Why leveling up feels bad

PC General Discussion
1

It’s a simple reason.

Levels scale, monsters scale, but gear does not.

This means every time you level up, the monsters level up and your gear becomes weaker.

Since gear is pretty much everything in an ARPG. Leveling up makes you weaker.

Maybe scaling gear as well would make you actually feel stronger as you level up?

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2

I think the best option is to apply scaling caps to zones and world tiers. Scaling doesn’t really belong in a rpg.

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3

No what you meant to say is

“Monsters scale perfectly, people often don’t because of choices and actively needing to change gear”

So far every time I start to feel weak or weaker than the monsters I can always trace it back to something I did not do, or some choice I made. Like picking a Paragon board just for the legendary.

4

Yep, even Skyrim eventually capped NPC levels. There was scaling in that game too but I think it ended at 81 for NPCs where as the player can reset skills to 0 and keep levelling for skill points

5

Every time I level up and feel weaker I can trace it back to

Monsters level up
Characters level up

Gear does not

Let’s say you are level 50 and you fight monsters. They are tuned for level 50 to players with level 50 gear.

Now let’s say you level up to 55. I can guarantee you did not get any significant drops during this period. Because you are dropping items between level 600-675 so you aren’t hitting the break point.

Monsters are now scaled to level 55 character using 55 gear.

But you are a level 55 character with level 50 gear.

You have become weaker.

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6

I never feel weaker. I just keep blowing mobs up.

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7

“Monsters scale perfectly, people often don’t because of choices and actively needing to change gear”

That is what I said, not sure why you felt the need to elaborate on it.

If you think poor build choices do not matter and only gear matters, then we disagree,

8

It is an ARPG. While gear is not the ONLY thing that matters. Gear is a PRIMARY baseline for character power.

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9

You didn’t really give a good explanation so I’ll fill in the gaps.

  1. The base talent tree does very little to enhance player power for most builds/classes. It’s not very exciting getting a new ability on the base talent tree.
  2. Most of player power is locked behind glyphs and the paragon board which come very late in the game. You don’t really start seeing the benefits of the paragon board until around level 75-80.
  3. Leveling past 50 is slow. Especially for solo players or sub optimal leveling builds.
  4. Most classes have their full load out of abilities/talents around level 20-30 and this won’t change for nearly the rest of the game. Your abilities don’t transform in anyway as you level up. Your play style is the same at level 20-30 as it is at level 80. There are some exceptions where classes get good uniques or legendary aspects, but majority of builds don’t have good support from aspects or unique items.
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10

It’s too bad there isn’t an option to enable or disable scaling. Only time I want it is when I play with friends at diff levels. Otherwise I’d prefer it to be off.

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11

Something you did not do: Like get drops that helped you become more powerful through rng.

This statement is such bs. lol

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12

There is scaling caps to world tiers

13

You reach a point where you wish the game would scale more. At level 78, most of the content is a joke. Nightmare dungeons 30
levels higher are the only challenge.

14

They should have left WT5 in

15

You know why? Those high level dungeons are a joke?

Because levels scale, and gear does not.

Running 800+ item level gear? That’s balanced for level 90-100 character.

Gear not scaling makes the entire game unbalanced in both low and high end play