So WoW Legion has it to where the areas are leveled to the individual, what do others think about the system? Cause i love it. I feel like it could keep content fresh,
Id really like some updates on classes for Pantheon, and hopefully Hunters dont have boring animations.
There is a serious problem to the idea of 'levelling mobs to the individual'
QUIZ in a story: (to alleviate Boredom)
So we have a world with 10 zones say... in a line from starting town outwards.
Player_1 is in zone 4 ...
Player_1002 is also in zone 4 ...
'Hi Player_1', says player_1002.... no response
'You want to group?', says player_1002 .... no response
Player_1 casts an awesome 'spell of mass destruction' that chips 5% off his 30 x Orc_Chief mobs
Player_1002 casts a tiny damage spell that chips 5% off his single Orc_Chief's hp
Player_1002 inspects Player_1 .... level 99 and wearing robes_of_awesomeness
Player_1002 inspects himself ... level 4 and wearing super_newbie_quest_robes_of_better_than_drops.
Player_1002 blinks to find himself dead! .... no problem, death costs 3 copper.
Player_1002 scratches his head and realises Player_1 trained him!
'Why did you train me?' he says from the 10 feet away where he respawned fully clothed...
Player_1 finally finishes off the last of what must have been 30+ monsters
'OMFG n00b, these are *my* 285 mobs.. any less is inefficient. Now F*** off B4 i train u again'
Player_1 turns his chat off again (default mode) and pulls another 30 mobs...
Hidden in this mini-story are quite a few 'problems' caused by 'scaled' content.
Can you spot them all? There are more than you would think!
I strongly dislike scaling content to level because it renders the entire process of leveling pointless. What's the point in leveling if your relative power to what you face remains constant? As for WoW specifically, nothing is added in the leveling process from 100 to 110. No talents, spells, or abilities, so whats the difference between being level 100 or being 110?
It makes leveling feel like a time gating mechanic rather than a journey of progression.
patharthon said:I strongly dislike scaling content to level because it renders the entire process of leveling pointless. What's the point in leveling if your relative power to what you face remains constant?
This is my reason for not liking mob level scaling. Levelling needs to something that is a goal and that goal has to provide the player with something that empowers their character in some way.
Besides, who doesn't like visiting a zone you haven't visited for ages (and proved tough when you were of appropriate level) and not having to worry too much about surviving - or indeed, being able to slaughter the inhabitants that were so painful all that time ago.
I don't like the idea of scaling mobs becuase it greatly diminishes the full experience of exploring. Let's take that lvl 4 player char as an example. They don't have to worry about running across a lvl 200 mob becuase...the mob would scale to them. To me, the danger of higher lvl mobs or even just the unknown is a great part of the experience of exploring. I've had it happen in EQ2 a few times. I'd be trolling around and area and..dead. WTF? Oh, that mob was 15 lvls higher then the mobs for the area. Yep, was my own fault cuase in EQ2, the mobs are color coded and if aggro have a red border. I laughed at myself and figured i'd prollly live longer if i payed more attention. As it should be to me.
Like all posters before I don't like the idea of scaling NPC down to the Level of the player. But players could be scaled down to the level of the zone they are in. The stats should be decreased to an average for that level. All higher level spells should be blocked so that they have no advantage vs players who are regular at that level. On the other hand should they have the possibility to obtain XP like they would by killing mobs at their normal level. This should be an option if you want to group with lower level players or like to have the same experience than they have this should be possible, but if you just want to rush through this Zone quickly as a high level player without facing any threat, this should be possible as well.
One; of many reasons with some dumbfounded above, on why I dislike autoscaling is if a zone gives you some problems in lower levels you then won't be able to come back at a higher level and RAIN VENGENANCE DOWN ON THEIR HEADS. I love going back to a lower level zone in which I had died a lot and then just mass slaughter the mobs (I do wait until it is off peak and hopefully no one around at the time so as to not mess with those that are leveling in zone).
With autoscaling you just won't get that same feeling of overpowering vengeance.
Autoscaling can be used positively to re-use regions. What that means is, if a group leader has the option to enable autoscaling for his current group, and also set difficulty, then players can remain in areas or return to areas and either have a challenge or not, at their choice.
This means regions remain viable throughout the life of the game, and multiple level groups can adventure in the same area. Now, it may be that there is a minimum level for an area, so you wouldn't want to optionally scale the content down below that point, for story & lore reasons. But scaling it up, provided loot generation/reward mechanics are done in an appropriate way, has no downside other than open world competition.
As an example, in the fortress we saw in the last video, there could be multiple groups around level 10 in that fortress. If another group level 20 came in, they would steamroll the content, presumably get very little or no XP, and ideally get either useless loot, no loot of any kind, or only crafting materials for their trouble, to prevent bottom feeding, with a 'normal' fixed level content system.
However, if they were allowed to, optionally, dynamically, per encounter, scale that content up to easy, normal, or difficult for their group, then they fight right along side the level 10's (ok, within sight of them) and don't disrupt the normal ebb and flow of open world competition. They get XP and rewards that are level appropriate because the risk is now appropriate.
Then why you would go to a region becomes less about xp & level, and more about regional resources, if loot/reward generation is done right, and is regional. Rewards being things like faction changes, world plot mechanics, regional plot mechanics, and similar. If a regional event (script) wouldn't fire unless an appropriate number of faction positive players were in a region, then this type of mechanic gives players a reason to return. Procedural & personal loot, along with innovative slot augmentation means fixed item looting isn't required. Add in a regional aspect so that from this region you get this type, color, flavor, skew or bias to the loot widgets, and there's no need for bottom feeding, because risk is rewarded.
Finally, it's noteworthy to re-iterate that this entire system is optional, and players could never use it and progress 'normally' and never go back to those old zones and be blissfully happy. :) However, the potential to innovate and forever give a reason to return to a region via other tangible or intangible rewards is pretty attractive, I think, from the perspective of a designer or developer. Compared to having "ghost town" zones with fixed levels, to me, this seems like a positive potential option.
If, on the other hand, the intent of the design is to have empty starting zones, or empty zones between starting and max level, then nothing needs to change. :)
I think the mentoring idea is a good substitute for the scaling down dynamic. If you are a higher level player you can return to the lower level areas to group with friends who maybe started to play the game later- but with scaled down character stats, armor and skills. Or even just to mentor down to help the newbies.
I've done mentoring, and it's ok, but it does suffer from a few problems.
The first and foremost is you can't set yourself to an arbitrary level. You need to have at least one person in the group of that level, which you don't always have, and doesn't let you choose to go back to an area for any reason, but rather, just one reason. Giving more options and choices would be most positive, imo.
The other problem is gear scaling downward instead of content scaling upward isn't ideal. It creates the perception that the helpers are 'weaker'. Also, rewards are, as a result, scaled down, rather than "real level" appropriate, which is less attractive.
However, having mentoring as a third option certainly wouldn't be a problem, I just think it would be less popular than scaling content up so everyone gets to use all their skills, gear, stats, etc, as they currently have, instead.
It seems like it is arcady and problematic for immersion.
In EQ, I could get a lot of xp, and better loot, for killing red cons. (Now MMO's have an xp cap per kill.) Maybe it wasn't effecient, but it was about rising to the challenge. My subconscious understood that these red conned NPCs were tougher than me and I was overcoming the odds. If every mob is my level, how does that add suspense? When I finally killed a Seafury Cyclops, it was an achievement. Also, I liked it that I could revisit Guk with my level cap necro and turn my skeleton pet loose.
Skyrim was kind of immersive. It was immersion breaking that some thieves in a dilapidated cave were the same level as the main dragon quests though. My mind percieved Skyrim as pretend because of stuff like this... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJUAsALGLuM
I can see the other side of the coin: 1. It would take the rails off the game. 2. It would open up the whole world as viably explorable at any level. 3. It would make it easier to hunt with my friends, regardless of level disparity.
For me, scaling is make believe fun, at the cost of rewarding and immersive fun.
A good example of how scaleing seemed like a good idea at first. GW2. It was amazing that you could quest with your friends who were much much lower then you, but then I experienced the train, except it wasn't someone who did it to me, I accidently did it to someone else. On my lvl 80 ranger, with all ascended, I wasn't even paying attention to the new player who was leveling his brand new toon, in a lvl appropriate zone. I just had been so used to running through zones, and not really paying attention. Well to make a long story short, he died, albiet GW2 death penalty is non-existant, but it was really not the point. I got him dead, and I felt kinda bad. Please no scaleing, it ruins the immersion, and causes bad situations.