How Does Level Scaling Work?
Level scaling, at its core, is a game design mechanic that adjusts the difficulty of challenges, typically by modifying enemy stats and sometimes their abilities, to match or correlate with a player’s current level or progression. In essence, it aims to provide a consistent level of challenge regardless of where a player ventures in the game world, or how they choose to progress. Rather than having static areas where enemies are only ever at certain levels, scaling dynamically changes the power of enemies to ensure they are always relevant. This system is typically implemented to maintain player engagement and reduce the feeling of being either overpowered or significantly underpowered in specific regions. Instead of out-leveling an area completely, the area continues to provide a relevant, albeit still manageable, challenge.
Level scaling can take many forms, but it generally revolves around increasing the stats of enemies, such as their health, damage output, or armor. Some games may also adjust enemy abilities or spawn more or tougher enemies as the player levels up. This ensures that areas that were challenging early in the game remain so as the player progresses, providing a smoother and more consistent difficulty curve. The goal is to allow players to explore the game world more freely without being penalized for their choices, or experiencing drastic shifts in difficulty in different game locations.
Types of Level Scaling
There are several commonly used approaches to implementing level scaling. Understanding these variations can help players better grasp how the games they play are trying to keep things challenging.
Simple Stat Increases
This method is one of the most basic forms of level scaling. As a player’s character levels up, the stats of enemies increase linearly or exponentially, depending on the game’s design. This usually involves increasing the health and damage values of opponents, ensuring that they don’t become pushovers just because the player has gained a level. This style of scaling is common in many games, from action RPGs to MMORPGs and can also apply to items found in-game.
Dynamic Zone Scaling
In games that feature open-world environments, dynamic zone scaling is used to adjust the level of entire zones, or regions based on the player’s level or the highest level player present. This type of scaling allows players to explore more of the game world in their own way without having to follow a strict path. The zone level scales to match the player, or their party, meaning that a player can visit any area and still have a relevant challenge, and experience, to be gained. This also ensures that co-op play is seamless between a diverse range of player levels.
Weighted Average Item Scaling
Some games utilize a more nuanced approach, like the system used in the Remnant series, where the power level of enemies is determined by a weighted average of the player’s equipped items and weapons, or even items in their inventory. Instead of simply considering the character’s level, the game looks at the levels of the best gear the player possesses. This system can result in more or less challenging gameplay based on a player’s gear.
Why Level Scaling is Used
The implementation of level scaling is driven by several key reasons:
- Increased Player Freedom: Level scaling allows players to explore the game world without constraints. Players are free to wander off the beaten path or revisit older areas, and still encounter engaging challenges. It opens up the potential for diverse exploration.
- Consistent Difficulty: Without scaling, players often encounter areas where they are either too powerful or too weak, leading to a lack of engagement or frustrating difficulty spikes. Scaling provides a more balanced and consistent experience throughout the entire game, keeping the sense of challenge relevant.
- Extended Game Lifespan: Level scaling can help extend the lifespan of a game by ensuring that areas do not become completely trivial, or obsolete. Players can return to previously explored areas and still find a good challenge, creating more reasons to replay older content.
- Seamless Multiplayer: In multiplayer games, level scaling can smooth out the difference between players of varying levels. By scaling the difficulty according to the party, players can engage in cooperative play with friends and other players regardless of their level difference, or how far along the story they’ve progressed.
- More Rewarding Progression: Level scaling allows players to feel a sense of progression without becoming ridiculously overpowered. By keeping the difficulty relevant, it allows players to enjoy the rewards of leveling without making the whole game unchallenging.
Drawbacks of Level Scaling
Despite the advantages of level scaling, there are some drawbacks that are worth noting:
- Sense of Progression: Some players feel that level scaling can diminish the sense of progression, where gaining levels doesn’t make one feel measurably stronger or more powerful. When enemies scale up along with the player, it can feel like all of your progress didn’t really matter as the game is effectively always just as hard.
- Lack of Challenge Variation: The constant scaling of enemies can make the game feel too uniform. Each combat encounter feels almost the same as every other encounter as all areas are scaled to the same difficulty, and thus there is little differentiation between areas.
- Artificial Difficulty: Some players may find that level scaling feels artificial. When they see an enemy that is the same type they fought much earlier in the game suddenly have vastly increased stats simply because the player has progressed, it can feel like the game is not realistic.
Level Scaling in Specific Games
To better illustrate how level scaling works, let’s look at examples from a few notable games.
World of Warcraft
In World of Warcraft, zone scaling allows players to level from 1-60 in a variety of expansion zones, or, using Chromie Time, to scale any non-Shadowlands zone up to level 50. The world adapts to the player’s level, so that players can choose the zones they want to experience. This provides more freedom in choosing what quests or expansions to experience when leveling a character.
Diablo IV
Diablo IV utilizes level scaling in almost every area of the game, including the open world and dungeons. Enemies scale alongside your character’s level, ensuring a consistent challenge regardless of where the player ventures.
Remnant II
Remnant II uses a unique system, where the game searches through each equipment slot (including items in the inventory) to determine your potential power and the enemies’ level. The game utilizes a weighted average to establish a player’s power level by finding the highest-level item in each slot and averaging it. The game also scales differently in multiplayer where it can become more difficult when playing in a large group.
Elden Ring
In Elden Ring, level scaling primarily refers to the scaling of weapons based on stats like Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence, Faith, or Arcane. As the player raises these stats, the damage output of the weapon will increase accordingly, incentivizing the player to lean into building their character correctly.
FAQs on Level Scaling
Here are some frequently asked questions about level scaling to provide additional clarity.
What is level scaling?
Level scaling is a game mechanic where the difficulty of enemies and areas adjusts to match the player’s current level or progress, ensuring a consistent level of challenge.
How does level scaling affect gameplay?
Level scaling can increase player freedom, provide a consistent level of difficulty, and allow players to tackle a wider variety of content without feeling significantly overpowered or underpowered.
What are the benefits of level scaling?
The main benefits include increased player freedom, consistent difficulty, extended game lifespan, and seamless multiplayer.
What are the drawbacks of level scaling?
Drawbacks may include a diminished sense of progression, a lack of challenge variation, and the feeling of artificial difficulty.
Does level scaling make games harder?
Level scaling aims to provide a consistent challenge, so areas that were once challenging will still remain challenging as the player levels up. However, the core goal of scaling is not to make the game significantly harder.
How do different games implement level scaling?
Games use various methods, including simple stat increases, dynamic zone scaling, and weighted average item scaling. Each game chooses the method best suited for its style and player experience.
How does level scaling work in multiplayer games?
In multiplayer games, level scaling helps to smooth out the differences in power between players at various levels. The game scales the difficulty according to the party’s level and power, ensuring everyone contributes to the challenge.
How does level scaling affect item drops and loot?
Generally, with level scaling item drops and loot will also scale alongside the player’s level, ensuring that they always receive relevant rewards.
What happens if a game does not use level scaling?
Without level scaling, areas can become either too easy or too hard as the player levels, limiting where the player can explore or progress through the story.
Is level scaling always good for games?
While level scaling offers many benefits, its effectiveness depends on how well it is implemented and whether it suits the overall game design and desired experience.
How can a player work with level scaling in a game?
Players can learn to work with level scaling by focusing on improving their character’s build and gear, understanding how the scaling system works in a particular game, and utilizing their skills effectively in combat.
How does scaling by 1 work in graphics?
In computer graphics, scaling by 1 means the object remains the same size and is not enlarged or reduced. It acts as a base, or default, without scaling applied.
How does level scaling in World of Warcraft work?
In World of Warcraft, zones scale to the player’s level, using an expansion scaling methodology. Using Chromie time, they can also experience content from previous expansions, with most of the older world areas scaling up to level 50.
Is Remnant 2 harder in multiplayer due to level scaling?
Yes, Remnant 2 can become harder in multiplayer as the game scales based on the party’s power level, with bosses becoming much more difficult with a larger team.
Is experience shared in Remnant?
Yes, experience is shared between your two equipped archetypes. This allows players to level up new archetypes more easily.
In conclusion, level scaling is a complex and impactful mechanic in video games. By understanding how it works, players can better appreciate the intentions of game designers and learn to adapt to the ever-changing challenges of their favorite games.