(edited by zealex.9410)
Level-based zone scaling
How would that work when there’s a level 80 and a level 40? Everything would be set to level 80? That could work for instanced areas, but not open world areas.
Character scaling on lower level maps is the best feature of GW2. Given we play in open world I don’t understand how you think the mobs can scale instead? I could be fighting the same mob on my lvl 80 alongside a lvl 10 character in a starter zone. If the mob scaled to lvl 80, it would surely swat the low level character like a fly. The game wouldn’t feel more alive for them!
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other games have done where they mobs scale to what it hits them wow does it eso recently did it its such a nice mechanic. ^^ No the mobs dont have set lvls they scale to your lvl for each person who hits them you can be lvl 80 killing a mobs which is scaled at your lvl (tougher hits harder for you) while next to you another player lvl 60 kills another mobs scaled to his lvl. Now i think it works a bit diff when multiple ppl from diff lvls hit the same mob lets say world boss but you can make it work there as well somehow (the invasion pre legion events had this kind of scaling where lots of ppl from various lvl were killing bosses)
(edited by zealex.9410)
Things work as-is. If they worked as you propose, I could take my level 5 to a level 80 zone, and my health etc would scale up. But I wouldn’t have any traits and if I had runes and other upgrades they would be based on low-level items, so my level 5 still would/should get trashed.
It ain’t broken. You can take a level 80 to a starter zone and get killed. Yes, you are more powerful, but you can’t just run with impunity. Isn’t that better than expecting a level 5 to be able to survive anywhere?
This would require a complete overhaul of just about every part of the combat system, every part of scaling, and potentially how rewards are allocated. That’s a huge undertaking for what ends up being a minor benefit, since we can technically already go anywhere we want (we just can’t kill stuff).
Further, the evidence suggests that ANet doesn’t want this: in the past, when scaling has been tweaked, it’s always been to ensure that the higher-level zones remain challenging for lower-level toons (they’ve eliminated loopholes allowing damage or loot or event credit if the toon is more than 10 levels below the area’s defined level).
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Elder Scrolls Online did this recently. The way it works there is everything and everyone is scaled up to the maximum level at all times. So a level 50 (max) and a level 10 playing together is basically the same as 2 level 50’s.
You still gain levels as you play and that unlocks new skills for you to use, so a character who is genuinely the maximum level will be more powerful than one who is scaled up, but it’s not as drastic as it was. Plus of course you can customise your stats instead of having the generic scaled stats which might not work as well for your character.
Things work as-is. If they worked as you propose, I could take my level 5 to a level 80 zone, and my health etc would scale up. But I wouldn’t have any traits and if I had runes and other upgrades they would be based on low-level items, so my level 5 still would/should get trashed.
It ain’t broken. You can take a level 80 to a starter zone and get killed. Yes, you are more powerful, but you can’t just run with impunity. Isn’t that better than expecting a level 5 to be able to survive anywhere?
That is exactly how it works in Elder Scrolls Online. I tried exactly that – I made a brand new character and took them to the max-level DLC zones. If I was fighting 1 enemy, or 2 and I was really on the ball I could win, but it was much, much harder than the starter zones which are balanced around people with incomplete sets of mismatched armour and very few skills unlocked.
It’s interesting for me because I’d been thinking for a while I’d really like to play an RPG with no levels – keep the idea of gradually unlocking new skills and obtaining better equipment but scrap the numbers tracking your progress and restricting where you can go based on that. Of all the games I’ve played ESO comes closest to the system I’m envisioning. And in general I really enjoy it but even for me it does take some getting used to and I’m still not sure it’s a perfect system. It’s really nice to be able to take any character anywhere I want them to go, but then it does remove some of the sense of progression.
I’m also not sure it’s better than what GW2 already has.
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This would require a complete overhaul of just about every part of the combat system, every part of scaling, and potentially how rewards are allocated. That’s a huge undertaking for what ends up being a minor benefit, since we can technically already go anywhere we want (we just can’t kill stuff).
Further, the evidence suggests that ANet doesn’t want this: in the past, when scaling has been tweaked, it’s always been to ensure that the higher-level zones remain challenging for lower-level toons (they’ve eliminated loopholes allowing damage or loot or event credit if the toon is more than 10 levels below the area’s defined level).
Thats not true no overhaul of combat is required just some programming to make rewards scale with your lvl. The payoff is actually a living world where you could go everywhere and do everything and be rewarded which right now isnt the case, the fact that everything on higher lvl zones oneshots you limits you from going on that zone or completing events which was their idea for lvling. You actually dought how much of an impact this could have in every mmo this was tested the outcome was huge support for it by the playerbase. They can tho keep the lw zones and the expac zones locked from players until they reach lvl but all core tyria maps could be free lvl range and that would amke it so much better than the existing system which only allows max lvl players to revisit low lvl zones and not the other way.
EDIT: it wouldnt require a reward system rework just like how events and hearts reward you now they just transfer that to the new system since the karma and everything you get is scaled to the map’s lvl you get that lvl an add it to all maps so rewards are scaled to lvl x why y and z depending on your lvl. Its actually far less work that you present it to be and it would also feel more dynamic.
(edited by zealex.9410)
It’s interesting for me because I’d been thinking for a while I’d really like to play an RPG with no levels – keep the idea of gradually unlocking new skills and obtaining better equipment but scrap the numbers tracking your progress and restricting where you can go based on that. Of all the games I’ve played ESO comes closest to the system I’m envisioning. And in general I really enjoy it but even for me it does take some getting used to and I’m still not sure it’s a perfect system. It’s really nice to be able to take any character anywhere I want them to go, but then it does remove some of the sense of progression.
I’m also not sure it’s better than what GW2 already has.
im not even sure whats the purpose of gw2’s system tbh what does it acomplish? i mean sure it scales you to the zones lvl but why do that? to make the content challenging? or feel that mobs can pac a punch? I’m not sure its scaled well if thats the case since you can run through mobs and not feel in danger ever the possibility of you dying after pulling to many mobs doesnt exist or the mobs dont get harder to kill.
I’d prefer eso’s system where at any lvl i feel impactful and that mobs always are challenging to kill and require me to think rather and im also free to do whatever i want and explore than the gw2’s where it only supports the idea of exploring after hitting amx lvl rather than leaving it as an option while lvling for those who want to explore and heard gw2 has so much exploration value.
Things work as-is. If they worked as you propose, I could take my level 5 to a level 80 zone, and my health etc would scale up. But I wouldn’t have any traits and if I had runes and other upgrades they would be based on low-level items, so my level 5 still would/should get trashed.
It ain’t broken. You can take a level 80 to a starter zone and get killed. Yes, you are more powerful, but you can’t just run with impunity. Isn’t that better than expecting a level 5 to be able to survive anywhere?
no what i suggest is that the zones dont have a set lvl instead the player’s stats get normalised and the mobs scale with these stats so they scale with you, you dont scale to the zone what you said there applies to a system where you scale up to a zone’s lvl.
If enemies scaled to your level, it would be faked. You wouldn’t appear to be downscaled for example, but it’d all be modified behind the scenes. If enemies actually scaled, that’d make it easy to grief, so they’d have to scale everyone up.
In early development, ArenaNet actually planned on not having levels, but decided it felt wrong.
im not even sure whats the purpose of gw2’s system tbh what does it acomplish? i mean sure it scales you to the zones lvl but why do that? to make the content challenging?
Simply to keep the content relevant.
Things work as-is. If they worked as you propose, I could take my level 5 to a level 80 zone, and my health etc would scale up. But I wouldn’t have any traits and if I had runes and other upgrades they would be based on low-level items, so my level 5 still would/should get trashed.
It ain’t broken. You can take a level 80 to a starter zone and get killed. Yes, you are more powerful, but you can’t just run with impunity. Isn’t that better than expecting a level 5 to be able to survive anywhere?
Except for the more recently added stuff you can mostly run around with impunity in the starter zones. On the other hand it is the starter zone, not exactly designed to be the most challenging thing ever. Some of the mobs do not even apply the full effect of their skills such as conditions and CC.
Edit: oh … and scaling enemies to your level would actually make things easier than right now. Due to downscaling I can’t hit 100% crit chance in lower level zones because of downscaling precision. If you scale the mobs instead I’ll end up with quite a bit more damage in the lower level zones.
(edited by Khisanth.2948)
Having each and every single enemy “scale” to each and every player on a map sounds like a titanic mess in the making.
All the griefing of a level 80 walking around in starter zones, and just attacking whatever a poor level 2-10 player is attack to scale it up to 80 etc. Or if it scales differently, just attack it so it gets scaled to 40 something and then run away, still deadly for the poor new guy. And if it doesn’t change scaling, then 1-shot by the 80, which is going to make us have guild power leveling groups running all over.
I don’t see a single way to solve that, that isn’t better handled by the existing system(s).
If you absolutely want to go to higher level zones earlier I propose 2 other ways of doing it:
1: Just use the existing “up-scaling” system used in WvW and probably a few other areas. This scales the characters stats to the somewhat equal of a level 80.
This creates a whole lot of less problems, and is the easiest way to solve this without extra programming, testing, tweaking, and changing lots of other stuff.
2: Remove stat progression from levels, and set base stats from level 1-80 = 1000 (base stat at 80 currently).
This is a bit more controversial, because 90% of players will scream and claim it is wrong to not get stats by levels. (Not that we get stats for every level now either, but most will ignore that part)
Basically equalize stats across the board, at level 1 you have power, precision, toughness, vitality 1000. And the full health of your class at level 80. The same for monsters (though their health would probably be tweaked a bit so they’re still super easy at starter zones, and compensate for gear).
You still have increasing stats and level advancements through gear restrictions, and the usual skills/traits etc.
This means you have enough stats that you can go into harder zones, and stand a chance, but it will be much harder, due to lower gear, less traits, though you likely with have the utilities you need fairly early.
This would require updating all the enemies in all zones 1-79, this would be a …. lot of work, simply because of mass, not because of the direct difficulty in doing it. And would require a good amount of monitoring and fixing for a while afterwards, to adjust monsters that are too easy/hard, as they need to see them in a live environment to see the actual effect.
Bonus: This would completely remove the stupid up/down scaling bugs with Precision and critical chances!
/rant
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Gw1 did something similar only they went all in with a hard mode version of every map. Mostly why the game is still relevant as its normal mode is trivialized by maxed lvl 20 character builds.
If you want to feel just how punishing gw2 could be in low lvl maps like queensdale, roll a new character and head straight for Bar Curtis Ranch area by lvl 5ish.
You know a great feature would be if all zone scaled to your lvl instead of you scaling to their lvl or just being outlvled by mobs in a zone. If the map were propperly scaling the all zone at max lvl would be a tiny bit harder so better scaling from core tyria to expac zones ( hot issues wont happen again). This could make the game fel more alive you know, when you explore as you get stronger your foes do so as well its not jsut an icon showing you the zone is higher lvl than you you will get one shotted but it still remains enganging at max lvl .
This would also push you towards exploring further than hat youd normaly explore since you get more option and you are not lvl gated. Also the actual lvling might even be better since you get more option you can go lvl by doing events in zones you enjoy but might have been higher lvl before (for example i really like the south zones( athe ones close to orr and orr it self , as well as the char zones and i’d like to explore them while lvl lets say an asura and lvl through doing events and hearts there).
I think overall that would make you a free player, it would let you pick wahtever path you want explore as much as you like be a free man actually instead of following a set path with story or just spamming tomes of knowledge.
This is not a logical or realistic request for a ton of reasons, and would never be implemented anyway.
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(edited by Swagger.1459)
ESO set up their system because reaching the max level took a really long time and people just got sick of the grind.
Might or might not be a good system for GW2 but it’s pretty unlikely to happen.