I realize it’s probably too late for a fundamental redesign at this stage, but this past weekend was the first time I ever got a chance to play the game so thought I’d throw this out there - crazy that none of the testers for the past year in alpha build thought to mention it, or did mention it and this crucial feedback was ignored…
Infinite scaling of the overworld is fundamentally flawed. The flaws manifest in a variety of ways, but at a most basic level if the monsters are gaining power at the same rate that your character is gaining power, or worse FASTER than your character is gaining power, then the sense of progression - the core principle of ARPGs - is severely dampened.
At the end of beta, tripped out in legendaries my level 25 rogue took 3 basic skill hits to kill a simple skeleton.
Same number of hits it took at level 1 with no gear.
This is clearly absurd.
One of the most enjoyable things to do in a game like this is head to a low level area and steamroll the easy enemies with your dozens of skill points and maxed out gear, not only will that not be happening in this game, but there is a very real possibility that the level 6-10 players you encounter will be killing enemies faster than you are.
There are areas that are locked to level 25 - the stronghold areas. But I think there should be more than just this. You’ve split up the opening area into something like 77 zones - please put level ranges on those zones to let us enjoy that power of progression.
GW2 had similar design, but what they did instead of scaling mobs up to you, is scaled your character down to the zone. And intentionally left some things out of scaling so you could still feel like you had advanced your character even if you weren’t an unkillable god.
D4 without any of that nuance simply feels terrible and it’s something that will only get worse the closer you get to max level as the gains per level start leveling off.
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Okay, so, you probably didn’t play D3 or if you did you never really noticed. But D4 works very much the same way in how players acquire power. Levels don’t power you up at all. It’s 100% the items. The only thing leveling is good for is giving you access to higher item levels. You need to be constantly replacing your gear or you’ll fall behind as you level. You need to be replacing your majority of your items every 1 to 2 levels.
The talent tree is meaningless that just how you select what skills your using and slightly modify them. Item scaling is 100% of your power as a player.
Your right that it’s terrible design. People have said it for years now. Monster scaling isn’t a problem. The problem is that the player doesn’t acquire any power from leveling up at all. They have to wait for new upgrades to roll in from unlock higher item levels. You’re not gaining any power from being a higher level. You have to wait for upgrades.
What are you talking about? Diablo 3 didn’t have skill points. Diablo 4 does. It’s a fundamental design change that D4 devs have expressly stated was intended to take power away from items and put it on your character build.
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Agreed 100% with your comments, even with the GW design which I believe didn’t take your gear into consideration with the scaling but just your level. I’m not sure why they didn’t go the route that D2 was designed, that’s the game that defined the franchise and short after D3 release there was more people playing D2 than D3, a 12 year old game then. You are correct about the core feeling of ARPG, the feel of progression when you level up and the area becomes easier, or when a zone is too hard and you can farm an easier area to gain some level or better gear, all of that is not an option with the D4 design. I get that games and players evolve, but why change the key elements that made the franchise so successful in the past?
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I dislike enemy scaling in games, but I’m willing to hold out hope here considering Diablo 3 has had scaling since the 2.0 patch (pre-Reaper of Souls) and seems to have been well accepted. In my experience with Diablo games, the sense of power gain comes from the item hunt, and not so much the leveling of your character.
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You’ll reach a point where your gear/paragon out scale the enemies, and you can move up a world tier.
If you don’t enjoy a challenge, you can stay in that first world tier and feel “powerful”
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im lvl 25 rogue with 3 legendary and i can one shot low level things like skeletons.
sounds like a skill issue
There isn’t infinite scaling of world content. It’s limited to level ranges. Nightmare+ difficulties have a level floor.
I believe difficulties also have a level ceiling, but even if they did not, level 100 would ultimately be their cap and that isn’t infinite.
Greater rifts are more what infinite scaling looks like (though 150 is a cap so it’s not really infinite) and D3 paragon is an obnoxious system that gets players to chase infinity.
This isn’t the case though. Their base level is going up and base stats, but so is yours AND you’re getting skill points, eventually unlocking your class system and getting gear upgrades. Your power is going up much faster than their power.
I don’t think this is especially relevant as basic skills aren’t DPS powerhouse skills or where most builds damage is coming from. Perhaps certain item builds will turn basic skills into big DPS abilities, but I don’t think any of them really were in the 1-25 beta.
I think because of the beta scope, the world tier wasn’t understood compared to other times of testing. World tiering is really important at Max level. very.
I also noticed my character seemed to have less killing power in their twenties than they did at earlier levels - despite having fancier LOOKING attacks. This was probably a gear problem in my case, as the game was expecting me to have better gear at my level than I had actually acquired.
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I have mixed feelings while leveling up; especially in the beginning but toward end-game, it makes sense.
Otherwise, you will never go back to the “lower” levels since you don’t get XP or much loot.
Anyone who thinks the scaling system in D4 is fine probably played a Sorc or a ranged Rogue.
Try playing a Barb or a melee Rogue and come back.
A level 20 with okay gear kills enemies slower and gets hurt more than a level 5 with starting gear. It’s quite noticeable.
They do nothing change on the lvl scaling 100%, because all vids we have seen, blizzard has talking about this, and if they change it, all the Marketing is wrong.
I also think the drop rate is ok, it all comes down to the majority have fun and not need 1000 hours of farming.
if the last 5% max DMG needs 1000 hours that is ok, all other situations are not casual friendly
“This time is Over”
They don’t need to remove scaling, just make it a little bit less extreme.
And I’d rather have 50% less loot but make the loot 25% more likely to roll stats useful to your class. It’s pointless to give me 100 items in 2 minutes if 99 of them are bad. Just give me 1 good item then.
scaling need to be in such game
otherwise you would never visit certain areas
seems like you forget that this is diablo 4.
even lost ark had lower level islands or areas
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well as contrast at lvl 25 once i got coupel good legies on my rogue i was face tanking almost every lvl25 group of mobs with no issues at all killing most small mobs in 1 or two shots, on the barbarian i had to sweat alot more and on the wizard all i needed was iten for double hydra and i could grab a chair and enjoy cofee!
The issues with low level melee aren’t because of scaling. Melee just don’t have the tools to deal with certain things early on, whether the content was scaled or not.
IE: trying Den Mother at level 8 as a melee just wasn’t possible as I couldn’t do enough damage and didn’t have the survival tools with how hard I was getting hit. I couldn’t push her to dropping potions before I ran out.
Re-did her at 14 as a barb and it was very easy after having one defensive affix legendary and getting a 200 dps weapon upgrade (that I actually found on my sorc, but it was usable at level 11 and was a huge upgrade for my barb).
I think they just need to give barbs a bit of health recovery or better defenses in the 1-15 or so range. They’re far more gear dependent in the early levels compared to ranged.
If content didn’t scale at all they’d have to herd you through a very narrow limited path and not let you explore the world as freely.
With a basic skill? No. Seems like a reading comprehension issue.
If this is true then it addresses my concern pretty well, but there was no indication of this in beta. Do you guys have a source for this info?
Literally no one is advocating for the removal of scaling.
Just toning it down in early levels so you feel stronger when you level, not weaker.
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i like how the game was more challenging from the start, yeh i died sometimes… so woot … go back to spawn rince repeat get good at combat rather then hopeing gear do the job and you can facetank everything like in d3… i love it!!