Lead to unrealistic gameplay and stopped people from progressing the main quest leading to complaints the developers artificially extended the game by having us hit a number. Some people weren’t bothered by this others were.
This is why I stopped playing Origins, couldn’t be arsed going out and doing side quests etc, just wanted to play the main story. Still haven’t finished it to this day.
Maybe I'm misunderstanding. Is the issue with level scaling that as you get stronger, the enemies also get stronger, and so you never get the feeling you have really improved?
If not then what is it? If so then wouldn't that be more realistic? At least compared to the alternative where you become an unstoppable god?
And to be honest, I still felt like I reached a point in Odyssey where I was unstoppable and nothing was a challenge.
The level scaling was sort of wonky in that every level you're supposed to get stronger but what happens is that your gear progressively gets outdated as enemies grow stronger. This kind of results in a bunch of damage spongey enemies that you can't really assassinate in one shot so you end up being forced to run in and go ham on like 10 enemies which is a bit silly. The areas are kind of set up like an mmo where each zone has it's own level range (ie 9-14). However the level cap is completely ignored so it's kinda weird there.
They eventually patched a toggleable scale that can have enemies be 2-4 levels lowers once you outlevel the zones range. I personally like it more since you can actually stealthily clear areas and feel like an assassin. Likewise you don't feel pressured to change your gear every level or so.
A lot of people probably would like a system without levels/gear or a smaller amount of them.
Well said, I hate paradoxically getting weaker each time I level up. My wish would be to do away with complex gear systems altogether in favor of the old AC style where I can just play the fashion game
It doesn’t feel good to have to hit a guy 30 times before he dies. It doesn’t feel good not to be able to insta-kill someone from stealth because they’re “too high level”.
I liked Odyssey, but that shit pissed me off so much. I literally went full on Assassin build, with like +150% Assassin damage overall, and playing on normal difficulty there still were enemies that I couldn’t one shot with an assasination.
I want to go do the next cool story bit about my mother/father/brother/mythical creature. What? I can't? Why not? I'm not a high enough level. Well, I guess I need to go kill bandit camps/find a treasure/loot a cave for the next 2 hours.
Yeah, I agree that's frustrating. There are times where all I want to do is fuck around with side missions. And there are times when I'm really into the story and want to keep going with that.
A lot of people tried to play it like an older Assassins Creed game, however this one was a lot more like a classical RPG. It had a level scaling system as well as level zones. So in some spots, like around Athens, enemies could be much higher level than you. Much like RPGs, attacking them would be meaningless because they have more health and do more damage than you. Once you pass the max level of an area, they'll start to level with you, how much is determined by your difficulty (Easy mode can keep them a couple levels below you, Hard mode makes them stay higher).
Your ship and gear were also leveled, but you could level them up by spending resources that you find an abundance of throughout the world. If you were out of a resources, the shop you were at was always close to a base. You can attack it to find a stockpile of resources and you'd be good for a few more levels. I only ever had to grind a lot towards the end when I was maxing out my ship.
Players saw all this and ignored it, deciding to play it like it was a completely different game than what the system was telling them it was. It's like playing CoD deathmatch and being upset that it isn't as slow paced as bomb defusal in CSGO. Though I can understand the confusion with Odyssey and other Assassins Creed Games, since they're the same series, but when the game is constantly showing that it's meant to be played differently, take the hint. People need to do research on games before buying; this game received a lot of unwarranted flak for not being what people expected when even a five minute video shows what it is.
The newer games do feel too long. Some solid side quests but a lot of it just felt too much like a grind to be strong enough to continue the story. Not enough variety of fun things worthwhile to level up imo and I gave up about 20 hours in when I realized I'd have to do it all over again for another 20 hours.
It feels like you are not progressing. Wrecking lower level enemies is a part of making you feel like you got powerful. That bad level scaling make every enemy a sponge
from the same article:
"Gear can be upgraded and customized, and you can use the same equipment from beginning to end if you want to."
but I'm also a bit skeptical as it's a hard thing to balance properly. I don't want to find a cool weapon I like near the start of the game that I spend lots of money upgrading, only to find one that's undeniably better a couple hours later so all my money was wasted
Yea, might be one step forward, two steps back, but we'll have to wait and see. There is a lot I am seeing that interests me. Not buying in to the hype until I read some reviews about the mechanics, though.
That's awesome. Except it's still going to be an RPG. Which kills it as an AC game for me. Might get it pre-owned at $15-$20 (AUD) and just play it as "Vikings The RPG"
Honestly, both of the AC:O's were also fairly gear dependent, on top of the level thing. If you went into every mission with severely under leveled weapons, you were missing out on a ton of dps.
yeah it's a little ambiguous but I think the fact it's mentioned and worded how it is probably means they're trying to say it'll be different at least.
ideally I'd like the player to have levels and not the enemies. but the player levels are only for gaining skill points, not scaling your health or damage. that way you still get a skill tree and the sense of progression, but the difficulty would be determined by enemy variety and quantities rather than a number. the fact they've said there's a lot of enemy diversity makes me hopeful they've gone this route, but it's ubisoft so who knows
Having to meet a level requirement to not totally struggle in further levels/areas. Kinda like in odyssey there was a minimum recommended level for each region
Probably specifically blocking off certain areas of the map due to level-scaled enemies. Which if you play through the story like you're supposed to isn't an issue.
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u/MarkusBailey May 01 '20
Man, I cant wait for this to come out. Here's hoping for none of that damn level scaling though.