Ran across this a little while ago. The initial post was about a bug the OP came across, which wasn't interesting to me but the conversation that followed has some insight on why scaling works the way it does. Thought some might find it worth reading. https://old.reddit.com/r/Defiance/co...determined_by/
I've noticed that, but I'd also note that's not entire accurate. Your weapon also scales based on your average PR, so there's some further complications doing the same test, your high PR weapons way above your average PR gets scaled down in damage. In a similar vein, if you equip a low PR weapon in your loadout, it gets scaled upwards.
I suspect though that lower PR enemies are just easier to fight in general, which may explain this difference.
I was referring more to the replies from 'benretan', who went into some detail as to why enemy scaling is the way it is. I hope that didn't sound rude.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lyokira
So there are three major types of content: world content (including campaign, arkfalls and sieges), instanced content (co-ops) and PvP.
The way your power works is slightly different in each one of these and this is intentional in our design.
For world content, we want to have a fairly level playing field and your effectiveness is based on what we deem to be the appropriate power rating for that content. Based on your experiences, you might not have tried to go way beyond where you were supposed to be for your power level and I am glad that you didn't have any major hiccups where you felt significantly under-powered. That's actually good to hear because we have been trying to find those places and fix them.
For PvP, we HAVE to make everyone the same effective power rating. It's a trade off between that and really long queue times to make sure everyone is exactly the same power and skill level. I don't think you would have very much fun though playing PvP and one-shotting someone 3.5k lower power than you and making you a bullet sponge to them.
For instanced content, the required and recommended power level goes up with the tiers. Maybe we're being a bit too generous right now but the best drops come from these instances and increases as you go up in Tiers.
The reason we do scaling is to make a world where most people can play together with their friends and everyone else.
I know it's not intuitive and it doesn't work the same way that other games work. In other games if you're level 50 and someone else is level 5, you could wreck them but that's not what Defiance is about. Getting a higher power rating and level allows you to do more content and activities that lower level players couldn't do and increasing your power rating is going to be crucial going forward to doing any of the new content we are going to release.
Ah, should've made that clear. :P
Still, basically: (average) PR is only meant for two things: being able to play newer/later content as they're effectively gated by minimum recommended PR, and being able to tackle higher tier co-op instances. Gear PR is only meant for one thing: increasing your average PR, as gear gets scaled to your current average PR.
It's been talked about on here before, and I don't think anyone likes it. Trion tried to fool us, but they failed. Destiny 1 had the exact same system, nobody liked it. So why copy it?
The weapon's base damage scales down, but the bonuses to stats don't scale the same. You end up with bonuses well above your resulting PR and deal a higher percentage of damage per bullet than before.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lyokira
Since the enemies scale dynamically, you can just create two loadouts to test the difference for yourself. The loadout without the grenade / off-weapon takes fewer bullets to kill the exact same mob and your shield will take a few extra hits before failing.
That's the thing, I tested and got the same number of bullets, but admittedly I don't have any good blue/purple gear to test out with (sold them long ago before I know about this). Or maybe the gun I tested had no damage bonus, can't remember.Quote:
Originally Posted by FlyingK
Yeah that's my fault. Probably should've worded the topic to be a little more specific.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lyokira
I haven't seen a detailed explanation on the exact reasoning for the scaling, unless I missed it,so I thought I would post that link in case others were wondering why they did it. The last sentence from 'benretan"s reply reads "Getting a higher power rating and level allows you to do more content and activities that lower level players couldn't do and increasing your power rating is going to be crucial going forward to doing any of the new content we are going to release". Ok, how many players are they expecting to be around to do the new content? The scaling system isn't very popular.Quote:
Originally Posted by Illyios
New content doesn't only mean content released in the future, it also refers to the basic game progression, where later areas require more PR to fight on an even footing.Quote:
Originally Posted by martin01
And the thing is, it isn't bad, when done right. Everyone talks about Destiny 2, so let me give a counter example of player scaling done right: Guild Wars 2. Yes, the player is stronger when they return to older areas, but only mildly stronger, and mostly from new skills than gear and actual power as well.