Problem with Progressive Difficulty and Challenge Chasing | Forums

[Ubi-RealDude]

An incredibly fascinating conversation going on here... I really really like this.

If I may add some personal thoughts to consider:
The OP mentioned enemies and players scaling upwards at the same rate/pace basically means neither scales at all. One thing to remember is that while new enemies may be introduced in new environments, they generally have the same tool-set at their disposal. There can be different combinations of different enemies in different layouts or environments, this is what generally adds the variety. Their numbers and power scales up (mostly).
Players on the other hand, are introduced to new combos frequently. Things like brand sets, skill setups, and specializations add in new pathways of responding to the challenges with more specific and personalized answers. They skill and power scales outward (still up as well, but more outwardly than NPCs.)

Additionally, generally at the start of the game the combat encounters are going to be fairly easy. Think of it as a wide gap in potential power between the player and NPCs. As the player gets that outward growth, the NPCs will get that upward growth. By the end, ideally, that potential power gap between the players and NPCs is razor thin. This means that players engaging with the content at the highest level need to be prepared to fight enemies that are properly compensated upwardly with how how strong the players are outwardly.

I really love the discussion going on here! Keep it up! Also please let me know if anything I said was confusing or needs some clarification.

[Desolator_X]

An incredibly fascinating conversation going on here... I really really like this.

If I may add some personal thoughts to consider:
The OP mentioned enemies and players scaling upwards at the same rate/pace basically means neither scales at all. One thing to remember is that while new enemies may be introduced in new environments, they generally have the same tool-set at their disposal. There can be different combinations of different enemies in different layouts or environments, this is what generally adds the variety. Their numbers and power scales up (mostly).
Players on the other hand, are introduced to new combos frequently. Things like brand sets, skill setups, and specializations add in new pathways of responding to the challenges with more specific and personalized answers. They [red.] skill and power scales outward (still up as well, but more outwardly than NPCs.)

Additionally, generally at the start of the game the combat encounters are going to be fairly easy. Think of it as a wide gap in potential power between the player and NPCs. As the player gets that outward growth, the NPCs will get that upward growth. By the end, ideally, that potential power gap between the players and NPCs is razor thin. This means that players engaging with the content at the highest level need to be prepared to fight enemies that are properly compensated upwardly with how how strong the players are outwardly.

I really love the discussion going on here! Keep it up! Also please let me know if anything I said was confusing or needs some clarification.

A major problem I have with the game's progression system is that as you go up in level / world tier you are introduced to a ton of new and interesting stuff to play with. Only then you have no way of actually targeting those fancy new options in your frenzied looting of DC.
I know we don't have "true" set items from raids in the game yet, but a way to target the gear that you're looking for would help alleviate some of the issues I have with exploring those "new pathways" you mention.

In addition, T4 control points are just silly. You mention that the potential power gap between the NPCs and players should be razor thin, but in reality the NPCs massively outscale the player. A single T4 control point NPC is easily capable of killing 2-3 players by just ignoring cover and walking through their hail of bullets to melee them, or snipe them with a shotgun / SMG from across the control point. I concede that this is a fairly simple balancing issue of "turning the knobs" on the NPC health and damage scaling, but it still proves the problem that scaling NPCs ad infinitum totally stops any sense of player progression as far as TTK / tankiness goes. Any other form of progression (loot / vanity items) is totally luck based and as such doesn't give nearly as good of an experience as actually being able to work towards a goal as I described in the previous paragraph.

[Akuhdemiks]

An incredibly fascinating conversation going on here... I really really like this.

If I may add some personal thoughts to consider:
The OP mentioned enemies and players scaling upwards at the same rate/pace basically means neither scales at all. One thing to remember is that while new enemies may be introduced in new environments, they generally have the same tool-set at their disposal. There can be different combinations of different enemies in different layouts or environments, this is what generally adds the variety. Their numbers and power scales up (mostly).
Players on the other hand, are introduced to new combos frequently. Things like brand sets, skill setups, and specializations add in new pathways of responding to the challenges with more specific and personalized answers. They skill and power scales outward (still up as well, but more outwardly than NPCs.)

Additionally, generally at the start of the game the combat encounters are going to be fairly easy. Think of it as a wide gap in potential power between the player and NPCs. As the player gets that outward growth, the NPCs will get that upward growth. By the end, ideally, that potential power gap between the players and NPCs is razor thin. This means that players engaging with the content at the highest level need to be prepared to fight enemies that are properly compensated upwardly with how how strong the players are outwardly.

I really love the discussion going on here! Keep it up! Also please let me know if anything I said was confusing or needs some clarification.

Thank you, I have been trying to come up with a way to explain the diferences in player scaling and npc scaling. You mate have done it perfectly.

[Casughoul]

First we will get this out of the way, Divison isn't an "RPG". Its a looter(shooter) with some rpg elements. First and for most its a looter game. Also im not sure what rpgs your playing but almost all rpgs Ive played since 1998(when i got into gaming) your battling up against enemies slighty more powerful then you(minus just general enimies which are slightly weaker).

Which I see the same here in division all enemies are weaker then me by alot even most elites. The issue is the shear number of them and their mechanics all happening at the same time that is the issue not the scaling.

I agree this isn't a traditional RPG, but one element of an RPG is to gather loot and become more powerful. Loot isn't just "Bows & Axes" but it's "Spells" as well. The skills and talents of a player can be considered loot as they gain them as they progress. When I talk about RPGs I am talking about the true RPG (D&D and variants). In an RPG the game is all about providing the players with a meaningful experience and/or entertainment. The beauty of D&D is that you have a human that can change the rules, strategies, and tactics on the fly to suit the player. If the player wants diplomacy and story telling, it can be provided, if the player wants to "Murder Hobo" that can be done as well. What you describe as "Looter" is traditionally described as being a "Murder Hobo".

In D&D all the traditional enemies can be PCs (Player Characters) and all the traditional NPCs (Non-Player Characters) can be PCs.

I will address the number and mechanics in the next section.

If I may add some personal thoughts to consider:
The OP mentioned enemies and players scaling upwards at the same rate/pace basically means neither scales at all. One thing to remember is that while new enemies may be introduced in new environments, they generally have the same tool-set at their disposal. There can be different combinations of different enemies in different layouts or environments, this is what generally adds the variety. Their numbers and power scales up (mostly).
Players on the other hand, are introduced to new combos frequently. Things like brand sets, skill setups, and specializations add in new pathways of responding to the challenges with more specific and personalized answers. They skill and power scales outward (still up as well, but more outwardly than NPCs.)

Additionally, generally at the start of the game the combat encounters are going to be fairly easy. Think of it as a wide gap in potential power between the player and NPCs. As the player gets that outward growth, the NPCs will get that upward growth. By the end, ideally, that potential power gap between the players and NPCs is razor thin. This means that players engaging with the content at the highest level need to be prepared to fight enemies that are properly compensated upwardly with how how strong the players are outwardly.

True, that NPCs generally have the same tool set and it's not a simple thing just to provide a new tool set to NPCs. This is why typically you just add more of them in a battle. The problem comes when both the players and the NPCs have upward scaling. This is never to an end. Every expansion raises the ceiling and players feel cheated because now all the gear they had at previously max level is now sub to the new maximum. Many players are being vocal about this with how their is no point to playing until WT5 gets released. Then what happens when WT6 or WT10.. When does it end?

The other issue is environmental in map layout. You introduced traps to the game in the Dark Zone but never used them ANYWHERE else in the game. This is a mechanic that can be used as another tool for difficulty scaling. Many different types of traps can be introduced, not just ones that spawn enemies. It also seems those trap makers are a different faction?

The second issue is that NPCs outwardly scale by the number of them their are on top of their upward scaling in the form of addition armor, health, damage. Battles become drawn out and less entertaining and loose immersion. You aren't battling an army anymore, you are just hammering boulders. One of the ways that this could be worked around is instead of increasing the health pool of the NPCs increase the number of them, increase the waves, increase the directions from which they spawn. Make the player feel pressure and make the player feel that these guys are growing in influence.

One thing I noticed is that, as the game progresses, the number of enemies kind of stay the same. They don't seem to grow in influence through their spread of propaganda but instead they grow in technological power and armor strength. This seems unreasonable as who is providing them with all these weapons and armors and vehicles that you don't have access too?

They have armor that is unattainable by the player. They have weapons and tactics far superior to that of the player. The player may have tons of gadgets but the player cannot use all of those gadgets at once and often those gadgets are as effective as a water pistol. You can give tons of devices to the player to explore the world with but it means nothing if they are ineffective to achieve the player's goal, whatever that may be.

One thing to always remember, the player will always try to find way to circumvent any clever challenge you had set up for them. They may even go as far as avoiding it entirely. Clever girl.

A major problem I have with the game's progression system is that as you go up in level / world tier you are introduced to a ton of new and interesting stuff to play with. Only then you have no way of actually targeting those fancy new options in your frenzied looting of DC.
I know we don't have "true" set items from raids in the game yet, but a way to target the gear that you're looking for would help alleviate some of the issues I have with exploring those "new pathways" you mention.

In addition, T4 control points are just silly. You mention that the potential power gap between the NPCs and players should be razor thin, but in reality the NPCs massively outscale the player. A single T4 control point NPC is easily capable of killing 2-3 players by just ignoring cover and walking through their hail of bullets to melee them, or snipe them with a shotgun / SMG from across the control point. I concede that this is a fairly simple balancing issue of "turning the knobs" on the NPC health and damage scaling, but it still proves the problem that scaling NPCs ad infinitum totally stops any sense of player progression as far as TTK / tankiness goes. Any other form of progression (loot / vanity items) is totally luck based and as such doesn't give nearly as good of an experience as actually being able to work towards a goal as I described in the previous paragraph.

This is the main issue, I believe, with the game.

It would be interesting if factions were weighted to specific gear or even areas.

The fact that the NPCs are some of the best tacticians I have seen in video games and really is what I have been waiting for in a shooter but their tactics are fairly basic. They ALWAYS flank, they don't flank effectively. They ALWAYS charge, they don't charge effectively. The only reason why these tactics are effective for them is simply because of the fact they have a larger health pool and have more damage than is achievable by the player.

The force of enumerable enemies is what gives the advantage to the NPCs. There are only a handful of players, often only one. There can be hundreds of NPCs. Obviously, changing the health pool for another tedious act of just spreading that health pool over a number of NPCs doesn't effectively fix the problem but it can be a better change than having to take three days to kill a single (visually) unarmored opponent. One thing the game does well is have tiers of opponents and when you can increase the number of those opponents in a meaningful way then it's a more engaging experience.

One of the other problems I find with the game is the limitation of the variation of enemies. If there was a reasonably larger pool of enemies (with different tool sets), to build squads from, then we would have more immersion to why these enemies take longer to kill.

You have a light unit that should die quickly, one shot. When they can take a 50cal to the face and survive it breaks immersion.

You have a heavy unit that soaks a lot damage, their is a visual aspect that lets the player know that they are having an effect and even get rewarded for destroying the armor. These enemies are much more satisfying to take down.

The medium units look like light units and act like heavy units with none of the satisfaction of breaking their armor. You just watch little dotted lines slowly disappear above their heads, usually they soak hundreds of rounds each, I don't even understand how their clothing hasn't been torn to shreds or they haven't caught fire because of it. (Not that naked combatants would be a better alternative, particularly naked bullet sponges.)

I am getting to old for this ****, Riggs.

[MetaI_Phoenix]

There can be different combinations of different enemies in different layouts or environments, this is what generally adds the variety. Their numbers and power scales up (mostly).

Yes, I would definitely agree with the first sentence. Variety is a great thing 👍. However, I think the big disagreement is in the 2nd sentence.

This means that players engaging with the content at the highest level need to be prepared to fight enemies that are properly compensated upwardly with how how strong the players are outwardly.

I'm following on the philosophy here and I will tell you that I really enjoyed the pace of 1-30 and really even up to WT4.

We were gradually exposed to different types of enemies and then tougher enemies. These tougher enemies would use different tactics and would throw a new variation we didn't even know about into the mix. Thinking about the saw blade rc cars lol.

But it doesn't really make a lick of difference of how outwardly we are expanded compared to how fast bullets are bringing us down. Specifically in the higher tiers.

Everywhere else really feels about right. But somewhere in that exponential growth, just as things are really getting close and the challenge to be at its hardest, suddenly that gap goes off the charts.

There is nothing more I can do with 450 GS items that will grant me increased survivability over other items of the same 450 GS. So armor seems like a very pointless stat to build into since, no matter what, you're dead in an instant.

The feeling of build diversity suddenly falls on its face. We can't have a more highly armored teammate who will be our answer to the enemies flanking us and flank the enemy, while the traditionally more lightly armored healing role is able to provide some support from a safer distance.

Usually there is also the traditional glass cannon, who sacrifices a great deal of armor to be especially vulnerable while also being able to put a lot of dps on the field.

But.

Since things are a bit off balanced at the moment at the higher tiers, there is no difference between sacrificing protection for another trait because the protection isn't even there to begin with.

Or so it seems.

[Goan77bo]

Learn to play NABS

https://www.youtube.com/results?sear...the+division+2

[MetaI_Phoenix]

Learn to play NABS

https://www.youtube.com/results?sear...the+division+2

I don't need YouTube builds thanks. I clicked on the CAPTAIN AMERICA AWRSOME TANK BLABLA and first comment in the section pretty much debunks the title and is in agreeance with what I have posted in its entirety.

Thank you for your helpful and thoughtless addition to an intellectual conversation.

[markvrk]

I don't need YouTube builds thanks. I clicked on the CAPTAIN AMERICA AWRSOME TANK BLABLA and first comment in the section pretty much debunks the title and is in agreeance with what I have posted in its entirety.

Thank you for your helpful and thoughtless addition to an intellectual conversation.

Just ignore that person. They go from one proper discussion to another, posting BS like this which is basically 1000 variations of "git gud, u not, I gud".

It derails the conversation and kills it.

[markvrk]

Everywhere else really feels about right. But somewhere in that exponential growth, just as things are really getting close and the challenge to be at its hardest, suddenly that gap goes off the charts.

There is nothing more I can do with 450 GS items that will grant me increased survivability over other items of the same 450 GS. So armor seems like a very pointless stat to build into since, no matter what, you're dead in an instant.

It's not just how fast we go down, it's just as much about how fast the enemies go down. I said it before in other posts, I'll say it here again - NPCs on CPT4, Heroic and certain archetypes (unnamed but especially named) seem to go to Division 1 power levels in comparison to the players level.

Another example of what I mean is the Grand Washington door or the Roosevelt island fuel tanks - 1 billion hitpoints, with the only difference between that and NPCs is that those tanks/door doesn't hit back like that truck that smashed through the Bank entrance. That's how some NPCs feel in certain content.

[JerginsSoft]

You do know also every online rpg out there are putting in scaling mechsnics to bring lower lvl enemies up to the player lvl. Its what players have wanted for a long time as old zones/content become pointless if enemies are still low lvl.

This isn't true. In standard, theme park mmorpg's, progressive levelling enemies blunt or negate player progression. You have your dedicated "newbie" areas, all the way up to raids. This is the best way to structure an rpg, and enables the developer to curve the difficulty in a way that feels both accomplishing, and satisfying.

The downside is, you must leave those areas and not ever really return, in order to move forward. That works fine in a theme park, but not so much in an open world. Progressive leveling is decent, if the enemy follows a flat line of power, compared to an ever increasing upward curve of player power.

Up until WT4 hard and challenging content, the division handles this particular brand of progressive leveling pretty decently. Not perfectly, but pretty decently.

As a longtime player of both theme park, standard, and open world rpg's, I can tell you what I prefer, but flatly stating that everyone wants progressive leveling is objectively not true. It depends on the type of game you are playing.