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Cyberpunk 2077Level Scaling doesn't make sense.(41 posts)(41 posts)
(41 posts)
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This is my favourite topic
Posted October 07, 2023
It's really, really boring when the enemies you fight at level 1 are just as difficult and take as much time to defeat as the enemies you fight at level 30.

It gets tedious, and your skills and character progress feel essentially worthless. There's no reason to get stronger, the enemies will just get stronger with you, making your advancement effectively undone.
Posted October 08, 2023
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Teflon.Djinn: It's really, really boring when the enemies you fight at level 1 are just as difficult and take as much time to defeat as the enemies you fight at level 30.

It gets tedious, and your skills and character progress feel essentially worthless. There's no reason to get stronger, the enemies will just get stronger with you, making your advancement effectively undone.
Just out of curiosity, how would you want it to be?

Don't get me wrong, I see your point, and I agree with you. And for my part, I found my solution: using a character editor and upping the damage on my favourite weapons, so I literally wouldn't run out of ammunition during a fight against enemies above my level (as it was in 1.6).
Or in gamer terms: I'm playing as a glass cannon. Squishy with high damage, requiring me to think tactically about my positioning, movement and escape routes before every fight. I find it quite fun.

Playing on Very Hard, I am currently taking out 4-5 enemies with a single magazine with a 700 Damage Lizzie. Or just having fun with a 1400 Damage, 6-round magazine Ashura smart sniper rifle. When I first started playing this way on 1.6, I balanced out my insane weapon damage through only a single point in Body (initially went Technical Ability and Cool), so I would just about die immediately if I stood still for more than a couple seconds in a fight.

I don't know how the 2.0 balancing would feel by default from the beginning though. I continued my 1.6 character who was about mid-way into the base game. Am currently grinding my way through Phantom Liberty by doing the extremely repetitive task of delivering cars... Seriously, those quests should get a 2-day timer ASAP. Feels like the good El Capitan has lost more cars in the tiny area that is Dogtown than I ever lost small LEGO bricks in the living room carpet.

But due to the balancing of 2.0 (access to cyberware I prior was unable to use due to the low Body stat), and some of the glitches (like "stuck" XP shards in my inventory, which I now can duplicate infinitely thanks to said character editor), my own "balancing" is starting to fail, and I become more and more overpowered as I gain XP in the various new ability trees.
Post edited October 08, 2023 by PaladinNO
Posted October 08, 2023
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ast486: It gave a feeling of power!
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mna99: Not really. It more gave the feeling of boredom that the game ran out of challenges to throw at me.

I've played a lot of 2.0 now and I have noticed my char is generally more powerful then enemies... yet even when fighting a bunch of 'normal' enemies, theyere is still no point where I can just stand there and laugh at them.
I very much dislike that!
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mna99: It was the same way in 1.63. Actually it was worse since 1.63 ran out of challenging enemies after maybe level 30 or so.
Now your making no sense at all. First you disagree with me, then you try to claim it's exactly as I said. >.>

Btw when I want a challenge in 1.63, I just go up to the higher level areas.
The fact that they cutoff growing in power at a certain point is both realistic and good!
Posted October 08, 2023
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PaladinNO: Just out of curiosity, how would you want it to be?
Not directed at me, but the solution is already in the game: tiered enemies.
Represented by the one's with skulls over their heads and segmented health bars (more and more segments the harder they get).

Set all gangoons/enemies to follow that clear background tiering they have the capability for, so that no matter which area/region you hit, every gang is equal strength. Starts with tier-1 enemies and have every group made up of a range of tiers (eg: in the beginning perhaps the dumb gangoons are tier-1, the netrunner supporting them is tier-2 and the 'boss' is tier-3).
As you level/skill up (and they could be more sophisticated than just pure character level, look at perks spent, attributes etc), enemy groups can start being comprised of higher and higher tier enemies, perhaps larger groups. By the time you hit level 50 the encounters could be made of larger groups comprising some base tier-2/3 enemies, and then tier-4/5/5(6/7/8)+ enemies etc. And among all that you just include random chance. Some groups, some newbie gangs you encounter, you clean up without breaking a sweat, because they're all tier-1, and at the other end elite enemy groups where they are all over 'max'.

From a certain perspective it might seem this is what they've done with 2.0, except if that was their aim I would argue that they missed the mark by making the scope of variation far far too narrow, too tight, making everything feel very much the same. At higher level/skill we should still encounter some weakling enemies that we would have encountered at lvl 1, and at lvl 1 we should be able to encounter end-game strength enemies that we can't beat.
Posted October 08, 2023
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Masioj: I`m at level 20 and I definitely not as weak against the enemies as I was before xD +%crit damage stacked, I can dash, I have kerekzikov and focus and deadeye and I`m now Max Payne.
What I could I do in level 1? Just shoot like a normie and take cover like a normie to get bombarded by nades and throw two quickhacks in the whole fight.

Definitely those maelstrom in Watson are not as dangerous as they were for me level 1
Good point. There is certainly a better mechanic implemented than a simple and mindless "everyone has the same level" system. However, the scaling becomes annoying when you play as a Netrunner. There is a cap on it, and they removed the critical chance on Contagion, even when the right cyberware is installed. I noticed a significant increase in difficulty after level 40. I would like to see other cyberware options popping up at Ripper Docs to buy, similar to how new weapons appear, which also level up and better ones become available for purchase.

There is a lot that needs to be improved.
Post edited October 08, 2023 by Greystar1988
Posted October 08, 2023
Level scaling should be restricted by area, that way there's an upper and lower limit to enemy power based on where they are. Enemies in a starting area shouldn't level up to endgame difficulty with you, and endgame mobs shouldn't be able to be handled by a level 1 character. Example one region has enemies that can scale from 2-10, another region has enemies that scale from 20-25, etc. that way regions can still be somewhat gated but won't be overwhelmed by a starting character.
Posted October 10, 2023
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Uro: Level scaling should be restricted by area, that way there's an upper and lower limit to enemy power based on where they are. Enemies in a starting area shouldn't level up to endgame difficulty with you, and endgame mobs shouldn't be able to be handled by a level 1 character. Example one region has enemies that can scale from 2-10, another region has enemies that scale from 20-25, etc. that way regions can still be somewhat gated but won't be overwhelmed by a starting character.
That would make a lot more sense. People keep talking about being "skill" based and not based on numbers, but a lot of games like that, like Hollow Knight and Dark Souls just don't end up being finished. People hit their limit and don't have enough free time to just grind out and practice. That just isn't fun, and personally I think there's something wrong about having to practice to play a single player game.
Posted October 10, 2023
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Uro: Level scaling should be restricted by area, that way there's an upper and lower limit to enemy power based on where they are. Enemies in a starting area shouldn't level up to endgame difficulty with you, and endgame mobs shouldn't be able to be handled by a level 1 character. Example one region has enemies that can scale from 2-10, another region has enemies that scale from 20-25, etc. that way regions can still be somewhat gated but won't be overwhelmed by a starting character.
Earlier versions of 2077 level scaled by area and the way it was implemented didn't make sense.
You fight Maelstrom early in the game, so their turf was easy, despite them being one of the scarier gangs according the game's own lore.
Posted November 13, 2023
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Punkoinyc: Earlier versions of 2077 level scaled by area and the way it was implemented didn't make sense.
You fight Maelstrom early in the game, so their turf was easy, despite them being one of the scarier gangs according the game's own lore.
I tried to go along with CDPR's choice of level scaling for a while now, and it doesn't get better - it gets worse.

The feeling of territory is gone. There is no tense moments anymore when you try to punch above your weight, using tricks and stealth to overcome opponents which you know to be much stronger. You can just waltz in anywhere, with the same degree of difficulty (or rather, lack of it).

Once I get PoL done, I'll go hunting for a mod that reverses this very unfortunate decision.
In fact, I'm willing to pay up to $20 for such a mod.
And if that doesn't exist, I'll roll back to the last "proper" version.

There's been a lot of improvements, and some changes that are plus-and-minus in one.

But this level scaling is just crap, dumbing down a good game to appeal to low-skill players.
Posted November 14, 2023
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Punkoinyc: Earlier versions of 2077 level scaled by area and the way it was implemented didn't make sense.
You fight Maelstrom early in the game, so their turf was easy, despite them being one of the scarier gangs according the game's own lore.
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foo_: I tried to go along with CDPR's choice of level scaling for a while now, and it doesn't get better - it gets worse.

The feeling of territory is gone. There is no tense moments anymore when you try to punch above your weight, using tricks and stealth to overcome opponents which you know to be much stronger. You can just waltz in anywhere, with the same degree of difficulty (or rather, lack of it).

Once I get PoL done, I'll go hunting for a mod that reverses this very unfortunate decision.
In fact, I'm willing to pay up to $20 for such a mod.
And if that doesn't exist, I'll roll back to the last "proper" version.

There's been a lot of improvements, and some changes that are plus-and-minus in one.

But this level scaling is just crap, dumbing down a good game to appeal to low-skill players.
I really dislike the level scaling, it removes a lot of the game's challenge and also reduces the variety of encounters but I think I understand why it was introduced.

The thing is with games like The Witcher 3 for example, you'd play through the main campaign and max your character out, then buy the DLC's and get access to extra levels etc. and the game could keep on scaling ( harder enemies in the new areas and so on).

The problem with Cyberpunk is that you can't do this because once the main campaign is over there is no way forward, it's pretty much game over at that point, so any extra content has to be shoehorned into the main campaign somehow. This in turn means you can't just ramp up the difficulty like you would with a normal DLC and this is why we end up getting this level scaling crap.

All in all it reeks of a lack of forethought from the game's designers, remember they originally planned 2 DLC's, how did they think that was ever going to work given the limitations of the game's story ? Honestly this game doesn't feel like it was planned out very well at all, it's like they put all of this effort into balancing gameplay for 3 years before realising they'd have to scrap it all and start again just to make the DLC work .....
Posted November 15, 2023
Level scaling could have been avoided by having a recommend level to start the DLC. It's been done in other games, most notably The Outer Worlds in recent years.

Scaling is lazy development. They did it in Diablo 4, and it neutered any sense of meaningful progression in the game.

They've done it in PL, and it's also neutered any sense of meaningful progression.

It's done this since it was first introduced in a triple A title in Oblivion in the 2000's. It trivializes progression, and takes a large portion of the risk/reward out of the game, including experimenting to find optimal gear.

All it is is a cost cutting measure because whoever the developer is using it, including bethesda, chooses not to spend the money to program and create a proper power curve in the game.

You'll find games with built in scaling are generally less favorable and tend to have less favorable reviews the longer they're out, as well. Take Starfield, for example. At launch, it was the critics' pride and joy, and the longer time has gone on, the more people have openly stated the game isn't as finished or polished as they'd hoped.
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Cyberpunk 2077Level Scaling doesn't make sense.(41 posts)(41 posts)
(41 posts)