I love this feature, in other mmorpg i never went back to early areas as it was pointless. In gw2 i spend a good amount of time all over the place.
Its a shame other themeparks dont do the same so you get a good ammount of content to play around with, other games usaly have 1-2 zones your ment to play around with befor an expansion hit and add 1 or 2 new endgame zones
It's because of all the idiots ruining your experience by powerleveling/powerkilling/powernerding with their max-level megachars...
I sorely remember hordes of cretins camping the OP-mentioned hogger just to lol at low level players and feel better about themselves.
The downleveling-system is a buzzkill for oligophrenics and the behavior-impaired who think that by leveling in a video game they achieve something noteworthy.
If you wanna achieve something to be proud of use the "logout"-button. While everyone else is happy to have a challenging and rewarding experience way after they outleveled the zone.
I love the level scaling too - and would agree this is one of the best features of GW2 among many great features.
But, for the sake of argument, I wonder if there would be room for a 'roflstomp' mode using the current overflow server technology, once the playerbase has spread out more and the overflow tech is under less stress.
Personally, I wouldn't want to use this, but I can accept that others may enjoy a little god-moding now and then. The key would be to isolate this from regular players - including those in the overflow. However, we know there are multiple overflow servers from the experience of often never ending up in the same one as friends (fortunately a problem that seems to have been largely fixed now). How about having the option to toggle off the level scaling, but this would force you into a special, isolated type of overflow server populated only by players who have also toggled off the level scaling. You probably wouldn't want to live there very long, but would let those who need to see how far they've come get their fix of god-mode.
Lots of replies, sorry I went to bed, have to sleep eventually ; )
There are a few people that understood what I am trying to explain, and I am glad I am not the only one that feels that way. Also I don't know if I clarified this well, but I don't think the level scaling should be scrapped entirely. It works in GW2, and if it were just purely for a leveling purpose I think I would be fine with it. A previous poster mentioned SWTOR and outleveling content. That was extremely annoying when I played that game because I am a completionist, and yeah even if you did 3/4 of the quests on a planet by the time you started into the last ones they were already gray. Although extremely annoying and stupid, that isn't the fault of no level scaling, but poor design on the development side of the game (among many other problems with that game). The issue I have with it is once you reach say 80.
I don't spend my (limited) gaming hours running around lowbie zones just smashing content, that would be silly. I would imagine the vast majority of players also don't do that, although they might on occasion. The difference is knowing that you *could* do it; you don't do it, and you don't have to prove that you could, but it's there if you REALLY wanted to. It's like when you played games that had cheat codes. As a gamer you realize although it might be fun once or twice, 99.9% of the time you don't want it because you need a challenge for the game to stay fun. I also fit into this category. I like games that are challenging, but I want those challenges to feel appropriate for my character's progression. What I mean is when you are level 1 you get the crummy jobs, cleaning sap off trees, checking crab cages, killing grubs in a farmers field. When you are say 40 I can expect killing evil spirits, invading army leaders, that sort of thing. When I am 80 I want dragons, liches, or whatever Anet decides to throw at me that feels sufficiently powerful/tough. At that point my character has paid his dues and is a hero/champion in his own right. How would you feel if there was a Dynamic Event where you had to help Logan or Eir Stegalkin kill a level 8 champion grub. Say in that event you decided not to help and just watch Logan and the grub duke it out, and the grub won.....You would probably be like "Oh wow, Logan you suck!". The major NPCs of the game are larger than life, and they have a rich history behind them. You would expect them all to have the combat prowess to back it up too. The same applies to your own character too. At a certain point there has to be content that is just beneath you.
Also for the people saying you one and two shot mobs I find that highly unlikely. You might be killing them fast, but one shot has a literal meaning. Keep in mind there are different ranks of mobs. If you are one and two shotting things it's normal mobs. Try to do that to a champion/legendary mob and see what happens. If you still say you are doing that then make a video and post it on Youtube, because I am calling your bluff. Forums are full of internet tough guys.
Level scaling is the stupidies thing to have in an RPG, it kills the immersion and character progression.
It favors FPS and console players that want the same difficulty all the time (i.e. system with no character progression). Level scaling is anti-RPG feature, it was the most hated feature in Oblivion.
Level scaling is a cheap way to balance the game world, in which developers can't otherwise bother with a reasonable level progression. Anet again took the easy way and it's ridiiculous to see that people actually call this an innovation. Incredible.
Maybe not in such strong words, but I feel the same way.
I don't know, I guess I really like the classic RPG design where your character matters more than you do, and its progression is the core of the game in the first place. Like Thillian said, downscaling was my biggest annoyance with Oblivion, and the reason I outright didn't like that game.
GW2 in this sense feels a bit more like a console action game than an RPG to me. And though it does have its share of nice features, I do like RPG in my MMOs.
Ye you can't 1 shot mobs unless you stack s conditions on them first. You can lock a mob down and kill them in a few seconds by quickly rotating through you offensive spells, signets etc. Basically facerolled, but if you get lazy then you can be punished.
rpg/mmorg history: Dun Darach>Bloodwych>Bards Tale 1-3>Eye of the beholder > Might and Magic 2,3,5 > FFVII> Baldur's Gate 1, 2 > Planescape Torment >Morrowind > WOW > oblivion > LOTR > Guild Wars (1900hrs elementalist) Vanguard. > GW2(1000 elementalist), Wildstar
I just went and read that, thank you for the link. I don't know that the information they posted there though really addresses this issue. They mentioned the level scaling once, and just said that it's in place so you can explore and not have the content trivial. What my whole point to this thread is that sometimes content should be trivial.
Lots of replies, sorry I went to bed, have to sleep eventually ; )
There are a few people that understood what I am trying to explain, and I am glad I am not the only one that feels that way. Also I don't know if I clarified this well, but I don't think the level scaling should be scrapped entirely. It works in GW2, and if it were just purely for a leveling purpose I think I would be fine with it. A previous poster mentioned SWTOR and outleveling content. That was extremely annoying when I played that game because I am a completionist, and yeah even if you did 3/4 of the quests on a planet by the time you started into the last ones they were already gray. Although extremely annoying and stupid, that isn't the fault of no level scaling, but poor design on the development side of the game (among many other problems with that game). The issue I have with it is once you reach say 80.
I don't spend my (limited) gaming hours running around lowbie zones just smashing content, that would be silly. I would imagine the vast majority of players also don't do that, although they might on occasion. The difference is knowing that you *could* do it; you don't do it, and you don't have to prove that you could, but it's there if you REALLY wanted to. It's like when you played games that had cheat codes. As a gamer you realize although it might be fun once or twice, 99.9% of the time you don't want it because you need a challenge for the game to stay fun. I also fit into this category. I like games that are challenging, but I want those challenges to feel appropriate for my character's progression. What I mean is when you are level 1 you get the crummy jobs, cleaning sap off trees, checking crab cages, killing grubs in a farmers field. When you are say 40 I can expect killing evil spirits, invading army leaders, that sort of thing. When I am 80 I want dragons, liches, or whatever Anet decides to throw at me that feels sufficiently powerful/tough. At that point my character has paid his dues and is a hero/champion in his own right. How would you feel if there was a Dynamic Event where you had to help Logan or Eir Stegalkin kill a level 8 champion grub. Say in that event you decided not to help and just watch Logan and the grub duke it out, and the grub won.....You would probably be like "Oh wow, Logan you suck!". The major NPCs of the game are larger than life, and they have a rich history behind them. You would expect them all to have the combat prowess to back it up too. The same applies to your own character too. At a certain point there has to be content that is just beneath you.
Also for the people saying you one and two shot mobs I find that highly unlikely. You might be killing them fast, but one shot has a literal meaning. Keep in mind there are different ranks of mobs. If you are one and two shotting things it's normal mobs. Try to do that to a champion/legendary mob and see what happens. If you still say you are doing that then make a video and post it on Youtube, because I am calling your bluff. Forums are full of internet tough guys.
You might not spend a majority of your time doing it, but others may.
So for those folks levelling up, where is the challenge when level 80's come into the zone a smash the crap out of everything?
If you want to use "cheat codes", more power to you, but in an MMO, your cheat codes effect the other players in the game.
Perhaps a-net can make an instance for folks that want to one hit stuff, to feel uber, or whatever point you're trying to make with it, I'm fine with that, as it won't effect others gameplay.
Also for the people saying you one and two shot mobs I find that highly unlikely. You might be killing them fast, but one shot has a literal meaning. Keep in mind there are different ranks of mobs. If you are one and two shotting things it's normal mobs. Try to do that to a champion/legendary mob and see what happens. If you still say you are doing that then make a video and post it on Youtube, because I am calling your bluff. Forums are full of internet tough guys.
Nvm. The level scaling is the best thing to happen in this genre for many people, it's good to have games with different mechanics, there's plenty of games where people can godmode as much as they like.
Wow... you felt you really had to make tread #2 to get your point across?
Plenty of games support your specific preferred playing style. Why do you feel the need to impose your special needs on all of us who actually prefer something different from what you want?
Please post your ingame name so we have a chance to add you to the ignore list. Anyway: Good luck with Anet devs discarding all design principles to support your special needs
We dont need casuals in our games!!! Errm... Well we DO need casuals to fund and populate our games - But the games should be all about "hardcore" because: We dont need casuals in our games!!! (repeat ad infinitum)
the problem is, in this game with Dynamic Events, high level players would either ruin the experience by roflstomping the DEs, or they would power level people like this. The way it is now, their is a progression, but you can't just outlevel all the content and destroy it.
Agreed. Where Anet trys to come off as a champion of this idea of downscaling. Since the game is setup the way it is, they were pretty much forced to do it, otherwise it would be even more of a steam roll. What I've understood though is those that do downlevel (many many levels) are still quite more powerful then a at level character. Sounded as if they needed nerfed more.
Originally posted by GeezerGamer Down leveling is a slap in the face as a reward for the work and effort you put into leveling.
Sorry I guess sarcasm is implied? Please? PLEASE?
"The work and effort put into" a game: Sorry I spot idiocy working overtime here?
We dont need casuals in our games!!! Errm... Well we DO need casuals to fund and populate our games - But the games should be all about "hardcore" because: We dont need casuals in our games!!! (repeat ad infinitum)
Subjective thread is subjective. I do NOT find it fun one shotting mobs, or closing events in 10 seconds at level 50 when they are supposed to take 15 minutes for level 15 characters (RIFT example here with Freemarch zone events). So, as many have stated before, this game was designed for players like me that were tired of the level gap and psuedo "be the hero" bullcrap. Not everyone will enjoy it, because it is a subjective feature.
I think a lot of players used to the way things were will feel that. I don't think it'll break the game for them. I don't mind it. The environment of the world should be dangerous for most anyone despite their level in my opinion.
I think it'd "feel" right in a more sandbox game, but it's not very noticable to me personally.
Originally posted by aionix Subjective thread is subjective. I do NOT find it fun one shotting mobs, or closing events in 10 seconds at level 50 when they are supposed to take 15 minutes for level 15 characters (RIFT example here with Freemarch zone events). So, as many have stated before, this game was designed for players like me that were tired of the level gap and psuedo "be the hero" bullcrap. Not everyone will enjoy it, because it is a subjective feature.
I've seen this particular "one-shotting mobs" thing repeated several times in the thread. Is this a meme of some sort?
As a counterpoint, when I hit 50 in EQ, I went back to visit the level 15-ish Blackburrow dungeon. It was actually quite satisfying to traipse througn a dungeon that had been the cause of so much death (and so many corpse runs). It's fairly bizarre to realize there are people to whom such an emotion is alien.
....but does any one else besides me *not* like the level scaling in GW2? Don't get me wrong, I understand what they were trying to go for. You have the freedom to choose where you want to go to level, and if you are a completionist you can stick around well past the time you would normally have to leave a zone. And on paper it sounds great. When I was following Guild Wars 2 during development I was telling my wife "See, I can still play when you aren't online, but I can go back and help you and we will still be the same level". In practice however I hate it. If it's a feature that every player just absolutely loves then why not make it optional, like a prompt or checkbox? My experience so far is only up to a 33 Warrior, so this may change later. It really feels like there is zero incentive to level, and you don't *feel* like the epic hero of a story. In other games there is a clear metric that you can see your character gaining in power because challenges in the past are now trivial to you. All the explanations that have been given where people defend it say "It's boring to go back and one shot things, go team Anet!". In case anyone has forgotten sometimes it's FUN to do that! If you played WoW for a fair amount of time admit it, you went to goldshire and one shot Hogger and spat on his corpse. And you did it because at that level he was hard, and he may have killed you. It's fun to look back on things like that and say "Look how far I have come". Also for a role playing game it's a huge immersion breaker. You can be 'Rocktar, Slayer of Dragons, Warmaster of the Vigil', but you might be helping your level 13 buddy and get killed by a lvl 14 champion crab.
TLDR: As long as games have new and exciting content at max level for you to do then there is no need to have level scaling, and sometimes it's fun to roflstomp old content, because you earned that "Badass" title.
My biggest problem with it is that the rewards aren't normalized like your level. Meaning that there's little incentive through rewards to go back and help someone out. If you really like the content of an area, sure then you can do it over and over, but if it is in a level 20 zone and you are level 50, your exp, karma, and gold/silver/copper earnings fall off a cliff compared to what you would get in a zone for your level. I really like the idea in theory, but I just don't like how they implemented the rewards. (I'm talking specifically about heart and DE rewards, I know you can get level appropriate drops from mobs).
My biggest problem with it is that the rewards aren't normalized like your level. Meaning that there's little incentive through rewards to go back and help someone out.
My incentives are great on my end. Go back and helping the wife, has incentives well beyond whatever the game itself can give me.
I don't agree with the OP - I find the level-scaling a good thing.
The claim was made by another poster that having level-scaling is immersion-breaking.
I personally find it to be the other way - I've always found it jarring to be able to have a tough but winnable fight with, say, a bear, at level 20, and then come back at level 28 and pretty much one-shot it.
It would be nice to have both play-styles catered for, of course, but one would have to have different instances for the 2 styles and even then there would be an issue re how the reward/loot is determined.
I just can't see the fun appeal in "I'm so powerful; I walk into a level 20 zone at 80 and everything dies in one shot. I just turn on retaliation and watch every mob in an 8 mile radius die. Yay."
Level scaling means I can help my lower level friends level up, AND get meaningful XP. I can go grind low-level crafting mats and still level. I just can't see the downside to that either.
Agreed with this, 100%. I've been playing mmos for over 10 years and never once have I felt some insatiable urge to go back to a lowbie area just so I can effortlessly slaughter an NPC by one shotting it. I can't decide which seems more strange - wishing for lower level content to become completely trivial after I outlevel it, or wanting to "seek revenge" on a lifeless, computer-controlled mob...
Besides, like others have mentioned, even with the scaling, you will still always be considerably stronger when facing lower level content, versus someone of appropriate level for said content, so what's the problem? The scaling seems more like a compromise than anything.
Comments
I love this feature, in other mmorpg i never went back to early areas as it was pointless. In gw2 i spend a good amount of time all over the place.
Its a shame other themeparks dont do the same so you get a good ammount of content to play around with, other games usaly have 1-2 zones your ment to play around with befor an expansion hit and add 1 or 2 new endgame zones
rpg/mmorg history: Dun Darach>Bloodwych>Bards Tale 1-3>Eye of the beholder > Might and Magic 2,3,5 > FFVII> Baldur's Gate 1, 2 > Planescape Torment >Morrowind > WOW > oblivion > LOTR > Guild Wars (1900hrs elementalist) Vanguard. > GW2(1000 elementalist), Wildstar
Now playing GW2, AOW 3, ESO, LOTR, Elite D
It's because of all the idiots ruining your experience by powerleveling/powerkilling/powernerding with their max-level megachars...
I sorely remember hordes of cretins camping the OP-mentioned hogger just to lol at low level players and feel better about themselves.
The downleveling-system is a buzzkill for oligophrenics and the behavior-impaired who think that by leveling in a video game they achieve something noteworthy.
If you wanna achieve something to be proud of use the "logout"-button. While everyone else is happy to have a challenging and rewarding experience way after they outleveled the zone.
M
I love the level scaling too - and would agree this is one of the best features of GW2 among many great features.
But, for the sake of argument, I wonder if there would be room for a 'roflstomp' mode using the current overflow server technology, once the playerbase has spread out more and the overflow tech is under less stress.
Personally, I wouldn't want to use this, but I can accept that others may enjoy a little god-moding now and then. The key would be to isolate this from regular players - including those in the overflow. However, we know there are multiple overflow servers from the experience of often never ending up in the same one as friends (fortunately a problem that seems to have been largely fixed now). How about having the option to toggle off the level scaling, but this would force you into a special, isolated type of overflow server populated only by players who have also toggled off the level scaling. You probably wouldn't want to live there very long, but would let those who need to see how far they've come get their fix of god-mode.
Just a thought, each to his own and all that :-)
Good sir, I believe if you read the official GW2 post you would see the reasoning behind everything you just mentioned. Trust me read it.
https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/the-endgame-reimagined/
Lots of replies, sorry I went to bed, have to sleep eventually ; )
There are a few people that understood what I am trying to explain, and I am glad I am not the only one that feels that way. Also I don't know if I clarified this well, but I don't think the level scaling should be scrapped entirely. It works in GW2, and if it were just purely for a leveling purpose I think I would be fine with it. A previous poster mentioned SWTOR and outleveling content. That was extremely annoying when I played that game because I am a completionist, and yeah even if you did 3/4 of the quests on a planet by the time you started into the last ones they were already gray. Although extremely annoying and stupid, that isn't the fault of no level scaling, but poor design on the development side of the game (among many other problems with that game). The issue I have with it is once you reach say 80.
I don't spend my (limited) gaming hours running around lowbie zones just smashing content, that would be silly. I would imagine the vast majority of players also don't do that, although they might on occasion. The difference is knowing that you *could* do it; you don't do it, and you don't have to prove that you could, but it's there if you REALLY wanted to. It's like when you played games that had cheat codes. As a gamer you realize although it might be fun once or twice, 99.9% of the time you don't want it because you need a challenge for the game to stay fun. I also fit into this category. I like games that are challenging, but I want those challenges to feel appropriate for my character's progression. What I mean is when you are level 1 you get the crummy jobs, cleaning sap off trees, checking crab cages, killing grubs in a farmers field. When you are say 40 I can expect killing evil spirits, invading army leaders, that sort of thing. When I am 80 I want dragons, liches, or whatever Anet decides to throw at me that feels sufficiently powerful/tough. At that point my character has paid his dues and is a hero/champion in his own right. How would you feel if there was a Dynamic Event where you had to help Logan or Eir Stegalkin kill a level 8 champion grub. Say in that event you decided not to help and just watch Logan and the grub duke it out, and the grub won.....You would probably be like "Oh wow, Logan you suck!". The major NPCs of the game are larger than life, and they have a rich history behind them. You would expect them all to have the combat prowess to back it up too. The same applies to your own character too. At a certain point there has to be content that is just beneath you.
Also for the people saying you one and two shot mobs I find that highly unlikely. You might be killing them fast, but one shot has a literal meaning. Keep in mind there are different ranks of mobs. If you are one and two shotting things it's normal mobs. Try to do that to a champion/legendary mob and see what happens. If you still say you are doing that then make a video and post it on Youtube, because I am calling your bluff. Forums are full of internet tough guys.
Maybe not in such strong words, but I feel the same way.
I don't know, I guess I really like the classic RPG design where your character matters more than you do, and its progression is the core of the game in the first place. Like Thillian said, downscaling was my biggest annoyance with Oblivion, and the reason I outright didn't like that game.
GW2 in this sense feels a bit more like a console action game than an RPG to me. And though it does have its share of nice features, I do like RPG in my MMOs.
rpg/mmorg history: Dun Darach>Bloodwych>Bards Tale 1-3>Eye of the beholder > Might and Magic 2,3,5 > FFVII> Baldur's Gate 1, 2 > Planescape Torment >Morrowind > WOW > oblivion > LOTR > Guild Wars (1900hrs elementalist) Vanguard. > GW2(1000 elementalist), Wildstar
Now playing GW2, AOW 3, ESO, LOTR, Elite D
I just went and read that, thank you for the link. I don't know that the information they posted there though really addresses this issue. They mentioned the level scaling once, and just said that it's in place so you can explore and not have the content trivial. What my whole point to this thread is that sometimes content should be trivial.
You might not spend a majority of your time doing it, but others may.
So for those folks levelling up, where is the challenge when level 80's come into the zone a smash the crap out of everything?
If you want to use "cheat codes", more power to you, but in an MMO, your cheat codes effect the other players in the game.
Perhaps a-net can make an instance for folks that want to one hit stuff, to feel uber, or whatever point you're trying to make with it, I'm fine with that, as it won't effect others gameplay.
/shrug
MMORPG genre is dead. Long live MMOCS (Massively Multiplayer Online Cash Shop).
Nvm. The level scaling is the best thing to happen in this genre for many people, it's good to have games with different mechanics, there's plenty of games where people can godmode as much as they like.Wow... you felt you really had to make tread #2 to get your point across?
Plenty of games support your specific preferred playing style. Why do you feel the need to impose your special needs on all of us who actually prefer something different from what you want?
Please post your ingame name so we have a chance to add you to the ignore list. Anyway: Good luck with Anet devs discarding all design principles to support your special needs
We dont need casuals in our games!!! Errm... Well we DO need casuals to fund and populate our games - But the games should be all about "hardcore" because: We dont need casuals in our games!!!
(repeat ad infinitum)
Agreed. Where Anet trys to come off as a champion of this idea of downscaling. Since the game is setup the way it is, they were pretty much forced to do it, otherwise it would be even more of a steam roll. What I've understood though is those that do downlevel (many many levels) are still quite more powerful then a at level character. Sounded as if they needed nerfed more.
thats one perception - and a valid one
my perception is down leveling makes all zones always relevant
EQ2 fan sites
Sorry I guess sarcasm is implied? Please? PLEASE?
"The work and effort put into" a game: Sorry I spot idiocy working overtime here?
We dont need casuals in our games!!! Errm... Well we DO need casuals to fund and populate our games - But the games should be all about "hardcore" because: We dont need casuals in our games!!!
(repeat ad infinitum)
I dunno.
I think a lot of players used to the way things were will feel that. I don't think it'll break the game for them. I don't mind it. The environment of the world should be dangerous for most anyone despite their level in my opinion.
I think it'd "feel" right in a more sandbox game, but it's not very noticable to me personally.
a yo ho ho
I've seen this particular "one-shotting mobs" thing repeated several times in the thread. Is this a meme of some sort?
As a counterpoint, when I hit 50 in EQ, I went back to visit the level 15-ish Blackburrow dungeon. It was actually quite satisfying to traipse througn a dungeon that had been the cause of so much death (and so many corpse runs). It's fairly bizarre to realize there are people to whom such an emotion is alien.
My biggest problem with it is that the rewards aren't normalized like your level. Meaning that there's little incentive through rewards to go back and help someone out. If you really like the content of an area, sure then you can do it over and over, but if it is in a level 20 zone and you are level 50, your exp, karma, and gold/silver/copper earnings fall off a cliff compared to what you would get in a zone for your level. I really like the idea in theory, but I just don't like how they implemented the rewards. (I'm talking specifically about heart and DE rewards, I know you can get level appropriate drops from mobs).
My incentives are great on my end. Go back and helping the wife, has incentives well beyond whatever the game itself can give me.
I don't agree with the OP - I find the level-scaling a good thing.
The claim was made by another poster that having level-scaling is immersion-breaking.
I personally find it to be the other way - I've always found it jarring to be able to have a tough but winnable fight with, say, a bear, at level 20, and then come back at level 28 and pretty much one-shot it.
It would be nice to have both play-styles catered for, of course, but one would have to have different instances for the 2 styles and even then there would be an issue re how the reward/loot is determined.
Agreed with this, 100%. I've been playing mmos for over 10 years and never once have I felt some insatiable urge to go back to a lowbie area just so I can effortlessly slaughter an NPC by one shotting it. I can't decide which seems more strange - wishing for lower level content to become completely trivial after I outlevel it, or wanting to "seek revenge" on a lifeless, computer-controlled mob...
Besides, like others have mentioned, even with the scaling, you will still always be considerably stronger when facing lower level content, versus someone of appropriate level for said content, so what's the problem? The scaling seems more like a compromise than anything.