I can live with it, but I don't really like it. I've experienced sidekicking in other games, and imo the pros outweigh the cons: I was able to play with friends who simply had more spare time and had leveled faster, wich provided a freedom of gameplay.
I never felt that it ruined content for me, I still wanted to visit areas and dungeons while leveling up.
I'm kinda sceptic about the explanation they gave, it has a fishy smell to it, a rationalising excuse because it contradicts earlier statements they made that told about how positive sidekicking feature was: I get the feeling that for whatever reason they weren't able to make it work right, and that's why they backed off of a feature they had formerly stated would be ingame.
The reason they gave, well, that argument was equally valid when they first announced the sidekicking feature yet back then it was no problem to them. So I don't think that was the real reason for them withdrawing this feature.
Umm Serelisk, I just offered you that explanation....
It divides the population if you allow smurfs to get power-leveled in end-game areas with potentially unbalanced R-v-R mobs that can be exploited for faster XP when the leveling Curve math doesn't convert properly...
The leveling curve is flat. So I don't understand what conversion needs to be taken into account. As well as this same issue being applicable for people leveling down.
Potentially unbalanced RvR mobs? There's still upscaling in WvW to 80. o.o...
Please be more explicit and clear in your definitions and analogies. I don't have experience with this system as it worked in EQ2 or CoH, but I'm confident in it's original intention for GW2. It was to allow friends to play together.
Maybe the fact that at lower levels you simply do not have access to the skills required for higher areas. You don't even unlock elite skills until level 30. Then you have traits which is another issue. It's possible that higher level events, dungeons and mobs are balanced around the fact that you have all of your weapon skills and traits and at least one elite skill.
Think about it, how well would you perform in GW1's Underworld if you only had access to the starting skills, even if you were level 20.
Alright so apparently they just want to ensure the game is challenging for everyone and won't be exploited lol.
I mean that's pretty much just it, not really complex.
That's a very reasonable concern. I want the game to be challenging for everyone too.
However, since allowing players to upscale has little impact on either of the mentioned problems, as I understand it, it's weird to me so many people are glad to see this feature go.
It was mentioned earlier that it would have little impact on those who choose not to use it, so why not allow it for people who do want to?
Good. Allowing sidekicking up was way too abuseable. I, for one, will not miss the level 10 gold farmers in level capped areas--and effectively forcing their way into a group with you because that's how dynamic events work. To avoid stuff like that, they'd have had to make a huge mess of loot tables to the degree that sidekicking up becomes pretty much pointless, at which point, you might as well just remove it entirely.
Potentially unbalanced RvR mobs? There's still upscaling in WvW to 80. o.o...
Didn't say RVR, I said R-v-R. Risk-versus-Reward.
Originally posted by Serelisk
Potentially unbalanced RvR mobs? There's still upscaling in WvW to 80. o.o...
Please be more explicit and clear in your definitions and analogies. I don't have experience with this system as it worked in EQ2 or CoH, but I'm confident in it's original intention for GW2. It was to allow friends to play together.
Okay then you never experienced it first hand so you're not familiar with the Fallout of it and the fact that COH also flattened their supposed leveling curve yet the situation only got worse after purple IO's were added...
You haven't seen it in action so you are resisting all explanations on why it is still abuseable...
No wonder guild wars is looking like such a carebear title.
The amount of people who actually dont see the difference between getting boosted up and boosted down is actually rather sad.
I dont even know why areanet even thought about the idea of giving players the ability to skip content. If you can scale up then why bother, why have levels, why not just make everything do able at level 1 and you can just set your level before you get to the zone.
Quotations Those Who make peaceful resolutions impossible, make violent resolutions inevitable. John F. Kennedy
Life... is the shit that happens while you wait for moments that never come - Lester Freeman
Lie to no one. If there 's somebody close to you, you'll ruin it with a lie. If they're a stranger, who the fuck are they you gotta lie to them? - Willy Nelson
I'm a bit disappointed by this announcement as well. A higher level can still join lower level friends, be scaled down properly and recieve loot/xp in line with their true level, so friends of differing levels can still play together.
"Side-kicking" seemed like a poor choice of terminology, originally, because it was a lot more than a side-kicking system. Now, it doesn't even offer actual side-kicking, which makes it an even poorer term for what the game does with level scaling. I wonder what happened to drive this off the rails of the original feature design? (I was wondering how they were going to handle having multiple loot tables for higher level content, maybe that ended up being one of the issues).
Aside from the loss of a cool feature for bringing friends and guild mates together, I'm now worried about power leveling in GW2. The side kicking system always ensured you got proper loot/xp for your true level. Now, if a high level player helps a lower level player complete content above the lower level character's level, will that character be able to get better XP and loot than they could achieve playing content at or below their true level? This has to be a concern now. (I seem to remember a Yogscast video from the first press beta where they appeared to be getting a "power leveling" effect by tagging along with a group of higher level characters for content they would never have been able to do on their own. This could be bad for the game if so).
It's not a big deal in the greater context of the game, but it is an issue, more so if it ends up incidentally enabling power leveling that the side kicking system would have otherwise prevented.
^ Well you can't go up in level that's what they decided. So your whole complaint is utterly pointless.
Personally I like how the system is now.. where if you go to low leve content you get scaled down. If you want to play with your friends you still can. But they have to come to you.. you shouldn't go to them. That make no sense. And since they scale down they will still recieve exp ect.. win/win.
Umm Serelisk, I just offered you that explanation....
It divides the population if you allow smurfs to get power-leveled in end-game areas with potentially unbalanced R-v-R mobs that can be exploited for faster XP when the leveling Curve math doesn't convert properly...
The leveling curve is flat. So I don't understand what conversion needs to be taken into account. As well as this same issue being applicable for people leveling down.
Potentially unbalanced RvR mobs? There's still upscaling in WvW to 80. o.o...
Please be more explicit and clear in your definitions and analogies. I don't have experience with this system as it worked in EQ2 or CoH, but I'm confident in it's original intention for GW2. It was to allow friends to play together.
Maybe the fact that at lower levels you simply do not have access to the skills required for higher areas. You don't even unlock elite skills until level 30. Then you have traits which is another issue. It's possible that higher level mobs are balanced around the fact that you have all of your weapon skills and traits and at least one elite skill.
Think about it, how well would you perform in GW1's Underworld if you only had access to the starting skills, even if you were level 20.
Very understandable, and that makes sense. I was also wondering about this the very first time they anounced this system, but ultimately decided that I would be okay with it. They wouldn't need to balance the way those encounters were designed or cater to the players who may have upscaled. Those players would be running the risk of facing content that's above their level by mere factor that they're taking on content above their level.
I reasoned that if they truly wanted to play with their friends, they could make up for the difference in ability with their skills while playing and not the traits or utilities that they brought along. While an integral part of the game, the fact that they made the actual in-fight mechanics much more in-depth would have accounted for their outclassed level and made the content playable to those who really wnated to challenge.
I think this is better than just not having the option at all. Because that's exactly what it is, options.
No wonder guild wars is looking like such a carebear title.
The amount of people who actually dont see the difference between getting boosted up and boosted down is actually rather sad.
I dont even know why areanet even thought about the idea of giving players the ability to skip content. If you can scale up then why bother, why have levels, why not just make everything do able at level 1 and you can just set your level before you get to the zone.
Its for the PvPers mostly. But leveling unlocks stuff too.
And there is still stuff to unlock and gain exp from in PvE, so I guess you need levels there.
Potentially unbalanced RvR mobs? There's still upscaling in WvW to 80. o.o...
Didn't say RVR, I said R-v-R. Risk-versus-Reward.
Originally posted by Serelisk
Potentially unbalanced RvR mobs? There's still upscaling in WvW to 80. o.o...
Please be more explicit and clear in your definitions and analogies. I don't have experience with this system as it worked in EQ2 or CoH, but I'm confident in it's original intention for GW2. It was to allow friends to play together.
Okay then you never experienced it first hand so you're not familiar with the Fallout of it and the fact that COH also flattened their supposed leveling curve yet the situation only got worse after purple IO's were added...
You haven't seen it in action so you are resisting all explanations on why it is still abuseable...
As far as I can tell, you're the only person to introduce this concern, and I'm not resisting it. I actually wanted to elaborated. You're telling me what DID happen, not how it happened. You explained that this was a mathematical fact of the way these systems worked in CoH, but offered little insight as to how that may apply to GW2. How is this abuse if levels aren't a goal of the game and dynamic events aren't supposed to be done just because they give you experience but because they're actually fun.
I admit complete ignorance on how this system progressed and apparently failed in traditional MMO's in the past, but your explanations give me little reason to believe that this couldn't properly be executed in a game like GW2 where there isn't nearly as much emphasis placed on levels.
Umm Serelisk, I just offered you that explanation....
It divides the population if you allow smurfs to get power-leveled in end-game areas with potentially unbalanced R-v-R mobs that can be exploited for faster XP when the leveling Curve math doesn't convert properly...
The leveling curve is flat. So I don't understand what conversion needs to be taken into account. As well as this same issue being applicable for people leveling down.
Potentially unbalanced RvR mobs? There's still upscaling in WvW to 80. o.o...
Please be more explicit and clear in your definitions and analogies. I don't have experience with this system as it worked in EQ2 or CoH, but I'm confident in it's original intention for GW2. It was to allow friends to play together.
Maybe the fact that at lower levels you simply do not have access to the skills required for higher areas. You don't even unlock elite skills until level 30. Then you have traits which is another issue. It's possible that higher level mobs are balanced around the fact that you have all of your weapon skills and traits and at least one elite skill.
Think about it, how well would you perform in GW1's Underworld if you only had access to the starting skills, even if you were level 20.
Very understandable, and that makes sense. I was also wondering about this the very first time they anounced this system, but ultimately decided that I would be okay with it. They wouldn't need to balance the way those encounters were designed or cater to the players who may have upscaled. Those players would be running the risk of facing content that's above their level by mere factor that they're taking on content above their level.
I reasoned that if they truly wanted to play with their friends, they could make up for the difference in ability with their skills while playing and not the traits or utilities that they brought along. While an integral part of the game, the fact that they made the actual in-fight mechanics much more in-depth would have accounted for their outclassed level and made the content playable to those who really wnated to challenge.
I think this is better than just not having the option at all. Because that's exactly what it is, options.
The issue is that because of the way events scale with the amount of people participating, a low level sidekicked player, who can't pull his own weight, has the potential to ruin the event for other players.
If there are 20 people doing an event, then the event is scaled to be challenging for 20 people. If 2 of those people are useless, you have 18 people doing an event made for 20 people.
^ Well you can't go up in level that's what they decided. So your whole complaint is utterly pointless.
Personally I like how the system is now.. where if you go to low leve content you get scaled down. If you want to play with your friends you still can. But they have to come to you.. you shouldn't go to them. That make no sense. And since they scale down they will still recieve exp ect.. win/win.
/facepalm
My complaint isn't pointless because this thread isn't me protesting to get it re-implemented into the game, rather, it is to discuss what people feel about this.
Why shouldn't you be able to go to them and be able to play a cool dynamic event your friend discovered though he's higher level than you? That is a barrier of players playing together. That is not a win to me.
Umm Serelisk, I just offered you that explanation....
It divides the population if you allow smurfs to get power-leveled in end-game areas with potentially unbalanced R-v-R mobs that can be exploited for faster XP when the leveling Curve math doesn't convert properly...
The leveling curve is flat. So I don't understand what conversion needs to be taken into account. As well as this same issue being applicable for people leveling down.
Potentially unbalanced RvR mobs? There's still upscaling in WvW to 80. o.o...
Please be more explicit and clear in your definitions and analogies. I don't have experience with this system as it worked in EQ2 or CoH, but I'm confident in it's original intention for GW2. It was to allow friends to play together.
Maybe the fact that at lower levels you simply do not have access to the skills required for higher areas. You don't even unlock elite skills until level 30. Then you have traits which is another issue. It's possible that higher level mobs are balanced around the fact that you have all of your weapon skills and traits and at least one elite skill.
Think about it, how well would you perform in GW1's Underworld if you only had access to the starting skills, even if you were level 20.
Very understandable, and that makes sense. I was also wondering about this the very first time they anounced this system, but ultimately decided that I would be okay with it. They wouldn't need to balance the way those encounters were designed or cater to the players who may have upscaled. Those players would be running the risk of facing content that's above their level by mere factor that they're taking on content above their level.
I reasoned that if they truly wanted to play with their friends, they could make up for the difference in ability with their skills while playing and not the traits or utilities that they brought along. While an integral part of the game, the fact that they made the actual in-fight mechanics much more in-depth would have accounted for their outclassed level and made the content playable to those who really wnated to challenge.
I think this is better than just not having the option at all. Because that's exactly what it is, options.
The issue is that because of the way events scale with the amount of people participating, a low level sidekicked player, who can't pull his own weight, has the potential to ruin the event for other players.
If there are 20 people doing an event, then the event is scaled to be challenging for 20 people. If 2 of those people are useless, you have 18 people doing an event made for 20 people.
ArenaNet has a system that tracks just how much this person participates. If he's at bronze participation, then the player's likely not adding much to the DE. Also, don't forget that they're not inherently useless by nature of them being lower than the content they're taking on.
Suppose the player's level 39 with a full build including an elite. They get a base statistical increase in power so they could be very useful in most fights, since, again, a lot more of the emphasis is on how well you play your character during the fight.
No wonder guild wars is looking like such a carebear title.
The amount of people who actually dont see the difference between getting boosted up and boosted down is actually rather sad.
I dont even know why areanet even thought about the idea of giving players the ability to skip content. If you can scale up then why bother, why have levels, why not just make everything do able at level 1 and you can just set your level before you get to the zone.
The side kicking system adjusts loot and XP to match your true level, rather than the level of the content. This is what enables the entire game to be "endgame", since you never outlevel content and you aren't significantly penalized for doing under-level content.
Side-kicking up with a friend, with your loot/XP adjusted for your true level, would never have resulted in you "skipping" content, because content you "skip" will be viable for you even if you outlevel it before experiencing it. It just would have allowed you to join your higher level friend for content, rather than the higher level character always having to return to lower level content to play with lower level friends.
The change isn't a big deal, but it is still a small step backwards for the game design. (It may indeed be the correct decision, for technical reasons or due to issues that were revealed during testing, so my disappointment is more personal than a disappointment in Arenanet for dropping a feature. I tend to level faster than my friends because I play more and was looking forward to occassionally having a friend side kick up with me).
Good. Allowing sidekicking up was way too abuseable. I, for one, will not miss the level 10 gold farmers in level capped areas--and effectively forcing their way into a group with you because that's how dynamic events work. To avoid stuff like that, they'd have had to make a huge mess of loot tables to the degree that sidekicking up becomes pretty much pointless, at which point, you might as well just remove it entirely.
Players got loot equivalent to their level, same as still currently is in WvW. You don't just get level 80 gear you can't use yet and the amount of gold that would go with it.
And sidekicking up didn't happen automatically in PVE, it required being sidekicked up to another player manually.
"Gamers will no longer buy the argument that every MMO requires a subscription fee to offset server and bandwidth costs. It's not true you know it, and they know it."-Jeff Strain, co-founder of ArenaNet, 2007
I'm a bit saddened by this. Even though my friends may not play this game, normally when I level up in an MMO my friends become scattered across the level brackets. They don't want to go back and do content below their level to help eachother out. While sidekicking down and transmogrification will help interest higher leveled players to go help lower levels, I thought sidekicking up would have been more effective in doing that.
Is there any information on what kind of reward players get for joining a dungeon while sidekicked down?
ArenaNet has a system that tracks just how much this person participates. If he's at bronze participation, then the player's likely not adding much to the DE. Also, don't forget that they're not inherently useless by nature of them being lower than the content they're taking on.
Suppose the player's level 39 with a full build including an elite. They get a base statistical increase in power so they could be very useful in most fights, since, again, a lot more of the emphasis is on how well you play your character during the fight.
No one but ArenaNet knows for sure how that system works. It may not scale the event based on the player's gold, silver or bronze participation, it may simply scale the event based on whether or not the person is participating.
Another issue is the fact that a new player may not know how to play the class effectively enough to pull his or her weight in higher level events.
Lastly, there are more lower level zones than there are higher level ones. A few months after the game launches, if the majority of players are in higher level zones with their sidekicked friends, who's going to play with the newbies? You're looking at the same "top heavy" issue that a lot MMOs are facing, something that sidekicking down will help alleviate and sidekicking up may make worse.
Since December, when the more extensive beta begun, I can't remember any important iteration that I deemed was better. I think in general they just added some limitations to playstyle and grouping.
The new trait system with more "permanence" + time and money sink; the new death penalty (time and money sink, the unpleasant "fanservice"); now no scaling up, which puts more emphasis on vertical progression, and leaves less content that players of different levels can do together; the expanded cash shop - it looks like ArenaNet is, little by little, trying to close the gap a bit and bring the game closer to the traditional MMORPGs and their fans.
I can't really blame them, since there's a lot of money in it.
I'm also starting to think that most MMORPG players don't want substantial changes within the genre. A pity for those who do, I guess.
At least that means the majority of players will probably be happy with the change.
If ArenaNet decided to add some other "standard" features like mounts and raids, the potential playerbase would become even larger.
For me, leveling as a main feature makes for boring/limited gameplay, same as (other) forced time sinks, so I hope from here on there will be no additional changes that would place a greater significance on levels and obligatory sinks.
I'm sure GW2 will still offer more novelty than most existing MMORPGs (I trust that the developers will try to keep the core concepts in one way or another), and I think it will be a good game, but I'm sensing a trend here that I don't particularly like.
ArenaNet has a system that tracks just how much this person participates. If he's at bronze participation, then the player's likely not adding much to the DE. Also, don't forget that they're not inherently useless by nature of them being lower than the content they're taking on.
Suppose the player's level 39 with a full build including an elite. They get a base statistical increase in power so they could be very useful in most fights, since, again, a lot more of the emphasis is on how well you play your character during the fight.
No one but ArenaNet knows for sure how that system works. It may not scale the event based on the player's gold, silver or bronze participation, it may simply scale the event based on whether or not the person is participating.
Another issue is the fact that a new player may not know how to play the class effectively enough to pull his or her weight in higher level events.
Lastly, there are more lower level zones than there are higher level ones. A few months after the game launches, if the majority of players are in higher level zones with their sidekicked friends, who's going to play with the newbies? You're looking at the same "top heavy" issue that a lot MMOs are facing, something that sidekicking down will help alleviate and sidekicking up may make worse.
But who says they're inherently going to be playing in higher level zones just because they have that ability to be sidekicked up. All dynamic events, according to Arena net, are designed to be enjoyable. You should be seeking them out or joining in on them because they're fun and exciting, no matter what the level. I've seen DE's I'd already like to repeat at level 10.
To me, it seems they would be throwing off that balance by allowing only one direction of scaling. There won't be many people to tackle those awesome meta events at end game if everyones playing lower level content. However, this is simple speculation and I think you raised a valid point with the scaling. However, I don't believe increasing the difficulty of events and assuming these people can't pull their weight in events that're higher leveled is reason to not have it as an available feature. :x
I do want to add something on the bright side of this. If this map is right http://i44.tinypic.com/5edcfn.png then of the 25-26 world zones, there are five for level 1-15 and four for 15-25 and then it's after that where it starts funneling down into only two leveling paths.
If GW2 is really as big as GW1 and all three of its expansions combined, there will still be a lot of content to play with people in the open world, not even counting WvW, joining them on their personal story, structured PVP and minigames. Probably won't be 1.5 GW expansions worth since there's no lowbie dungeons, but still pretty significant.
Thinking about this change more, I wonder if there are other reasons for removing the feature. For one thing, waypoints. The higher level player will have gradually unlocked waypoints by working their way through all the zones. In order to sidekick someone to a higher level zone, they would need to escort that person all the way to where they needed to go on foot. Perhaps they felt like that was something they wanted to avoid. While there still can be situations where a higher level player doesn't have a waypoint to join a lower player (different race's newbie zones), it's still a lot easier for them to get there due to city Asura gates.
Another thing related to this is that the personal story is designed to progress you through the different zones of the game and doing DEs as you go. Unlocking a bunch of waypoints on your escort run to the higher level zone I think could really put a damper your experience when you do go progress the story for real.
I might be stretching here, but there could also be an issue of confusion about waypoints. If there's no sidekicking up, then every waypoint you unlocked is one you reached on your own and thanks to sidekicking down will be doable content if you decide to port to it. If someone escorts you, then it might take some trial and error to find out where you can go.
"Gamers will no longer buy the argument that every MMO requires a subscription fee to offset server and bandwidth costs. It's not true you know it, and they know it."-Jeff Strain, co-founder of ArenaNet, 2007
Originally posted by Eir_S I agree with other people in this thread, I never thought that much of sidekicking up, I'd almost completely forgotten it existed. The excitement came from sidekicking down to me. I wouldn't want to be tempted to go and see level 80 content when I haven't earned it.
I could see that. But at the same time, it would have been pretty cool if you were playing with some friends all the same level and you could reroll and join back up with them right where you were with your other character. SWG did this and it was fantastic.
I sit on a man's back, choking him and making him carry me, and yet assure myself and others that I am very sorry for him and wish to ease his lot by all possible means - except by getting off his back.
I personally prefer it without sidekicking up. And I like that you can sidekick down.
That level 60 can still play with the level 30. He just has to do level 30 content. But he will be scaled down and they can still play together.
yeah i kind of like more this the one way sideckick. It makes more sense to be sidekicked down to play with your low lvl friends than being sideckicked up and skip all the low level world
As per your op you mentioned Anet saying they would have the upscale feature available. I agree, they did. As per your op you mentioned that
"I don't think i'm alone in thinking that this goes against one of ArenaNet's core philosophies for gameplay, which is that there should be very few barriers for friends to play together"
And although i agree with this, i think you might be focused on this one point too strongly. Anet has several core philosophies which are laid out in their manifesto among other places (ie, blog posts and interviews) and here is one of their ideas on game mechanics
"When a player is defeated, and not just downed, a random piece of their armor will be damaged. When a piece of armor is damaged, it imparts no penalty but serves as a warning. If a player is defeated while all of their armor is damaged, then a random piece of armor will break. When armor breaks, it ceases to provide any benefit to the player and must be repaired by visiting an armor-repair NPC in town. This NPC will charge a small sum of coins to repair any broken pieces of armor, and will repair any damaged armor as well. Having thus transferred the coin cost to the armor-repair NPC, we removed the multiplier on the cost of traveling to a waypoint when defeated."
Once you take armor out of the equation, it totally negates this penalty since their stats are boosted to make up for the lack of level. The upscaling has then eliminated Anet's philosophy that
“When a player is defeated, it’s important for there to be some sort of penalty associated with the defeat.…”
My take is that i wasn't planning on using upscaling anyway, however once i thought about your post and about the things i have read, i felt Anet, after looking at how this feature worked in actual gameplay, decided that as opposed to negating the effect of death on armor, they decided to remove upscaling.
(all items i quoted were from the Beta Development Update By Eric Flannum February 21st, 2012)
I'm sorry but the only one saying anything about the second coming is you. Fans of a game accept its flaws and strengths.
Comments
I can live with it, but I don't really like it. I've experienced sidekicking in other games, and imo the pros outweigh the cons: I was able to play with friends who simply had more spare time and had leveled faster, wich provided a freedom of gameplay.
I never felt that it ruined content for me, I still wanted to visit areas and dungeons while leveling up.
I'm kinda sceptic about the explanation they gave, it has a fishy smell to it, a rationalising excuse because it contradicts earlier statements they made that told about how positive sidekicking feature was: I get the feeling that for whatever reason they weren't able to make it work right, and that's why they backed off of a feature they had formerly stated would be ingame.
The reason they gave, well, that argument was equally valid when they first announced the sidekicking feature yet back then it was no problem to them. So I don't think that was the real reason for them withdrawing this feature.
Maybe the fact that at lower levels you simply do not have access to the skills required for higher areas. You don't even unlock elite skills until level 30. Then you have traits which is another issue. It's possible that higher level events, dungeons and mobs are balanced around the fact that you have all of your weapon skills and traits and at least one elite skill.
Think about it, how well would you perform in GW1's Underworld if you only had access to the starting skills, even if you were level 20.
That's a very reasonable concern. I want the game to be challenging for everyone too.
However, since allowing players to upscale has little impact on either of the mentioned problems, as I understand it, it's weird to me so many people are glad to see this feature go.
It was mentioned earlier that it would have little impact on those who choose not to use it, so why not allow it for people who do want to?
Good. Allowing sidekicking up was way too abuseable. I, for one, will not miss the level 10 gold farmers in level capped areas--and effectively forcing their way into a group with you because that's how dynamic events work. To avoid stuff like that, they'd have had to make a huge mess of loot tables to the degree that sidekicking up becomes pretty much pointless, at which point, you might as well just remove it entirely.
Didn't say RVR, I said R-v-R. Risk-versus-Reward.
Okay then you never experienced it first hand so you're not familiar with the Fallout of it and the fact that COH also flattened their supposed leveling curve yet the situation only got worse after purple IO's were added...
You haven't seen it in action so you are resisting all explanations on why it is still abuseable...
No wonder guild wars is looking like such a carebear title.
The amount of people who actually dont see the difference between getting boosted up and boosted down is actually rather sad.
I dont even know why areanet even thought about the idea of giving players the ability to skip content. If you can scale up then why bother, why have levels, why not just make everything do able at level 1 and you can just set your level before you get to the zone.
Quotations Those Who make peaceful resolutions impossible, make violent resolutions inevitable. John F. Kennedy
Life... is the shit that happens while you wait for moments that never come - Lester Freeman
Lie to no one. If there 's somebody close to you, you'll ruin it with a lie. If they're a stranger, who the fuck are they you gotta lie to them? - Willy Nelson
I'm a bit disappointed by this announcement as well. A higher level can still join lower level friends, be scaled down properly and recieve loot/xp in line with their true level, so friends of differing levels can still play together.
"Side-kicking" seemed like a poor choice of terminology, originally, because it was a lot more than a side-kicking system. Now, it doesn't even offer actual side-kicking, which makes it an even poorer term for what the game does with level scaling. I wonder what happened to drive this off the rails of the original feature design? (I was wondering how they were going to handle having multiple loot tables for higher level content, maybe that ended up being one of the issues).
Aside from the loss of a cool feature for bringing friends and guild mates together, I'm now worried about power leveling in GW2. The side kicking system always ensured you got proper loot/xp for your true level. Now, if a high level player helps a lower level player complete content above the lower level character's level, will that character be able to get better XP and loot than they could achieve playing content at or below their true level? This has to be a concern now. (I seem to remember a Yogscast video from the first press beta where they appeared to be getting a "power leveling" effect by tagging along with a group of higher level characters for content they would never have been able to do on their own. This could be bad for the game if so).
It's not a big deal in the greater context of the game, but it is an issue, more so if it ends up incidentally enabling power leveling that the side kicking system would have otherwise prevented.
Want to know more about GW2 and why there is so much buzz? Start here: Guild Wars 2 Mass Info for the Uninitiated
^ Well you can't go up in level that's what they decided. So your whole complaint is utterly pointless.
Personally I like how the system is now.. where if you go to low leve content you get scaled down. If you want to play with your friends you still can. But they have to come to you.. you shouldn't go to them. That make no sense. And since they scale down they will still recieve exp ect.. win/win.
Very understandable, and that makes sense. I was also wondering about this the very first time they anounced this system, but ultimately decided that I would be okay with it. They wouldn't need to balance the way those encounters were designed or cater to the players who may have upscaled. Those players would be running the risk of facing content that's above their level by mere factor that they're taking on content above their level.
I reasoned that if they truly wanted to play with their friends, they could make up for the difference in ability with their skills while playing and not the traits or utilities that they brought along. While an integral part of the game, the fact that they made the actual in-fight mechanics much more in-depth would have accounted for their outclassed level and made the content playable to those who really wnated to challenge.
I think this is better than just not having the option at all. Because that's exactly what it is, options.
Its for the PvPers mostly. But leveling unlocks stuff too.
And there is still stuff to unlock and gain exp from in PvE, so I guess you need levels there.
As far as I can tell, you're the only person to introduce this concern, and I'm not resisting it. I actually wanted to elaborated. You're telling me what DID happen, not how it happened. You explained that this was a mathematical fact of the way these systems worked in CoH, but offered little insight as to how that may apply to GW2. How is this abuse if levels aren't a goal of the game and dynamic events aren't supposed to be done just because they give you experience but because they're actually fun.
I admit complete ignorance on how this system progressed and apparently failed in traditional MMO's in the past, but your explanations give me little reason to believe that this couldn't properly be executed in a game like GW2 where there isn't nearly as much emphasis placed on levels.
The issue is that because of the way events scale with the amount of people participating, a low level sidekicked player, who can't pull his own weight, has the potential to ruin the event for other players.
If there are 20 people doing an event, then the event is scaled to be challenging for 20 people. If 2 of those people are useless, you have 18 people doing an event made for 20 people.
/facepalm
My complaint isn't pointless because this thread isn't me protesting to get it re-implemented into the game, rather, it is to discuss what people feel about this.
Why shouldn't you be able to go to them and be able to play a cool dynamic event your friend discovered though he's higher level than you? That is a barrier of players playing together. That is not a win to me.
ArenaNet has a system that tracks just how much this person participates. If he's at bronze participation, then the player's likely not adding much to the DE. Also, don't forget that they're not inherently useless by nature of them being lower than the content they're taking on.
Suppose the player's level 39 with a full build including an elite. They get a base statistical increase in power so they could be very useful in most fights, since, again, a lot more of the emphasis is on how well you play your character during the fight.
The side kicking system adjusts loot and XP to match your true level, rather than the level of the content. This is what enables the entire game to be "endgame", since you never outlevel content and you aren't significantly penalized for doing under-level content.
Side-kicking up with a friend, with your loot/XP adjusted for your true level, would never have resulted in you "skipping" content, because content you "skip" will be viable for you even if you outlevel it before experiencing it. It just would have allowed you to join your higher level friend for content, rather than the higher level character always having to return to lower level content to play with lower level friends.
The change isn't a big deal, but it is still a small step backwards for the game design. (It may indeed be the correct decision, for technical reasons or due to issues that were revealed during testing, so my disappointment is more personal than a disappointment in Arenanet for dropping a feature. I tend to level faster than my friends because I play more and was looking forward to occassionally having a friend side kick up with me).
Want to know more about GW2 and why there is so much buzz? Start here: Guild Wars 2 Mass Info for the Uninitiated
Players got loot equivalent to their level, same as still currently is in WvW. You don't just get level 80 gear you can't use yet and the amount of gold that would go with it.
And sidekicking up didn't happen automatically in PVE, it required being sidekicked up to another player manually.
"Gamers will no longer buy the argument that every MMO requires a subscription fee to offset server and bandwidth costs. It's not true you know it, and they know it." -Jeff Strain, co-founder of ArenaNet, 2007
I'm a bit saddened by this. Even though my friends may not play this game, normally when I level up in an MMO my friends become scattered across the level brackets. They don't want to go back and do content below their level to help eachother out. While sidekicking down and transmogrification will help interest higher leveled players to go help lower levels, I thought sidekicking up would have been more effective in doing that.
Is there any information on what kind of reward players get for joining a dungeon while sidekicked down?
No one but ArenaNet knows for sure how that system works. It may not scale the event based on the player's gold, silver or bronze participation, it may simply scale the event based on whether or not the person is participating.
Another issue is the fact that a new player may not know how to play the class effectively enough to pull his or her weight in higher level events.
Lastly, there are more lower level zones than there are higher level ones. A few months after the game launches, if the majority of players are in higher level zones with their sidekicked friends, who's going to play with the newbies? You're looking at the same "top heavy" issue that a lot MMOs are facing, something that sidekicking down will help alleviate and sidekicking up may make worse.
Since December, when the more extensive beta begun, I can't remember any important iteration that I deemed was better. I think in general they just added some limitations to playstyle and grouping.
The new trait system with more "permanence" + time and money sink; the new death penalty (time and money sink, the unpleasant "fanservice"); now no scaling up, which puts more emphasis on vertical progression, and leaves less content that players of different levels can do together; the expanded cash shop - it looks like ArenaNet is, little by little, trying to close the gap a bit and bring the game closer to the traditional MMORPGs and their fans.
I can't really blame them, since there's a lot of money in it.
I'm also starting to think that most MMORPG players don't want substantial changes within the genre.
At least that means the majority of players will probably be happy with the change.
If ArenaNet decided to add some other "standard" features like mounts and raids, the potential playerbase would become even larger.
For me, leveling as a main feature makes for boring/limited gameplay, same as (other) forced time sinks, so I hope from here on there will be no additional changes that would place a greater significance on levels and obligatory sinks.
I'm sure GW2 will still offer more novelty than most existing MMORPGs (I trust that the developers will try to keep the core concepts in one way or another), and I think it will be a good game, but I'm sensing a trend here that I don't particularly like.
But who says they're inherently going to be playing in higher level zones just because they have that ability to be sidekicked up. All dynamic events, according to Arena net, are designed to be enjoyable. You should be seeking them out or joining in on them because they're fun and exciting, no matter what the level. I've seen DE's I'd already like to repeat at level 10.
To me, it seems they would be throwing off that balance by allowing only one direction of scaling. There won't be many people to tackle those awesome meta events at end game if everyones playing lower level content. However, this is simple speculation and I think you raised a valid point with the scaling. However, I don't believe increasing the difficulty of events and assuming these people can't pull their weight in events that're higher leveled is reason to not have it as an available feature. :x
I do want to add something on the bright side of this. If this map is right http://i44.tinypic.com/5edcfn.png then of the 25-26 world zones, there are five for level 1-15 and four for 15-25 and then it's after that where it starts funneling down into only two leveling paths.
If GW2 is really as big as GW1 and all three of its expansions combined, there will still be a lot of content to play with people in the open world, not even counting WvW, joining them on their personal story, structured PVP and minigames. Probably won't be 1.5 GW expansions worth since there's no lowbie dungeons, but still pretty significant.
Thinking about this change more, I wonder if there are other reasons for removing the feature. For one thing, waypoints. The higher level player will have gradually unlocked waypoints by working their way through all the zones. In order to sidekick someone to a higher level zone, they would need to escort that person all the way to where they needed to go on foot. Perhaps they felt like that was something they wanted to avoid. While there still can be situations where a higher level player doesn't have a waypoint to join a lower player (different race's newbie zones), it's still a lot easier for them to get there due to city Asura gates.
Another thing related to this is that the personal story is designed to progress you through the different zones of the game and doing DEs as you go. Unlocking a bunch of waypoints on your escort run to the higher level zone I think could really put a damper your experience when you do go progress the story for real.
I might be stretching here, but there could also be an issue of confusion about waypoints. If there's no sidekicking up, then every waypoint you unlocked is one you reached on your own and thanks to sidekicking down will be doable content if you decide to port to it. If someone escorts you, then it might take some trial and error to find out where you can go.
"Gamers will no longer buy the argument that every MMO requires a subscription fee to offset server and bandwidth costs. It's not true you know it, and they know it." -Jeff Strain, co-founder of ArenaNet, 2007
I sit on a man's back, choking him and making him carry me, and yet assure myself and others that I am very sorry for him and wish to ease his lot by all possible means - except by getting off his back.
yeah i kind of like more this the one way sideckick. It makes more sense to be sidekicked down to play with your low lvl friends than being sideckicked up and skip all the low level world
My thought is this.
As per your op you mentioned Anet saying they would have the upscale feature available. I agree, they did. As per your op you mentioned that
"I don't think i'm alone in thinking that this goes against one of ArenaNet's core philosophies for gameplay, which is that there should be very few barriers for friends to play together"
And although i agree with this, i think you might be focused on this one point too strongly. Anet has several core philosophies which are laid out in their manifesto among other places (ie, blog posts and interviews) and here is one of their ideas on game mechanics
"When a player is defeated, and not just downed, a random piece of their armor will be damaged. When a piece of armor is damaged, it imparts no penalty but serves as a warning. If a player is defeated while all of their armor is damaged, then a random piece of armor will break. When armor breaks, it ceases to provide any benefit to the player and must be repaired by visiting an armor-repair NPC in town. This NPC will charge a small sum of coins to repair any broken pieces of armor, and will repair any damaged armor as well. Having thus transferred the coin cost to the armor-repair NPC, we removed the multiplier on the cost of traveling to a waypoint when defeated."
Once you take armor out of the equation, it totally negates this penalty since their stats are boosted to make up for the lack of level. The upscaling has then eliminated Anet's philosophy that
“When a player is defeated, it’s important for there to be some sort of penalty associated with the defeat.…”
My take is that i wasn't planning on using upscaling anyway, however once i thought about your post and about the things i have read, i felt Anet, after looking at how this feature worked in actual gameplay, decided that as opposed to negating the effect of death on armor, they decided to remove upscaling.
(all items i quoted were from the Beta Development Update By Eric Flannum February 21st, 2012)
I'm sorry but the only one saying anything about the second coming is you. Fans of a game accept its flaws and strengths.
I wonder what other things will be left out that ANet said would be available at launch???
Bad sign me thinks. Hold off on your preorder folks, what you are most looking forward too might not actually be in the game