Short version:
Make armor and weapons reduce overall damage output and defense. Much like traits (far right of character screen) are reduced in low level areas, gear should be sacrificed as well to bring back some of the challenge.
Long Version:
Being a role player on Tarnished Coast, I recently attended a rally and some characters yelled at mine for offering to aid them while also being heavily armored in something that looked like it was crafted from jewels. Keep in mind I was talking to peasants; farmers who could barely afford an education, if at all.
Anyway, I told said peasants that I’d get rid of the armor (not literally, just get something to replace it) and wear different armor that’s thrown together. So I went to Gendarran Fields and bought a bunch of Karma Vendor gear, including weapons. I’m a Guardian, so heavy armor and self healing is how I manage on the field.
While grabbing the leg armor, the final bit to my new armor choice, two Centaur attacked me and my health dropped to half in only a few seconds. I was so not used to this because most of the time when I fight champions, they can’t get me down to a quarter of my health in ten minutes. I found myself scrambling to defeat these centaurs without dying myself and it really added a new level of challenge to the game that’s been lacking for me.
We already see it everywhere, where high level players roam around places like Queensdale, to finish dailies, and just slaughter everything by looking at them because their gear isn’t downgraded – just their stats. Now I’m not saying you should make high level players be at the same strength as a new player in that low level zone (after all, players like to feel like at level 80, they know a thing or two about fighting bandits), but make it where low level players aren’t completely unable to do certain dynamic events because the high level players just destroy everything in seconds.
