Guild Wars 2

Hello, just wanted to suggest reworking downscaling a bit more, because I can see no significant change to the difficulty last patch brought about downscaling. I can still steamroll any low lvl area, fight 5 vs 1 without significant problems etc.

Also rewards could be given based on level, so that lvl 80 cannot get low level items, which happens quite often in such areas. It could bring people back from Orr, which at least guarantees high level drops.

It depends what class you play. Guardians and warriors will always have a easier time compared to mesmers or elementalists. Some classes are more quishy than others at low levels or downsized.

It also heavily depends on your items that you have, if you are fully exotic, ofc you will steamroll every mob in a level 10 zone because level 10 player cannot have exotic items at that early point in the game. Yes you are downscaled to level 10, but you are still a level 10 player with multiple exotics, hence why you have higher stats than an average player that would actually need to fight those mobs at that point. Exotic items only appear after level 60+, so mobs in low level zones are designed to be taken on with green items.

Also, by being a level 80 in a level 10 zone for example, you actually do get level 80 weapon drops now instead of level 10 items.

The whole downscale system is total BS to me, it absolutely destroys every feeling for real character progression.

You can go back as Level 80 into a beginner zone and you still feel like being the noob character, that has been started from there just some weeks ago.
You feel absolutely no character progression in this game, or in other words said, the character progression so far in GW2 is so minor and nearly non existant that you just don’t see any greati differences between a lvl 1 Character in geneal gameplay and a Lvl 80 character, besides only these few things that are different:

• You are able to use Elite Skills (not really that big thing in this game so far, as all of them are extrem far away from anyhow being at all worthy to be called Elite Skills thta make for some epic character development that you can say proudly – WOW, my chara has become a real heroic presence and isnt by far anymow just some kind of nobody which doesn’t get acknowledged by anyone)

• Your equipment basically looks just nicer, but thats absolutely NO character progression, this is just item progression and has nothing to do with the character at all

• You’ve got some positive trait side effects and a very few more skills.
  This is by far the only small thing that really is character progression and it is by far way too less for a game like GW2 as the progression you make via traits feels to minor, because most of those things that the game offers so far have nearly to none great impact of how you play your character, how it develops into something much better, than you were, when you just started the character…

Thats the thing I see GW2 is extremely lacking off so far and what I personally are missing in this game, that you get here no real sense for character progression and so far everything goes only all about item progression and nothing else beside that…

But I think it would be better for the Game to just reverse the scaling system and change it so, that low level characters get temporarely scaled up, when they are in the near of a much higher leveled character, of that higher leveled character is temporarly scalng up the territories enemies in events and so on.

Upscaling based on strong characters should just functionate in older areas for low level characters, just like the commander’s boon in WvW.
Lets do call this effect “Paragon Boon” as players with a low level character should get a buff, when they are in the near of a high level character that increases with his presence the difficulty of enemies ect. around hisself for other players

Example:

Queensdale…. A Level 1-15 Area.
Lets say we are at the moment in that part of the map, where Level 15 enemies are at the swamp, where the Shadow Behemoth appears.
Lets say it appeared and where have there now like 19 Lvl 15 Players and now comes a 20th Lvl 80 character into the battle, which doesn’t get scaled down anymore.

What do you think should happen now in the game, if GW2 would really have a real good functionating innovative dynamic event system that works also properly in intelligent scaling? THIS wouuld happen I say you:

1. Shadow Behemoth would get scaled up by its Level from 15 to 80
2. The 19 Lvl 15 players would get scaled up from 15 to 80, as long as the 1 lvl 80 player is participating in the battle

Dynamic good scaling would always look for the highest level character under all participating players and scale up all players that are under this level to the same level, while being self also getting scaled up to the same max level of the highest level character that is fighting against the creature.

So in the end we would have 20 lvl 80 characters, wherefrom 19 are temporarely scaled up for this battle against 1 level 80 scaled up boss.
The only thing what wouldn’t scaled up to this for everybody should be in the end the LOOT from the boss chest or in general monster loot that gets dropped should’t scaled up this way. loot should stay always at the characters REAL current level and be based on the characters real level.
Would scaling be based as I say on the maximums character level in YOUR DIRECT NEAR (range 1200), then there would be absolutely no need anymore for map area based down scaling and players would receive a slightly better feeling for characte progression, when you are then able to handle later champion enemies alone easier, where you were as beginner unable to kill these kinds of enemies alone due to just being way too weak for them.

The reason, why I personally will never willingly return in GW2 to older places, unless I must have to do so out of any reason, because at the moment, I won’t see there any real to me character progression at all besides the tiny points listed above, which aren’t enough for me by far to say that this game has any good character progression systems yet.

If you want challange instead of cake, follow the white bunny here:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/suggestions/HUGE-GW2-Redesign-Concept-Collection/first#post1411308

(Sorry for linking my topic, but it contains good suggestions for you)

Level scaling should be removed from the game altogether. It is a disease that rots a game from the inside out. I hope more people begin to complain about this idiotic practice.

Orpheal.8263:

T* You are able to use Elite Skills (not really that big thing in this game so far, as all of them are extrem far away from anyhow being at all worthy to be called Elite Skills thta make for some epic character development that you can say proudly – WOW, my chara has become a real heroic presence and isnt by far anymow just some kind of nobody which doesn’t get acknowledged by anyone)

• Your equipment basically looks just nicer, but thats absolutely NO character progression, this is just item progression and has nothing to do with the character at all

• You’ve got some positive trait side effects and a very few more skills.
  This is by far the only small thing that really is character progression and it is by far way too less for a game like GW2 as the progression you make via traits feels to minor, because most of those things that the game offers so far have nearly to none great impact of how you play your character, how it develops into something much better, than you were, when you just started the character…

Having 3 utility skills instead of 0 and having the traits is gameplay altering. For example, the reason why Greatsword deals ridiculous damage on a Warrior is due to Forceful Greatsword, which is a Master level trait, requiring a minimum of level 40.

1. Shadow Behemoth would get scaled up by its Level from 15 to 80
2. The 19 Lvl 15 players would get scaled up from 15 to 80, as long as the 1 lvl 80 player is participating in the battle

Have you ever been to WvW on a low level character? Well let me tell you, upscaled lowbies are crap. They got less HP, less damage, less defense, less utilities and lack traits.

I honestly like the downscaling system a lot just the way it is. Maybe there are tweaks that could make it better—there’s room for improvement in pretty much every system—but I’ve found nothing to complain about with the system as it is. I think it strikes a really nice balance. When you go back to lower level content, you clearly are more powerful than the level-appropriate toons there, thus you’re rewarded for your work developing your character, but the gap isn’t so big that you ruin the gameplay for those around you either. There’s nothing worse than having your progression halted because some high level toon needs to farm something from your content and there’s nothing left for you to kill, which often happens in many MMO’s. The system also keeps the game bigger by allowing you to get meaningful rewards from playing in lower level content instead of shoehorning everyone into the same few zones.

I’ve noticed that in the 1-15 areas the downscale reworking didn’t do anything, but 16+, especially against veterans and champions, it became MUCH harder after patch. Not impossible, but much harder.

Regardless, as others have pointed out, it depends on the gear you have, and also the class you play.

Why would you want to go to starter areas at lvl 80? Unless completing map or helping ppl. Sounds to me like you just wanna farm stuff from bosses, well this ain’t wow so get off your high horse burgers and deal with it!

pluzoid.2597:

Why would you want to go to starter areas at lvl 80? Unless completing map or helping ppl. Sounds to me like you just wanna farm stuff from bosses, well this ain’t wow so get off your high horse burgers and deal with it!

Actually, at level 80 here are a few reasons why you would want to go back to lowbie areas:

1) Map completion as you said.
2) Farming materials for crafting (whether for your toon, guildies or selling on trading post)
3) Events
4) Helping a friend/guildy.
5) Jumping Puzzles
6) Some people enjoy exploring the landscape of areas they might have unlocked, but didn’t explore completely.

And I’m sure there are plenty of other reasons.

That being said, again, I think the downscaling is okay now and really doesn’t need tweaking.