Guild Wars 2

Let me start by saying that I enjoy this last update. Much of it really works for me. Some of it I would have personally designed differently. For instance, it is hard to get to chambers but easy to complete them (I would have done it the other way around). However, this thread is just about one thing that I really feel was messed up.

Scaling

The point of scaling is so you, as a developer, have better control over how hard it is for an individual player or group to defeat a specific encounter.

You can adjust a bosses’ hit points, damage dealt or skills used based on how many players are present, or what level(s) the players are. (The latter is insignificant if the players are scaled up to 80 already.)

This way you can aim for a specific encounter to be roughly the same difficulty for 1, 2, 3, 4 or 5 players.

|
|
| _  _  _  _  _
|
|                    
|  1  2  3  4  5

You can, of course, also use this to influence the difficulty in such a way that a specific encounter favors solo-play or group-play:

|
| _
|     --  _  
|              --  _
|                    
|  1  2  3  4  5

But this is not how ANet implemented the chambers. How the scaling of the boss instances work right now is this:

• If you are 1-2 players, the watchwork or spider boss is a vet
• If you are 3-5 players, the watchwork or spider boss is a champion
• Unless it is a special boss (Trahearne, Destiny’s Edge, Mentor) then it doesn’t seem to scale at all

This scaling algorithm that just spawns one OR the other, instead of spawning the same boss but with adjusted difficulty, may work (somewhat) in PvE, but on such a small scale it really just messes up the dynamics big time.

For the Watchwork as well as spider vets / champions, it leads to this difficulty graph which is a complete mess. Easy to solo, trivial with 2 players, a total nightmare with 3, doable (but hard) with 4 or 5.

|         _  
|              --  _
|                    
| _
|     --    
|  1  2  3  4  5

It is most apparent in the spider:

• 1-2 players: a vet
• 3-5 players: a champion that coccoons, heals, has stacks of defiant, and spawns mines

…

The other effect is seen on the special bosses. Rytlock is actually kind of tough to solo, as he spawns minions all the time, but he goes down in literally 2 seconds with a full group.

Is this really by design? Or is it just because current technical restrictions make it really difficult to scale in a more reasonable way? Because on small-scale encounters, … this isn’t doing it for me.

This is a very well thought out example of how the chambers are working in game.

The first time I did anything in the tower I was in a pug. Every time we got the spider boss people would immediately leave the instance and I never knew why. Then I ran in a full guild group and releazied almost immediately that something was wrong. Every chamber was over the top.

After the first few chambers we quickly decided that running up the tower would be done in full groups while for the chambers we would split into parties of 2. We found that 2 players per instance was the sweet spot.

Not sure if this is the intended functionality, but that is how it is currently working in game.

Yea, I hope they open a discussion about scaling at some point. It’d be nice to know why things are like this. Scaling in general seems to not work so well most of the time but it’s something I hope improves, a lot of the game could benefit from better scaling.

Well, I’m glad I’m not the only one who feels like that.

I strongly doubt that the chambers were designed to favour 2-player groups and completely screw over 3-player groups. It seems to me this is a byproduct of technical limitations and/or not taking the time to scale bosses individually.

Scaling in PvE has its own problems (see also this thread)…

Yeah the champ spider one is quite insane. The cocoon HP could be reduced to scale it better. Also, the mines shouldn’t be in there at all. The Group Event version can have those, but in a 3-5 player instance, that is overkill. Especially how others can activate the mines and kill each other.

The mortars shouldn’t respawn either. Actually they should just get removed as the NPCS get stuck fighting them.

They should implement a proper scaling system where all group content scales between 1 to 5 players. Additionally, they should allow you to select the scaling you want, where if you go up a level, you get increased rewards or less if you go down. This would open up possibilities such as challenges and actually getting increased rewards for doing something undermanned. With the exception of simply scaling stats, scaling isn’t something that is easily accomplished without designing each encounter 5 times, for each scale.

In general, scaling shouldn’t be exact. For example, if there’s only 2 people, it’s probably “with a friend” (casual) so scaling should be something like 1.5x the normal, rather than 2×. Scaling for full groups however should always be at max.

Healix.5819:

They should implement a proper scaling system where all group content scales between 1 to 5 players.

I agree.

I don’t actually mind fractals being a lot harder to solo than to group, but story instances, living story dungeons, personal story instances, dungeon story mode etc. etc. etc. would be super nice if they scaled “properly” to allow all players to play in the way they enjoy the most – be it solo, as a tag team (I know many couples do this, I’m one of them) or with a full party of five.

Healix.5819:

Additionally, they should allow you to select the scaling you want, where if you go up a level, you get increased rewards or less if you go down. This would open up possibilities such as challenges and actually getting increased rewards for doing something undermanned. With the exception of simply scaling stats, scaling isn’t something that is easily accomplished without designing each encounter 5 times, for each scale.

That would be the icing on the cake and possibly spare us a lot of whining from hardcore players who feel that Arah explorable isn’t “endgame” enough

Healix.5819:

In general, scaling shouldn’t be exact. For example, if there’s only 2 people, it’s probably “with a friend” (casual) so scaling should be something like 1.5x the normal, rather than 2×. Scaling for full groups however should always be at max.

I have no problem with certain encounters favoring groups or favoring solo-play (as long as they remain doable with other group configurations) – it would encourage people to try out new play styles without preventing anybody from doing it their preferred way. Some variety would be nice, as long as the scaling was done in a conscious and meaningful way.

Here’s hoping that the devs take a last look into this forum before it gets closed today…