Guild Wars 2

from the update notes: [spoiler=Notes]Dynamic Leveling

Attribute calculations for dynamic level scaling have been rebalanced. In general, this means weaker when adjusted down, stronger when adjusted up. Rewards when adjusted down have been increased to compensate. It is now possible to receive your own level of loot from any level of enemy.[/spoiler]

I don’t think it’s working, I still 2-Shot a lot of low enemies as lv.80. No challenge against Veterans and Champions on lower levels either. Tequatl as lv.80 is more than trivial, stand in front of him and spam 1 without any fear of losing health.

pfff, dude. if u want chellange killing mobs, go to orr, not in 1-15 zones. i personally found it fun to 2 hit mobs that often killed me when i was on 1-15 level. Plus, remember, now when u r 80 u got exo gear. fight naked and with a stick, then see if u still 1-hit mobs :P

Jeffrey Vaughn.1793:

We’re still tuning the downscaling, but didn’t want to make things immediately difficult. What level are you downscaled to, vs. the level of the creatures you’re fighting? One issue we found is that many areas in the starter zones are scaling you down, but you’re still 2+ levels higher than the creatures, which is making them rather trivial to deal with.

I tested this now, starting from Hero’s Moot WP (Wayfarer Foothills) running the path north. I’m Lv.80.

My effective lv. — enemies level — enemy type — number of autoattacks until dead
I’m 4 — enemy is 2 — stag — 2x until dead
8 — 6 — Son of Svanir — 2x
8 — 8 — Son of Svanir — 3x
8 — 7 — Dolyak — 9x (currently Taigan WP)
8 — 7 — Skelk — 4x
11 — 9 — Icebrood Wolf — 5x (currently past Twinspur Haven WP)
11 — 8 — Sons of Svanir — 2-3x
11 — 4(!?!) — Sons of Svanir — 1x
13 — 10 — forgot enemy type — 3x

so yes, in general I was 2 levels above my enemies. What struck me as a surprise: there was this one Son of Sv. (came down from a tree) who had the same level (8) like me and was dead in 3 autoattacks. The next surprise: the lv.4 Son of Svanir in the north of the wayfarer foothills (my level: 11)

You really have the chance here to keep the game growing imho, because each zone could be challenging to play. In other games once you’re 80, you have only a few lv.80 zones. I’d rather have it more difficult than a walk in the park to be honest. I see that you want high level players to feel more powerful, but I’d rather see the power come from the skill you got playing monsters.

Low level monsters have simple attack-patterns. When I compare how I play now vs. how I played a few months ago I definitely see improvement. This skill should make me feel more powerful (it does in PvP at least), not too good stats. Now I’m able to out-dodge (is this even a word? ^^) my enemies and that makes me feel powerful. I can engage much more enemies at once.

(btw. I like how you implement some hotspots of strong (bigger packs of) enemies even in the low level zones. It would be great to see this much more, so that people actually (like in the first game) have to look where to go and eventually (for higher zones) plan ahead and dodge too big enemy-packs (if they feel not strong enough).

Wouldn’t it be much more rewarding if people had to be aware of their surroundings?
I got offtopic, my bad…

Beherit.9710:

pfff, dude. if u want chellange killing mobs, go to orr, not in 1-15 zones. i personally found it fun to 2 hit mobs that often killed me when i was on 1-15 level. Plus, remember, now when u r 80 u got exo gear. fight naked and with a stick, then see if u still 1-hit mobs :P

well the whole game is endgame, I should be able to play with my friends and still feel as playing the game and not afk-shooting everything. The better loot is a great first step to bring people back to low level zones, but as we get more events in those zones, those shouldn’t feel trivial since it’s new content.

Wouldn’t balancing be much easier if there weren’t hundrets of levels but:
player lv = enemy lv (you can be below an enemy lv but not above)

-) blue gear: you need 10 hits
-) green gear: you need about 9 hits
-) yellow gear: you need about 8 hits
…

+ health increases only minimal

We.. disagree with this system. Please cease the removal of progression incentive while simultaneously increasing vertical progressions necessity.

“I saw an ‘owl’ up in a tree
I looked at them and they looked at me.
I couldn’t tell you about their size
For all I saw were their two big eyes.”

<o>
/|

Level 1-15 zones aren’t really meant to be challenging for experienced players, since they need to be designed for players with no MMO experience at all.

You know that the low level mob normally already die from a few hits by a non leveled down character right?

I don’t know guys, it just feels to me like playing a lv.1 stage in Super Mario Bros with a perma-Star.

is it really that fun to get better with everything while getting better in playing the game? Wouldn’t it be more fun the way Team Fortress introduces new gear: a aspect gets pushed but at the same time you get weaker in another aspect…

for example:
weapon xy:
get +100% crit when hitting a mob from behind
lose max. damage from front – 40%

No. It wouldn’t. Go play a different game. I like to feel power as a reward for all that time I spent… gaining power. Duh.

Don’t like feeling powerful? Go to a hard zone or take on something challenging.

I hate the idea of someone who just killed a dragon having difficulty mowing down a bloody worm. We already have our stats scaled down, it was at a good mid point.

You want more than the mid point, you want to ruin the game for people who don’t like scaling in the -first- place.

Yes, ANet, heres a secret:

Alot of us came from games where we had no stat scaling at all, and we were able to 1 hit almost everything in those low level areas.

The situation pre-patch was a good compromise. It would -prevent- people from mobilizing to make sure people who are thinking about the game know full well that it will disappoint them in that aspect if they liked things before.

The current situation only lends itself to gossip and people can be very vocal through many different sources to ensure everyone knows just exactly how little point there is in leveling in guild wars 2. Even with their vast resources, the player base itself would be more effective than anything they could muster at pointing out to their hundreds of pals how pointless leveling in this game is and how weak people feel at lvl 80 in the best gear.

Yes. I earned a statistical advantage and I want to keep it. Otherwise all that time has been -wasted-.

No more standardization to appease bads. I like the thought that my character is strong enough to take on two veteran egg laying karka AT THE SAME TIME.

I worked up to that point, why hold the hands of bads by letting them get their challenge against worms because they don’t have the power to do anything meaningful, and ruin all the time players who actually tried to earn power spent (you already scaled us fine, thank you).

Edit: I wanted to also state that its a poor economical choice to make lvl 80’s get lvl 80 things everywhere. There was ALREADY a disparity in the price of some of the lower level mats simply because noone farmed them so they were rarer. Yep, the economy was already bad, now it will be mega bad.

so what you are saying: the people who get this super cool new weapon in TF2 don’t feel rewarded?

GW2 is a cooperative game. It’s not like your former games where people compete for the highest amount of damage. There is no DPS-meter here. Instead you should be able to play with your lv.1 friend together. This isn’t fun for him if he can’t tag a single mob because you kill those just by looking at them.

GW2 is a game about skill, you have to actively move, not stand there and watch your parry/block/dodge-stats do the work for you.

Yes you’ve worked hard. And this should be rewarded… with better skins – this is what GW is about. Yeah you grow stronger at stats – this is natural in an environment with higher tier zones, so that you follow these zones in a certain way. It would make no sense to start in Orr, so you slowly engage those enemies which get stronger and stronger – and so do you. Those enemies get better skills, so if you’ve worked really that hard you should feel the reward in being able to kill those enemies at ease – by playing a good game, having decent movement, not by standing there and watching the enemies die from your bad face.

Go solo two veteran egg laying karkas at the same time, and tell me its only my stats causing me to win. No really, I’ll watch and laugh.

No really, go do it.

Really, just solo one… can you even kill the normal ones?

I have the skill, because I worked for it.
I have the stats, because I worked for them.

All that time spent is negated by a patch that essentially just enables bads.

Not everyone is happy with just skins and teamwork.

I help low level players consistently by simply not attacking until they’ve tagged the mob. They wouldn’t be able to kill some champions in zones where noone is ever around if it weren’t for people like me who go back and help guildies and others who asked for our help, and whats our reward?

Why should the level 1 friend feel so entitled to perform at the same level as someone who has 80 exotics anyway? The sense of entitlement is just sad.

They might as well eliminate item tiers and levels if they continue on this route.

You have your cooperation, and its already way more cooperative than WoW. A mid point was made, and it has been passed. Its unreasonable to expect further compromise.

I have over 150% magic find in one of my armor sets + food. I ran around earlier. Guess what? I still got the same trash I would normally get in a low level zone. There is no clear tradeoff for this.

Why should I be compelled to visit previous areas when I’m done with my dailies now? Before it used to be something I did quite often, and I would help lots of people- but this kind of change only makes me want to stick to areas equal to my level, since I’ll suffer if I try to revisit some older zones I like.

I’ve already got map completion, and I can see how this can push players into later zones if so be, but I don’t understand the further punishment to scaling when there’s a HUGE emphasis on cooperation. Now I feel way less motivated to help out low level players that I don’t know, if I can’t do any higher damage or get any good gear/experience out of it- then there’s just no point anymore for many of us. It’s counterproductive to the teamwork element. It’s on the principal that I, as a player, worked, strained, and EARNED my way to become stronger.

Skin hunting alone won’t keep this game afloat. I’m only level 30 on one of my characters, and she’s dressed up in everything I ever want her to have right now. Transmutation stones baby. That’s one enormous stab in the design right there. Now I don’t even have to grind for that.

I can understand and relate to a lot of the logic in this thread, but I think a lot of people don’t follow through with many elements- that are in this game right now- that break the entire flow of that logic under certain situations.

Fix the scaling. Increase monster AI, give them more skills, do something. But don’t nerf the one thing we have now as a reward against newcomers. Because it certainly isn’t just skins, you can pay for those.

Sahfur.5612:

Go play a different game.

I hate the idea of someone who just killed a dragon having difficulty mowing down a bloody worm. We already have our stats scaled down, it was at a good mid point.

You want more than the mid point, you want to ruin the game for people who don’t like scaling in the -first- place.

Sahfur.5612:

You have your cooperation, and its already way more cooperative than WoW. A mid point was made, and it has been passed. Its unreasonable to expect further compromise.

Sounds like you’re the guy that needs to go play a different game. You’ll never have a decisive advantage over anybody else in game based on your stats alone.

Hate to tell you this, but someone else will always be out there that can outdo you in that regard. Being more powerful only subsists until the next guy knocks you down.

The game is geared towards skill and teamwork.

Sahfur.5612:

They might as well eliminate item tiers and levels if they continue on this route.

They’re trying!

The fanbase had a conniption over ascended gear and Anet backed off. Ascended gear is it and it’s just been made viable for everyone else.

It’s no longer a fractals only thing in the means of the earning of it. You can now obtain ascended gear without fractal grinding.

Yet, it’s only honest purpose is to serve for people who enjoy the fractals. You don’t need it. Everybody wins.

Yes, I won’t have a decisive advantage over everybody else based on stats alone. Skill, culling, and the other numerous bugs still exist.

SPVP has balance. If you want total balance when facing other players, it already has it, go do it. PVE has progression and it should retain that progression as long as everyone can gain the gear within their “area” of the game. That means dungeons + pve + fractals all should have various methods of obtaining it. This was not previously the case.

Guess what? Its pretty much been proven that build can give you a huge advantage too, enough to steamroll five other players in wvw.

Your arguments are paper thin, just because stats alone aren’t what makes me powerful doesn’t mean that its not an insult to those of us who earned those stats to lose them. Just because someone else might be able to beat me (plenty of zergs in wvw have accomplished this with relative ease, and of course the culling builds), doesn’t invalidate my argument.

In other words: Big deal? My point still stands. I was one of those that hated the fact that ascended gear could only be obtained through one means. I’ve provided alternate solutions to the problem of having limited methods of obtaining them in several posts (guess what, it was very similar to the system they are currently employing, a scavenger hunt of sorts that can be done in normal pve).

The game was designed for “everyone” in accordance with their mission statement, and so a compromise between no scaling and full scaling was met, and an attempt to break that balance has been made. In other words… no.. full scaling isn’t more “gw2” than the previous compromise. How about that logic stuff?
The game isn’t just geared toward skill (which I have plenty of) and teamwork.

Last I checked, they didn’t have it in their mission statement to make everyone join a team for everything, and they wanted seamless integration of solo and teamwork where the player was “encouraged” to team up but rarely forced. The fact that teamwork exists by itself does not mean that the individual should not gain power. Thats boring.

How’s that logic working out for yah?

Sahfur.5612:

Why should the level 1 friend feel so entitled to perform at the same level as someone who has 80 exotics anyway? The sense of entitlement is just sad.

Because your performance should depend on your skill, and not on some numbers doing the work for you?

If a “level 1” player (you’ll be level 2 by the time you end the first and unskippable story chapter, but nevermind) is able to perform as well as you, when both are scaled to the same stats, then either he’s very good or you’re very bad.

Level 1-15 zones are “special” in the sense that they’re designed for new players who may have absolutely no MMO experience. Priority should be given to making them noob-friendly, even if that means limiting the rewards (so high-level players can’t just “farm” them for profit).

Beyond that, (mid-level zones) player stat scaling should ensure that creatures and events remain challenging and fun. Levelling in GW2 is mainly a way to control player experience (i.e., make sure players visit zones in a certain order), not a way to increase their power.

The main thing you gain as you level is up is versatility (more skills, more traits, more types of food, etc.). It wouldn’t make any sense for a human with a couple of weeks’ experience to be able to hit enemies 50x harder than a human with a day’s experience. Just because WoW is a stat treadmill that doesn’t make it logical or desirable in any way.

If anything, I tend to feel overpowered in most zones, and I think downscaling should be a bit stronger than it is now.

I also think spawn rates should be much, much lower in most areas, though. It’s very annoying to see enemies respawn 10 or 20 seconds after you’ve killed them (often popping out of thin air, right on top of you). It’s unrealistic, immersion-breaking, and, makes you feel that all your “work” was in vain.

Yes, here we go again. Whereas I used logic and reason, you fall upon the crutch of using personal attacks “If they are able to perform as well as you when both are scaled to the same stats, then either he’s very good or you’re very bad”. Go solo two veteran egg laying karkas at the same time. Tank the champion. I’ve done both.

Come now, surely you can see that even if I didn’t have skill (which any player has the opportunity to gain, I might add), it wouldn’t even change the fact that theres no legitimate reason to get rid of the power that we earned by leveling.

That is called a logical fallacy when you use completely unrelated truths to support your argument. It makes it so that people who would debate end up either laughing and/or not bothering arguing with you because its trivial.

Do I bother debating with cats? No.

That level 1 player can hope to close some of the gap using skill but not all of it. Thats why levels exist at all. The compromise is there to provide a midpoint and give the player a chance. Not equal ground. If they want equal ground, they simply level to 80, which I might remind you isn’t the most difficult task.

Your second paragraph on rewards and farming has already been covered and I already stated that the economy is bad off and level 80 players -shouldn’t- be encouraged to farm them. The economy already had a drastic increase in the price of lower level mats due to the fact that level 80 players didn’t visit these zones frequently, thus drying the supply. Now that we will get less of those materials when we go back there (and more of the 80 stuff), we will be reliant on the two or three people in that zone to provide the entire supply.

Either way, it isn’t relevant to the issue that lvl 80 players shouldn’t farm, and if anything their new system encourages level 80’s to farm them for rares in theory. Your point made my point, basically.

More or less everything about your point is irrelevant. I can state that the capital of Somalia is Mogadishu but regardless of whether its true or not, it would be irrelevant to the topic.

In other words, don’t bother.

“Leveling” in gw2 isn’t only a way to control player experience. The gear would not exist if that was the case. Point.

If the leveling system merely existed to gate content and nothing else they wouldn’t have had an entire news blog stating that they wanted to INCREASE VERTICAL PROGRESSION upon the release of fractals. We who work on games can understand that people need to feel like what they are doing is rewarding them in some manner.

Leveling isn’t just to gate content, because you can cite hundreds of examples why it has other reasons for existing.

You -should- feel powerful in lower level zones considering (if you completed the story) you have spoilers slain a dragon.

Sahfur.5612:

Your arguments are paper thin, just because stats alone aren’t what makes me powerful doesn’t mean that its not an insult to those of us who earned those stats to lose them. Just because someone else might be able to beat me (plenty of zergs in wvw have accomplished this with relative ease, and of course the culling builds), doesn’t invalidate my argument.

In other words: Big deal? My point still stands. I was one of those that hated the fact that ascended gear could only be obtained through one means. I’ve provided alternate solutions to the problem of having limited methods of obtaining them in several posts (guess what, it was very similar to the system they are currently employing, a scavenger hunt of sorts that can be done in normal pve).

The game was designed for “everyone” in accordance with their mission statement, and so a compromise between no scaling and full scaling was met, and an attempt to break that balance has been made. In other words… no.. full scaling isn’t more “gw2” than the previous compromise. How about that logic stuff?

Try not to talk out of both sides of your mouth. Consistency is key.

And your points have the consistency of whatever happens to be at the bottom of tyrias “water closets”. Vaguely linking my post and misinterpreting it does not substitute for substance.

I have not contradicted myself. There is nothing in that paragraph that contradicts anything I’ve said, nor does it help the argument that further scaling is necessary.

I -literally- just helped two low level players complete their jumping puzzles and the like. The fact that I was higher level than them was a major element in their decision to ask for my help. If gw2 scaling makes it so that lvl 80’s are essentially always the same power level as the players who haven’t bothered gearing up and leveling, I will stop bothering. I imagine many players will stop bothering with zones below level 80 because they will dislike the scaling.

I have yet to see a valid argument on why skill potency has been diminished outside of personal preference, only evidence to support scaling down in general- which is a fine idea in and of itself. However, this is a very specific, very legitimate complaint to a system that provides less reward and weakens your abilities for exploration to lower zones.

This change is one element of the “Oblivion” effect- where just about any encounter feels roughly the same. You never truly feel a form of progression, because the game constantly makes an effort to eliminate any sense of it. A battle with a goblin will feel the same as one with an end-game demon- and so on. There are technically tougher enemies in later areas of the game, yes, but the area in which they feel different is slowly getting thinner and thinner. Essentially, you will be fighting the “same fight” time and time again- and all that will be different is the model and color palette.

I’m not saying there are zero benefits to a system SIMILAR to this with more refined tuning, but if this type of progression continues, the scenario I just described will be a common thing for everyone. And while the novelty of it may, theoretically, sound like a “constant challenge”, any player worth their mettle will easily become bored of it in time due to lack of variety and difficulty. It’s been proven to not be a very enjoyed scaling system in terms of balancing.

Battles should range from easy, to hard, to incredibly tough- not roughly the same given a few enemy spells.

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

…
You really have the chance here to keep the game growing imho, because each zone could be challenging to play. In other games once you’re 80, you have only a few lv.80 zones. I’d rather have it more difficult than a walk in the park to be honest. I see that you want high level players to feel more powerful, but I’d rather see the power come from the skill you got playing monsters.

Low level monsters have simple attack-patterns. When I compare how I play now vs. how I played a few months ago I definitely see improvement. This skill should make me feel more powerful (it does in PvP at least), not too good stats. Now I’m able to out-dodge (is this even a word? ^^) my enemies and that makes me feel powerful. I can engage much more enemies at once.

(btw. I like how you implement some hotspots of strong (bigger packs of) enemies even in the low level zones. It would be great to see this much more, so that people actually (like in the first game) have to look where to go and eventually (for higher zones) plan ahead and dodge too big enemy-packs (if they feel not strong enough).
…

I’m “complaining/asking” for such changes since launch…
Taking the better gear, the less challenging/complex encounters AND the player skill/experience into account, down-scaling has to be way, way more aggressive if it tries to give you a almost whole PvE world as endgame!
Giving better loot won’t change the fact that all the zones are getting too easy most of the time. Yeah, sometimes just relaxing and having a easy time is nice, but…
If the difficulty really can just be handled with down-scaling, then give us a slider to choose our difficulty ourselves.
In general I hope for more challenging events/encounters from level 30+, the previous one can be taken as “learn the combat”… :-)

ThatOneArtistGamer.2914:

…
This change is one element of the “Oblivion” effect- where just about any encounter feels roughly the same. You never truly feel a form of progression, because the game constantly makes an effort to eliminate any sense of it. A battle with a goblin will feel the same as one with an end-game demon- and so on. There are technically tougher enemies in later areas of the game, yes, but the area in which they feel different is slowly getting thinner and thinner. Essentially, you will be fighting the “same fight” time and time again- and all that will be different is the model and color palette.
…

First, I think the down-scaling system is great in theory (but as said in my previous post, it’s not aggressive enough)…

Second, what you say doesn’t really bother me, but even that (Oblivion effect) can be fixed while keeping the whole world challenging/difficult.
Hint: Everything is difficult, but change how to defeat each encounter (type).
So, a fight against a goblin can be similiar concerning the difficulty like a fight against a dragon, but the feeling and the mechanics of those creatures could make the difference…

Sahfur.5612

“I like to feel power as a reward for all that time I spent… gaining power. Duh.
Don’t like feeling powerful? Go to a hard zone or take on something challenging.
I hate the idea of someone who just killed a dragon having difficulty mowing down a bloody worm. We already have our stats scaled down, it was at a good mid point.”

I don’t like too much downscaling, I played the game to get to level 80, to get my armour and weapons.

I don’t want the game to feel just as difficult in a level 5 area as it does in a level 80 area.

As our friend said, I don’t want to struggle killing a couple of worms.

Sometimes I want to do easy stuff, sometimes I want to do hard stuff, not the same whatever area I’m in.

I fully agree, a slider would make sense in every instance of these complaints. Most of the issues players have that causes game changes which upset other players could easily be solved through options. Instead, short cuts are taken. Anet is a good company, and it shouldn’t take short cuts. There are a few options that would fix several issues, make the game more approachable by hardcore AND casual gamers:

If you want a game to appease a wider audience, you should give a wide array of options. Give dungeons a check box when creating the dungeons which gives better rewards and disables zerging.

Implement a difficulty slider which effects scaling.. and optionally even level 80 content. It will downscale you.
Give players a slider for difficulty scaling to determine how much it effects them, using the previous (prepatch) amount as a base and scaling -more- than it does now. I want people to have the right to play the game how they want to, I don’t want their gameplay experience to step on mine. Many games have proven that these features all may exist!

This puts the options in the hands of the player, and like game mods before it.. it pretty much attracts a wider audience and pleases the maximum number of people.

Give us an option to disable UI elements and have a second UI which disappears when not active… full health? No health bar. Lvl 80? No exp bar.

Options are great!

There is however a problem with this, and ANet has stated it in the thread asking for the ability to hide parts of the UI individually..

They think that complexity in these situations is a bad thing, and that the player base is too naive as a whole. They don’t want players complaining about options to support.

Yes, there is a quote on this. https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/suggestions/Option-to-delete-hide-Personal-story-prompt/first#post1209220

Check this thread. I feel it is very enlightening.

Their reason to not add complexity boils down to: They think you aren’t ready for it.

Come now, are you ready for it? What say yah?

@Replect

I understand. There’s just a few contradictions in the current game’s state. I would like to say that there’s challenge in the game, but there isn’t- I don’t even really play this game for a challenge. That’s the point. Most of the enemies in this game have the exact same AI as one another with different skills: rush, burn skills, repeat unless hp = threshold to retreat(only on specific enemies). There is no reason for a goblin to be as strong as a demon or a dragon, as that breaks any type of consistency the story and the game tries to create. I have fought gigantic foes (wurms, robots armed with machine guns and lasers, even dragons) that hardly lay scratches on me and somehow the zombies armed shovels and sharp rocks can take huge chunks out of my health.

There is also the issue with just power progression as a whole- I’m not really for it in the same way many people would like. This would be similar to taking a high ranking special ops and pinning them against a five year old with a spork and somehow getting the same beatdown as if they were fighting seasoned soldiers armed to the teeth on the front lines. I know this is a fantasy game and I can understand the attempt to keep relevance to all players across the board, but the type of “aggressive scaling” (or lack from more details) would absolutely destroy this game in terms of any progression at all if it were to extend to every element of the game.

Now, I would not mind if combat was relatively the same if (and this is a huge if) enemies actually had vastly superior AI and a wider variety of skills. The perceived “skill cap” in this game is so strictly tied to champ soloing and pvp that it’s almost an embarrassment. I really would not care if said goblin took only a two methods of attack to take down while I dragon would take, say, seven or eight- but the game just offers much of an illusion of this so called “depth”. Yes, some enemies later on have higher stats and like to use more conditions, but that generally isn’t something to be afraid of. Under those circumstances, if you in a level appropriate zone, you are WAY stronger than you would be trying to take down a lower zone, you should be using condition removal at that point (making those conditions meaningless), and dodging makes many attacks worthless when well timed. All-together, it’s not that much different already. There is a lot of blending going on.

All in all, I don’t play the game for the challenge, there really isn’t a lot to be had outside of the activities I discussed, unless one is not very avid in platforming- which is understandable. I don’t want to facestomp baddies in one hit, but I would like skill scaling to come back, or at least have the levels mean something. Really, under the argument that “more skill variety = more power” falls flat once you break the elite lock, which isn’t far into the game. From that point on, you should have every skill you need and always have a full set at all times. Previous areas are irrelevant then, unless you absolutely crave the map completion on multiple characters or just need to do dailies.

A slider would be nice for now, but I’m not a fan of the way things are going currently, as I don’t see any practical reason other than a cheap attempt to apply a moderate, stagnant challenge across the board. I still love this game though, and I’ll keep playing, but I don’t think that this is something that needs to be brushed aside.

Sahfur.5612:

Yes, here we go again. Whereas I used logic and reason, you fall upon the crutch of using personal attacks “If they are able to perform as well as you when both are scaled to the same stats, then either he’s very good or you’re very bad”. Go solo two veteran egg laying karkas at the same time. Tank the champion. I’ve done both.

Once you finish masturbating to your own heroic achievements, read what I wrote again. You seem to have missed the point.

I would love to see a developers thoughts about the stuff discussed here. I certainly see that many players (probably treadmill-game players) feel that they have to be overpowered with higher levels while other players like myself coming from GW1 tend to the other opposite.

And here is what I would suggest to please (I think it would) both sides. Correct me if I’m wrong.

People from games like WoW don’t see the PvE-world as “Endcontent”, for them dungeons are the relevant thing and they don’t enjoy the leveling process. Instead they love to rush as fast as possible to max. level.

—> those players usually rush from heart to heart to maximise their leveling-speed. It’s a pretty linear path they follow – the most effective path. You could put all those weak mobs on that path, those players would blow through them and get their level as fast as possible.

Then there are the guys Anet got with their Manifesto. The whole game is endgame. You do all the things you did while leveling when you reach max. level. Well currently this isn’t necessarily true since I had a nice challenge in some parts of the world while leveling; and now there is only challenge in dungeons and very few lv.80 zone encounters.

—> for those people put really challenging content (player scales down to the level of the mobs and fights become difficult) in areas apart from the fast leveling path. We love to explore the world and find hidden stuff, we don’t care about leveling speed or Max.stats that much. For us it’s the journey that is important. Let events be viable again.

… this would be a compromise, the “hardcore-players” rush to max. level without hard-scaling and the “explorer-type players” find those difficult viable content they are looking for everywhere else.

Only problem: explorable players would suffer since they can’t normally play with their low-level friends in each part of the map.

Someone above said: “Now I feel way less motivated to help out low level players that I don’t know, if I can’t do any higher damage or get any good gear/experience out of it- then there’s just no point anymore for many of us. It’s counterproductive to the teamwork element.”
I say: you shouldn’t “help out” other players by onehitting their mobs. Some of them might not like it seeing you griefing their content. Instead you should play along them – on an level maybe slightly above, but not godlike – and feel a bit of suspense yourself. Yes, even YOU should be able to be killed by low level centaurs. Why? Maybe the low level player would manage to save your kitten #8230; Unexpected things make a game fun, if you know how it ends – you can’t die – it gets boring really fast.

@Account: your 6:51 post is something I agree on 100%, really my thoughts too

@ThatOneArtistGamer
As said, I like if even low level areas still have a lot of challenging content for my lvl80s everytime I travel through those areas, so therefore I like that down-scaling system in theory… So here we have different opinions, but I already mentioned that the challenge don’t have to be greated by numbers primarily, giving us more variety in encounter mechanics and AI as you said, this should be the goal.
But this on the other side could effect players that are on the appropriate lvl of the content, not able to handle the situation at that given time.

Currently, you really have to force yourself into specific situations to get any challenge out of the open PvE world (soloing champs, pulling as many mobs as possible), but those still aren’t that fun than real interesting fights would be.

Let’s hope they learn from alle the mechanics they put into the game and can improve those, not just for the absolute casuals that want most stuff putted in their hands kind of free…

Account.9832

Because your performance should depend on your skill, and not on some numbers doing the work for you?

[Wall of Text]

I also think spawn rates should be much, much lower in most areas, though. It’s very annoying to see enemies respawn 10 or 20 seconds after you’ve killed them (often popping out of thin air, right on top of you). It’s unrealistic, immersion-breaking, and, makes you feel that all your “work” was in vain.

I have to agree for about 100 percent with your post!

I always was hoping that the actual existing character level was more to give milestones in your progress that opens new doors for you, without closing those behind you (metaphor)!
I always have to think about that they in the beginning thought about the game having no levels at all, but in the end decided to include that in the game as a progress bar instead of a “power” bar…

There are enough MMOs out there where your level decides which content is worth playing (not from loot perspective, from challenge perspective)… GW2 wants to be different and wants the whole world to be endgame! This won’t work if they don’t evolve/change at least the scaling system…

I got tired of reading the posts full of straw hats and irrelevant info, just so you know. I went to do other things and forgot this existed.

1. I don’t feel I have to be overpowered, I don’t want depth to be determined by “moar hit points” and I don’t want story inconsistency such as champions having trouble hitting worms.

2. Those players didn’t think I was griefing because they -asked- me to help them, they get credit if they hit it first, which I was letting them do.

3. I’m not from WoW, and I explore frequently. I enjoy the leveling process just fine, because I know I will gain power from the time I put in. I, like many players who hate the thought of being nerfed more, have spent plenty of time exploring.

4. The other points on their manifesto were fine but if they continue to add more tiers (which wasn’t in the original manifesto) I want something to show for the huge amounts of time I put into the game other than skins.

5. “we don’t care about leveling speed.” I never said there was any problem with the current leveling speed. I never even said I want to be more powerful. I want something to show for the work I put in, and not for the health and dps of mobs to be cranked up for arbitrary reasons. Do you call swinging your sword more times and spending more time to do the same thing a challenge? I want the things that are a challenge to have depth and be interesting. Taking longer to kill trash mobs doesn’t give you a challenge and it also makes no logical sense when you’ve been killing orrians and dragons. Want a -boring- “challenge” again? Go put on some low level gear. The scaling was fine where it was, it made content such as veterans interesting enough while also not making the player completely broken.

6. Expecting a tangible reward for your hard work other than visual appearance is not “casual”. I still am very unlikely to die against pretty much anything that isn’t a champion and I solo those even after the patch. I am not looking for a challenge by hitting 1 repeatedly. Thats not a challenge, its just boring mechanics. I’d take the feel of power -earned- over a shallow challenge every, single, time.

7. Challenge isn’t achieved through taking longer to kill the mob and making it hit harder. At worst case, with this AI, you can simply kite it.

8. Please, for the love of all things, stay in school. Also, sign up for debate class.

9. I am going to go back to doing things for fun that actually challenge me and don’t just waste my time and make me feel like hard work spent getting gear was pointless.
Feel free to post drivel posthaste. On Y va!

I decided to try this out with my lvl 80 necromancer kitted out with exotic gear. Took it to Queensdale, hit a lvl 8 bandit with Putrid Curse (autoattack power) and did a whole 10 damage each time.

I tried it again with my lvl 38 necro, same bandits, same power, regularly hits for 41.

Downscaling certainly seems to hit higher level characters hard.

Downscaling seems to work ok

Right now, from Level 60 went to Queensdale to do some events and yes, the bandits seemed a little tougher to beat than they were before the downscaling. However I still felt my skills were doing greater enough damage then when my toon WAS at level 5

At the current setting, it seems to be just enough to make you want to pay just a bit more attention and not just spam the auto-attack, and the event that I did a few months ago, suddenly became interesting again

I am not sure how or what level the downscaling happens on your stats ( which is prob why the UI has changed to show you ONLY the downscaled stats at first glance )

Having said that I also hate the idea of feeling that leveling could become , for better or worse, a completely static experience
That apart from the time spent on the keyboard learning my skills patterns, there is very little feeling of accomplishment , in terms of gaining power, from being a higher level

To have champion or heroes is core of fantasy lore and games like this and players like to feel that they have earned that in game in some sense.

As long as that you are able to feel slightly ever more powerful with each level and new armor, it should be ok , but it’s going to be a very tough balancing act for A.Net to get

Otherwise, levelling is just a way to gate content.

A few folks above mentioned GW1. While it is true the level cap was reached very quickly and a lot of the game was at L20 , there are two very important differences

1. in GW1 you still felt ridiculously overpowered in low level areas.
2. Gaining skill points with levels allowed you access to more and more skills and spells which added to the whole feel of being an ‘powerful versatile veteran hero’ – That feeling may be well on its way out in GW2 if they don’t get this balance right , especially because the number of skills and spells are very few in number in comparison

~TNE

Scaling previously worked well and I gave credit to Anet for nailing it. However, it appears they have improved it worse is many respects. I encountered a version of it after the patch on my level 80 warrior doing map completion in Brisban. I almost died to a pack of level 20+ mobs. I have no problem in Orr taking down 5 mobs, why all of a sudden do I have a near-death experience in a level 20+ area.

Very sad to see them improve scaling in the same way they improved dailies…worse.

Please do fix the scaling but don’t get rid of it entirely (as I have seen suggested).

Playing in lower areas is fun and challenging when downscaled. It gives me a reason to go back and explore. It also lets me have some fun with lower level friends, without one-shotting everything for them.

Down-scaling is essential in this game. It’s a major part of what makes it a novelty. I won’t discuss why, just how I think it should be accomplished. The result will be a slight, and I think tangible, difference for higher level characters who are scaled down.

As far as I can tell, stats come from mainly 4 sources:
- Automatic stat addition on level up
- Traits
- Buffs (food, etc…)
- Equipment

Stat improvements on level up follow a well-documented progression. When you get scaled down you should simply follow the curve down to the level you’re scaled down to. You therefore gain nothing from being higher level from this part. (Except that when scaled down, you’re scaled down to the max level of the zone you’re in and the mobs can/will be 0-2 levels lower than you).

Stats from traits should be scaled to your current level. This is currently not the case. When I add +1 to my level 43 char’s first trait he gets +10 power; my level 80 also gets +10 power. Since damage is proportional to power and inversely proportional to enemy defence, and since enemy defence increases with their level, those +10 power at level 43 are worth a lot more than +10 power at level 80. It means the character is being nerfed as they level up (for the same amount of power). This is compensated by having more trait points to spend at higher levels, so you can raise your power (or whatever other stat). Another way to handle this would be to scale what a +1 in traits would effectively give. For example, +10 power at level cap, and +5 power at half the cap. Being scaled down when visiting a low-level area would then simply imply following that curve back down to the scaled-down level. (Current downscaling of trait bonuses may be part of what seems to be complicating things.)
In terms of traits, therefore, a high level char downscaled to level 10 will have higher stats than a real level 10 because they have more trait points to spend.

Buffs from food etc. are then also scaled down, following the buff level curve (since being high level you can use higher level food which has higher level stat bonuses).

Lastly, equipment bonuses depend on both level and quality. We all know there are 6 curves: white, blue, green, yellow, orange, and now pink. Each of these curves has a slightly higher slope than the one before it. Equipment stats can then be downscaled again simply by sliding them down their curve. A level 80 with orange armor scaled down to level 10 would have the equivalent of a level 10 orange armor (which doesn’t exist). Better equipment will therefore also result in better stats when downscaled, compared to a char of that level.

The final result will be that higher level chars will have slightly better stats when scaled down, than a char of that level, because of traits, better quality equipment, and lastly a better choice/variety of skills to use. And, let’s not forget experience in playing their leveled up profession.

PS:
“Sliding down the curve to the current level” doesn’t mean multiplying the stat by a certain fraction, but setting the stat to that point on the relevant curve which corresponds to the target level. For example, a level 80 with level 65 yellow gear will end up with the same stats from equipment, when downscaled to level 10, as a level 80 with level 80 yellow gear, and a level 50 with level 35 yellow gear. What matters is the gear quality (curve) and that its level is higher than 10. (The fact that the level 50 has level 35 gear will penalize them when they’re in level 36+ areas, compared to the other two chars.)

Starting zones should always be way easier than “expected”. If Queensdale at level 1 is as difficult as Cursed Shore at level 80, we have a huge problem.

There may be some tuning needed, but starting zones should never really be “challenging”. Rookies are still learning the ropes.

Raine.1394:

Scaling previously worked well and I gave credit to Anet for nailing it. However, it appears they have improved it worse is many respects. I encountered a version of it after the patch on my level 80 warrior doing map completion in Brisban. I almost died to a pack of level 20+ mobs. I have no problem in Orr taking down 5 mobs, why all of a sudden do I have a near-death experience in a level 20+ area.

Very sad to see them improve scaling in the same way they improved dailies…worse.

Agree…ain’t broken don’t fix it….why “improve” working mechanics when you have a huge amount of little (and big) bugs floating around still ? Heck ! there’s is more than 400 pages here…and even if you close/merged half of it there is still a lot to do…that would be improvement.

The scaling was perfect before. It should not be instituted to be any more debilitating than it is now after the patch.

No more nerfing.

The timing as they plan to create these zerg guild events is -very- telling.

I think whatever changes they implemented on should be reverted back to normal until they can fix whatever is wrong with this. On my other post, I’ve been getting event rewards extremely low for my lvl 80 character (exp ranging from 723 to 4823 compared to what it should be 9.9k and 16k. I feel like these changes are what is also related to the dragon chest not spawning as well.. Obviously, something is breaking here. Also, I would like to mention jormag has not bugged out on me in terms of exp and chest as yet (since its an 80 zone?)

Looking forward to the upcoming tuning for dynamic leveling as the current downscaling is far too weak. It is now possible to receive level appropriate loot from any enemy, but these enemies can be grouped up and mindlessly 1-shotted while these other enemies require you to be awake. High level characters can still rip through enemies before level appropriate characters even have a chance to land a hit on them for kill credit. The downscaling penalty needs to be upscaled.

Wayfarer Foothills Ice Shaman Boss:

People calling in the chat: “it’s up”.
Me: instant port to the nearest WP, running to the boss.
What happened: health dropped in a rapid rate and as I finally was in range for attack the boss went down. It seems the battle didn’t last longer then a couple seconds.

downscaling isn’t working (at least in Wayfarer Foothills). It’s just 1-or-2 hitting enemies. If there is a Zerg around you, it’s even hard to tag multiple mobs. Mesmer GS AoE-Berserker has a casting-time – mobs are dead before I’m able to summon my phantasm most of the time.

Think about “The whole world is endgame!” (Put the starting zones aside. I don’t mind!) and now you say it was good previously?
I don’t comment about the new situation, to less experience collected with that yet, but it seemed to down-scale more, what felt better in my opinion so far.
Getting down-scaling and rewards here right should be the goal if the following content patches in feb/march want to evolve the existing world and fit the words “The whole world is endgame!”…

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

Wayfarer Foothills Ice Shaman Boss:

People calling in the chat: “it’s up”.
Me: instant port to the nearest WP, running to the boss.
What happened: health dropped in a rapid rate and as I finally was in range for attack the boss went down. It seems the battle didn’t last longer then a couple seconds.

downscaling isn’t working (at least in Wayfarer Foothills). It’s just 1-or-2 hitting enemies. If there is a Zerg around you, it’s even hard to tag multiple mobs. Mesmer GS AoE-Berserker has a casting-time – mobs are dead before I’m able to summon my phantasm most of the time.

The Wayfarer problem isn’t a scaling issue. That happened because there’s 200 people doing it from the world event that is happening in that zone at this time. Once the people have that all done MaW will go back to normal.

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

…
downscaling isn’t working (at least in Wayfarer Foothills). It’s just 1-or-2 hitting enemies. If there is a Zerg around you, it’s even hard to tag multiple mobs. Mesmer GS AoE-Berserker has a casting-time – mobs are dead before I’m able to summon my phantasm most of the time.

Such things even still happen in Orr… I was there yesterday and did a few “Defend Events” (those with Risen chicken and stuff) and I wasn’t really able to get any credit for those waves as warrior. Everything was down after 1 second when “Invulnerable” was gone… So, it’s not even a problem of down-scaling alone I would say…

Reaver.9256:

The Wayfarer problem isn’t a scaling issue. That happened because there’s 200 people doing it from the world event that is happening in that zone at this time. Once the people have that all done MaW will go back to normal.

I haven’t seen more than 20 people participating at this event – and shouldn’t those big Meta-Events scale from 10 to up to 100 players?

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

Wayfarer Foothills Ice Shaman Boss:

People calling in the chat: “it’s up”.
Me: instant port to the nearest WP, running to the boss.
What happened: health dropped in a rapid rate and as I finally was in range for attack the boss went down. It seems the battle didn’t last longer then a couple seconds.

downscaling isn’t working (at least in Wayfarer Foothills). It’s just 1-or-2 hitting enemies. If there is a Zerg around you, it’s even hard to tag multiple mobs. Mesmer GS AoE-Berserker has a casting-time – mobs are dead before I’m able to summon my phantasm most of the time.

That’s no difference to Orr – when/if there are enough human players around. Do what I do and visit said Shaman early in the morning or late in the night when it is 3 or 4 human players. My D/D Ele REALLY has a tough time with the ice elementals at the portals … I actually enjoy the change so far. Things got a bit tougher but not too much – there might be one or two areas that need tweaking but in general it’s OK.

For those who expect downleveling to convert Queensdale to Orr … epic logic fail on your part. If Queensdale WOULD actually become like Orr I’d like Oricalcum and gossamer from said mobs, please … ^^

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

Reaver.9256:

The Wayfarer problem isn’t a scaling issue. That happened because there’s 200 people doing it from the world event that is happening in that zone at this time. Once the people have that all done MaW will go back to normal.

I haven’t seen more than 20 people participating at this event – and shouldn’t those big Meta-Events scale from 10 to up to 100 players?

If that’s the truth(20 people) then maybe your server is bugged or you’re having some serious culling issues. I know for a fact it scales well for 20 people and the boss takes a few minutes with that few people. Are you on the lowest population server there is? Just asking cause I haven’t seen less than 100-200 people at that event since this new world event in the zone.

You mean not just new events, also the existing events are going to get improved in scaling (numbers)? In all zones, not just high level ones? Word!

I’m all for it! Thanks for the update…

Jeffrey Vaughn.1793:

Right now the events only scale to 20 (and the number of spawns caps at scale 10 so the area doesn’t get flooded). One of the things we’ll be doing over the next few months is adding support for much higher scales—so veterans and champions will start showing up at very high scales, or they’ll gain new skills, etc.

Now this sounds pretty much like the things we heard before release, I’m so happy that you still follow that same goal. I’m really exited now… can’t wait to experience actually equally difficult (= hopefully challenging) encounters. I totally get it that the game is huge and you are only so many people and can’t work at anything at the same time, I just needed to hear this to keep hope up. You’ve done a great work at bringing people together, events are all about cooperation…

…still sometimes I didn’t enjoy seeing other players as they simply trivialize the event I’m doing here and there. Nice to hear that you realize this and plan to adress it.

Edit: I love the new champion-skills from this one boss in Orr – the charge. Bring it on Anet, bring it on