Level Scaling

When it's applied

There are two cases where the effects of level scaling are visible.

Using equipment above your level

If a player clicks a link to a piece of equipment that is of a higher level than the player, he'll see something like this: File:Scaling.jpg

The numbers in the left column are the actual stats of the equipment, and the numbers in parentheses are how much the player would actually get from those stats, at his current level.

Item World

The stats of equipment improve when it is leveled up through the Item World. A little known fact about this, however, is that the stats increase by a fixed amount per level gained. This is because the only thing that actually changes internally is the equipment's level, and the other stats simply follow automatically as described by the formula below.

How it works

To quote Tenboro:

All stats for all weapons have a certain range they can roll on when they're generated. A club, for instance, can roll a base damage between 18 and 36. These stats are permanent, as in that when they have been rolled, nothing can change them. (Yet.)

Each stat also has a scaling factor, by which I mean, two scaling factors. The first scaling factor (base factor) is applied to calculate the base "level 0" stat of the weapon. The second scaling factor (level factor) is applied against this base stat and the level of the weapon to calculate the effective stat, which you see on the equipment screen.

Expressed as a formula:

scaled_stat = (1 + level / level_factor) * base_stat

For example, for Physical Absorption, which has a level scaling factor of 20, the value increases by 1/20 of its "level 0" value per level. Inserting the equipment's level into the formula gives the actual stats of the item. Substituting a lower level player's level into the formula gives the "scaled down" stats (which strictly speaking are actually scaled up from the base stats of the item by a smaller amount than the item itself). The base value for Physical Absorption for the example equipment shown above is approximately 1.566. The calculation of the other base values, and the scaling factors, is left as an exercise for the reader. :P

One final note: Burden and Interference are always scaled to the level of the equipment, not the player. This is why they increase if equipment is leveled up, but are not reduced when using higher level equipment. This is mitigated by the fact that as players level up themselves, their equipment proficiencies and INT/WIS increase, reducing their gear's compromise stats by an increasing percentage of their base values.