I totally get that people want a challenge but personally I want to feel stronger after taking the time to level up. That feeling of progression is what fascinates me about RPGs and the idea that putting skill points in something I dont utilize (for example because i have to take it in order to reach some other skill) will make me weaker is extremely off-putting.

I enjoy grinding and becoming more powerful and usually come up with my own ideas to make a game challenging. Like in this game I picked the hardest difficulty and was trying to get through it without ever dying (self enforced perma death as you might know it from some other games), which forced me to progress very carefully in an unknown world, leveling up and preparing as much as my patience would allow before getting into a new area. I really enjoyed playing this way and even though i outleveled most of my enemies by at least a bit, I still had some very exciting fights.
Now with 1.1, after spending quite some time getting through what I assume was about half of the game, I can no longer continue this playstyle. With level scaling, my grinding and preparation is completely useless and I will most certainly die taking on Zealots and other world bosses for the first time. I realize that my way to play the game is kinda "special" and might seem silly to some of you, but its how I enjoy the game the most.
All of this wouldnt be so bad if the game had level scaling from the beginning, because then I would have approached it very differently. But adding it now with no option to turn it off ruins the game for me and some other people.

Exactly. I've written about this on this forum as well.

Enemy level scaling should not be forced on us. It should be optional. Let us turn it off in the settings and enjoy the game as we want to enjoy it.

Forced enemy scaling was one reason I couldn't stand Odyssey. Damage-spongey enemies just enrage me. Origins at least gave us the option to turn this off (and I loved Origins).

Completely agree. I'm a big girl. I can make my own choices about how to challenge myself in the game. Or I can choose to overlevel and challenge myself that way by the amount of work I need to put in to get there. I do both in JRPGs since JRPGs give you the option. I dislike this trend in Western RPGs to decide for you.

@taleraris "i;m a big girl" yeah