Difficulty scaling: Difference between revisions

'''Difficulty scaling''' is a mechanic in ''Breath of the Wild'' that results in enemies and weapons being progressively replaced by more powerful variants during a playthrough.

The scaling system is based on a point system. Killing enemies is the ''only way'' to receive points.

The subsystem provides two functions ([[Difficulty scaling#Ecosystem::LevelSensor::scaleWeapon|<code>scaleWeapon</code>]] and [[Difficulty scaling#Ecosystem::LevelSensor::scaleActor|<code>scaleActor</code>]]) that may be called when a weapon or enemy actor is created.

Both scaling functions will immediately return without doing anything if:

Scaling will also be skipped if the current [[map area]] is 28. This corresponds to &#x22;HateruSea&#x22;, which is the Eventide Island area.

* '''For standalone weapons''': The actor property 'LevelSensorMode' is higher than 1 '''and''' it wasn't already picked up.

* '''For treasure chest drops''': If SharpWeaponJudgeType is not 4, when [[AIDef:AI/TreasureBox]] initialises the drop actor.

Note: Weapons that are bought from a shop cannot receive modifiers because they do not fit into any of the above cases.

Scaling of weapons are divided into three steps: Does the weapon get replaced by a different (better weapon)?

Which of the stats (among attack, guard, durability etc) is increased?

And how much it is increased.

Weapon bonuses (e.g. Durability Up, Attack Up) are entirely random. Each bonus has equal probability.

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Notes:

* "Critical Hit" can only be selected if weaponCommonSharpWeaponAddCrit is true ''and'' if the weapon modifier tier is Blue/White. This means that it becomes impossible to get a weapon with a Critical Hit bonus after enough enemies have been killed.

* AddSurfMaster is a bonus that only applies to shields and gives them a lower friction for shield surfing. That bonus type is unused in the game.

Bonus values (e.g. the durability or attack power increase) are determined from [[ActorParam/GeneralParamList]] (with a copy of the information in [[ActorInfoData]]). Valid ranges and bonuses for each weapon are configured in the WeaponCommon section.

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In summary, for amiibo weapons, an attack up always brings it to the greatest possible attack power.

No randomness is involved.

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In summary, for non-amiibo weapons, an attack up results in a randomized attack power.

When loading enemies, the game will always try to scale enemies.

* ''or'' the modifier tier is overridden using 'SharpWeaponJudgeType'.

[1.3.0] In Master Mode, '''all''' enemies are automatically ranked up one tier by default '''post scaling''', independently of 'LevelSensorMode'. [[Actor]]s can receive two additional parameters:

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| IsHardModeActor

| false

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| DisableRankUpForHardMode

| false

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In Master Mode, IsHardModeActor, DisableRankUpForHardMode and LevelSensorMode are combined on some actors to keep low-level enemies in the overworld (e.g. Red Bokoblin south of the Great Plateau).

Note that this doesn't apply to weapons that are attached to a Hinox's necklace, because Hinoxes use a different underlying enemy actor which overrides the 'on weapon dropped' function and ignores 'LevelSensorMode'.

Internally and in assets such as [[Map unit|map units]], the following values are used for modifiers:

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| 0

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| 1

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| 2

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| 3

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| 4

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If [[Difficulty scaling#LevelSensorMode|scaling]] is enabled, the weapon may receive modifiers from an even higher tier if point requirements are met.

For example, 0 ('None') doesn't mean a weapon will never receive a modifier. It just means that the developers haven't forced the weapon to spawn with a blue/yellow modifier. If scaling requirements are satisfied, the weapon will receive blue or yellow modifiers.

This function is called by <code>Ecosystem::init</code> from <code>ksys::InitializeApp</code>

Sets up byml structures for reading Ecosystem/[[LevelSensor.byml]].

Called by [[PlacementMgr]] when spawning actors.

In practice, settings have never been modified. 1.5.0 (which will likely be the last game update) still has the same Level2WeaponPower and Level2EnemyPower.

Called from treasure chest code, enemy actors{{Check}}, <code>Ecosystem::LevelSensor::scaleActor</code>

</source>

Analogous to <code>LevelSensor::scaleWeapon</code>.

</source>

To make things easier to understand, here are links to:

* [https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vRSlyOD7FLAn1TUBn64Pu8Pld-WOfgcVByuywHMWvBTEV0j8potD1wkBs-MJJXf-gvEkpfItUCMqMk6/pubhtml kill point, enemy scaling and weapon scaling tables]

This makes it possible to see both the required points for enemy/weapon upgrades, as well as all of the special cases extremely easily.

Ganon blights also have varying difficulty but follow a different system. Their health is determined by the base HP (set in [[ActorParam/GeneralParamList|GeneralParamList]]) and blight defeat flags.

Effectively, this means that the first blight Link fights will have 800+0×400 = 800 HP, the second will have 800+1×400 = 1200 HP, the third 800+2×400 = 1600 HP and the last one 800+3×400 = 2000 HP.

Castle blights have <code>IsRemainBoss</code> set to false in their root AI parameters (see [[AIDef:AI/SiteBossSpearRoot]] for example), which sets flag 4.

If flag 4 is set, the [[AIDef:Action/SiteBossDie]] code will NOT increment the &#x22;defeated&#x22; counter. This means castle blights do not give any scaling points.

Illusory Realm blights possess the <code>EnemySiteBoss_R</code> actor tag. This causes flag 8 to be set. So they will always have 500+4×250 = 1500 HP.

[[Category:Internals]]

[[Category:Game mechanics]]