Guild Wars 2

I think we have to accept that getting to level cap is pretty much equivalent to game over for a toon in Guild Wars 2 right now unless one wants to farm high level areas in order to obtain prestige items, return to previous areas for which one is too strong or start an alt – which is fine, but I’m attached to my main character and would like to complete the exploration of the map and generally have a good time with the content without the pressure of levelling and i will play alts as well anyway … after all the game is only a month old and I expect to be playing for some time.

So my idea is that once one gets to level 80 one can obtain an item, which I have called “The Burden Of Grenth” that has several effects on your character:

1) and most importantly. Your character is downscaled to 3 levels below the content level of any area that you choose to play in. And probably some downscaling of armor mods and maybe trait bonuses would happen too.

2) You get additional Karma & rewards (from events) for carrying the Burden of Grenth, equivalent to those that you would get for farming events in Orr.

3) You get some kind of title, aura or mark that shows that you earned the right to carry the burden.

4) You have to pay a small fee (equivalent to that for changing your traits) at a vendor (temple of Grenth?!?) to pickup or drop the burden.

So this is a sort of Guild Wars 2 hard mode equivalent that allows you to go back and do the content you missed, whilst at the same time increasing the challenge and allowing you to work towards those in game rewards without being confined to a limited space.

This idea could also be extended to dungeons, for a hard mode, such that for instance when parties run a dungeon whilst carrying the burden of grenth they get increased rewards for completing it. That also might let the Arenanet designers ease up a little on those who are currently finding the dungeons a little hard.

Good idea. I endorse this. Would love more of a challenge from the game. Not been logging in much lately.

@Zii – glad someone thinks its a good idea.

Another little wrinkle occurs to me: If whilst doing an area whilst under the burden some other nice player should help you to kill a mob of veteran level of above or participate in the same event as you, then that person would get a small buff (for helping you shoulder the burden!) such as +5% magic find for ten minutes or whatever. The idea being to encourage people to play together a bit more – something that isn’t happening too much in my world right now (was better in beta I think).

Oh! Armchair game design is so easy…

For more of a challenge, if you die, Grenth takes his burden back!

1) You are already downscaled to 2 levels below the highest level DE mob in the area (sometimes even more)
2) DE rewards do get scaled to a pretty nice point (you get 240~ karma pre champion of “badazar”, 360~ pre orr event, not that big of a difference for a 70 level gap).
3) Been there. Done that.
4) More stupid money sinks!

Andele.1306:

1) You are already downscaled to 2 levels below the highest level DE mob in the area (sometimes even more)
2) DE rewards do get scaled to a pretty nice point (you get 240~ karma pre champion of “badazar”, 360~ pre orr event, not that big of a difference for a 70 level gap).
3) Been there. Done that.
4) More stupid money sinks!

Not really sure what you are trying to say here – possibly you didn’t understand the op. When you play in a low level area as a higher level character you are downscaled in level to the maximum level for that area +1 that’s usually 2 levels above (not below) the mobs you are fighting in that area. Further, of course, when you are a higher level you have better gear, traits etc. so you are effectively quite a bit stronger than that.

The attribute downscaling formula appears to be based on a character wearing a fixed quite low level of armor and I don’t think that it changes at all if you upgrade your armor. So, for instance if you are level 80 your attributes will be downscaled by some factor that depends only on the level you are being downscaled to.

Considering the above, I think that for any hard mode idea they would need to increase the downscaling factor on the assumption that a level 80 will be in max stats exotic armor. That would be a good incentive for maxing out anyway…

I’m not much of a theory crafter so would be interested if anyone has more detailed knowledge about the downscaling formula. However, it works though, a level 80 with even reasonably decent armor (far less max stats) appears to be more powerful than the level they are nominally being levelled down to.