The Destiny and Diablo communities went at each others’ throats on Twitter last month due to a comment made by a Destiny 2 developer who called out Diablo 4’s enemy scaling. He said that “it is one of the worst ideas in video games” and said that it takes away from playstyles and ruins power trips. Blizzard President Mike Ybarra responded with a simple “Lazy, huh.” but gamers on Twitter were divided over how games should adjust the difficulty.
Fixed Enemy Levels Can Be Just as “Lazy” as Enemy Scaling
Since it was primarily Destiny 2 and Diablo that were involved in the discussion, let’s talk about them first. Destiny 2’s approach to power scaling involves arbitrary numbers that exist only to give players something to do.
Destiny used to increase the power levels of characters in increments of 50 for seasonal updates and we had larger power cap increases in annual expansions. If you chased “pinnacle” gear, it gave you an extra 10 levels of power and additional power levels could be earned via your battle pass experience which translated to something known as artifact levels. The game has cut down on the grind but the effect of power levels has remained the same at large.
If you jumped into The Shattered Throne dungeon in say Season of the Haunted (S17) and then completed the dungeon the next time in Season of the Deep (S21), you should have a power increase of over 200 but there is no difference in how powerful you felt back then versus now by virtue of an increased power level.
Destiny has difficulty levels known as Legend, Master, and Grandmaster for some of its content. When I was actively playing the game, it was possible for players to gear up and match the power levels of Legend and Master content. The very next season, you would need to grind another 50-60 levels to deal the same amount of damage you were dealing to Legend-level enemies a season ago and it’s nothing but an arbitrary grind.
The power grind in Destiny exists solely to give players a reason to play the game. You don’t become stronger and there are no abilities in your skill tree to unlock. Even the developers recognized this and had to cut down the grind to just 10 levels of “Pinnacle” content where players complete specific activities to earn higher power gear. During Season of the Deep (current season), the developers decided to halt the power grind altogether. While you still need to level up your seasonal artifact for a few power levels, it comes naturally as part of your battle pass grind.
If Bungie were to address the power level issue and give players a sense of progression where they feel more powerful, the developers would need to add newer and more difficult content as players keep getting stronger over time. And If Bungie were to add new and challenging content, older content would essentially be powercrept which is why having fixed difficulty levels has its positives while also making you feel like your character is just as strong as it was three years ago and you do not get a sense of progression.
Enemy Scaling and its Downsides
Let’s move on to Diablo 4, a game that has enemy scaling. Your character feels extremely weak at the start of the game but the enemies are pushovers and you keep pushing through. As you get closer to the level 40-50 mark, you unlock various abilities that synergize with each other and you see a noticeable spike in how strong you are.
But once you are past a certain point, you can absolutely obliterate anything in your path and the power trip feels great. But many grow tired of that feeling as there is no semblance of challenge left in the game.
The Butcher or the Helltide Assassin, enemies that were once frightening when I started my journey, pose no threat whatsoever now that I have a min-maxed Paragon board and high-level gear. Even though the enemies are scaling with me, they do not feel threatened at all.
The game tries to resolve this by letting players go for Nightmare Dungeons which have modifiers for enemies and you also get to choose the enemy levels. This sounds great in practice and then we end up running into a situation where there are terrible modifiers that make the experience as unfun as possible. From the Suppressor tag that forces you to get close to enemies or the Lightning Storm tag that requires players to get into a protection dome to avoid taking damage.
These designs feel like they are implemented to halt player power. Elias and Astaroth are arguably two of the best-designed bosses in the game and it’s a shame that there aren’t more bosses like them in the endgame.
Finding the Right Mix of Enemy Design, Game Balance, and Player Power
Both enemy scaling and fixed difficulties have their downsides and it all boils down to enemy design, game balance, and player power progression. Forced multi-stage boss fights, loadout restrictions, and annoying enemy mechanics are often included as ‘artificial’ means to make things difficult and a lot of players dislike it.
Finding the right balance between character progression through abilities or great, balancing difficulty and still giving players a sense of power is a massive challenge that even the best in the industry may struggle with.
Both games can learn from the best parts of each other as well as other games in the industry. There is also the conversation to be had about casual vs hardcore players. Different parts of a game’s playerbase have different expectations and it can be hard to find the right balance.
I personally do not have a preference when it comes to fixed enemy levels or scaling enemies as long as the content is engaging enough regardless of how powerful my character is. Devil May Cry 5 is arguably one of the best examples if we are to talk about difficulty, while others also praise Elden Ring for the amount of freedom it gives with regards to the challenges you want to take on.
Things get tricky when trying to translate similar designs to a live-service format because of the seasonal structure which can make balancing very difficult. While I don’t think games can magically apply a formula and expect it to satisfy all players, there is still a happy middle ground that games can strive to achieve to give players a sense of difficulty without taking away their power fantasy.
