in regards to poe2. when was the last time you played the game? i played the game on highest difficult with upscaled AI.
I only played PoE2 when it just came out, actually. Way before the first DLC came out. I know "difficulty" wasn't much of a thing at that time. I watched CohhCarnage streamed it on very high difficulty much later on and saw that there were a lot of changes to difficulty and balancing compared to when I played it.
another thing i would like to know how normally XP or leveling gets balanced? it seems tremendously difficult? for example.. some people just wanted to play through the campaing and do minimal side quests. and some people like me.. would like to complete as much if not all? side quests before going through the main paths.
the issue here is.. if you didnt do the main paths early on, you possibly have a much difficult time if you try to play the side quests. because the game will scaled the XP / level gain base on the progress of the game. you will get much more XP and leveling if you brief through the main campaign but skipping the end game battles. they were designed in such a way that, you still be able to complete the game (even your interests are just the main campaign).
so this ended up that you are at the intended level when completed let's say 80% of the main campaign. but since is open world concept, you can still do other side quests (which became tremendously easy at this point.)
I like the way Dragon Age Origins handles this, with its Challenge Scaling system. There is a "level range" attached to every area, and a level range attached to basically every single enemy. Generally speaking, enemies will scale to your party level, but their level can't go below their minimum level or the area's minimum level, or above their maximum level or the area's maximum level.
For example, the Orzammar areas have level range 10-18. You can go there as early as at level 7, but you will have a pretty rough time, especially if you're playing on Nightmare, because all enemies are at least level 10. If you play through other major quests first, you may hit level 16-17 before getting to Orzammar, and the difficulty will feel more reasonable. An early area may have level range 7-15, so you can play through this area at early or mid-game and should still find reasonable challenges. Also, enemy level is only determined once, the first time your party enter that area, so that you can come back when you are stronger and *actually* have an easier time fighting enemies who used to be too tough for you. In general, as an enemy's level scales up, its statistics and equipment quality also scale up, and it will have access to higher level abilities.
Each creature type also has their own level range, to further adjust for their intended challenge rating. Creatures that are meant to be very weak will always be very weak, even if you enter the area at high party level. Creatures that are meant to be a challenge will, in most cases, not feel like a pushover, even if the area itself is right for your level.
