I disagree on the level-scaling.
I find that Fallout and Might and Magic are good examples of how you can make an interesting experience without it. Imagine late level fights with rats in Fallout if they are scaled up - just would not make sense. I think Fallout2 was a good example of a game where the difficulty starts out quite tough, then becomes 'just right' from level 6-14 where after you basically start becoming over-powered and fights are too easy (except perhaps Enclave random encounters). Now, if Underrail could somehow improve that to make late levels challenging as well it would be awesome (as I think was alluded to by Atchodas).
But level scaling? No, to me it feels natural that people should have a hard time in the beginning no matter which enemy you fight (low health, poor skills) but that basic enemies should of course gradually become easier. Of course, you can always place tougher versions of those basic enemies in later areas...
Absolutely agree with you! Strongly against level scaling. with it you have no sense of character progress in game world, which make a game just a schizophrenic's bad dream.
We all remember how it was done in Fallout - usual rat, something thougher, and mutant rat, who is 5 times deadlier then usual rat, and Super Mutants too.
But we should rememeber that not every creature should have such creature variability, or all that start to resemble JRPG brrrrr.
Player characters have 1.5x more natural health than NPCs of same con&lvl. And easy mode gives you even more HP, so I figured removing the extra HP could be a good start for hard mode.
Isn't a 50% loss of a HP a bit rough?
Just calculate how much HP 25-lvl 3-Con char would have on Normal, and how much without 1.5 multiplier?
Anyway I understand it's just estimations. )