Guild Wars 2

The dynamic level adjusting of Guild Wars 2 is a fine idea, but at the moment it just doesn’t scale down enough, so that well geared level 80s can easily farm low level areas without any danger of death.

I would rather the game properly scales down all of your abilities, higher level ones too, so that you are still tough but 3-4 mobs at once will cause you some problems and are not one-shot kills, which at the moment they are.

No I think that is a terrible idea. One of the reasons it’s easier to kill stuff is because of the quality of your gear vs. when your a lower lvl that’s running around in blues instead of exotic/ascended/legendary.

In my opinion ANET really needs to make players lvl above what the mobs are to encourage more people that are higher levels to come to the lower level areas…..its a ghost town some days.

We need to encourage people, not discourage.

If it’s easier to kill monsters, then there is no challenge, which is probably more of a reason to not go to a low level zone, in my opinion. Keeping the zones difficult even at higher level makes the areas have a longer “shelf-life” than making them easy mode zones.

The idea of ‘down-leveling’ was meant to mean that higher level players could go back and complete low level zones while still having a challenge. I personally believe that ANET made a mistake by not also down-leveling equipment. This has caused the issues and its something that I think desperately needs looking into because I can two hit a lot of the mobs in lower level areas. We were told before launch that this wouldnt be the case.

As for updating rewards based on the level of the zone…introducing higher level drops at low level areas would only work if the above balancing is attained and even then it could open many more avenues for abuse. Personally id keep the drops as they are now but maybe add a small chance for higher level/rarer loot and give the lower level champions a chance to drop unique skins. THIS would encourage people to go to lower level areas.

I would actually like to see some degree of upleveling as well, right now when I’m playing with my friends we can only help with personal story lines and play in the zones of the lowest leveled one of us. It would be nice to be able to add some variety, since we don’t mind having a weaker friend along (less skills opened up, less traits etc.) as long as they don’t get 1-shotted by +10 critters.

@Kozai – Nice as that would be, it would over-complicate the game and add a complete new dimension to the concept of dynamic levelling. It would also make levelling up obsolete (almost) if you could just go to higher level areas and automatically be toughened up.

It’s not just level, gear is a major factor. Exotic is a lot better then rare, rare is a lot better then masterwork which is better then fine gear. The gap between exotic and fine or even masterwork gear is huge. If this power difference is supposed to show, on top of a power gap between low and high level characters then yes, a level 80 in full exotics will be cruising low level zones.

They deserve a break from Zaithan and Jormag once in a while!

Exactly my point, the gear should be scaling down as well, to increase difficulty.

In my opinion there needs to be a hard cap on certain stats when downscaling. NPC’s in low lvl zones die too quickly and are virtually no threat to a player even half asleep.

Low levels, maybe need adjustment here and there – but I think the opposite is true with the downscaling at high levels -it feels very uneven – I will not go anywhere near the 70-74 level areas of Orr with my 80s any more.

It’s ridiculous but for some reason some downscale levels feel like you’ve been really crippled- that’s one. The 80 zones my characters can do fine, take some damage, deal enough to be interesting and challenging. For some reason every time I go around the lower Orr areas I get my butt handed to me all the time – for instance, my meh-geared Mesmer does say about 1500 average for the last hit of a Greatsword #1 attack in the 80 Orr zones – I go to the level 70-74 zones and I’m suddenly peaking at 800-900 for the same attack – that’s an extremely skewed scaling down for just 5 or so levels – while the damage output of the mobs there seems almost the same as the level 80 ones. I got one-shot by a Risen Shark (I think it was some high damage specialized frenzied attack ate more than half my health right off the bat, and then the 4+ bleeds ticking at 200+ damage just ate the rest while it’s autoattacks went on) while swimming to get a POI. Making money in this game is already nerfed to oblivion without being taxed with repair and respawn bills all the time.

PolarApe.9351:

Low levels, maybe need adjustment here and there – but I think the opposite is true with the downscaling at high levels -it feels very uneven – I will not go anywhere near the 70-74 level areas of Orr with my 80s any more.

This is EXACTLY how I feel sometimes with my level 80s. I’m personally not some person that wants a grindy game….otherwise I wouldn’t have purchased this game (lol ascended items).

If you want to play the old areas go roll another character, but to punish the other 80’s who are trying to get map completion and reduce the grind that is already there to farm the necessary mats is dumb.

Jiminimokna.1270:

Exactly my point, the gear should be scaling down as well, to increase difficulty.

the gear does scale down. there is just no level 1-59 exotic so players didn’t have that level of stats when at level in a location. In other words your level 80 full exotic character is now a level 10 full exotic 3 stat gear character (with full skills)… Remember level 10? when you were in all whites and had 2 blues with 1 stat on them each without a helmet, shoulderpads, or jewelery? the reason you feel so much more powerful is because you have more gear and stats than you previously had. It is scaled down.

You want them to make you level 10 again in that area? How would that work exactly?

Level 80 in exotics steps in level 10 area. Gets downgraded to level 10 in base stats and abilities & gets downgraded to level 10 fine gear? Well that might work but those areas you didn’t have a helmet or shoulderpads or jewelery so those bonus stats are going to make you considerably more powerful so do they just not count anymore? what about the tri stat bonuses, the 80 gear is triple stacked. Back at level 10 we had one stat. so how does the game choose for us which stat of the 3 we get to keep? the primary?

what about at level 30 when players get access to rare gear. Should the level 80 players get downgraded to rare gear or masterwork? If rare they will still be more powerful than any other players in the area as they will always have max level rare gear while most the area is made for players in underleveld fine/masterwork with possibly a few rares anyone who’s funded an alt can tell you that keeping top notch rares on your character at 30+ is a lot like running through with an 80, you destroy the content. but even they cannot keep a max level set of rares for every level like an 80 would.

However if you scale the 80s down to masterwork or lower gear stats, then your Level 80 character can be potentially weaker than a well funded alt in all rares. And that is just silly

At level 60 you are right back to where you are now. Max level Exotic gear so nothing would change there at all.

I understand what you are trying to get at but you have to understand that the gear is scaling down. Its just you are so much more powerful than your old level 10 self. On levels that go beyond gear stats and into simply having gear! Some players are still missing some gear slots by the time they hit 20! and the content is made with that in mind. the fact is its more than the gear stats that are making us more powerful in lower levels. We are rocking helmets, shoulderpads jewelry, backpieces, food buffs, 70 trait points, full utility slots, elite skills, and 80+ levels of class skill/synergy/combo knowledge.

The best they could do is like an old game I used to play did for monster enemies where damage dealt by the mob was scaled based level and so was the damage they took. In this way they could fine tune the difficulty, problem there is where do you tune it? Again is it based on level or gear because a level 80 in all rares and some masterwork is not equal to an 80 in exotic and ascended. Either the scaled content would be tough for one, or trivial to the other.

I actually think they got this as close to right as possible. There is always tuning that can be done, but I would not like to see any radical departure from how they have done it. There is scaling involved in the scaling. Once you are out of the starting zones the scaling becomes more and more meaningful. It’s not so bad to experience some of the fruits of your heroism. I thought the addition of higher level drops for 55+ areas was a good idea. It is still level 80 area where you farm as the best drops are there. I would argue that there is no need or benefit in radically altering the scaling that’s in the game currently.

The changes in the patch on the 28th are not enough in my opinion, though at least it is a step in the right direction.

I guess I am in the minority here. I PREFER lower levels to be easier.
If I am a level 50 going to a level 10-15 area to pursue a specific agenda, ie dynamic events to get my dailies quickly then I do NOT want to be challenged. I want to quickly move through the area and kill things quickly. If I wanted a challenge I would stay in my level area or go one higher. A friend and I took our level 50’s to a level 40 area. We got trounced, not sure why, as when we were level 40’s this did not happen, but we see a group of 3 including a veteran. We engage them, and four additional monsters popped up right next to us. Needless to say we wasted a few silver on waypointing /repairs. If THIS is what Anet wants, for us to waste our silver on waypointing and repairs, then they can keep this game because that’s not MY idea of fun, especially since the drops we received were literally “sell as junk” to the Merchant. There was no way to recoup our losses.

Goloith.6349:

No I think that is a terrible idea. One of the reasons it’s easier to kill stuff is because of the quality of your gear vs. when your a lower lvl that’s running around in blues instead of exotic/ascended/legendary.

In my opinion ANET really needs to make players lvl above what the mobs are to encourage more people that are higher levels to come to the lower level areas…..its a ghost town some days.

We need to encourage people, not discourage.

Have you ever done events while leveling when 80’s are there? It completely messes up the kill/event credit. They kill things so fast you don’t get to tag them. They do far more damage on bosses and because of that your chance at gold and even silver is gone.

You can encourage level 80’s to come back to lower level zones but they need to be brought down in power. That or their tagging/credit system needs reworked to account for high levels in a low level zone. Even if their credit system is reworked it’s going to be a lot of work to make sure all scenarios are covered. How do you account for level 80’s 3 hitting event mobs before the appropriate level players can even touch them? It’s far easier to just reign in the downleveled 80’s power than it is to rework the system for all scenarios.

It’s not even difficult to take 3-4 mobs on while your the same level.
So what does making it a wee-bit more difficult for levels 80s even do?

If i have learned one thing about this dynamic leveling its that its broken as hell.

Im not even maxed lvl yet im in mid 60’s on first character but even so i noticed when going to say a level 40 area and i get nerfed down to level 40 i struggle to kill even normal mobs and veterans can be a 5 min long fight(im a warrior so battles can last a while with this many hp).

I realize thats the point to make it a challenge but the issue is that same level 40 area and those same mobs WERE NOT A CHALLANGE when i was actually level 40. They are over nerfing to a huge extent in some situations.

But yet i go to a 1-15 area and i can solo certain champion while making a coffe using auto attack only and no skills and come back and not be below 60% health, even though im getting nerfed to lvl 12.

Its so annoying i think they should abandon the broken system or do a complete overhaul.

Also i have a issue with repair costs, if you are going to nerf me down to lvl 12 then nerf my repair and fast travel costs also down to lvl 12.

I had a giuld mate ask me for help the other day, so i go to help(there goes almost 2 silver just to get there, other side of the map. Then we get rocked by a chamion i should have been able to solo without thinking about but due to nerf lvl we both die, then i spend 10 silver repairing my now all broken armor. Then we go back with more help and kill champion and he doesnt even drop anything. So by the time i travel back im out 15 silver, this is just stupid.

Lynne.8416:

I guess I am in the minority here. I PREFER lower levels to be easier.
If I am a level 50 going to a level 10-15 area to pursue a specific agenda, ie dynamic events to get my dailies quickly then I do NOT want to be challenged. I want to quickly move through the area and kill things quickly. If I wanted a challenge I would stay in my level area or go one higher. A friend and I took our level 50’s to a level 40 area. We got trounced, not sure why, as when we were level 40’s this did not happen, but we see a group of 3 including a veteran. We engage them, and four additional monsters popped up right next to us. Needless to say we wasted a few silver on waypointing /repairs. If THIS is what Anet wants, for us to waste our silver on waypointing and repairs, then they can keep this game because that’s not MY idea of fun, especially since the drops we received were literally “sell as junk” to the Merchant. There was no way to recoup our losses.

Unfortunately, this means that you’ll ruin the experience for others in the zone, who are there, not to have an easy time of dailies, but are trying to level up characters. I’m convinced this is one of the reasons that this change was made.

I’ve been there on an alt, trying to level up, doing a dynamic event and I’m getting bronzes, or even no reward at all, because a bunch of 80s are down there trying to get their easy events. Great for them, not so great for me. I target something and it’s dead. Bronze reward.

So yeah, you may prefer it one way, but you know, it’s not better for those who are actually supposed to be in those areas and can’t go to higher areas, because they’re in their appropriate level zones.

The reason 80’s don’t go to lower level regions has nothing to do with challenge or lack there of. It’s old content, they’ve already been through it and there is little to no reward for doing it. Sure it’s an easy way to get some blue gear that they have no use for but that’s about it.

Vayne.8563:

Lynne.8416:

I guess I am in the minority here. I PREFER lower levels to be easier.
If I am a level 50 going to a level 10-15 area to pursue a specific agenda, ie dynamic events to get my dailies quickly then I do NOT want to be challenged. I want to quickly move through the area and kill things quickly. If I wanted a challenge I would stay in my level area or go one higher. A friend and I took our level 50’s to a level 40 area. We got trounced, not sure why, as when we were level 40’s this did not happen, but we see a group of 3 including a veteran. We engage them, and four additional monsters popped up right next to us. Needless to say we wasted a few silver on waypointing /repairs. If THIS is what Anet wants, for us to waste our silver on waypointing and repairs, then they can keep this game because that’s not MY idea of fun, especially since the drops we received were literally “sell as junk” to the Merchant. There was no way to recoup our losses.

Unfortunately, this means that you’ll ruin the experience for others in the zone, who are there, not to have an easy time of dailies, but are trying to level up characters. I’m convinced this is one of the reasons that this change was made.

I’ve been there on an alt, trying to level up, doing a dynamic event and I’m getting bronzes, or even no reward at all, because a bunch of 80s are down there trying to get their easy events. Great for them, not so great for me. I target something and it’s dead. Bronze reward.

So yeah, you may prefer it one way, but you know, it’s not better for those who are actually supposed to be in those areas and can’t go to higher areas, because they’re in their appropriate level zones.

I have rarely experienced what you are referring to. I’ve been on low level characters participating in an appropriate level dynamic event with other people that have been downleveled. Because of the number of people involved the number of enemy is increased and therefore participation Golds are the norm.

I HAVE experienced the following: I came in at the end of an event and only get a couple shots in and the event is completed. I would then receive nothing or if I’m lucky a bronze for that event. Again, I expect this to happen.

As a downleveled character, I do not expect to one or two shot an enemy and it die.
However, I do expect it to die within a few minutes and I expect to receive limited damage. Again this is me against one monster. If I choose to aggro 5 monsters (not that I do) then it SHOULD be more challenging and take longer to kill them and I expect to take significant damage to my armor.

LOL! While working on map completion I was heading for Augur’s Grotto and was defeated shortly after reaching the platform. WTF? On another route to the platform I ran across a unmarked Champion+Pair of Veteran’s – they all chewed me up fairly quickly.

While many/most things in the open world PvE can be solo’ed I’ve ran across a number of ‘non-event’ areas that may require specialized tactics or simply more people to deal with it successfully.

OP: They did tweak it the way you mention the last patch and I assume they will continue to monitor. How the game is designed, it has to scale “well enough” so going back and playing older content makes sense. To those against this idea, imo they don’t get the plan and it griefs even people you like and would want to play with, when you one shot what takes them 5, losing credit for kills etc.

IMO things shouldn’t be scaled any more than they are now. The point of being a high level is to be more powerful. You go back to areas you got killed in when you were lower level, you SHOULD be able to kill the mobs easily, not struggle like you did when you were low level. Otherwise what’s the point of levels?

Vlawde.1895:

IMO things shouldn’t be scaled any more than they are now. The point of being a high level is to be more powerful. You go back to areas you got killed in when you were lower level, you SHOULD be able to kill the mobs easily, not struggle like you did when you were low level. Otherwise what’s the point of levels?

Levels, well you can’t get too far ahead of yourself. It was a key basis of the open world to go anywhere and expect level play, to help friends lower level than you, etc. Easy to see their reasoning, much better than the other mmo’s where there is zero fun to ever go back.

The thing I don’t understand is why we have downscaling, but don’t have upscaling.

It’s just stupid. Why the enemies, even the stupid wolves and moas, can grow in power compared to player, but a player is always scaled back to the mobs level. It’s so stupid.

Actually, the scaling is fine EXCEPT the dynamic level adjustment needs a little fixing. I find that a lot of mobs I kill are actually still the low level non-adjusted mob. I kill them in like 2 hits and they drop me like level 10 gear.

I think it’s fine now if not a bit too far.

the open world game is already very easy for a lvl 80 with gear.
world events are easy too because of zergs.

endgame “open world” is something very difficult to balance.
imo endgame pve should be instanced.

that leaves dungeons.
make some dungeons that look a bit more like the open world and its gonna be nice

Pod.2769:

The reason 80’s don’t go to lower level regions has nothing to do with challenge or lack there of. It’s old content, they’ve already been through it and there is little to no reward for doing it. Sure it’s an easy way to get some blue gear that they have no use for but that’s about it.

That sounds like you have been playing another game. Guild Wars 2 was sold, at least partly, on the fact that zones never became obsolete and you could play with your low level friends on an equal footing because of the dynamic level scaling. Maybe because the zones and events are now to easy you don’t go to those zones anymore, but I go to all the different zones to do events, and while it is sometimes fun to slaughter loads of enemies without any chance of being hurt, I would prefer to not be able to revive someone with 5 ice brood hounds attacking me and barely scratching me.

Back on point, dynamic levelling is “broken” because once you are in level 80 exotic gear pretty much everything below level 60 is easy to kill, there is no challenge and as someone said earlier on, level 80s in low level zones make the group events unchallenging and they take most of the kills because they are dropping monsters faster than the low level players can even hit them.