The soulsbourne series has it spot on without even needing a scaling system of sorts. Yes a tough enemy can be overcome through the sheer attrition of of grinding your stats, but they will always still posses enough of a challenge to two shot complacent players.
I can’t remember what game it was, but there was one that tackled higher difficulty in a unique way. Enemies would kill you easier, but they themselves would also be easier to kill. It was an indiscriminate high damage, low defence threshold for both player and enemies alike. It really cultivated a high risk high reward tension which is what higher difficulties should do. The same logic should really be experimented with in RPGs to circumvent the bullet sponge tedium.
. I've done almost every side mission in the game and still didn't have enough money for the final cars so I think i'm entitled to exploit the game's bugs. Some of the cars do look really cool, i'll give them credit for the designs.
I actually felt like I wanted to cause a bit of chaos with Johnny and the option to betray V sorta played into Johnny's selfish rocker boy persona. Also Alt did say what she would do with all the data and I figured Johnny would cling to life. It's a shame he didn't reform his band like I wanted him too but I thought it was an interesting ending. I did feel bad at the time for betraying V but I guess curiosity got the better of me