This feature was introduced in GW2 to negate the flaws of previously-made MMOs. This design help lower and higher level players to engage in activities together. Higher level players will be scaled down to the field level. So if a Lv50 player goes back to a Lv10 field to help his friend there, his level will be scaled down to Lv10 temporary. This was also introduced in order to avoid high level player “1-hit-kill” monsters in lower level fields. It’s a good feature.
There are pros and cons to this design.
Higher level players will not feel stronger nor superior. There’s nothing set in between low and high level players. In various MMO, players gain motivation to level-up so that they can compete with friends. Games are like sports. The reason you undergo training is to be more skillful and stronger than other players. In this mmo, everyone is regarded as equal no matter you’re Lv1 or maxed. This causes the lack of rewards for the effort you placed in to be a high level. There’s no feeling of “progression” towards the character’s strength. At most, a player can feel up to 1.8x stronger.
Here’s my suggestion.
Maybe the developers can only scale-down only on attack and precision. Vitality and toughness do not have to be scale-down. In this suggested concept, players can still find low-level areas enjoyable by not 1HKO mobs and bosses, yet they feel rewarded and stronger for having able to survive longer in lower level areas. They still kill monsters at equal amount of time and not be a juggernaut to low-level players. It’s a win-win situation. No one likes to be killed easily by a Lv40 veteran/champion even by making an effort to reach Lv80 cap. There’s no feeling of “reward” nor “character progression” for being a higher level except for story progression. The idea is to make higher level players feel that their characters have been progressed by their efforts of level’ing up.
Personally, I play a thief. Sometimes, I do get annoyed when I just head back to a level 60 map and have trouble surviving even with full-exotic. Let’s not say “challenging is fun”. It’s not a matter of the player’s skills either. The combat system feels more like “Kill the monsters fast before getting killed”. I do not know about other classes, but this is what I feel as a thief. I heard warriors and guardians survives well in PVE.
The developers can apply this only towards PVE fields and main story. Our game can still stick our current scaling-system to dunguen raids and WvWvW.
It’s really a good suggestion. I researched in some popular forums. There’re many players who voiced out against the idea of being scale-down. Yes, there’re pros and cons. How about we make it have more pros than cons with this suggestion?