I can’t think of a single game that manages to have enemies correspond to your level rather than area or story progression actually contribute to the game. It just makes trying to get better gear ultimately a pointless task because the enemies get strong at the same rate so you might as well stay weak.
It’s really a design choice so it depends what the devs and players want the game to feel like. Some people enjoy feeling like a god in a video game after a certain period of investment. In a more linear or a “grinding” game you might want a one to one scale. In an RPG they might not want difficulty to scale with certain enemies because you want the player to continuously employ different strategies. In more realistic games you also wouldn’t want a scale because that doesn’t exist IRL. I think the question really boils down to “why and how do players enjoy this gameplay?” and then trying to stretch that out with the leveling.
I think some combination of leveled lists and fixed level enemies is the best approach. It allows games to be open world while still directing the player, and if the player wants to test their luck or grind they can.
i just don’t get the point of a game that is just grindy combat. Why play if it just takes forever and never gets more fun? If there’s no difference in what you are doing from the staeting zone to the final boss, and it takes a while no matter what, that sounds really really boring to me.
