Guild Wars 2

So I was running around the open world today and I realized something. If this game had 100% scaling (as in when you got scaled down, you were on par with other players that were actually that level), the game would probably be more fun. Mini dungeons would be a challenge and I wouldn’t one shot everything. Dynamic events would seem more fun because again, I’m not one shoting everything. While not all zones are like this, a vast majority of the really cool ones are.

So what do ya’ll think. Should they implement 100% scalining to make the open world experience more fun?

If you don’t want to 1-shot everything, play a mesmer instead of a warrior :P

How do you 1 shot anything in this game, the best I can do is 3 shot. I must be doing something wrong…

Sorry, but I like the feeling that my character actually gets stronger as I level and obtain gear, not remain the same for 80 levels.

yes /and a partridge in a pear tree

Sounds good OP.

Kelthos Doombringer.9032:

Sorry, but I like the feeling that my character actually gets stronger as I level and obtain gear, not remain the same for 80 levels.

It would anyway. Perhaps already does… wasn’kitten worked out at some point that a scaled down 80 has effectively fewer stat points than a level appropriate character? Or am I just remembering that wrong?

Either way, you’d have: better stat combinations (three per piece), more and better traits to choose from, and the same with utilities (plus runes/sigils and consumables, for that matter).

EDIT: seriously… wasn’t_it is filtered? Why don’t you just have the thing work its way from left to right, seeing if it can make ‘bad’ words by selecting letters one by one and ignoring everything in-between them. Maybe for good measure run it backwards as well.

Kelthos Doombringer.9032:

Sorry, but I like the feeling that my character actually gets stronger as I level and obtain gear, not remain the same for 80 levels.

Do you ever go out into the open world to do mini dungeons. To do meta events and dynamic events besides those timed ones. Not for map completion. Not one of the over farmed/boring dragon fights. Just random dynamic events. Go out exploring and finding random people leveling and maybe helping them with the events.

I do. I see the amount of effort Anet spent on the open world and the leveling experience. What I don’t see is other players out there. Some say it isn’t rewarding enough. Others say it is too boring. They’re working on the rewarding part with bonus chest. But what if players were actually challenged in the open world. Would they find the fights as boring?

Deified.7520:

But what if players were actually challenged in the open world. Would they find the fights as boring?

If this happened, they would have to get the same rewards in low level zones as in level 80 zones. Otherwise they wouldn’t want to put out the same amount of effort. So are we going to start making t6 mats drop all over the world? If we do, then endgame becomes pointless.

LameFox.6349:

Kelthos Doombringer.9032:

Sorry, but I like the feeling that my character actually gets stronger as I level and obtain gear, not remain the same for 80 levels.

It would anyway. Perhaps already does… wasn’kitten worked out at some point that a scaled down 80 has effectively fewer stat points than a level appropriate character? Or am I just remembering that wrong?

Either way, you’d have: better stat combinations (three per piece), more and better traits to choose from, and the same with utilities (plus runes/sigils and consumables, for that matter).

EDIT: seriously… wasn’t_it is filtered? Why don’t you just have the thing work its way from left to right, seeing if it can make ‘bad’ words by selecting letters one by one and ignoring everything in-between them. Maybe for good measure run it backwards as well.

Now I understand that the higher levels have 3 stat combos with exotics and things of that nature. I believe the game should take that into account. I tested it out with my 80 character an alt and I roughly have 1.5x more stats when downed scaled to the same level as my alt. I find that zones that are level 50 or below I can easily do any event in there. Some meta events alone with ease. I find that I kill monsters a lot faster (perhaps scaling on base damage should be decreased more), more surviveability, things like that. The loot doesn’t scale too well either.

What if when you got to max level, every zone was an 80 zone for you. Each zone had appropriate loot. Was still a challenge. The end game would be so much more varied instead of the clusterfarming of cursed shore and sitting in LA all day spamming for dungeons and occasionally going out to do timed meta events.

Curo.2483:

Deified.7520:

But what if players were actually challenged in the open world. Would they find the fights as boring?

If this happened, they would have to get the same rewards in low level zones as in level 80 zones. Otherwise they wouldn’t want to put out the same amount of effort. So are we going to start making t6 mats drop all over the world? If we do, then endgame becomes pointless.

If = rewards (and challenge) would render the endgame pointless, by implication it is worse than the preceding content in other ways, yes?

Deified.7520:

Now I understand that the higher levels have 3 stat combos with exotics and things of that nature. I believe the game should take that into account. I tested it out with my 80 character an alt and I roughly have 1.5x more stats when downed scaled to the same level as my alt. I find that zones that are level 50 or below I can easily do any event in there. Some meta events alone with ease. I find that I kill monsters a lot faster (perhaps scaling on base damage should be decreased more), more surviveability, things like that. The loot doesn’t scale too well either.

What if when you got to max level, every zone was an 80 zone for you. Each zone had appropriate loot. Was still a challenge. The end game would be so much more varied instead of the clusterfarming of cursed shore and sitting in LA all day spamming for dungeons and occasionally going out to do timed meta events.

Eh, I feel like that would actually mean you’d do worse in a low level zone as an 80 than you would before. I would like to see the low level zones generally be a bit more challenging though, for 80’s or otherwise, but with a bit of evening-out as well. By that I mean normal stuff should feel like more of a challenge, but without ramping up other things through the bloody ceiling. They seem to have trouble with not adding false difficulty to this game.

Also I’m not quite sure I like the idea of being unable to obtain low-level mats. Not that I have a particular problem with it, but it seems like it would warrant careful consideration.

Deified.7520:

Kelthos Doombringer.9032:

Sorry, but I like the feeling that my character actually gets stronger as I level and obtain gear, not remain the same for 80 levels.

Do you ever go out into the open world to do mini dungeons. To do meta events and dynamic events besides those timed ones. Not for map completion. Not one of the over farmed/boring dragon fights. Just random dynamic events. Go out exploring and finding random people leveling and maybe helping them with the events.

I do. I see the amount of effort Anet spent on the open world and the leveling experience. What I don’t see is other players out there. Some say it isn’t rewarding enough. Others say it is too boring. They’re working on the rewarding part with bonus chest. But what if players were actually challenged in the open world. Would they find the fights as boring?

I do very little of any PvE because I personally find it boring and monotonous. And it isn’t rewarding, not at the avatar level – maybe at the.. emotional level of "yay I helped a random level 10, but that’s not me.

Yes, the fights would be as boring. I personally don’t see the excitement of having to spend a minute killing that level 20 Centaur when I’m a level 80 with full exotics. Increasing the time it takes to kill a level 20 Centaur does not = not as boring. I just want the stupid thing to die so I can move on.

We’re not being rewarded in any way by having to spend the extra time to kill things/do events/help people in lower zones, so there is no incentive to go back into the world anyway. Is this a good thing? Nope. Do I care/would I go back into the world if there was an incentive? Nope. Why? Cause it’s still boring and monotonous.

I’ve done the grind to level 80 already, the way I see it is that we get the highest level. Our characters grow in strength.

To scale everything down is to essentially make it so we never level up. Our characters never get stronger. Arena.Net may as well remove levels and give us all 70 Trait Points as soon as we create the character.

Edit: Arena.Net – Your language filter really needs some fine tuning. (less – boring? = kitten ring?)

Game is balanced around blue gear, not your exotics or better.
Replace your gear with a blue set and you’ll find it a bigger challenge.

Kelthos Doombringer.9032:

Yes, the fights would be as boring. I personally don’t see the excitement of having to spend a minute killing that level 20 Centaur when I’m a level 80 with full exotics. Increasing the time it takes to kill a level 20 Centaur does not = not as boring. I just want the stupid thing to die so I can move on.

We’re not being rewarded in any way by having to spend the extra time to kill things/do events/help people in lower zones, so there is no incentive to go back into the world anyway. Is this a good thing? Nope. Do I care/would I go back into the world if there was an incentive? Nope. Why? Cause it’s still boring and monotonous.

In all fairness though, your issue exists either way, and is exaggerated by longer kill times rather than caused by it. Boring and fast may be better than boring and slow, but since we’re already looking for improvements to the open world’s entertainment value, ‘more interesting combat AI’ might as well be thrown in there. Likewise it would make sense that if things took a bit longer to kill overall, loot/rewards should be improved slightly to compensate.

Peetee.9406:

Game is balanced around blue gear, not your exotics or better.
Replace your gear with a blue set and you’ll find it a bigger challenge.

That is not true- I did an experiment a bit back with white gear and it was still pretty bad.
The extra power comes from the traits I believe- at least that is the conclusion I came to.

OP yes I would love this.
I have been asking for this for some time along with a couple of others.

Rewards are already pretty good for an 80- we are just too powerful.
I love running random events and just exploring in random maps because I feel like it. The idea of the whole game is endgame seems to support this, level scaling just needs to be tweaked a bit.

Deified.7520:

Do you ever go out into the open world to do mini dungeons. To do meta events and dynamic events besides those timed ones. Not for map completion … Just random dynamic events. Go out exploring and finding random people leveling and maybe helping them with the events.

I do. I see the amount of effort Anet spent on the open world and the leveling experience. What I don’t see is other players out there.

I do this alot and I have a lot of fun runnin’ around with low level characters in the starting zones. I also change out my armor when I’m in a lower level area – I’ve got tons of armor outfits what are area and level appropriate and tend ta put those on when I visit certain maps. So usually if I’m in a LvL 25 map, I’m wearing the stuff you buy off of vendors in the lvl 25 zone. (and I don’t just keep these for downleveling, I love having tons of outfits to wear and having different outfits for different climates – I don’t wear my nice looking “clothing” in the swamps, I don’t wear my off-the-shoulder outfits in the Norn lands, etc.)

Usually I find that insta-shotting thing happens most when you’re in an “under lvl 8” area … after that the difficulty starts equalizing again. No you’re never quite as weak as the players of those levels because you’ve learned more – more skills, more traits – and that is how it should be. It shows that your characters’ actual experience (life experience if ya will) is what makes the difference between a lvl 10 and lvl 80 Thief. (for example)

About ever time this conversation comes up I like to bring the Wolf Example in. When you fight a wolf at lvl10 it’s a risk, you have few skills (little experience) and are a fairly entrance level member of your occupation. When you’re 80th lvl and come to that low level area the wolf hasn’t gotten any smaller since you first saw it, and you haven’t actually become any larger than when you first saw the wolf, so the only variable then is your experience – reflected in the skills and traits you’ve gained over the last 70 levels.

I would Love it if I got scaled down further than we currently do. My traits will make me strong enough compared to those of the proper level for that content. But nothing is more boring than running around 2-3 shotting the npcs. Especially while you try to complete the map.

You want “replay value” effectively, so just roll an alt? Seriously, if I get to be fully level 2 -4 again and spend more than one second killing anything when I go to Wayfarer and feel like gathering some quick mats or doing a quick daily, I will quit the game altogether.

AND, if your soultion were put into place…why bother having levels at all? As every single location in the game would be the same…difiiculty wise? Might as well just roll create a character, get given all traits immediately and access to all waypoints in game immediately. Its a frankly stupid suggestion.

Interestingly, a lot of people are complaining the downscaling is too severe. If you don’t upgrade your gear, you actually get weaker in a lower area as you level.

I don’t really see this as too much of a problem. If we went this route, then we should remove levels entirely. I actually have no problem with that. :p As played, with 100% downscaling then leveling seems to be even more of a waste of time.

No, it sounds like a dangerous idea. Like as not, if there were an attempt to do this they’d make it unplayable. As it is, it’s only the starter zones that are truly one-shot areas and you can tone yourself down if you really feel a need to be challenged in a starter area. After seeing what they did to Orr in the 4/30 patch, I won’t be advocating that the open world needs to be harder. It actually doesn’t outside the starter zones.

I liked their original take on scaling balance and have suffered whiplash in all subsequent attempts at balancing the open world.

a lot of games have no leveling. really, this is what you’re describing.
zelda games, for example. monsters in the starting areas deal 1/4 or 1/2 a heart per hit, bosses deal 1 or 2 hearts per hit. as you progress, you simply get more hearts or ranged weapons or interesting accessories.
these games focus more on skill

Round about BWE 1&2 I think combat in PvE was much harder.

They scaled difficulty down quite a lot by BWE 3, obviously they got better metrics for that so that is what we got with release.

I do think that downscaling has improved a lot, with better drops and more efficient downscaling.

Starter zones are sort of the exception because new players need a nice place and to come to terms with how the game works.
In which case 80’s should be downscaled by a lot more, and I mean a lot

I do think zones beyond that needs to scale an 80 down less, just a bit more than it is now.

Edit: as for no levels: I would love that and it would make sense in this game model.
I believe that was an idea at one stage of development but it alienated too many players.

LameFox.6349:

Curo.2483:

Deified.7520:

But what if players were actually challenged in the open world. Would they find the fights as boring?

If this happened, they would have to get the same rewards in low level zones as in level 80 zones. Otherwise they wouldn’t want to put out the same amount of effort. So are we going to start making t6 mats drop all over the world? If we do, then endgame becomes pointless.

If = rewards (and challenge) would render the endgame pointless, by implication it is worse than the preceding content in other ways, yes?

Not worse, but less accessible. People would not want to go through the effort of getting to endgame if there was no reward benefit from it.

if players wanted a challenge at lower level zones they would simply remove their Elite skill and their armor .

Rezzet.3614:

if players wanted a challenge at lower level zones they would simply remove their Elite skill and their armor .

Or more accurately, if people wanted a challenge they could go play something more challenging…like Angry Birds or Tetris.

I think chances for drops shoud be (in most case) bound to our character level, I would love a world where you would be REALLY downlevelled and rewarded even with t6 mats for moving back to the old areas. This would be freedom. And people would come back to those zones repopulating them. Just now the world feels quite empty (and I’m from RoF).

low level areas should provide 3 times more gold, karma and exp, high level areas should provide higher level loot
pick between those I tell of you!

They actually changed the scaling to where people that are higher come across as more powerful, and no I have not seen any one shot kills but they have come close.

The way the game was released was more challenging then it is now. I was saddened when the relaxed this and made the higher level folks more overwhelming to the lower zones