Level Scaling

[Vasvary5050]

Hi folks,

I more or less know how level upscaling works based on (https://pillarsofeternity.fandom.com/wiki/Level_scaling#:~:text=Level scaling is a user,of the location or encounter.) and this is not my first time doing an upward level scaling run, but I'm trying to work out in my head the best level to do various maps (on PoTD upscale). I killed everything in Arkemyr's Manor yesterday (that was a tough long slog), currently wading through port kohara ruins which I'm over-levelled for so its upscaled a lot, and the Hanging Sepulchers is quite tough too.

Here is the heart of my open question. In you opinion, with upwards level scaling, is it harder to deal with maps at the expected level, or doing the maps upscaled by about 4 levels, or is it about equal either way? In other words, does having the abilities, gear and stats from 4 more levels more than (or less than) compensate for the 4 levels of enemy upscaling? Obviously when you start to out level a map by more than 4 levels it will become trivial because the level upscaling for most enemies caps at 4 (and at 6 for named enemies), but before that point.

Best wishes,

Vas.

[masterty66]

11 hours ago, Vasvary5050 said:

In you opinion, with upwards level scaling, is it harder to deal with maps at the expected level, or doing the maps upscaled by about 4 levels, or is it about equal either way? In other words, does having the abilities, gear and stats from 4 more levels more than (or less than) compensate for the 4 levels of enemy upscaling? Obviously when you start to out level a map by more than 4 levels it will become trivial because the level upscaling for most enemies caps at 4 (and at 6 for named enemies), but before that point.

Best wishes,

Vas.

I've honestly never really thought about it. I feel like (since I work for all the factions typically and do all the bounties) that I often reach a point mid game where I've out leveled almost everything I do, and that even upscaling doesn't really keep up with it. You may have a similar experience depending on how much of the content you choose to do.

For me, the difficulty curve of Deadfire (even with scaling and usually some god challenges as well) goes like this:

1) Port Maje: Brutally hard lol. Gorreci Street and Digsite are no joke two of the hardest areas in the game.

2) Then I hit Neketaka and do all the non combat xp quests and buy stuff and generally have a relatively easy time with most quests up until I hit the DLCs where suddenly the game becomes hard again.

Maybe this would change if I didn't do all of the quests in the game but I tend to work for every faction and do every bounty and do all side quests that I can, so I end up outleveling content pretty quick, for better or worse. The DLCs even the playing field in a big way though. Those are always a big step up in challenge unless I'm playing a god tier OP build.

YMMV depending on how much content you do is I guess the long and short of it. And the DLCs will always even the playing field regardless of whether you find the mid game (non DLC) content too easy even with scaling.

[thelee]

On 5/21/2023 at 3:46 AM, Vasvary5050 said:

In you opinion, with upwards level scaling, is it harder to deal with maps at the expected level, or doing the maps upscaled by about 4 levels, or is it about equal either way? In other words, does having the abilities, gear and stats from 4 more levels more than (or less than) compensate for the 4 levels of enemy upscaling?

as you probably know, the scaling is limited to accuracy, defenses, and health (and occasionally increased enchantment levels on gear). that means like... a spider is going to be the same overall spider 4 levels higher, just with slightly more health and accuracy. 

so the scaling isn't nearly as powerful as true "levels." everytime you gain a level, you gain accuracy, defense, and health (and correspondingly better gear), but you also gain new abilities, those two combined give you your true power impact. meanwhile a xaurip priest will never learn new high level abilities*, even though a player priest will gains tons over 4 levels.

so anyway, upscaling doesn't really help areas stay challenging, it just mostly makes it a little bit harder to easily out-level areas** (which is all i really want anyway).

 

*apparently with enough scaling, some (kith-like) enemies will pick up new abilities, but i've only heard of this happening with a mod that unlocks the current limited scaling to be unlimited.

**the one exception is that without upscaling, the priest Dismissal spell becomes really good. at a point in mid-late game, you overlevel all constructs and most vessels and you can just wipe them all out. with upscaling on, many constructs and vessels stay atleast at your level, so dismissal becomes less an auto-win in many fights.

Edited May 22, 2023 by thelee

[Shai Hulud]

On 5/22/2023 at 10:51 AM, thelee said:

as you probably know, the scaling is limited to accuracy, defenses, and health (and occasionally increased enchantment levels on gear). that means like... a spider is going to be the same overall spider 4 levels higher, just with slightly more health and accuracy. 

so the scaling isn't nearly as powerful as true "levels." everytime you gain a level, you gain accuracy, defense, and health (and correspondingly better gear), but you also gain new abilities, those two combined give you your true power impact. meanwhile a xaurip priest will never learn new high level abilities*, even though a player priest will gains tons over 4 levels.

so anyway, upscaling doesn't really help areas stay challenging, it just mostly makes it a little bit harder to easily out-level areas** (which is all i really want anyway).

 

*apparently with enough scaling, some (kith-like) enemies will pick up new abilities, but i've only heard of this happening with a mod that unlocks the current limited scaling to be unlimited.

**the one exception is that without upscaling, the priest Dismissal spell becomes really good. at a point in mid-late game, you overlevel all constructs and most vessels and you can just wipe them all out. with upscaling on, many constructs and vessels stay atleast at your level, so dismissal becomes less an auto-win in many fights.

I think casters scale up their spells. Like pretty sure I've run into risen priests that had minor avatar. And I know Katrenn has cast Concelhaut's Crushing Doom on me. She's meant to be level 12 so shouldn't have it. I was trying to steal spells from her and was annoyed she kept killing herself because the AI doesn't check if you have on arcane reflection before casting something like CCD, so eventually I just cloned my script and turned off Arcane Reflection when doing spell thefts. This was playing vanilla game. 

I've found it doesn't make a ton of difference what order I do things in besides DLC content. What matters is when the build comes together. Once you have your abilities and gear that make it work, as you say the enemy gaining a bit of stats doesn't affect you as much. 

[dgray62]

Martial characters will also scale up their abilities. I've encountered monks with skyward kick, for example, on upscaled fights with Huana faction ships.

[thelee]

16 hours ago, Shai Hulud said:

Like pretty sure I've run into risen priests that had minor avatar. And I know Katrenn has cast Concelhaut's Crushing Doom on me. She's meant to be level 12 so shouldn't have it.

interesting. i have the same experience, but i just assumed that those characters were set that way, not that they gained spells from scaling.

edit - so it would still be limited to kith-like enemies, though. no matter what level I do SSS on (probably the only thing I really change up in terms of order), the e.g. beasts always have the same abilities.

Edited May 24, 2023 by thelee

[Shai Hulud]

4 hours ago, thelee said:

interesting. i have the same experience, but i just assumed that those characters were set that way, not that they gained spells from scaling.

edit - so it would still be limited to kith-like enemies, though. no matter what level I do SSS on (probably the only thing I really change up in terms of order), the e.g. beasts always have the same abilities.

Presumably these beasts don't have higher level abilities available unlike kith who are modeled after the same classes as players. With the skeletal sorcerers and such it does matter what level you meet them. I figure they don't have to be kith just set as one of the kith classes like skeletal sorcerers or risen mages are wizards so they eventually get high level spells even if they're meant to be like level 10. But I'm just guessing based on experiences running into them at higher levels. Haven't really tested spawning level-scaled characters, not actually sure how to spawn anything besides rotghasts...

[darthbrawn]

On 5/22/2023 at 11:51 AM, thelee said:

*apparently with enough scaling, some (kith-like) enemies will pick up new abilities, but i've only heard of this happening with a mod that unlocks the current limited scaling to be unlimited.

**the one exception is that without upscaling, the priest Dismissal spell becomes really good. at a point in mid-late game, you overlevel all constructs and most vessels and you can just wipe them all out. with upscaling on, many constructs and vessels stay atleast at your level, so dismissal becomes less an auto-win in many fights.

Do you know the name of the mod that unlocks the scaling to be unlimited?

[abot]

I don't think there is technically unlimited scaling available. In practice though about 30/40  should be enough e.g.
Level Cap 33 mod
https://www.nexusmods.com/pillarsofeternity2/mods/266
is setting the limit to 33 player/45 enemies (vanilla is 20/30 IIRC)
the Surrogate Challenge mod
https://www.nexusmods.com/pillarsofeternity2/mods/705
is setting it to 29/39

[NotDumbEnough]

I used Deadly Deadfire, though you may have to do your own tweaking to get the exact effects you want.