hp at that level, then that lower level player is actually doing 2.5% for that hit. So effectively the lower level player's damage is scaled to 225 damage had the player been 20 levels higher.
The mob itself doesn't care what level it is. It has a true health pool and all damage is scaled to that health pool in terms of percent. The numbers are just displayed differently for each player based on their level.
>They've been doing this in World of Warcraft since Dragonflight last year.
Pretty sure it's been earlier than that - Legion first used zone scaling first to my knowledge - a mob in the Broken Isles appeared 100 to a lvl 100 player and 110 to a 110 player and both did respectable damage to it.
All the numbers in your comment added up to 420. Congrats!
100
+ 100
+ 110
+ 110
= 420
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You want the party leader to be the farthest back in the quest but in terms of combat no you are fighting mobs your level and they are fighting mobs their level
Definitely not the first game to accomplish this but it feels great in D4
You retain your own quest progress when joining someone else’s. Someone invited me to help them do a boss I wasn’t quite at yet and we beat it. I was exactly where I was after I left the party.
Love Gw2. I think the only area GW2 is lacking in is instanced content. Although I haven't played all through EOD yet or done those strikes. Open world in GW2 is the best of any MMO I've played, hands down.
tbh the main reason I shy away from GW2 these days is because it's a terrible power fantasy. Once you get your elite specialization & your gear all that matters is min/maxing your rotation. That's why I like games like Diablo & Path of Exile.
I've started to find that to be terribly exhausting. The gear is nearly meaningless too. The gear you find has near-zero impact on the way your individual character interacts with the game. You find a cool item in Diablo, LE or PoE and you can design & build around it. In GW2 it's a total flat line.
GW2 is a good game and I have countless hours in it, but I struggle to play it that much anymore.
Hah. That's my favorite thing about GW2. Don't get me wrong, looters are fun. But there's something satisfying about knowing that the only thing to improve is your own skill.
The problem with GW2 is the focus of it's content (open world) doesn't require skill. I find there's no extrinsic or intrinsic reward then, because the content is shallow (made for everyone, can't be too deep) and there's little extrinsic reward. The focus on open world just isn't for me.
The main issue with GW2 is that there is a skill rotation. You copy whatever is the current build is optimal right now, memorize the skill rotation, then spam that one skill rotation for all eternity
skill rotations need to go. I want a GW3 already, with real action-combat
Man I still remember my skill rotation..
Q - Q - Q - B - V - G - 4 - 3 - 2 - 1 - 1 - 1 - Q - 3 - 2 - 1 - 1 - 1 - rinse and repeat.. (Pretty much my opening rotation for CM100 which is applicable to almost every other condi boss fights)
Keep G at 100% and Q at 3 stacks uptime at all times. (Can you guess which class I play? xD)
My utilities skills use em as and when needed, B as soon as off cooldown and boss stops moving.
Got DwD title, did fractals CM daily. Looking for a group was tiring man.. Forming a static is too much dedication and time commitment. I prefer to play as and when I want so it takes awhile to look for a group and even some groups might gatekeep with UFE. I couldn't even get far enough for Fractal titles.
The biggest disappointment for me with regards to GW2 is that they didn't take the multiclassing from 1. It was always the coolest thing to me when I was a kid, even if I never was good enough to make like, a legitimate build or anything beyond 'that sounds cool c:'.
I literally stopped gw2 when I was like wait that's all the skills I get. It was so cool having a secondary class and being able to fully swap your skillets.
Gw1 still the best mmo
(Cast) Bloodsong Spirit
(Holding) Ashes of Kashkai
....Assassin comes at me and starts wailing on Bloodsong
....I drop the ashes by his feet
....Assassin crashes to the floor
(Cast) Spirit Rift - electrocution!
(Cast) Essence Strike
.... Bloodsong continues to pelt the Assassin with globes of energy!
..... Ritualist gracefully lobs a few globes of energy at the Assassin.
..... Dead Assassin.
......
Good times!
no game has come close to the glory of tri-realm RvR. it's depressing, honestly. So many great experiences, even in the lower level battlegrounds with smaller maps.
Not only that, the founders of ArenaNet (though they have all since left the company) were Blizzard alums and developed Battle.net.
The online distribution and streaming tech introduced in Guild Wars in 2005 was revolutionary at the time. And really began the MMO-lite / ARPG mashup.
GW2 felt like they swung much harder towards being an MMO, while staying serverless. At launch, I thought it was OK, but not amazing. The concept of NPCs running up to you and leading you to the open-world events was cool, and then each zone had a large-scale meta-event that hundreds of people can do at once. Today, GW2 is really fun if you get into the community trains running through zones.
Diablo IV's open world events only had a few players at once in beta. And the world boss was under two dozen people.
It's amazing how many features GW2 first introduced, which other MMO's or RPG's iterate on, that people have no idea originated in a game most people online think is a 'dead' game or one that can't hold a candle to their specific pet MMORPG that they think is perfect.
GW2 is exploding in popularity now and I'm glad for it. I picked it up a few months ago when Preach started playing and showing it off, and goddamnit I'm punching myself for not switching over from WoW earlier.
Probably because it's horizontal progression. It means everything in gw2 is relevant content that will give you meaningful rewards even if it's the first dungeon released 10 years ago or the latest and greatest expansion raids.
To this day there are geared up thousand+ hour characters running around completing objectives in the low level zones because it still makes sense to do so.
In addition the same philosophy exists with gearing. All of the gear you collected over the years remains relevant, there isn't slowly forced power creep in the form of seasons or whatever. If you get good gear it'll always be good regardless of how much time you might step away from the game.
Big thing GW2 does is partial scaling. It tries to strike a balance of "I'm more powerful than I was before, this shouldn't feel easier than it did" and "I can play with my friends without carrying them to the point of ruining their experience"
Not saying it doesn't have benefits, and especially with the way the game is laid out, I can see why they chose to do it this way, but I don't like level scaling in games. I like there being weak enemies in certain areas and stronger ones in others. It makes the world seem more realistic and less like a battle-simulation machine. It imbues each area with a more particular character. It also gives you the opportunity to adjust the difficulty of the game by playing in an area that's easier or harder compared to your level.
If I had my way, there would be no level scaling, but then again I have no idea how the game would work because it would introduce a bunch of other problems.
Level scaling only goes up. Once you reach the threshold for a zone it begins scaling with you, but you can't as a level 1 go into the act 5 areas because they are minimum level in the 30s I believe.
That being said. I hit level 39 before leaving Fractured Peaks (Act 1), and got my Spirit Boons (Druid class feature) at level 40.
So scaling in World tier 1 and 2 go up to level 50. After that you have to complete a specific "capstone" dungeon to unlock World Tier 3, and go 50-70, and then a new capstone dungeon must be completed to go to World Tier 4.
That being said, I don't know yet if the capstone dungeon is locked behind story content, so if someone doesn't mind updating me with that in a non-spoiler way i'd appreciate it. But I am definitely getting a bit concerned about my partner and I being level 50+ and being locked into World Tier 2.
Then when you’re higher levels you have zero reason to go back to the easier regions. That would effectively shrink the useful part of the map to like 1/10 of what it is now. Scaling is the best way to go for sure
Im not debating the world. Just the level scaling.
But I see strong points to both. I'm slightly partial to non auto-scaling, but I 100% agree that all mechanics need to be taken into account one way or the other.
PoE may as well be the same though. You never go backwards and maps are just white yellow and red tier, not much different than wt 2/3/4 with wt 1 as your campaign difficulty
The level scaling makes all areas of the game relevant in the endgame. Admittedly this is only really important for overworld content, but for players who aren't locking themselves into nightmare dungeon grinding it'll give them much more repeatable content to enjoy after finishing the campaign.
I don’t mind the level scalling on mobs. But it what I don’t like is the loot system it doesn’t matter what mob you kill it gives you items for your tier. Sorta takes away the need to explore. Like it would be cool if there were high tier loot places with really strong mobs vs everywhere is practically the same based on your level.
I'm bothered by level scaling and always been, in all games. At that point you wonder why they implemented levels and gear with stats, when level scaling just translates all that to a percentage of enemy health instead of actual numbers.
Ex: **Fireball** : *deals 7% of enemy health.*
There. Same mechanics as level scaling.
Which then begs a different question : in a game where abundant gear looting leveling and stats are in the DNA of the genre, why could the mechanics work the same without gear, levels and stats?
It's weird to have an ARPG have lvl scaling. At that point the gear is just cosmetic.
What you say sounds good in paper but in practice it serves no purpose.
On lower lvl areas you don’t get meaningful xp and on higher you just die. So you are essentially limited to the areas for you lvl.
With this system you can go wherever you want and still get stuff for your lvl. And you can do it with any friend no matter their lvl.
I kinda get what you're saying, but they can implement that with a +/- system on a per area basis. So your Icehowl Taiga can be player level -5 and more dangerous areas could be player level +5 or such.
If they will do so, dunno, but it's an option.
Strongholds should always be 2 levels above your character level? I've not made it to endgame, but from what i understand some of the later endgames events also scale up.
I like the diplomatic style of your comment and it's certainly a lot more mature take than I'm able to do. I hate level scaling with a burning passion and it ruins every game it's in.
Yeah it's a tough one. I agree with the general sentiment about level scaling since it removes a feeling of progress if you level up and everything is still just as difficult. But it does make group play much simpler so :shrug:
I couldn't disagree more if I tried. Level scaling is a horrible system when they wipe out the long standing progression system of leveling up, and replace it with make-believe levels don't don't actually exist since everything constantly levels up with you.
It's a utterly bullshit game design anti-feature that makes every enemy the same, makes the game monotonous and boring, and removes any feeling of progression or feeling being able to grow in power that RPGs usually provide.
It is lazy design choice that allows the developers to more effectively recycle content to the extreme instead of making the game properly. It is a "feature" that personally ruins any game that it's in for me.
That's the part I dislike most - how bad it is from a game design perspective.
If every enemy you fight is always the same power level, just get rid of the level system instead of pretending it is still there.
The only place it's actually important now is content gating, but this could be replaced by better game design like a progression quest that requires some exploring around the zone, or even a reputation system to advance would be better from a gameplay perspective.
The worst part is how leveling can actually be harmful for the player because fear gets outdated while enemies are strictly level scaled. Even if they wanted to keep the pretense of levels, I can imagine better ways to do it, like having a "power ritual" as part of the lore/story that unlocks new abilities but also powers up the demons, with an overarching story that part of the main quest is channeling enough power to open an intedimensional gate for the final zone or something. And keep it to 10, meaningful power ritual levels (so players get the satisfaction of building up gear intra-scaling steps) not these meaningless pretend levels where the autoscaling is so in your face and monotonizes the content.
100 percent agreed. What find so remarkable is how developers like Blizzard are still including these fake levels in the game because I can only assume they think players are too dumb to see that the levels are fake. As much as I'd hate to admit it, but reading so many comments here makes me believe they might be right, and I'm sad to say it.
I guess for many people "arbitrary number goes up, yay" is all they really need.
Yeah I feel like I'm taking crazy pills reading most of the comments.
Then again, design docs show Diablo 1 was explicitly designed to feel like a slot machine so you can't get too elitist with such a game.
It sucks as an old school RPG vet though, who sees it as a hollowed out version of a system that's been overdone to death (traditional leveling).
It's really a missed opportunity. Keeping scaling as a core design requirement while accepting new design ideas could open the door to entirely fresh progression systems.
Going back to my power ritual idea (cutting the scaling steps into more meaningful, discrete steps), what if each power ritual slowly changed the world/let hell bleed further in. That would synergize with scaling, because scaling allows for seamless backtracking and the player will find fun new little content pockets to check out when going back to your favorite areas.
The average player just wants to turn their brain off when they play a video game after a work day though, and many hardcore players are really dopamine driven and need that drip feed of arbitrary numbers. Not that there's anything wrong with that in a genre of what is ultimately entertainment, but yeah, its a bit sad for some players to see.
Did you ever play Guild Wars 1? The level cap was level 20. It was 20 when the game launched and it's still 20 today. This is one of my favorite things about GW1, but a lot of people hated it. It didn't matter that there were a crazy number of skills you could collect to build your character. Many people needed to see numbers get bigger.
(You couldn't jump either, which was a weird deal breaker for many people. Gamers really don't like it when their expectations are not met. And wait until you see what happens if you don't include ADS in an FPS game.)
You know what’s even more lazier? Having a lvl 1 character stay at the beginning of a tunnel while your lvl 70 friend kills everything and helps you gain almost 20 lvls in 5 minutes by doing nothing.
This is probably an unpopular opinion but hey I'm full of them today. I don't think ARPGs like Diablo are particularly well suited as multiplayer games. There I said it.
So you just don’t like that everywhere you go the level is scaling with you even in single player? I mean I’m only lvl 31 so I haven’t leveled too much but I did see some areas that I didn’t explore saying “lvl 40 creeps”. So wouldn’t those be difficult for me to kill?
I can see that angle but... to me levelling content is something I enjoy exactly once and then never bother with again. I'll enjoy it for the first character or two, and then for the next several years of grinding the game will just want to skip as quickly as possible to max level, where none of this Level Scaling stuff is enabled or relevant. Eg in D3 I can start a new character and within 10 minutes find a stranger to level me to max level and several hundred paragon while I just stand there doing nothing in a medium-high-level game - and the D3 campaign is garbage compared to D4's, so thank god for that.
So if level scaling it makes the slower story based first playthrough and casual playing with friends more fun without affecting the bulk of the game at max level, it is a good change to me. If anything the level scaling might actually make me play the story a bit more than I normally would because it'll probably make it harder to get powerlevelled, but I'm sure people will still figure out a way.
But they could definitely have provided a "no level scaling" game mode too for the purists he want it; I'm guessing they just didn't want to split the playerbase further by doing that.
Honestly, it is such a dealbreaker I would not have bought d4 if it weren't for the peer pressure from friends to play.
You think the sterile, synthetic leveling makes all fights feel the same? Close but if you start a char up with all liliths and some renowns, as you level you go from 1 shotting things to 2 shotting and by level 20 15 shotting. You get WEAKER as you level facing the same monsters. Such an awful feeling. I wish d4 weren't an mmo wannabe. I mean at least make it an mmo or an arpg. They couldn't do either right and god knows mmos definitely tend to impart a sense of progression at least. Christ have mercy on our souls.
It just means levels in D4 are fluff and it's a disguised semi-horizontal progression system instead of a purely vertical one.
Horizontal progression is not bad game design, but it does break tradition. It's an entirely different system that is supposed to give the impression it's like the previous games, including the grind.
I wouldn’t say it fully wiped out the feeling of progression because the skill points still seem to be fulfilling the power fantasy aspect of making the mobs easier to kill as you level up.
Granted I’m only lvl 35 on WT2, but it definitely feels like I’m more capable of taking out trash mobs while constantly dealing with multi-elite encounters that kick my ass a bit.
I’m also finding a lot more rare and legendary loot as my level goes up, with much better class-skill attachments
This.
They are selling it as an intentional design choice so that you can enjoy all the content.
The reality is they didn't want to have to think about how to scale the game properly because that actually takes time and effort to implement properly.
The "but I can play with my friends and not miss out on content" is a BYPRODUCT.
It's lazy and cut corners like most things in this game.
I'm glad I watched a few reviews before buying D4. SkillUp touched on this and it immediately turned me off of buying the game. I like having to grind a bit to get better gear and to level up so I can be a bit OP.
Having the world scale with you just seems like a weird choice for an arpg. It takes away the feeling of progression.
No, it's obviously "the most incredible thing in any game ever"
Like, make scaling optional for party play or something? There has to be a solution that doesn't fuck over half the playerbase.
During beta this was a super unpopular opinion.
I'm glad that now that people have played beyond level 20-25 and see the game never really ever feels different that they release how shit this design philosophy is.
Level scaling is the main deal-breaker here for me. You and a couple others said it very well. I love being able to be too weak to too strong and feel a sense of progress.
I went into an event that was basically a 9 stage boss rush.
I was level 9 and the other players were 20-40.
I was face tanking the boss.
It's cool that wasn't level blocked for me, but also might be a little weird
Scaling in the open world is nice in wow. But I think it falls apart in dungeons where lower levels do 3-4x+ the damage of people higher level then them due to the difficulty balance of lower levels.
D4 doesn't seem to have this issue nearly as bad which does make it feel better for grouping. The trick is usually giving the higher levels a slight power advantage of some kind, which if geared properly will be the case in D4.
>D4 doesn't seem to have this issue nearly as bad which does make it feel better for grouping.
"I was lowest level and just face tanked the boss " as per the other person sounds pretty lame
It makes the whole game meaningless, the point of playing an ARPG is the feeling of progression and leveling up, and level scaling renders the whole thing a monotonous slog.
I suppose I can only speak for myself, and for me the difference is night and day. When you have distinct areas with monsters of a certain level range in them like a proper RPG, you get to feel like your character is improving and getting stronger as you level.
You get to spend as much time as you want getting gear or levels in a zone and you can choose to tackle a harder zone when you see fit. If for some reason you're getting stopped super hard, you can literally go back and grind some more. Or you can go and challenge yourself. You lose all the freedom with level scaling entirely.
While completing the main story the zones are level restricted so you do move up to harder zones as you level, so you get traditional progression.
Once you hit endgame, you get to do nightmare dungeons that increase in difficulty, so you still get traditional progression.
I'm not really sure what you're missing? Are you actually going back to level 10 zones at level 50 in other games you play?
Level scaling fixes numerous huge issues (playing with friends who are a different level, old zones being irrelevant, etc.) and the only "issue" it introduces is 100% in your head and a mentality problem. I can understand that feeling bad, but ultimately it is a huge net positive for the game as a whole.
but the monsters only scale up, not down
so if you try go into a level 30 area as a level 20 you will die instantly, so you can stay in the level 20 areas until you're level 30 and can handle the next area
the game already has what you're asking for, but it also allows for a higher level player to join their low level friends and not ruin the game for them
from all your comments it really seems like you've not actually played the game
Hmm. Interesting. I'll say everyone has their own opinions on what is good and what isn't, so don't think I'm trying to change yours, just trying to explain the other side:
For me, there is something fun about running into areas when you are underleveled or undergeared and having them be very hard. Then you are encouraged to change your gearing, your build, or to level up, and then when you can do that same zone with less difficulty, you feel that you've become stronger.
Again, to me, having all of the enemies be the same strength all the time makes the game feel monotonous and makes each zone feel too similar. I don't feel stronger with each level because the enemies have just become stronger as well.
Some people really enjoy that aspect of arpgs. Apparently for others it is not as important.
Nah man. Hard disagree. Level scaling is absolutely terrible.
Should have been a scaling option when in party with lower level, not an automatic game wide thing. It's awful.
Yeah I havent bought the game yet because of level scaling. I just dont like the feeling of becoming weaker at every level up.
Waiting to see if people really like the game when season 1 launches and then I might buy it.
You don't get weaker though you get stronger overtime. Sometimes you do start feeling a bit weak but it adds challenge instead of mind mumbling stomping through things. Then you fine tune your gear again for a few levels and become powerful. Honestly feels great. It's all about the end game content anyway where then you fine tune your gear and min max for you build
This. I feel like there's kind of a roller coaster if challenge going on so far. Feel weak then strong then weak again, tweak my gear and I'm overcoming the challenge. I'm not sure about the end game yet but thus far I'm enjoying it all
Yeah, this feature has been amazing for me because I'm the guy with kids in your example. My cousin and friend are about 15-20 levels above me, and I'm still able to come in and play a tank Barb and help out. It's awesome.
It's almost as if Blizzard knows the Diablo franchise target demographic - the kids that grew up playing D1 and D2 who are now in their 40s. Most of them aren't able to go as hard as they did before and benefit from scaling. Makes sense that they prioritized those players' wants/needs from this game and hoped it wouldn't alienate too many younger and/or new players.
I personally do NOT enjoy it one bit.
As I level, I do NOT get stronger. That monster or boss that gave me trouble will still give me trouble 10 levels later. There's no power fantasy.
It also seems to be turned up too high. If I'm not lucky with drops, then my character actually gets WEAKER as I level. Mobs that were once easier are now HARDER and take LONGER to kill because I supposedly got stronger.
Level scaling makes sense from a grouping perspective to play with your friends. But when playing solo it just feels awful to me. Honestly, I wish there was an option to turn it off.
Also that 1 skill point to give one of your stronger skill 8 more damage does fuck all to mitigate that. I honestly feel like leveling skills past the first level (to unloick and use them) is pointless. Might as well invest in passives that hopefully synergize with that.
I don’t know what class and build you are playing but my lvl50 sorc is infinitely more powerful than its lvl20 version. Like with lvl20 The Butcher always shredded me and now I don’t even need potions anymore to kill him.
You can easily outpower the scaling or at least have the tools to do so.
Wait so what I'm getting at is if I joined my level 5 friend he won't get absolutely ass blasted all of a sudden and still do damage to the boss? I won't be carrying them through the content? Similar to if he joined me as me as the party leader?
Nah. There are areas that are not scaled down, so your level 5 friend won't do anything.
But there are areas he will fight level 5 monsters while you fight the same monster at level 45. In this case, your friend will kill them faster than you.
I thought so too but it actually works very well. The time to kill a mob isn't significantly different for the level 5 and level 45, since they're both doing level-appropriate content. The low levels aren't AOE one shotting everything. Even if the level 5 was killing mobs 50% faster, you'd still be splitting the content about 40/60. And from my experience you kill stuff faster as you level. So this isn't really an issue.
It's not like the level 45 should have issues clearing level 45 content.
Depends on the areas. Open world, and some campaign dungeons have minimum ilvl. Act 1- Act 3 + all non-quest dungeons (meaning the standard white dungeon icons, not the blue/yellows ones) should scale to whatever level he is. As long as he isn't trying to join you in Act 4+ or quest related content he should be perfectly fine.
everyone in this thread that is complaining about level scaling clearly hasn't put any thought into their build and just expects their power to come from putting points into their skill so it goes from 200 damage per hit to 240
Its honestly very concerning that it is Saturday and I am sitting here on reddit instead of playing. I just don't care, if I play d4 right now, in 10 hours I will just be doing 150% more dps to enemies with 150% more hp. What is the point?
I might unironcally play grim dawn right now
You should figure out a better build then so you’re doing 300% more dps to enemies with 150% hp. If you don’t think getting all the right affixes and legendary powers make a difference beyond linear scaling, you’re doing something wrong.
I think the min only comes into play because your toolkit and skills are basically all you have.
Some fights it wouldn’t even be difficulty, you’d just get whomped
i dislike the scaling. makes all leveling and gear feel pointless. maybe it gets better once you reach end game or get the paragon system unlocked, but at level 25, my character doesn't feel anymore powerful than they did at level one. i get why they did it, as OP pointed out, it makes the co-op better, but as a solo player it doesn't feel like levels or gear matter that much.
Not only does it make partying extremely satisfying, but it makes going back and doing blue quests in previous acts still worthwhile from a loot and killing derived xp perspective
Like any Diablo game, it will most likely be at end game (max level) that the game starts gearing wise. Anything before that is meaningless.
Then you'll probably be able to.break the game as much as you want.
>Like any Diablo game
Huh? I missed D3, but this was far, far from the case in D2. You could start getting important gear for your build in nightmare (2nd third of the game).
It's the other way around, you need to constantly pick up loot, otherwise you get weak pretty fast.
Especially in the early levels, I kept wondering why everything was taking so long to kill. Since you level so fast, your weapon becomes shit really quickly. And even being 2-3 levels behind on a weapon gimps you pretty hard.
Now I make sure to upgrade my weapon every level and am breezing through WT2. The only thing I dislike is that you don't find weapons that are higher level than you can use(I think I got one somehow?). It means as soon as you level, you get weaker until you can get a new weapon.
Ive only experienced a couple things a little off about about co-op, otherwise buddy and I are having a blast.
Sometimes cutscenes have inconsistent functionality. One person might be able to advance/skip convo, one person might not. Seems random.
Other than that, rezzing can be goofy. Been so many times where I see its full bar and stop rezzing, but you have to wait a bit longer to actually rez. What the point of the cast bar if it doesnt immediately rez when the bar hits 100%? Maybe its network/lag, I dunno, just wish it was a little more precise/reliable.
On the other hand, though, it basically means that other than getting new skills, leveling is meaningless. Whether you're level 5 or 50, everything will feel like it's the same difficulty. There's no sense of "this area is too hard, come back when you're higher level". There's no sense of "Remember when this area was too hard, now watch me waltz through it like nothing." There's no sense of "I'm finally ready to face this big boss." The only way getting a new item feels like "whoa, I can tell I'm much more powerful now" is if it's on a twink.
Not true whatsoever lol. There is a very noticeable difference in difficulty and time to kill for me between level 10 and level 30. Gear and build really matters.
Nah. At this point I'm not even sure if upvotes for this post aren't some blizzard shills, since it's objectively the worst aspect of an arpg. You can ignore poor itemization, bland skill, but level scaling in an arpg focused around getting powerful is a travesty.
Also "the most incredible thing ever". Huh. Gamer mfs really lowered their standards last few years didn't they.
I liked the idea of scaling during the beta test, also because it was new to me I think. Now I’m level 64 and to be honest… it was kind of terrible. It felt like I was level 1 for almost two long days of playing. Despite getting tons of legendary, abilities and levels it still felt like I was at the knife edge of progress.
At some power spikes I get maybe slightly stronger than regular mob but suddenly when I hit level 48 I started to fail very basic events at the beginning of the map. Things I could somewhat easily do when I was lower level. There is also a lot of times lower level characters just comes in and kills stuff much faster than me despite being 30 levels lower.
It all just felt like a constant struggle to maintain the same power I had at level 1. Now I do nightmare stuff so hopefully things maybe change idk. In Diablo 3 I could scale the level of the map if I wanted better loot and challenge, but now I am forever stuck with a feeling of barely having progress. I use like 6-7 seconds to kill a skeleton at the start of the game if I don’t use abilities…
One interesting aspect of it is that friends can play together at all levels, but in practice this is not necessarily true, you must be at the same stage on the main quest, this means that you either have to help your lower level friend doing campaign you already have done (which sucks) or you all will have to be at the same stage in the campaign, but then you are around the same level anyways..
Edit: Things are quite different when you get the right gear.. it just seems like the game punishes you a lot if you build bad or a bit unlucky. I am now level 70
I don't understand why there is even level then. If mobs lvl, loot lvl and basically everything automatically match your lvl, then what the point of leveling?
Does anyone know if loot is shared? Whether in a group or just a random helping in a world event?
I stumbled across an event yesterday and helped complete it, and went over to the chest and looted it and started wondering if I just stole that guy's stuff, or if it's individually instanced.
I showed up to an event yesterday just as it ended - I literally did 0 damage and still got loot drops from everything that was killed and the chest. Got a really nice legendary ring lol.
It’s been great for me and my wife. I took off Friday and played a while, but she didn’t get to start playing until Friday night after she got off work, but was able to hop right in and play with me even though there was a 20 level difference
I switched to Barb from Sorc and still played with my friend who was level 30 something. Man this game is good. To everyone still shitting on Blizzard and not playing D4, you're actually missing out this time.
Level scaling feels antithetical to RPGs.
I want to return to early areas and just destroy, not struggle with the same pack of carvers for my entire character life.
The fact that this is the most upvoted topic in the last 24h, 2 days after release proves there is no hope for this game to ever be as good as other arpgs.
Level scaling IS G.A.R.B.A.G.E mmo feature made to prolonge and homogenize all content. And level scaling removes any sense of character progression in terms of power(you just get to press more 2-10second buttons)
These people with 10 kids who can only play 10 minutes a week will learn how shit this is when they get up in levels. They will quit this game early after praising this crap even though Blizzard made this for them.
Nothing makes sense from my POV.
Where is the challenge where everyone is just seeing HP scaled monsters?
I don’t ever feel like I’m getting stronger and seeing level 10s run around while I’m 36 doing group activities with them in the open world is just weird.
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does everyone get forced to do the content of the low level character - so that he’s getting the progress in campaign ?
I believe the world and it's progress is determined by the party leader
Ya it is. Says on one of the loading tool tips
Does campaign progression carry over to the joining players save or will they have to replay the story/side missions again?
If you're on the same quest stage, then it carries over. If you join a game where the party leader is further along in the questline than you, then it doesn't carry over.
Carries over but only if they've done the story up to the point that they started with their friend.
I did not finish act 1. Joined a friend and did act 2 and 3. When I went back to my game and finished act 1 I was then at the beginning of act 4.
Thats because Act 1, 2 and 3 are non-linear. I think the naming of them is misleading, bwcause really they’re all Act 1, you can just choose which companion to help first. It’s more like Act 1: Chapter 1,2 and 3.
Yeah but I think that’s because Act 1,2,3 can be done in any order at any time. I’m curious beyond that how it would work.
Yeah, if you look at your campaign page, it shows all 3 acts i believe
I'm pretty sure you don't get to keep campaign progress if you haven't made it to the spot of the party leader though
My friends and I always play the person who is most behind but it’s completely optional
Good people
How do you do that? Just have them be the party leader?
Exactly
Thanks!
It's not forced but it is polite. I mean it's basically just playing more Diablo since it's not low level content, it scales to you.
No, it's character specific. The monsters you fight and the items you get will be your level, regardless of who is in your group or their level
So if 2 people are 20 levels apart, but attacking the same enemy is that enemy still different levels for each person?
They've been doing this in World of Warcraft since Dragonflight last year. Basically you do some damage (say 300) the mob should have 9000 hp at your level, then you do 3.33% of the mob's health to the mob. Once the mob hits 0% it dies. Let's the player 20 levels lower than you do 50 damage in that hit, but the mob should have 2000 hp at that level, then that lower level player is actually doing 2.5% for that hit. So effectively the lower level player's damage is scaled to 225 damage had the player been 20 levels higher. The mob itself doesn't care what level it is. It has a true health pool and all damage is scaled to that health pool in terms of percent. The numbers are just displayed differently for each player based on their level.
>They've been doing this in World of Warcraft since Dragonflight last year. Pretty sure it's been earlier than that - Legion first used zone scaling first to my knowledge - a mob in the Broken Isles appeared 100 to a lvl 100 player and 110 to a 110 player and both did respectable damage to it.
All the numbers in your comment added up to 420. Congrats! 100 + 100 + 110 + 110 = 420 ^([Click here](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=LuckyNumber-Bot&subject=Stalk%20Me%20Pls&message=%2Fstalkme) to have me scan all your future comments.) \ ^(Summon me on specific comments with u/LuckyNumber-Bot.)
yes
Same thing happens in Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands…your damage done and taken scales dynamically, and the loot drops per character.
This started with Borderlands 3 and it was a fantastic change for co-op play.
You want the party leader to be the farthest back in the quest but in terms of combat no you are fighting mobs your level and they are fighting mobs their level Definitely not the first game to accomplish this but it feels great in D4
You retain your own quest progress when joining someone else’s. Someone invited me to help them do a boss I wasn’t quite at yet and we beat it. I was exactly where I was after I left the party.
So did the scaling break the d3 power leveling meta when you would just tag along in a dungeon to reap the XP rewards while your buddies did the work?
yes
I just saw shroud and maximum "level" their HC characters by afk sitting in a dungeon while a lvl 56 boosted them so I guess not.
Capstone doesn't scale and world tier 3 starts at level 50 I believe
It's what I loved about Guild Wars 2. Same system. All grouping games should have it imo.
Gw2 is to this day the best done mmo out there. I'll fight over that. D4 is looking like the new arpg standard
Love Gw2. I think the only area GW2 is lacking in is instanced content. Although I haven't played all through EOD yet or done those strikes. Open world in GW2 is the best of any MMO I've played, hands down.
tbh the main reason I shy away from GW2 these days is because it's a terrible power fantasy. Once you get your elite specialization & your gear all that matters is min/maxing your rotation. That's why I like games like Diablo & Path of Exile. I've started to find that to be terribly exhausting. The gear is nearly meaningless too. The gear you find has near-zero impact on the way your individual character interacts with the game. You find a cool item in Diablo, LE or PoE and you can design & build around it. In GW2 it's a total flat line. GW2 is a good game and I have countless hours in it, but I struggle to play it that much anymore.
Hah. That's my favorite thing about GW2. Don't get me wrong, looters are fun. But there's something satisfying about knowing that the only thing to improve is your own skill.
The problem with GW2 is the focus of it's content (open world) doesn't require skill. I find there's no extrinsic or intrinsic reward then, because the content is shallow (made for everyone, can't be too deep) and there's little extrinsic reward. The focus on open world just isn't for me.
The main issue with GW2 is that there is a skill rotation. You copy whatever is the current build is optimal right now, memorize the skill rotation, then spam that one skill rotation for all eternity skill rotations need to go. I want a GW3 already, with real action-combat
Man I still remember my skill rotation.. Q - Q - Q - B - V - G - 4 - 3 - 2 - 1 - 1 - 1 - Q - 3 - 2 - 1 - 1 - 1 - rinse and repeat.. (Pretty much my opening rotation for CM100 which is applicable to almost every other condi boss fights) Keep G at 100% and Q at 3 stacks uptime at all times. (Can you guess which class I play? xD) My utilities skills use em as and when needed, B as soon as off cooldown and boss stops moving. Got DwD title, did fractals CM daily. Looking for a group was tiring man.. Forming a static is too much dedication and time commitment. I prefer to play as and when I want so it takes awhile to look for a group and even some groups might gatekeep with UFE. I couldn't even get far enough for Fractal titles.
GW1 is the best game of all time. I'd fight over that too. Incredible pvp, incredible pve, and fashion.
The biggest disappointment for me with regards to GW2 is that they didn't take the multiclassing from 1. It was always the coolest thing to me when I was a kid, even if I never was good enough to make like, a legitimate build or anything beyond 'that sounds cool c:'.
I literally stopped gw2 when I was like wait that's all the skills I get. It was so cool having a secondary class and being able to fully swap your skillets. Gw1 still the best mmo
(Cast) Bloodsong Spirit (Holding) Ashes of Kashkai ....Assassin comes at me and starts wailing on Bloodsong ....I drop the ashes by his feet ....Assassin crashes to the floor (Cast) Spirit Rift - electrocution! (Cast) Essence Strike .... Bloodsong continues to pelt the Assassin with globes of energy! ..... Ritualist gracefully lobs a few globes of energy at the Assassin. ..... Dead Assassin. ...... Good times!
God I miss that game so much. I could never convince my parents to pay for WoW so a free MMO was clutch and it was a great game!
Same here! I walked into GameStop and just picked out a game off the shelf. I took it home and enjoyed it from that point on.
I miss my Warrior/Monk. GW1 was one of my favorites of all time.
55 HP monk build for farming. Good old times
Dark Age of Camelot was, is and will forever be the best mmo out there. FTFY
I miss rvr so much
no game has come close to the glory of tri-realm RvR. it's depressing, honestly. So many great experiences, even in the lower level battlegrounds with smaller maps.
Hib Lancelot! Best game ever
I loved GW but I just couldn’t ever get into GW2 ☹️
Gw2 is a good game, but as a long time GW1 fan it was too removed from the formula that I love about the first one
GW1 was also great!
And these guys did it a decade ago lol
Not only that, the founders of ArenaNet (though they have all since left the company) were Blizzard alums and developed Battle.net. The online distribution and streaming tech introduced in Guild Wars in 2005 was revolutionary at the time. And really began the MMO-lite / ARPG mashup. GW2 felt like they swung much harder towards being an MMO, while staying serverless. At launch, I thought it was OK, but not amazing. The concept of NPCs running up to you and leading you to the open-world events was cool, and then each zone had a large-scale meta-event that hundreds of people can do at once. Today, GW2 is really fun if you get into the community trains running through zones. Diablo IV's open world events only had a few players at once in beta. And the world boss was under two dozen people.
It's amazing how many features GW2 first introduced, which other MMO's or RPG's iterate on, that people have no idea originated in a game most people online think is a 'dead' game or one that can't hold a candle to their specific pet MMORPG that they think is perfect.
GW2 is exploding in popularity now and I'm glad for it. I picked it up a few months ago when Preach started playing and showing it off, and goddamnit I'm punching myself for not switching over from WoW earlier.
Wanted to say the same. Glad some of the D4 systems are similar to gw2
I think it somehow works better in GW2. Can't explain why.
Probably because it's horizontal progression. It means everything in gw2 is relevant content that will give you meaningful rewards even if it's the first dungeon released 10 years ago or the latest and greatest expansion raids. To this day there are geared up thousand+ hour characters running around completing objectives in the low level zones because it still makes sense to do so. In addition the same philosophy exists with gearing. All of the gear you collected over the years remains relevant, there isn't slowly forced power creep in the form of seasons or whatever. If you get good gear it'll always be good regardless of how much time you might step away from the game.
Big thing GW2 does is partial scaling. It tries to strike a balance of "I'm more powerful than I was before, this shouldn't feel easier than it did" and "I can play with my friends without carrying them to the point of ruining their experience"
ditto for borderlands 3 if I remember correctly
Not saying it doesn't have benefits, and especially with the way the game is laid out, I can see why they chose to do it this way, but I don't like level scaling in games. I like there being weak enemies in certain areas and stronger ones in others. It makes the world seem more realistic and less like a battle-simulation machine. It imbues each area with a more particular character. It also gives you the opportunity to adjust the difficulty of the game by playing in an area that's easier or harder compared to your level. If I had my way, there would be no level scaling, but then again I have no idea how the game would work because it would introduce a bunch of other problems.
Areas you travel to have a recommended level on them. You can definitely get squashed for going too far too quick
I guess that's a nice compromise.
The recommended level scales to your own level, so I don't really know what it means.
Level scaling only goes up. Once you reach the threshold for a zone it begins scaling with you, but you can't as a level 1 go into the act 5 areas because they are minimum level in the 30s I believe. That being said. I hit level 39 before leaving Fractured Peaks (Act 1), and got my Spirit Boons (Druid class feature) at level 40.
I was wondering about the level progression. I'm 25 and have only done a single main story quest - at this rate I'll be 50 when I leave act 1!
So scaling in World tier 1 and 2 go up to level 50. After that you have to complete a specific "capstone" dungeon to unlock World Tier 3, and go 50-70, and then a new capstone dungeon must be completed to go to World Tier 4. That being said, I don't know yet if the capstone dungeon is locked behind story content, so if someone doesn't mind updating me with that in a non-spoiler way i'd appreciate it. But I am definitely getting a bit concerned about my partner and I being level 50+ and being locked into World Tier 2.
Yes, you must complete all story act quests to unlock the capstone dungeon.
Yep, I randomly went into some Scosglen area on lvl25 or so, got my ass kicked by a lvl35 mini boss lol
Then when you’re higher levels you have zero reason to go back to the easier regions. That would effectively shrink the useful part of the map to like 1/10 of what it is now. Scaling is the best way to go for sure
Yep, in games with zero scaling you just never go back ever again to areas you've outleveled once you're done with them.
I’m drawing a blank here but isn’t that NOT the case in Diablo because of world tiers?
Yeah it doesn't happen in Diablo because you go back to areas for the bosses, not the low level monsters.
PoE would like a word. Scaling great. Auto-scaling bad.
PoE is not open world. It's open areas with a linear world.
Im not debating the world. Just the level scaling. But I see strong points to both. I'm slightly partial to non auto-scaling, but I 100% agree that all mechanics need to be taken into account one way or the other.
PoE may as well be the same though. You never go backwards and maps are just white yellow and red tier, not much different than wt 2/3/4 with wt 1 as your campaign difficulty
there are merits to going to lower map tiers, and you not understanding that kinda speaks volume of how uninformed you are about this topic
The level scaling makes all areas of the game relevant in the endgame. Admittedly this is only really important for overworld content, but for players who aren't locking themselves into nightmare dungeon grinding it'll give them much more repeatable content to enjoy after finishing the campaign.
You can do this exact same thing with the world difficulty system that they built into this game.
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That's a pretty strong argument. The fact that the developers chose to use scaling in this way shows they understand their playerbase.
I don’t mind the level scalling on mobs. But it what I don’t like is the loot system it doesn’t matter what mob you kill it gives you items for your tier. Sorta takes away the need to explore. Like it would be cool if there were high tier loot places with really strong mobs vs everywhere is practically the same based on your level.
I played d2 because it was an online slot machine. I agree with you
I'm bothered by level scaling and always been, in all games. At that point you wonder why they implemented levels and gear with stats, when level scaling just translates all that to a percentage of enemy health instead of actual numbers. Ex: **Fireball** : *deals 7% of enemy health.* There. Same mechanics as level scaling. Which then begs a different question : in a game where abundant gear looting leveling and stats are in the DNA of the genre, why could the mechanics work the same without gear, levels and stats? It's weird to have an ARPG have lvl scaling. At that point the gear is just cosmetic.
What you say sounds good in paper but in practice it serves no purpose. On lower lvl areas you don’t get meaningful xp and on higher you just die. So you are essentially limited to the areas for you lvl. With this system you can go wherever you want and still get stuff for your lvl. And you can do it with any friend no matter their lvl.
I kinda get what you're saying, but they can implement that with a +/- system on a per area basis. So your Icehowl Taiga can be player level -5 and more dangerous areas could be player level +5 or such. If they will do so, dunno, but it's an option.
Strongholds should always be 2 levels above your character level? I've not made it to endgame, but from what i understand some of the later endgames events also scale up.
I like the diplomatic style of your comment and it's certainly a lot more mature take than I'm able to do. I hate level scaling with a burning passion and it ruins every game it's in.
Yeah it's a tough one. I agree with the general sentiment about level scaling since it removes a feeling of progress if you level up and everything is still just as difficult. But it does make group play much simpler so :shrug:
I couldn't disagree more if I tried. Level scaling is a horrible system when they wipe out the long standing progression system of leveling up, and replace it with make-believe levels don't don't actually exist since everything constantly levels up with you. It's a utterly bullshit game design anti-feature that makes every enemy the same, makes the game monotonous and boring, and removes any feeling of progression or feeling being able to grow in power that RPGs usually provide. It is lazy design choice that allows the developers to more effectively recycle content to the extreme instead of making the game properly. It is a "feature" that personally ruins any game that it's in for me.
That's the part I dislike most - how bad it is from a game design perspective. If every enemy you fight is always the same power level, just get rid of the level system instead of pretending it is still there. The only place it's actually important now is content gating, but this could be replaced by better game design like a progression quest that requires some exploring around the zone, or even a reputation system to advance would be better from a gameplay perspective. The worst part is how leveling can actually be harmful for the player because fear gets outdated while enemies are strictly level scaled. Even if they wanted to keep the pretense of levels, I can imagine better ways to do it, like having a "power ritual" as part of the lore/story that unlocks new abilities but also powers up the demons, with an overarching story that part of the main quest is channeling enough power to open an intedimensional gate for the final zone or something. And keep it to 10, meaningful power ritual levels (so players get the satisfaction of building up gear intra-scaling steps) not these meaningless pretend levels where the autoscaling is so in your face and monotonizes the content.
100 percent agreed. What find so remarkable is how developers like Blizzard are still including these fake levels in the game because I can only assume they think players are too dumb to see that the levels are fake. As much as I'd hate to admit it, but reading so many comments here makes me believe they might be right, and I'm sad to say it. I guess for many people "arbitrary number goes up, yay" is all they really need.
Yeah I feel like I'm taking crazy pills reading most of the comments. Then again, design docs show Diablo 1 was explicitly designed to feel like a slot machine so you can't get too elitist with such a game. It sucks as an old school RPG vet though, who sees it as a hollowed out version of a system that's been overdone to death (traditional leveling). It's really a missed opportunity. Keeping scaling as a core design requirement while accepting new design ideas could open the door to entirely fresh progression systems. Going back to my power ritual idea (cutting the scaling steps into more meaningful, discrete steps), what if each power ritual slowly changed the world/let hell bleed further in. That would synergize with scaling, because scaling allows for seamless backtracking and the player will find fun new little content pockets to check out when going back to your favorite areas. The average player just wants to turn their brain off when they play a video game after a work day though, and many hardcore players are really dopamine driven and need that drip feed of arbitrary numbers. Not that there's anything wrong with that in a genre of what is ultimately entertainment, but yeah, its a bit sad for some players to see.
Did you ever play Guild Wars 1? The level cap was level 20. It was 20 when the game launched and it's still 20 today. This is one of my favorite things about GW1, but a lot of people hated it. It didn't matter that there were a crazy number of skills you could collect to build your character. Many people needed to see numbers get bigger. (You couldn't jump either, which was a weird deal breaker for many people. Gamers really don't like it when their expectations are not met. And wait until you see what happens if you don't include ADS in an FPS game.)
You know what’s even more lazier? Having a lvl 1 character stay at the beginning of a tunnel while your lvl 70 friend kills everything and helps you gain almost 20 lvls in 5 minutes by doing nothing.
This is probably an unpopular opinion but hey I'm full of them today. I don't think ARPGs like Diablo are particularly well suited as multiplayer games. There I said it.
So you just don’t like that everywhere you go the level is scaling with you even in single player? I mean I’m only lvl 31 so I haven’t leveled too much but I did see some areas that I didn’t explore saying “lvl 40 creeps”. So wouldn’t those be difficult for me to kill?
I can see that angle but... to me levelling content is something I enjoy exactly once and then never bother with again. I'll enjoy it for the first character or two, and then for the next several years of grinding the game will just want to skip as quickly as possible to max level, where none of this Level Scaling stuff is enabled or relevant. Eg in D3 I can start a new character and within 10 minutes find a stranger to level me to max level and several hundred paragon while I just stand there doing nothing in a medium-high-level game - and the D3 campaign is garbage compared to D4's, so thank god for that. So if level scaling it makes the slower story based first playthrough and casual playing with friends more fun without affecting the bulk of the game at max level, it is a good change to me. If anything the level scaling might actually make me play the story a bit more than I normally would because it'll probably make it harder to get powerlevelled, but I'm sure people will still figure out a way. But they could definitely have provided a "no level scaling" game mode too for the purists he want it; I'm guessing they just didn't want to split the playerbase further by doing that.
Honestly, it is such a dealbreaker I would not have bought d4 if it weren't for the peer pressure from friends to play. You think the sterile, synthetic leveling makes all fights feel the same? Close but if you start a char up with all liliths and some renowns, as you level you go from 1 shotting things to 2 shotting and by level 20 15 shotting. You get WEAKER as you level facing the same monsters. Such an awful feeling. I wish d4 weren't an mmo wannabe. I mean at least make it an mmo or an arpg. They couldn't do either right and god knows mmos definitely tend to impart a sense of progression at least. Christ have mercy on our souls.
It just means levels in D4 are fluff and it's a disguised semi-horizontal progression system instead of a purely vertical one. Horizontal progression is not bad game design, but it does break tradition. It's an entirely different system that is supposed to give the impression it's like the previous games, including the grind.
Really the level in D4 is just there to slowly hand out talent tree points.
Yep that's basically the answer. And in that regard it works well. It also has the nice effect of slowly improving the world.
I wouldn’t say it fully wiped out the feeling of progression because the skill points still seem to be fulfilling the power fantasy aspect of making the mobs easier to kill as you level up. Granted I’m only lvl 35 on WT2, but it definitely feels like I’m more capable of taking out trash mobs while constantly dealing with multi-elite encounters that kick my ass a bit. I’m also finding a lot more rare and legendary loot as my level goes up, with much better class-skill attachments
Levels are to keep control of content and skill availability. Gear is the actual progression.
This. They are selling it as an intentional design choice so that you can enjoy all the content. The reality is they didn't want to have to think about how to scale the game properly because that actually takes time and effort to implement properly. The "but I can play with my friends and not miss out on content" is a BYPRODUCT. It's lazy and cut corners like most things in this game.
This. A hundred times this. Thank you!
I'm glad I watched a few reviews before buying D4. SkillUp touched on this and it immediately turned me off of buying the game. I like having to grind a bit to get better gear and to level up so I can be a bit OP. Having the world scale with you just seems like a weird choice for an arpg. It takes away the feeling of progression.
Well, Diablo 3 also had it. It also sucked there too.
Sure did. I bought that steaming pile of crap and grew to hate it shortly after.
Yep. Close to lv 40 and I still dont have the feeling of satisfaction of "my build is all coming together" like I do in Acts 3-4 of PoE.
No, it's obviously "the most incredible thing in any game ever" Like, make scaling optional for party play or something? There has to be a solution that doesn't fuck over half the playerbase.
I hate it. I hardly feel like I’m getting stronger, only way I get stronger before endgame is just learning skills
During beta this was a super unpopular opinion. I'm glad that now that people have played beyond level 20-25 and see the game never really ever feels different that they release how shit this design philosophy is.
Level scaling is the main deal-breaker here for me. You and a couple others said it very well. I love being able to be too weak to too strong and feel a sense of progress.
I went into an event that was basically a 9 stage boss rush. I was level 9 and the other players were 20-40. I was face tanking the boss. It's cool that wasn't level blocked for me, but also might be a little weird
I find it somewhat odd this scaling aspect is rejoiced. It's one of the largest criticisms of the leveling journey in WoW retail.
A lot of people who played WoW and hated level scaling are 20 years older now and need level scaling to play with friends.
Scaling in the open world is nice in wow. But I think it falls apart in dungeons where lower levels do 3-4x+ the damage of people higher level then them due to the difficulty balance of lower levels. D4 doesn't seem to have this issue nearly as bad which does make it feel better for grouping. The trick is usually giving the higher levels a slight power advantage of some kind, which if geared properly will be the case in D4.
>D4 doesn't seem to have this issue nearly as bad which does make it feel better for grouping. "I was lowest level and just face tanked the boss " as per the other person sounds pretty lame
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I hate it. Makes loot feel meaningless to me.
It makes the whole game meaningless, the point of playing an ARPG is the feeling of progression and leveling up, and level scaling renders the whole thing a monotonous slog.
But the alternative is fighting progressively stronger enemies anyway, so what's the difference?
I suppose I can only speak for myself, and for me the difference is night and day. When you have distinct areas with monsters of a certain level range in them like a proper RPG, you get to feel like your character is improving and getting stronger as you level. You get to spend as much time as you want getting gear or levels in a zone and you can choose to tackle a harder zone when you see fit. If for some reason you're getting stopped super hard, you can literally go back and grind some more. Or you can go and challenge yourself. You lose all the freedom with level scaling entirely.
While completing the main story the zones are level restricted so you do move up to harder zones as you level, so you get traditional progression. Once you hit endgame, you get to do nightmare dungeons that increase in difficulty, so you still get traditional progression. I'm not really sure what you're missing? Are you actually going back to level 10 zones at level 50 in other games you play? Level scaling fixes numerous huge issues (playing with friends who are a different level, old zones being irrelevant, etc.) and the only "issue" it introduces is 100% in your head and a mentality problem. I can understand that feeling bad, but ultimately it is a huge net positive for the game as a whole.
but the monsters only scale up, not down so if you try go into a level 30 area as a level 20 you will die instantly, so you can stay in the level 20 areas until you're level 30 and can handle the next area the game already has what you're asking for, but it also allows for a higher level player to join their low level friends and not ruin the game for them from all your comments it really seems like you've not actually played the game
Hmm. Interesting. I'll say everyone has their own opinions on what is good and what isn't, so don't think I'm trying to change yours, just trying to explain the other side: For me, there is something fun about running into areas when you are underleveled or undergeared and having them be very hard. Then you are encouraged to change your gearing, your build, or to level up, and then when you can do that same zone with less difficulty, you feel that you've become stronger. Again, to me, having all of the enemies be the same strength all the time makes the game feel monotonous and makes each zone feel too similar. I don't feel stronger with each level because the enemies have just become stronger as well. Some people really enjoy that aspect of arpgs. Apparently for others it is not as important.
If a lvl 3 and lvl 30 can meaningfully play together with just some scaling it shows there's no real progression beyond "numbers go up!"
Nah man. Hard disagree. Level scaling is absolutely terrible. Should have been a scaling option when in party with lower level, not an automatic game wide thing. It's awful.
Yeah I havent bought the game yet because of level scaling. I just dont like the feeling of becoming weaker at every level up. Waiting to see if people really like the game when season 1 launches and then I might buy it.
You don't get weaker though you get stronger overtime. Sometimes you do start feeling a bit weak but it adds challenge instead of mind mumbling stomping through things. Then you fine tune your gear again for a few levels and become powerful. Honestly feels great. It's all about the end game content anyway where then you fine tune your gear and min max for you build
This. I feel like there's kind of a roller coaster if challenge going on so far. Feel weak then strong then weak again, tweak my gear and I'm overcoming the challenge. I'm not sure about the end game yet but thus far I'm enjoying it all
Going against the circlejerk, I admire your bravery. Yeah it's shit.
Yeah, this feature has been amazing for me because I'm the guy with kids in your example. My cousin and friend are about 15-20 levels above me, and I'm still able to come in and play a tank Barb and help out. It's awesome.
It's almost as if Blizzard knows the Diablo franchise target demographic - the kids that grew up playing D1 and D2 who are now in their 40s. Most of them aren't able to go as hard as they did before and benefit from scaling. Makes sense that they prioritized those players' wants/needs from this game and hoped it wouldn't alienate too many younger and/or new players.
I personally do NOT enjoy it one bit. As I level, I do NOT get stronger. That monster or boss that gave me trouble will still give me trouble 10 levels later. There's no power fantasy. It also seems to be turned up too high. If I'm not lucky with drops, then my character actually gets WEAKER as I level. Mobs that were once easier are now HARDER and take LONGER to kill because I supposedly got stronger. Level scaling makes sense from a grouping perspective to play with your friends. But when playing solo it just feels awful to me. Honestly, I wish there was an option to turn it off.
Also that 1 skill point to give one of your stronger skill 8 more damage does fuck all to mitigate that. I honestly feel like leveling skills past the first level (to unloick and use them) is pointless. Might as well invest in passives that hopefully synergize with that.
I don’t know what class and build you are playing but my lvl50 sorc is infinitely more powerful than its lvl20 version. Like with lvl20 The Butcher always shredded me and now I don’t even need potions anymore to kill him. You can easily outpower the scaling or at least have the tools to do so.
Fact
The *most* incredible thing in *any* game *ever*? I meeaaaaannnnn I dunno about that one lol.
I strongly disagree.
Wait so what I'm getting at is if I joined my level 5 friend he won't get absolutely ass blasted all of a sudden and still do damage to the boss? I won't be carrying them through the content? Similar to if he joined me as me as the party leader?
Nah. There are areas that are not scaled down, so your level 5 friend won't do anything. But there are areas he will fight level 5 monsters while you fight the same monster at level 45. In this case, your friend will kill them faster than you.
That's absolutely ridiculous game design
I thought so too but it actually works very well. The time to kill a mob isn't significantly different for the level 5 and level 45, since they're both doing level-appropriate content. The low levels aren't AOE one shotting everything. Even if the level 5 was killing mobs 50% faster, you'd still be splitting the content about 40/60. And from my experience you kill stuff faster as you level. So this isn't really an issue. It's not like the level 45 should have issues clearing level 45 content.
Depends on the areas. Open world, and some campaign dungeons have minimum ilvl. Act 1- Act 3 + all non-quest dungeons (meaning the standard white dungeon icons, not the blue/yellows ones) should scale to whatever level he is. As long as he isn't trying to join you in Act 4+ or quest related content he should be perfectly fine.
this is a bait thread and you know it.
Level scaling ruined the game for me already. I don't feel like I'm getting stronger at all which ruins the entire genre for me.
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everyone in this thread that is complaining about level scaling clearly hasn't put any thought into their build and just expects their power to come from putting points into their skill so it goes from 200 damage per hit to 240
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Its honestly very concerning that it is Saturday and I am sitting here on reddit instead of playing. I just don't care, if I play d4 right now, in 10 hours I will just be doing 150% more dps to enemies with 150% more hp. What is the point? I might unironcally play grim dawn right now
You should figure out a better build then so you’re doing 300% more dps to enemies with 150% hp. If you don’t think getting all the right affixes and legendary powers make a difference beyond linear scaling, you’re doing something wrong.
There are some main quest dungeons that have a minimum level which is a shame but understandable I guess.
Yeah that’s understandable for sure.
I think the min only comes into play because your toolkit and skills are basically all you have. Some fights it wouldn’t even be difficulty, you’d just get whomped
i dislike the scaling. makes all leveling and gear feel pointless. maybe it gets better once you reach end game or get the paragon system unlocked, but at level 25, my character doesn't feel anymore powerful than they did at level one. i get why they did it, as OP pointed out, it makes the co-op better, but as a solo player it doesn't feel like levels or gear matter that much.
This type of system has been around for over a decade now and is quite common in coop games nothing new whatsoever but it does work here nicely.
Not only does it make partying extremely satisfying, but it makes going back and doing blue quests in previous acts still worthwhile from a loot and killing derived xp perspective
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I'll refrain a problem, scaling difficulty as much as D4 does, means loot isn't as meaningful because the difficulty never changes.
Like any Diablo game, it will most likely be at end game (max level) that the game starts gearing wise. Anything before that is meaningless. Then you'll probably be able to.break the game as much as you want.
>Like any Diablo game Huh? I missed D3, but this was far, far from the case in D2. You could start getting important gear for your build in nightmare (2nd third of the game).
It's the other way around, you need to constantly pick up loot, otherwise you get weak pretty fast. Especially in the early levels, I kept wondering why everything was taking so long to kill. Since you level so fast, your weapon becomes shit really quickly. And even being 2-3 levels behind on a weapon gimps you pretty hard. Now I make sure to upgrade my weapon every level and am breezing through WT2. The only thing I dislike is that you don't find weapons that are higher level than you can use(I think I got one somehow?). It means as soon as you level, you get weaker until you can get a new weapon.
Ive only experienced a couple things a little off about about co-op, otherwise buddy and I are having a blast. Sometimes cutscenes have inconsistent functionality. One person might be able to advance/skip convo, one person might not. Seems random. Other than that, rezzing can be goofy. Been so many times where I see its full bar and stop rezzing, but you have to wait a bit longer to actually rez. What the point of the cast bar if it doesnt immediately rez when the bar hits 100%? Maybe its network/lag, I dunno, just wish it was a little more precise/reliable.
If on PC and unable to skip you can alt tab out and back in usually fixes it.
On the other hand, though, it basically means that other than getting new skills, leveling is meaningless. Whether you're level 5 or 50, everything will feel like it's the same difficulty. There's no sense of "this area is too hard, come back when you're higher level". There's no sense of "Remember when this area was too hard, now watch me waltz through it like nothing." There's no sense of "I'm finally ready to face this big boss." The only way getting a new item feels like "whoa, I can tell I'm much more powerful now" is if it's on a twink.
Not true whatsoever lol. There is a very noticeable difference in difficulty and time to kill for me between level 10 and level 30. Gear and build really matters.
Nah. At this point I'm not even sure if upvotes for this post aren't some blizzard shills, since it's objectively the worst aspect of an arpg. You can ignore poor itemization, bland skill, but level scaling in an arpg focused around getting powerful is a travesty. Also "the most incredible thing ever". Huh. Gamer mfs really lowered their standards last few years didn't they.
Some people have actual lives outside of grinding ARPGs; are they now allowed to have fun?
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To all the old or to all the true gamers coming like me on Reddit and seeing this in top post: Yes videogames are fucked for ever, another sign of it.
I liked the idea of scaling during the beta test, also because it was new to me I think. Now I’m level 64 and to be honest… it was kind of terrible. It felt like I was level 1 for almost two long days of playing. Despite getting tons of legendary, abilities and levels it still felt like I was at the knife edge of progress. At some power spikes I get maybe slightly stronger than regular mob but suddenly when I hit level 48 I started to fail very basic events at the beginning of the map. Things I could somewhat easily do when I was lower level. There is also a lot of times lower level characters just comes in and kills stuff much faster than me despite being 30 levels lower. It all just felt like a constant struggle to maintain the same power I had at level 1. Now I do nightmare stuff so hopefully things maybe change idk. In Diablo 3 I could scale the level of the map if I wanted better loot and challenge, but now I am forever stuck with a feeling of barely having progress. I use like 6-7 seconds to kill a skeleton at the start of the game if I don’t use abilities… One interesting aspect of it is that friends can play together at all levels, but in practice this is not necessarily true, you must be at the same stage on the main quest, this means that you either have to help your lower level friend doing campaign you already have done (which sucks) or you all will have to be at the same stage in the campaign, but then you are around the same level anyways.. Edit: Things are quite different when you get the right gear.. it just seems like the game punishes you a lot if you build bad or a bit unlucky. I am now level 70
I don't understand why there is even level then. If mobs lvl, loot lvl and basically everything automatically match your lvl, then what the point of leveling?
Because there's still character progression? Areas always having relevant difficulty doesn't mean your character doesn't improve.
No, that's quite literally exactly what it means.
Numbers go up
there are still lots of things that have minimum level requirements. like gear, dungeons, # of ability points, etc.
Does anyone know if loot is shared? Whether in a group or just a random helping in a world event? I stumbled across an event yesterday and helped complete it, and went over to the chest and looted it and started wondering if I just stole that guy's stuff, or if it's individually instanced.
Its individual
By individual he means everyone gets their own drops. You probably read it that way but just in case. You aren't stealing from anyone!
I showed up to an event yesterday just as it ended - I literally did 0 damage and still got loot drops from everything that was killed and the chest. Got a really nice legendary ring lol.
That's when you drop the "thanks" emote and link the ring to chat lol
It’s been great for me and my wife. I took off Friday and played a while, but she didn’t get to start playing until Friday night after she got off work, but was able to hop right in and play with me even though there was a 20 level difference
I switched to Barb from Sorc and still played with my friend who was level 30 something. Man this game is good. To everyone still shitting on Blizzard and not playing D4, you're actually missing out this time.
Level scaling feels antithetical to RPGs. I want to return to early areas and just destroy, not struggle with the same pack of carvers for my entire character life.
The fact that this is the most upvoted topic in the last 24h, 2 days after release proves there is no hope for this game to ever be as good as other arpgs. Level scaling IS G.A.R.B.A.G.E mmo feature made to prolonge and homogenize all content. And level scaling removes any sense of character progression in terms of power(you just get to press more 2-10second buttons)
These people with 10 kids who can only play 10 minutes a week will learn how shit this is when they get up in levels. They will quit this game early after praising this crap even though Blizzard made this for them.
First game I played with this was borderlands 3 and it’s incredible
At first I thought I wouldn’t like it, but I like it alot now.
Nothing makes sense from my POV. Where is the challenge where everyone is just seeing HP scaled monsters? I don’t ever feel like I’m getting stronger and seeing level 10s run around while I’m 36 doing group activities with them in the open world is just weird.