I have never heard of this being referred to as level scaling. In Zelda, you do get more powerful items as you progress through the game, and the enemies do get more difficult, but the game is basically linear, and not adjusting to your character on the fly. If we say that every game which gets harder with time has level-scaling, the term becomes meaningless, because almost every equipment-based linear game does that. You could then argue that DOOM has level scaling because the later stages are harder, but you also have better guns. That's not scaling, it's simply the design of the game. I do not think using the term "level scaling" in a way which encompasses almost every single-player game ever designed makes a lot of sense.CaptainMarvelous said:I'm a little baffled that some very vocal people have no goddamn idea how Level Scaling works.
Anyone here, hands up, playing Skyrim in full Daedric Armour with maxed out stats in every area, how hard do you find fighting a Wolf?
Fallout New Vegas, that Deathclaw at the start, is it STILL impossible?
The goal isn't that every enemy is as tough as you just that there is still an element of challenge. Even with Zone Based level scaling , the enemies get harder as you progress to give you a bit more of a challenge and keep pace with the levels you gained in the last area.
The whole reason it's called 'Scaling' is to keep the balance ffs.
Any game where your enemies change and stop being the same ones in the same quantity you fought in level 1 has level Scaling. Hell, even ZELDA, when you get the Master Sword you can deal 2 blocks of damage not 1 so you encounter more enemies in the new areas who need more hits to kill. If you sink the effort into upgrading and getting the Golden Sword/Biggoron's sword you can do more and get passed the scaling but it doesn't change the fact the difficulty adjusted to the level you were on.
Conceptually, Level Scaling is basically just a difficulty curve adjusting to you the player and your character improving.
What the OP appears to be talking about is redundant levelling systems that appear as 'RPG elements' in games that don't feel like they make an impact. I'm not sure which ones they're referring to since those games are by and large buying abilities and combos, I'm not familiar enough with DMC to remember how it worked but I'm pretty sure Stinger Level 3 did more damage than Stinger Level 2 regardless of opponent so...
For a sensible definition of "level scaling", the game needs to be reading the player's strength somehow (usually done by reading his "level" in an RPG, thus the name) and actually changing itself dynamically to accommodate this. In Zelda, the number of enemies will always be the same and they will have the same strength. The game does not analyze what items you have and adjust itself afterwards. While Oblivion meanwhile is constantly checking what level the player has and giving you different enemies in response.
Not that there is any clear authority on this matter, but here are descriptions I've found which made sense to me:
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/LevelScaling
http://www.giantbomb.com/level-scaling/3015-608/