Guild Wars 2

Morrigan.2809:

I am not sure if it is a matter of gear or traits or a combination.

Certainly my 80 Engi is running around in a mottley of yellow gear between lvl 45-60, she has only 2 exo pieces on her because I am too cheap for fine trans-stones. But she still one shots

My main Mesmer is in full carrion exo..
I never get to use most utilities let alone elites at low level maps.

I am curious what the effect of an 80 in white gear will be- brb- I have to try it out

I will have to try this too. I am also interested in researching the mechanics of level adjustment to try and nut out just why I am finding it so easy.

dagrdagaz.4913:

For the lvl80’s that find starter areas to easy and want it more difficult;
It’s NOT a lvl80 area.
Strip your armor and only use weapon skill 1
Its easier to make somthing easy more difficult than to make something difficult more easy.

I on the other hand like to feel overpowered and 1-shot evryting in starter areas.

This game really needs a Normal Mode and Hard Mode, like in GW1
I nevr liked the extra challenge of HM in GW1, i preferred steamrolling NM

Well, as I said earlier the starter areas are something of a special case.

The suggestion on my part is for all areas of the game to be as hard, or very close to as hard, for downscaled 80 players as they are for players at the zone’s level. This has nothing to do with players at the zone’s level.

As your reply demonstrates there is a division between players who are supportive of this idea and those who feel the way you do.

Remember, real downscaling was/is apparently the design intention if developer statements and pre-release ideals are taken into account.

I think it’s a fantastic design goal. It makes the whole world “endgame” and helps ensure a well-populated world.

Voodoo.1709:

So if they change the way you downscale what happens when you want to run a low level dungeon? People already complain about the difficulty of AC and now you want to make it even harder?

This is interesting because I actually think the downscaled dungeons seem to have a pretty good, or at least some, level of difficulty. Why don’t the zones?

Funset.7893:

I am sorry to say it, but this is just…like your opinion and personal demands, man. I like to feel more powerful in the low level zones. It is fun, in my opinion.
I want to kill within 3 seconds the mobs in 50-79 level zones, should ArenaNet cater to my needs and demands?

This is also very interesting because your comment, along with the contrary replies by players discussing the negative impact they feel they have on low level players when downscaled, and the negative impact they see 80’s inflicting when they play at-level, highlights the design tension which is at issue here. We haven’t really gotten into the whys and whatfors of game design yet.

Why Does Guild Wars 2 Have Downscaling?
Well, without digging up a lot of past blog posts I can only go by memory but I think these are the two reasons:
1) To allow us to play with our friends:
It doesn’t matter what level your friends are, you can bring them to the game and enjoy playing with them. You should both have fun and experience some challenges.
1) To allow us to experience lower level zones at 80
This goal opens up the world map and is intended to keep the game vibrant across all areas. Play should be rewarding for lvl 80 players going back to old zones they never played or going back to an old zone to see what changes have happened since they were last there.

I think these are both laudable goals personally and I think aggressive downscaling needs to be implemented to support them.

Why Shouldn’t Guild Wars 2 Have Downscaling?
Funsets reply, along with others like it, highlights the problem. Players consistently feel that they want to be more powerful in lower level zones. Otherwise, what is the point of levelling? If we have nothing to measure our progress by, i.e. power in lower zones, then why on earth should we bother levelling at all?

I think this is a legitimate question and a genuine issue.

The Design Tension
I think there is a massive tension between the two points of view which I’ve described above. Maybe the devs are already aware of this.
Certainly, to me, I feel the balance has shifted, or was always skewed, too far towards allowing us to feel powerful in lower level zones. Clearly plenty of other players feel differently.

How Could This be Addressed?
Simple, with other indicators/measures of power. Some of these measures we already have, such as aesthetic measures of progress, or access to high level areas which lower level players do not have.

But maybe these alternative measures of power are not enough? Clearly, there are at least some players who are frustrated by downscaling because it makes them feel less powerful.

Can anyone think of some other “non-power in lower level zones” indicators/measures of progress which could be used to reward levelling?

maddoctor.2738:

Mencius.7180:

This has nothing to do with level-appropriate difficulty for players at the zone’s level. It is all about how lvl 80 players are adjusted to lower levels and should not effect level-appropriate players.

You mean you want when you are downscaled to lose your utility and elite skills and also your traits? I don’t get it and don’t want it either.

I really don’t think the utilities and elites have much to do with it. I have a fair inkling that it is the stat boosts from exotic gear, weapons, runes, and full amulets/trinkets.

When downscaled I almost never need to use my extra utilities, let alone my elite, so I think the problem could be substantially addressed through stat tweaks to cancel out all the extra gear.

I’m not sure how much traits factor in to it but I think the +stats from traits could be addressed by tweaks. The actual trait utility skills, I’m not sure those would be a big deal, I don’ t know.

Esya.3427:

I would have to retest that myself to see how consistent it will be from that level onwards. But would it not depend heavily on your build? I play mainly support builds as I have an interest in those, and then it does not feel that much faster on my lvl 80 character. Are you running a high DPS/beserker build mainly?

I agree this needs more testing. I am not running a very high dps build on the 80, a guardian in knight’s gear with a high toughness/precision level. It’s tanky with moderate dps. It would be great to test thoroughly but my consistent subjective experience is that the content is farm more trivial when downscaled than at-level as I’ve described above.

Esya.3427:

So you would like the starter area to be harder for level 80 characters than it is for low level characters if I understand correctly? I don’t think many people are going to agree (myself included).

At level 3, you just about one-shot most mobs too. I understand that this is overall game difficulty, and that you do not want to address that in this topic. However, I feel that the difficulty is quite consistent when I bring a level 80 character to a low level map compared to playing on a level appropriate character. So if you want it to be more difficult for lvl 80 characters in low level map, then you will touch on the overall game difficulty.

I think starter areas should be a special case. I recognise that new players need to learn game mechanics.

Once we get in to discussing level 14+ areas though I think a real gap starts to emerge between level-appropriate players and downscaled level 80 players. So, I don’t agree with you that the difficulty is consistent when I bring my 80 back to those 14+ areas.

I established that just now by testing my level 14 vs my level 80. It was <2 seconds for a kill for the 80 and 7 – 12 seconds for the 14.

Funset.7893:

Killing a level 14-16 creatures on a level 14-16 toon does not take any longer.

Mungrul.9358:

I’d like the game to be just as difficult in Queensdale as it is for the same character in Orr.

You mean, a content designed for players that do not have all their skills yet unlocked, nor their traits (and probably newcomers), should have the same difficulty as Orr? What?

Couple of issues here.

1) Players at the Zone’s Level
Yes, speaking for myself, I would like the game to be at least within 10-15% (sometimes harder!) of the challenge in areas like orr at ALL stages and at ALL levels (except perhaps the starter zone). Anything less is boring, just dull.

This is, of course, relative. So, the content should be appropriately scaled to feel as hard as that depending on the skills/traits/items available to the player.

2) Downscaled Players
When I am downscaled as an 80, or any level in between, in a lower level zone I want to be put in the shoes of those players in terms of challenge.

I want the challenge to be the same, or very close to, the level of challenge I have described above. This shouldn’t affect players AT the zone’s level. It just requires adjustment to my downscaled stats.

I had a post earlier which was deleted, apparently due to something objectionable in the quote, so I’ll just restate without the quote:

Mencius.7180

There are two things here:
Downscaled Content at 80
I find this far too easy as described above and I think it’s a real problem. I’m interested in hearing about other people’s experiences of this. Also,what people think the design philosophy behind this is.

This has nothing to do with level-appropriate difficulty for players at the zone’s level. It is all about how lvl 80 players are adjusted to lower levels and should not effect level-appropriate players.

Overall Game Difficulty
With the exception of endgame areas I find most zones a bit easy and would love to see them be a bit harder – but this is not a huge deal and not really what this thread is about. What I’m really concerned about is the downscaling.

Funset.7893:

Killing a level 14-16 creatures on a level 14-16 toon does not take any longer.

I just tested this on my lvl 14 mesmer and fights took 7 – 12 seconds. I still found it pretty easy but nowhere near as trivial as the same zone on my 80.

In this post I am referring to “downscaled” content which I have experienced as a level 80 character. Simply put, I find it trivial. While fighting in an area with level 14 – 16 creatures I timed how long it took me to kill things and I found that it was consistently <2 seconds. To me that meets the description of trivial.

I was very excited to see some developer comments during past patches along the lines of downscaled content being rebalanced. I am unsure what the goals of this rebalance were if the content is still so easy. This is not an experience isolated to one area or one zone, I find most content below 60-70 similarly easy.

I love the concept of downscaling but, for my part, going to a lower level zone doesn’t play out all that differently in GW2 to most other MMOs . Consequently, my interest in participating in downscaled content is lowered. Personally, I want downscaled content to be within 10-15% difficulty of the hardest zones, curshed shore, orr etc. I like a challenge.

How do other people feel and what do you think the design goals behind downscaled content are? Do other people also find downscaled content this easy?

I should add, I am in Australian time zone, AEDT so any oceanic guilds are a big plus!

Hi Everyone

I recently moved to Tarnished Coast and I’m looking for a guild on that server to call home.

I’m a mature and friendly player, if sometimes a bit quiet. I love playing dungeons, wvwvw, and spvp too. I miss the social environment I had in other games playing with a guild of friends and hope to find some people to hang out with in chat on my new server.

Looking forward to hearing from TC players!

Hi Everyone

I started playing on Sea of Sorrows with a group of friends but many of them are now inactive.

I’m looking for a decently large and active guild to join. I’m interested in all aspects of play, especially dungeons, WvWvW and structured PvP.

I love the social aspects of Guild Wars 2 and would really enjoy getting to know some other players.

Please send me a message in game!

:)

Nurvus.2891:

Introducing a Dungeon Queue should be the last resort.

Yes, I have mixed feelings about a “Dungeon Queue”. I also think it is possible that it can cause a diminished feeling of community when one just teleports into a dungeon. Nevertheless, I don’t hate it and am open to the idea, I almost think it would fit better in GW2 than it did in WoW.

Nevertheless, it’s not actually what I was suggesting. I would be totally satisfied with a functional and efficient LFG tool that just takes care of party creation for dungeons (or for world bosses etc).

The current LFG tool is largely useless, please implement a functional tool to allow us to create and join groups for dungeons.

A secondary issue that makes it very hard to form dungeon groups right now is the “excessive messaging” spam filter.

The only effective way to try to form a group is to put LFG or LFM messages in chat. Yet using these messages quickly results in a messaging blockade from the filter.

When this happened to me it felt almost farcical and just made me want to give up on the game and do something else.

I will try the cache trick.

Kalec – Can you clarify what you mean where you say the HDD is the problem? Is it something specific to the model or do you just mean that an SSD is faster?

Obviously an SSD is faster but 45-60 seconds, or more, of load time seems far too long, even for a spinning disk.

In terms of uploads, I upload at 120 KB/s, while by no means exceptional this is pretty standard stuff.

I have incredibly long load times too, I am searching for a solution, GW2 is running on a defragmented 7200RPM HDD.

My load times into and out of cities are timed at 45-60 seconds which is quite a while to wait.

Please help, is there a way to lower these? Is something else wrong?

I’m not looking for an answer along the lines of “get an SSD” . These load times feel too long, even for a spinning disk.