Guild Wars 2

Conncept.7638:

Khisanth.2948:

Conncept.7638:

I am 100% on board with this whether it was on purpose or not, it has been absolutely ridiculous for years how difficult it was for a lowbie chararacter to participate in events of their own level when a downscaled 80 is nearby.

And the OPs alternative suggestion makes no sense. If they buffed mobs instead of changing downscaling, whether per mob or per event by spawning more difficult mobs, that would make them harder for people of the appropriate level to tag, which would bring us full circle back to the original problem and increase the overall difficulty of the lowbie areas.

Maybe they shouldn’t be using damage as the sole determining factor in event participation.

This I also agree with, very very much… especially in World Vs Spam, er Door, no wait… versus mindless lagblob? What was that game mode called again?

But really, what other measure could they have that would even be available to lowbies? Conditions? Don’t work in a group. Control? Doesn’t work in a group. Support? Depending on your class, doesn’t work in a group, or doesn’t even exist.

With the Defiance bar they might be able to make it work with CC. That is basically another HP bar that you can only damage using control skills.

teh persun.6517:

I don’t. It would feel silly if my lvl 80 who’s conquered Orr to go to Queensdale and get beaten by some bandits.

Beating Undead in Orr doesn’t make you immune to bullets and knives….

It just makes you a more experienced fighter. That’s what levels are supposed to represent, and that’s why downscaling logically makes sense as a game mechanic. It takes a more experienced adventurer to storm into the undead-infested Cursed Shore than it does to kill some petty bandits outside some poor farmer’s door step. But one wrong move could still end up with said adventurer taking a dirt nap.

As for the improved downscaling, I like it. I like it a lot. This is the way it should have always been. It keeps the content interesting.

Liege Tai.8249:

Long story short, im not happy with the idea i spend ages crafting ascended gear to backtrack to an area I enjoyed while leveling to feel like I am wearing leveling greens….

If this is what you are experiencing, then gratz to ANet, they’re finally doing it right. This is exactly what you should feel like in a starting zone, because in a starting zone this is BIS gear.

Sorel.4870:

It maybe is a bug, since it wasn’t announced, so wait for a while.

If it was a change however, I would be very happy. When advertising for GW2, Anet was proud to say that their downscaling system allowed the content of non-80 zones to be still interesting at lvl 80. And while I still like the dialogs, scenery and funny heart quests while exploring, the combat really feels silly. Where’s the fun in finishing a mob before the end of my Pistol Whip in every zone until lvl 40? I hope they leave it that way.

^ This.
I’m happy for this change, whether it was intended or not. Long overdue.

Fernling.1729:

Xdmatt.3958:

I think the latest build fixed it. I think.

I can confirm this, I was at 88 power and 24% crit chance at level 9 downscale in queensdale yesterday and today i’m at 150 power and 46% crit chance.

I don’t think it is as high as it was before this patch, but mobs are now being one shotted again.

They returned it to the unbalanced state it was at?
That is disappointing.

I really wish they hadn’t “fixed” it on the last hotfix. The game was better for it.

Arkinos.7245:

The scaling had to be nerfed.

Even scaled level 80s could kill low level mobs in 1-2 basic attacks.

If thats the scaling used, you might as well not bother scaling at all.

The problem with this change is not that they nerfed downscales. As long as it won’t make downscaled people weaker than those of correct level, we can’t really protest – after all, it was the original purpose of the downscale mechanics.

No, the real problem is different. It was a significant nerf, that didn’t make it to the patchnotes.
Please, Anet, stop with the stealth nerfs. If you want to nerf something, you should not be afraid of players finding that out. And you should be prepared to supply a reason for the change.

Edit: oh, they reversed it? So it was a bug after all? Now i’m confused.

At least anet didnt loose another point of their creditibility with this. It was a bug and it is fixed. So toodles to all dps haters.

Vayne.8563:

The game needed to make it take longer to kill stuff in early zones, so people that are actually in those zones could get credit for events.

Not only that.

If “downscaling” is a central element of your game, then it needs to work. At present, a lvl80 is still too strong compared to a lvl20 in a lvl20 area. Even with the harsher downscaling as of this patch.

So if anything, we’re not quite there yet. Getting there, however. I hope this was on purpose, because downscaling is one of the sales arguments for GW2 (having a giant world which is “all current level” for you once you’re higher, instead of always only 2-3 zones), so it really ought to work as good as possible.

Azhure.1857:

I really wish they hadn’t “fixed” it on the last hotfix. The game was better for it.

dont make your opinion sound like a statement of truth

it is fixed now, so it was a bug, I’m satisfied this way, thank you almighty arena net

Didn’t notice any difference between now and then, but supposedly it’s fixed.

I like it. Being able to steamroll things effortlessly as a level 80 in a low-level area was never something I really enjoyed, particularly since the whole point of the downscaling existing at all is to allow high level characters to play in low level areas and still have fun. And while there is a certain amount of enjoyment in 3-shotting a mob, after a while the novelty wears off and it becomes boring.

Plus it caused all sorts of problems event event tagging and such when you mixed level 80’s with natural low levels. Heck, even with other level 80’s it caused tagging some events to become extremely difficult. I’ve missed getting credit on many an event for the dailies because I was playing a class without AoE fields at the time and there were multiple AoE heavy classes just spamming AoE at the enemy spawn points and instantly nuking everything that spawned.

I do hope they confirm at some point where it was an intended change or a bug, because right now I don’t think we can say for sure either way. I hope it was intended though.

They’re saying it was a bug according to some. Works for me. If you’re level 80, killer of Zhaitan and Scarlet, I really don’t think a very rabid bunny in Queensdale should give you pause.

But maybe that’s just me.

Ardenwolfe.8590:

They’re saying it was a bug according to some. Works for me. If you’re level 80, killer of Zhaitan and Scarlet, I really don’t think a very rabid bunny in Queensdale should give you pause.

But maybe that’s just me.

I dunno. Rabies can be pretty serious. Especially if the bunny sneaks up on you.

Hah! +1 for making me laugh.

Classic—watch out for the rabbits.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XcxKIJTb3Hg

But back on subject—-don’t like any unannounced changes because of controversy they cause, anet needs to come clean and say intended or bug. Simple as that.

Xdmatt.3958:

It was a bug and it is now gone, hopefully never to return. And a good thing too.

As an aside, gotta love the reasoning paths of the “supporters” of it:

1) I am bored and need moar challenge! Let’s ruin the game for everyone else so I can grow my e-pickle!
2) A mean 80 killed a mob before I could tag it! Let’s ruin the game for everyone else to salve my e-pickle!
3)(somewhat related to #1) You are all bads and I am a leet dood! L2P and then you won’t mind the super-downscaling! Let’s ruin the game for everyone else so that my e-pickle may proudly protrude!

Never mind that the “superscaling” completely devalued any gear above blues, unless you spend most of your time in the L80 zones or PvP or WvW, and negated all effort put into leveling and gearing. Hell, I guess we might as well get rid of leveling and gearing altogether, have everyone at level 1, with standard gear, and have all zones be of equal difficulty.

Friendliest community my left nut. And yes, I’m gravedancing a bit, but so did all the advocates of “super-downscaling”, and thus sorry-not-sorry.

Let me guess, you started to play this game after april last year, right? Cause before that the downscaling worked.

Love the downscaling buff, it definitely is progress towards making lower level areas more playable for 80 characters. As for the future…

I would love to see a rework of the dynamic event system in the lower level areas. Perhaps not on the grand scale of the silver wastes (that would be ideal however), but something to entice people to come back to these areas. An increase in reward (perhaps scaling with level) for these events would be needed in order to entice people back. But theres a large opportunity for flavorful and varied area-based events to go on and I would LOVE to see an increase in pve content that uses the beautiful open world in GW2.

One little cool thing you could do is introduce little pvp competitions in the open world maps that were on time cycled rotations, similar to world bosses. For instance, in Fire Heart Rise players could side with the Flame legion or the Charr legions to war over territory. This could go on for one hour every say, 4-5 hours so that the hearts and such could still be completed? Just spitballing. Turning the arena in Gendarran fields into a spectateable arena would be really cool (like the queens gauntlet cages).

Just some ideas!

Liege Tai.8249:

I don’t know why they don’t just create a hard mode version of each map that you can reach when level 80…

Upgrade all mobs by 1 tier. Normal become Vets, Vets become silvers, silvers become champs… grant a 50% bonus to Magic Find while in a hard mode area.

What this would create: Farming opportunity for solo players. Farming opportunity for groups (as scaling will still have an effect) a different dynamic for a while…

How hard would this be to implement, I am assuming not that difficult as the scaling already exists, set it to x5 and we have a hard mode No? 1 player would =5 5 would equal 25 etc etc.

That sounds less like hard mode and more like farm mode.

tboneking.2531:

One little cool thing you could do is introduce little pvp competitions in the open world maps that were on time cycled rotations, similar to world bosses.

…i thought we were talking about revitalizing older areas, not killing them…

Fred Fargone.3127:

Eh, I enjoy the challenge as well.

One thing I don’t like is, that the rewards are diminished. As in, you’re a level 50, you go to a starter zone that acts every bit as hard as level 50 zone to you, but gives level 1 xp etc rewards for hearts and whatnot.

The game has never worked this way and it won’t work this way now. When you do a heart, make a kill, get a wp you get a percentage of the amount of exp. needed for a level no matter what level you are. If a level 3 gets 3% toward a level then a level 50 will get 3% toward level. It’s proportionate.

Xdmatt.3958:

As an aside, gotta love the reasoning paths of the “supporters” of it:

1) I am bored and need moar challenge! Let’s ruin the game for everyone else…
2) A mean 80 killed a mob before I could tag it! Let’s ruin the game for everyone else …
3)(somewhat related to #1) You are all bads and I am a leet dood! L2P and then you won’t mind the super-downscaling! Let’s ruin the game ….

Interesting when one side of a debate becomes so overly dramatic and pulls out the “ruin the game” card. I see it so very often these days. Worse still that when they decide to use it, many do so with an attitude not unlike yourself.

As for Downscaling….
It was meant to be stronger than it is now, that is why there were people like myself that supported the change.

Some light reading for you in case you were unaware of what was actually sold to those that purchased the game —

Dynamic level adjustment adjusts a character’s attributes and level based on the area they are in, either reducing them to match their current area in PvE, or increasing their attributes and levels (typically to 80) in WvW or Structured PvP. For example, in PvE, a character with an actual level of 50 in a level 10 area will have their attributes reduced to an “effective level” equal to a level 11 character (maximum level for the area +1). The effective level is shown as a green number next to a downwards arrow and the actual level on the experience bar and is stated under the actual level on the hero panel. Changes to attributes are also seen on the hero panel in green. Unaltered values for an attribute can be seen when hovering the mouse over that attribute.

In PvE a character’s effective level and attributes are automatically reduced based on level themed sectors within the given zone. For example, a character in the Venlin Vale area of Brisban Wildlands will be lower level than a player in the Koga Ruins area of the same zone. Although skills and equipment (runes and sigils particularly) are retained, zones should still be challenging to play.

The benefits of this are:
*High level characters are prevented from killing enemies too easily and depriving low level characters of rewards.
*Lower level content doesn’t become obsolete, and remains adequately challenging, even after a character has out-leveled an area.

- Guild Wars 2 Wiki

I actually really like the idea of the “PvP”-Elements. You would of course need auto-balance, as probably everybody would want to play as the evil guys at first, but it would work. Have teams of maybe 20-40 players fighting over the smaller parts of the map, along with some npcs, and once this, let’s call it “war-event-chain” is done, the map returns to normal for the next 5 hours, giving people time to get their map completion and have the outcome of the battle influence the way the map looks until it’s “cleansed” again by players or npcs.
This would work for so many maps, all those with the sons of svanir, fire legion, nightmare court, whatever. I can even imagine going as far as to give players more or less generic looks for the event, just soldiers and charr.

Many.8419:

pifil are you a developer for gw2? how dare you telling me how this game works. you are noone. I want a red post to clarify if this is intended change and if it is, why isnt it in patch notes and why are they trying to hide such changes?

Thought I’d already replied to this, but apparently not. I’m not a GW2 dev no, but I’ve been a software engineer for many years and I know how this stuff works.

Also calling them lazy is rude and hostile. Being rude and then demanding a “red post” isn’t going to work too well.

lol, feel like this whole downscale “bug” may associate with all the HOT things added in this patch.

I have a feeling when HOT release there will be something called downscale mastery, the more you level it the less “penalty” you take in low level map, this new downscale bug may just someone let the cat out of the bag.

Xdmatt.3958:

It was a bug and it is now gone, hopefully never to return. And a good thing too.

As an aside, gotta love the reasoning paths of the “supporters” of it:

1) I am bored and need moar challenge! Let’s ruin the game for everyone else so I can grow my e-pickle!
2) A mean 80 killed a mob before I could tag it! Let’s ruin the game for everyone else to salve my e-pickle!
3)(somewhat related to #1) You are all bads and I am a leet dood! L2P and then you won’t mind the super-downscaling! Let’s ruin the game for everyone else so that my e-pickle may proudly protrude!

Your reasoning here is simply terrible.

1) If e-pickle is involved it is for those who want to feel overpowered in a low level zone.
2) Downscaling does not ruin the game. It merely results in similar level of challenge as you experienced when you played in the low level area originally. But allowing level 80’s to one-shot piles of enemies in low level areas does ruin the game for other low level characters who actually need to tag those enemies in order to level up and experience the game as it was intended. No e-pickle involved, except on the part of the level 80 who wants to one-shot lowbies to make him feel like he has a large e-pickle. FWIW, that can be accomplished by killing ambients in any zone.
3) It has nothing to do with being elite. Lowbies simply cannot actually experience the game in the areas appropriate to their level without appropriate downscaling. In fact, they cannot even really learn the game. Of course they can just try and avoid areas where 80’s are congregating in their zones, but why should they have to do that? Instead of ruining the game for everyone, downscaling allows the game to be highly playable by everyone. Well, except for those for whom it is all about their e-pickle.

In short, maybe a better choice for you would be a different game that allows you to flex your protruding e-pickle.

Rewards are partially level scaled anyway.

All/most drops and items are typically scaled to your character, not the NPC you killed for it.

It’s amusing how some people apparently seem to think you should basically be punished for leveling up, gearing up, and unlocking traits by being made as weak as someone who’s done no leveling whatsoever, is in blues, and has no traits whenever you decide to leave a zone like cursed shore and go elsewhere.

Blackhearted.1264:

It’s amusing how some people apparently seem to think you should basically be punished for leveling up, gearing up, and unlocking traits by being made as weak as someone who’s done no leveling whatsoever, is in blues, and has no traits whenever you decide to leave a zone like cursed shore and go elsewhere.

Traits aren’t touched by downscaling (aside from the stat buff ones which are scaled accordingly, since 150 extra power at level 5 would be downright silly), so those will always been on advantage level 80 players have over true lowlevels.

And I don’t think anyone (or at least many people) are asking for 100% equality. Just being a little closer, not going around 1 or 2 shotting mobs when true levels take 10 hits to kill the same enemy.

Many.8419:

pifil are you a developer for gw2? how dare you telling me how this game works. you are noone. I want a red post to clarify if this is intended change and if it is, why isnt it in patch notes and why are they trying to hide such changes?

I want to say that everything Pifil explained is common knowledge, but then you get people who simply don’t understand, or are too self-entitled and caught up in themselves to see past their own experiences. Yes, Many, that is how software development works. That’s how a lot of things work. Regardless of the medium, there are steps and priority lists to everything.

As for the sheer amount of changes from that patch that weren’t documented (and shouldn’t have been affected considering that changes that WERE documented), it’s also possible that somewhere along the line, something may have been mixed up and they gave us a beta patch for HoT instead of what they intended. With the complexity of something like a video game, particularly one that’s played online with tens/hundreds of thousands of players, when problems like these happen they need to run with it and fix the problems going forward. A rollback IS an option, but generally saved for actual game-breaking issues. The game is still playable. Maybe with some nasty inconveniences, but it IS still playable.

Actually on topic, I have to agree with liking the stronger downscaling. It sounded absurd to me when I was reading the threads about it, but a quick swap to an 80 to play with a much lower level friend changed that opinion quickly. People are over-exaggerating. Yeah, sure, I couldn’t one-shot things anymore, but at least to me that increases the enjoyment of it. It was really boring to steamroll through zones, soloing every situation without a care. I actually had to play, and while I was certainly still stronger than the appropriate leveled people, as you should be, it just wasn’t overwhelmingly.

It’s nice! =D But then again that’s my OPINION, coming from someone who likes to actually feel like they’re a part of the game, and not an unstoppable god.

Blackhearted.1264:

It’s amusing how some people apparently seem to think you should basically be punished for leveling up, gearing up, and unlocking traits by being made as weak as someone who’s done no leveling whatsoever, is in blues, and has no traits whenever you decide to leave a zone like cursed shore and go elsewhere.

It’s amusing to me that people see being downscaled as punishment, especially since at no time since the game’s start have level 80 players been downscaling to be made as weak as players who are playing at level in a zone. Higher level toons have always been more powerful even when downscaled, just not ridiculously so. What is the attraction of running around and one-shotting stuff anyway? Maybe ANet should make instanced versions of each zone with no downscaling so that people can go in there and feel powerful?

Blackhearted.1264:

It’s amusing how some people apparently seem to think you should basically be punished for leveling up, gearing up, and unlocking traits by being made as weak as someone who’s done no leveling whatsoever, is in blues, and has no traits whenever you decide to leave a zone like cursed shore and go elsewhere.

It’s amusing how some people have no idea what their talking about, nor what’s going on, but still choose to voice their opinion on a subject as if it could ever be in any way relevant.

It’s also amusing that some people don’t understand that this game is not about being beastly strong just because you leveled up and is about community and working together, such that everyone in a zone should be at a baseline equivalent before things like runes, sigils and traits are figured in.

It goes on to be amusing how some people apparently lose the ability to play the game at all just because they’re in a low level zone where things are actually still “challenging,” as if anything in this game is actually difficult to kill no matter where it is, nor what level it is.

William Bradley Knight.2609:

It’s amusing to me that people see being downscaled as punishment, especially since at no time since the game’s start have level 80 players been downscaling to be made as weak as players who are playing at level in a zone. Higher level toons have always been more powerful even when downscaled, just not ridiculously so. What is the attraction of running around and one-shotting stuff anyway? Maybe ANet should make instanced versions of each zone with no downscaling so that people can go in there and feel powerful?

The bugged form of downscaling some people here are begging for IS a form of punishment. What they’re begging for is to basically negate all the time you spend leveling and gearing yourself by making you as weak as you would be if you had never bothered to level past the zone, gear up past blues, and spend any trait points. Why bother making progression if it’s all negated 100% if you leave the 80 maps?

And please try to read, cause i never mentioned wanting to one shot everything.

Blackhearted.1264:

The bugged form of downscaling some people here are begging for IS a form of punishment. What they’re begging for is to basically negate all the time you spend leveling and gearing yourself by making you as weak as you would be if you had never bothered to level past the zone, gear up past blues, and spend any trait points. Why bother making progression if it’s all negated 100% if you leave the 80 maps?

It can only be punishment if you view it as such. There are those of us that don’t.

I’m also not begging to negate all my time spent leveling. What I desire is for all corners of Tyria to be an enjoyable and challenging experience. I understand that there are people that like the feeling of being some sort of Demi-god in a game such as this – but there are many that do not. I truly don’t believe that ArenaNet wants the game to be as it is…. with maxed characters plowing through lower content as they are. Or rather, I don’t believe the ArenaNet of years past would want it this way.

Blackhearted.1264:

William Bradley Knight.2609:

It’s amusing to me that people see being downscaled as punishment, especially since at no time since the game’s start have level 80 players been downscaling to be made as weak as players who are playing at level in a zone. Higher level toons have always been more powerful even when downscaled, just not ridiculously so. What is the attraction of running around and one-shotting stuff anyway? Maybe ANet should make instanced versions of each zone with no downscaling so that people can go in there and feel powerful?

The bugged form of downscaling some people here are begging for IS a form of punishment. What they’re begging for is to basically negate all the time you spend leveling and gearing yourself by making you as weak as you would be if you had never bothered to level past the zone, gear up past blues, and spend any trait points. Why bother making progression if it’s all negated 100% if you leave the 80 maps?

And please try to read, cause i never mentioned wanting to one shot everything.

Yes, why level past a zone if you’re going to spend your time in that zone? Can you answer that question? Maybe because you will want to go to another zone? Because you want to freely move about the world without being impaired.

I have another question, why do you need to be more powerful than a zone while you’re in that zone?

The downscaling was not as big a deal as some people are claiming. It was significant, but it’s not like it made anyone weaker than they would have been when level appropriate. Since the zone was a cake walk when you were level appropriate, unless you really were just bad, then what’s the big deal? There is no legitimate reason to be significantly more powerful that level appropriate players in a lower level zone. Also, even with significant downscaling you will ALWAYS be more powerful that level appropriate players because you have Runes, Sigils, Traits, and THREE stats per gear piece, unless you have all the stats, which is still more than the level appropriate players have access to.

Blackhearted.1264:

It’s amusing how some people apparently seem to think you should basically be punished for leveling up, gearing up, and unlocking traits by being made as weak as someone who’s done no leveling whatsoever, is in blues, and has no traits whenever you decide to leave a zone like cursed shore and go elsewhere.

There’s no punishment involved. You’re being downleveled to an appropriate range so that the low level zone you are in will still be pertinent to you. All of your stats are reduced even though your traits will still function. This preserves the map to provide you with more challenging game play while still serving players of the appropriate level at the same time. It’s a good thing. For everyone.

Even discounting the fact that over powered level 80s make the game less enjoyable for low leveled characters it is also true that when areas/mobs are too simple it makes players careless and weak.

Blackhearted.1264:

William Bradley Knight.2609:

It’s amusing to me that people see being downscaled as punishment, especially since at no time since the game’s start have level 80 players been downscaling to be made as weak as players who are playing at level in a zone. Higher level toons have always been more powerful even when downscaled, just not ridiculously so. What is the attraction of running around and one-shotting stuff anyway? Maybe ANet should make instanced versions of each zone with no downscaling so that people can go in there and feel powerful?

The bugged form of downscaling some people here are begging for IS a form of punishment. What they’re begging for is to basically negate all the time you spend leveling and gearing yourself by making you as weak as you would be if you had never bothered to level past the zone, gear up past blues, and spend any trait points. Why bother making progression if it’s all negated 100% if you leave the 80 maps?

And please try to read, cause i never mentioned wanting to one shot everything.

You might read yourself and note that no one accused you of wanting to one shot everything or claimed that you mentioned it.

Being downscaled is not punishment. It is how this game was designed from the very start. It does not negate any play time, gear, or leveling. Why bother making progression in gear and level? So you can play more content. If you don’t believe there is a payoff for advancing in level and gear, take a level 50 elementalist for a stroll across Southsun Cove. You will quickly feel like all the enemies in low level zones who are being hit by by those level 80 toons. Play time, gear, and level all come into play in being able to play higher level content. They also still make you more powerful than those playing at zone level, just not ridiculously so. Being much, much, much more powerful than enemies in low level zones is not how things were originally set up in GW2. The 1-2 shot kills by 80’s in low level zones is something that came about after ANet made some changes. An increase in downscaling would be a reversion to better game play.

Carighan.6758:

Vayne.8563:

The game needed to make it take longer to kill stuff in early zones, so people that are actually in those zones could get credit for events.

Not only that.

If “downscaling” is a central element of your game, then it needs to work. At present, a lvl80 is still too strong compared to a lvl20 in a lvl20 area. Even with the harsher downscaling as of this patch.

So if anything, we’re not quite there yet. Getting there, however. I hope this was on purpose, because downscaling is one of the sales arguments for GW2 (having a giant world which is “all current level” for you once you’re higher, instead of always only 2-3 zones), so it really ought to work as good as possible.

Events and event scaling is supposed to be a central element of the game too.

…and at the end of the day it STILL turned out to be a bug and got patched out.

Which puts a huge grin on my face; as for those feeling sore that their supermegadoublesecretorobationdownscaling dream didn’t play out… cackling intensifies

Xdmatt.3958:

It was a bug and it is now gone, hopefully never to return. And a good thing too.

As an aside, gotta love the reasoning paths of the “supporters” of it:

1) I am bored and need moar challenge! Let’s ruin the game for everyone else so I can grow my e-pickle!
2) A mean 80 killed a mob before I could tag it! Let’s ruin the game for everyone else to salve my e-pickle!
3)(somewhat related to #1) You are all bads and I am a leet dood! L2P and then you won’t mind the super-downscaling! Let’s ruin the game for everyone else so that my e-pickle may proudly protrude!

Never mind that the “superscaling” completely devalued any gear above blues, unless you spend most of your time in the L80 zones or PvP or WvW, and negated all effort put into leveling and gearing. Hell, I guess we might as well get rid of leveling and gearing altogether, have everyone at level 1, with standard gear, and have all zones be of equal difficulty.

Friendliest community my left nut. And yes, I’m gravedancing a bit, but so did all the advocates of “super-downscaling”, and thus sorry-not-sorry.

Thank you Sir, you surmised my point perfectly

Blackhearted.1264:

William Bradley Knight.2609:

It’s amusing to me that people see being downscaled as punishment, especially since at no time since the game’s start have level 80 players been downscaling to be made as weak as players who are playing at level in a zone. Higher level toons have always been more powerful even when downscaled, just not ridiculously so. What is the attraction of running around and one-shotting stuff anyway? Maybe ANet should make instanced versions of each zone with no downscaling so that people can go in there and feel powerful?

The bugged form of downscaling some people here are begging for IS a form of punishment. What they’re begging for is to basically negate all the time you spend leveling and gearing yourself by making you as weak as you would be if you had never bothered to level past the zone, gear up past blues, and spend any trait points. Why bother making progression if it’s all negated 100% if you leave the 80 maps?

And please try to read, cause i never mentioned wanting to one shot everything.

This is where I just wish they had just made a “hard mode” toggle option for extra downscaling for those that want it. (Maybe for bonus MF/Karma/Gold%?) Personally I’m with the group that was happy with the increase in downscaling. I’ve always felt guilty in finishing an event in seconds in early level zones only to see someone’s alt or a new player come running up a few seconds later. I feel like my presence in lower level events is damaging the experience of new players. Especially with the new daily system filtering 80’s into one map I’ve been experiencing the same annoyance of material node stealing from other MMOs watching events finish within seconds of popping up.

It’s also made every lower level map absurdly boring. Most of the time if I’m going to a low level zone I’m watching a movie and not even bothering to look at the screen. Just run up and auto attack while just tanking the hits…. as a Mesmer. Sure I could dodge around, but there is really no point to do so. Most of the time, outside of aggroing dozens of mobs or the occasional Champion mob, I’m in no danger what so ever.

I also differ in how you view leveling and gearing. To me leveling and gearing in GW2 was just meant to help open the map up overtime and give a somewhat structure to the narrative of the map. Instead of just being able to run right into Orr at level 1 you had to build up in the starter zones learning about the various issues facing the races of Tyria. Fighting smaller attacks from Centaurs/Flame Legion before finally pushing into their home territory to turn the tide, then pushing onto the main big bad of the series.

Really ANet is in a lose-lose situation currently being stuck between the two groups of players on this issue. Again I really wish they would at least give the individual player an option if they want to scale lower. Even better than a simple toggle, I would love it to have various levels. Would you like to scale down a bunch while roaming around Queensdale? Go for it. Feel like the extra downscale is a bit much running around Mount Maelstrom? Tone it back a bit. Granted all that is probably way more work most likely since I’ve no clue what goes on under the hood code wise with implementing downscaling.

Blackhearted.1264:

William Bradley Knight.2609:

It’s amusing to me that people see being downscaled as punishment, especially since at no time since the game’s start have level 80 players been downscaling to be made as weak as players who are playing at level in a zone. Higher level toons have always been more powerful even when downscaled, just not ridiculously so. What is the attraction of running around and one-shotting stuff anyway? Maybe ANet should make instanced versions of each zone with no downscaling so that people can go in there and feel powerful?

The bugged form of downscaling some people here are begging for IS a form of punishment. What they’re begging for is to basically negate all the time you spend leveling and gearing yourself by making you as weak as you would be if you had never bothered to level past the zone, gear up past blues, and spend any trait points. Why bother making progression if it’s all negated 100% if you leave the 80 maps?

And please try to read, cause i never mentioned wanting to one shot everything.

Downscaling doesn’t negate anything. It just makes lower level content remain fun for everyone.

I found this hillarious… I did a new char to get a BL and test my luck cause new skins and all.. And with the gear i had i was one-hitting lvl 3-4 stuff with my lvl 10 guardian… If a lvl 80 can’t, then its kind of amazing lol.

I have long thought down-scaling was too generous. I get that they want content to feel easier for higher level/geared players when playing down-scaled, but it has been laughably easy for a while now. Honestly, all levels should be down-scaled to be closer to the stats someone has at the appropriate level, with the addition of traits to make things easier. I would support them making this “bug” more permanent.

Liege Tai.8249:

I don’t know why they don’t just create a hard mode version of each map that you can reach when level 80…

Upgrade all mobs by 1 tier. Normal become Vets, Vets become silvers, silvers become champs… grant a 50% bonus to Magic Find while in a hard mode area.

What this would create: Farming opportunity for solo players. Farming opportunity for groups (as scaling will still have an effect) a different dynamic for a while…

How hard would this be to implement, I am assuming not that difficult as the scaling already exists, set it to x5 and we have a hard mode No? 1 player would =5 5 would equal 25 etc etc.

This is a great idea but would make the NON-hard mode zones ghost zones….. I’m pretty sure they DO NOT want to fragment the community into HARDs and HARD-NOTs. (just speculating from all the Dev comments about not wanting to fragment the player base).

I have actually speculated since Megaserver release that doing HARD mode zones was one of the MAIN reasons Megaserver was introduced (to reduce the number of active zones, so they could basically double the number actually being used and STILL potentially have less active zones than the pre-Megaserver system).

As for the downscaling, I’m all for it….but not as a stealth change….they should have put it in the patch notes….not snuck it in on us.

Brother Grimm.5176:

I have actually speculated since Megaserver release that doing HARD mode zones was one of the MAIN reasons Megaserver was introduced (to reduce the number of active zones, so they could basically double the number actually being used and STILL potentially have less active zones than the pre-Megaserver system).

/like this speculation.

The original GW2 zones are beautiful, and too good to be only played once.

When HoT comes out, it may be interesting if the mega server system will provide a way to send level 80 players who have completed a zone to another version of the zone where their stats will be reduced, events will progress a bit into the future, and upon completing the new version, they are one step closer to a precursor.

In short, part of the mastery system.

Just a fleeting fantasy… I haven’t thought thru this at all. But your speculation is very interesting to me.

[Edit add: Forgot to say some level 80 players may complain they can no longer go to the same instance as their lower level friends. .. well more QA work lol.] Not a topic for this thread of course. Just fun to echo your speculation. Later!

inb4 guild bounties in low lvl areas are gonna be 1shots to every guild member. Wp

O man you mean you cant walk into lowbie areas and one shot everything before the actual right lvls can tag them? shocking!

BlueOcean.5380:

Brother Grimm.5176:

I have actually speculated since Megaserver release that doing HARD mode zones was one of the MAIN reasons Megaserver was introduced (to reduce the number of active zones, so they could basically double the number actually being used and STILL potentially have less active zones than the pre-Megaserver system).

/like this speculation.

The original GW2 zones are beautiful, and too good to be only played once.

When HoT comes out, it may be interesting if the mega server system will provide a way to send level 80 players who have completed a zone to another version of the zone where their stats will be reduced, events will progress a bit into the future, and upon completing the new version, they are one step closer to a precursor.

In short, part of the mastery system.

Just a fleeting fantasy… I haven’t thought thru this at all. But your speculation is very interesting to me.

[Edit add: Forgot to say some level 80 players may complain they can no longer go to the same instance as their lower level friends. .. well more QA work lol.] Not a topic for this thread of course. Just fun to echo your speculation. Later!

I like this. I wouldn’t mind harder level 80 versions of all the maps. It would be great actually. They want to keep the old game still occupied, but we haven’t hear hide nor hair about whether or not they are adding new content to existing zones. A system like the one you are talking about would be a welcome step in that direction.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Game_updates/2015-03-18

Fixed an issue with the downscaling of stat multipliers.

Looks like it was a bug after all.