PoE 2 would really benefit from built in XP scaling options.

[Uni]

I like the decision to not give xp from grinding battles, but it makes a game like this impossible to balance for both completionist players and the ones who only rush through the critical path. Either the critical path becomes unbearably punishing, or the game ends up being trivially easy for the players who do more side content.

While the traditional difficulty options the game has are good, they do nothing to combat this problem of how difficulty scales. It would be really nice to have another difficulty slider that made you require more XP for leveling depending on how much of the game you plan to complete. You can do this in PoE 1 by fiddling with the game files or with tools like IEMod, but methods like that might become unusable with patches and are generally much worse than having that functionality already in game.

Edited February 7, 2017 by Uni

[draego]

They have mentioned they would have opt in monster level scaling at the beginning of the game. I think he mentioned they would scale within a range so not oblivion style. I believe this info is from the last stream 

[Boeroer]

That's right. I also heard that during the last live stream.

[Uni]

I hope that ends up being enough to not make the game become drastically easier towards the end if one does a lot of quests.

[Rolandur]

They could balance the game to level our characters appropriately only for the main quest-line then have an optional toggle to [ X ] Shut Off Side Quest Experience. That would produce the results some seek to keep the Chapter Difficulties in line and [by having the optional side quest exp. off] would keep the ease of combat in-line with those that like their end game easier because the characters became overpowered. No need to fiddle with the creature/bestiary experience awards.

[mumbogumshoe]

I like the idea with the xp-scaling slider a lot. Wonder why that's not a feature in many games, I often have the feeling that I level too quickly. I also tend to like low to mid level gameplay more than high level so I'd like to extend it. Don't understand though why not getting xp rewards for killing things is a problem in this regard. Seems to me it doesn't really matter where your xp is coming from, it's always a problem balancing the game for completionists vs people who only do the critical path. New Vegas had this problem too.

[JerekKruger]

I like the decision to not give xp from grinding battles, but it makes a game like this impossible to balance for both completionist players and the ones who only rush through the critical path. Either the critical path becomes unbearably punishing, or the game ends up being trivially easy for the players who do more side content.

 

There's actually a very easy way to balance this, it's just most players wouldn't like it. What you do is only give experience rewards for the main quest chain, having side quests reward the player with gear (not necessarily more powerful, just more varied) and the reward of more content. This way characters can't out level the main quest.

 

Personally I'd love such a system, but I recognise that I am very much in the minority here.

[Varana]

Yep - I mean, I had some serious trouble keeping myself motivated when I hit the level cap in PoE1. Seeing that magic number go up (even if it gave you just a few HP every level) is important, for some strange psychological reason.

The issue doesn't just arise with quest XP, though - if you give XP for killing things, those grinding trash mobs or doing a lot of sidequests (which usually involve killing things) will also be way ahead of those only following the main path.

Though I think balancing the game in a way that a player can safely beat the main quest without doing side content, is a bad idea anyway. And I'm not sure PoE1 does that: instead, it had a middle part where the player could choose between several things, and they were all balanced to be completed without any of the others, which was not a good idea. Also, Od Nua and the expansions (if you did them before a lot of main content) threw balance out of the window.

Complete level scaling is not something that should be done again, after Oblivion, I think. Scaling parts of the game that could be done in any order - fine. Balancing the main quest so you have to do X amount of side content - also good. Scaling everything so it doesn't matter whether you completed 2 or 7 major side quests, you'll always run into comparable trouble - not good, imho. Things should get easier in the end if you do everything in between.

Edited February 7, 2017 by Varana

[Tigranes]

The XP scaling OP mentions is entirely different from level scaling.

 

It would be nice to be able to customise it so that I can give myself a bigger challenge if I want - or to adjust if Obsidian screws up the XP rate like they did with POE. 

[Kpista]

I would simple add an option to the game which reduces to 75% or to 50% the retriveable xp as an extra difficulty. With that the player would need to calculate where he goes first and where he does not.

 

I do not like monster scaling since there is a fun if you can beat a monster on smaller level than the average did.

Edited February 7, 2017 by Kpista