Guild Wars 2

How do the scaling mechanics work exactly? I’d prefer an answer from Anet, because I’m anticipating several different answers from players, such as “amount of people scale the event”, "only “active” players scale the event; dead people don’t", and “only those who land a hit scale the event”.

Well, I’ll be one of your answers.

It is vicinity based, dead or alive, I believe. So if you have 100 people standing near an event, even if only one person is attacking things, it will scale as though 100 people are doing it. If 99 people are dead and 1 is alive, it will still scale as though 100 people are there.

I’ve never seen it spelled out in terms of what each threshold is per scale tier, I would love to see that information.

The reason you’ll get different answers is that scaling works differently in different events. Sometimes there’s scaling. Sometimes there’s not. Sometimes the dead in range scale up the mobs, and sometimes they don’t. I wouldn’t expect a response from Anet, and certainly not anything transparent.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Event

As to the dead bodies specifically: “Events can detect that players have not performed any actions relating to the event within a period of time and will scale down the event accordingly.”

Lazaar.9123:

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Event

As to the dead bodies specifically: “Events can detect that players have not performed any actions relating to the event within a period of time and will scale down the event accordingly.”

“Within a period of time”. But some events are less than 5 mins, like Silverwastes’ Breach and VW. Most likely the event will fail before the scaling down occurs.

NaotsuguLH.8915:

Lazaar.9123:

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Event

As to the dead bodies specifically: “Events can detect that players have not performed any actions relating to the event within a period of time and will scale down the event accordingly.”

“Within a period of time”. But some events are less than 5 mins, like Silverwastes’ Breach and VW. Most likely the event will fail before the scaling down occurs.

It detects dead people as fast as it detects new players in the vicinity.

Lazaar.9123:

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Event

As to the dead bodies specifically: “Events can detect that players have not performed any actions relating to the event within a period of time and will scale down the event accordingly.”

" Enemies can gain new abilities" can someone provide an example of this in the game?
I know this was mentioned prelaunch but as far as I can tell this was never implemented.

That “detecting” is so vague.

So far only evidence I have ever seen are my tests on boss blitz which make event participation entirely range based. It doesn’t matter whether you dead or alive or have you even hit the boss once.

Wanze.8410:

NaotsuguLH.8915:

Lazaar.9123:

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Event

As to the dead bodies specifically: “Events can detect that players have not performed any actions relating to the event within a period of time and will scale down the event accordingly.”

“Within a period of time”. But some events are less than 5 mins, like Silverwastes’ Breach and VW. Most likely the event will fail before the scaling down occurs.

It detects dead people as fast as it detects new players in the vicinity.

But how relevant is that?
People entering the vicinity (and inversely leaving) has nothing to do with their participation. I could believe it was instant except that would mean an encounter might scale down in between attacks (or during a long enough fear, run, or stun)…
So it would almost have to be longer than a few seconds in order to be reasonable.

Dasenthal.6520:

Wanze.8410:

NaotsuguLH.8915:

Lazaar.9123:

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Event

As to the dead bodies specifically: “Events can detect that players have not performed any actions relating to the event within a period of time and will scale down the event accordingly.”

“Within a period of time”. But some events are less than 5 mins, like Silverwastes’ Breach and VW. Most likely the event will fail before the scaling down occurs.

It detects dead people as fast as it detects new players in the vicinity.

But how relevant is that?
People entering the vicinity (and inversely leaving) has nothing to do with their participation. I could believe it was instant except that would mean an encounter might scale down in between attacks (or during a long enough fear, run, or stun)…
So it would almost have to be longer than a few seconds in order to be reasonable.

As long as they are in combat, they will scale up the event.

Based on what?

Can you explain why the harpy defense event near AC dungeon has 10+ enemies per wave with +4 levels when I’m the only one participating on it?

Wanze.8410:

As long as they are in combat, they will scale up the event.

That’s how it was originally, but then the problem with zergs ganking bosses started happening. Now everyone is counted. After a time, maybe people not in combat are no longer counted, but that could be exploited. I would hope that dead players are not counted, but how long does it actually take to scale back down?

If someone wanted to test it, simply find an event that spawns enemies/waves and bring 10+ people. Regular enemies don’t scale once spawned. Alternatively, calculate the change in health of a boss that scales while you deal stable DPS and everyone else leaves/dies.

Everyone within a certain area is included (although if a player is dead when an event spawns, it is unknown whether they are included). After a period of time (which we do not know), it scales down based on number of players it detects as not contributing (the full criteria for this are also unknown).

Basically, we don’t know most of the specifics, and it’s unlikely Anet will tell us.