Level scaling. It’s a mechanic designers put in because they think the game needs to stay challenging, which is true but I’ve never agreed with level scaling as the answer.
The least bad implementations (but still not good) at least replace low level enemies with different kinds of enemies entirely. The worst, most lazy implementations just increase existing enemy HP and damage.
I think it is much better to have different locations or zones where different ranges of enemies spawn, with more powerful enemies tuned to the expected level of a player character for the quests in the zone.
It’s one of the reasons that I will always cherish the old Gothic games (esp. 1 and 2). They created different biomes and regions within and hand-placed mobs which thematically fit both from their appearance and strength.
The placements didn’t necessarily align with the player’s journey through those regions so that you always had to be on the lookout for what’s coming when exploring new areas. And it really made the difference in your power growth more viscerally apparent when you could return to the starting zone and easily defeat the mobs there, as well as those you always had to run from off the beaten path earlier.
Level scaling. It’s a mechanic designers put in because they think the game needs to stay challenging, which is true but I’ve never agreed with level scaling as the answer.
The least bad implementations (but still not good) at least replace low level enemies with different kinds of enemies entirely. The worst, most lazy implementations just increase existing enemy HP and damage.
I think it is much better to have different locations or zones where different ranges of enemies spawn, with more powerful enemies tuned to the expected level of a player character for the quests in the zone.
It’s one of the reasons that I will always cherish the old Gothic games (esp. 1 and 2). They created different biomes and regions within and hand-placed mobs which thematically fit both from their appearance and strength.
The placements didn’t necessarily align with the player’s journey through those regions so that you always had to be on the lookout for what’s coming when exploring new areas. And it really made the difference in your power growth more viscerally apparent when you could return to the starting zone and easily defeat the mobs there, as well as those you always had to run from off the beaten path earlier.