Content Scaling, to be considered for future

Shorter Version: When SE implements newer instanced content (2.0+), to allow the content to have its difficulty (and rewards) scaled based on the party that enters.

Example: Party of 4, Level 50, enter Toto-rak (Level 25 Dungeon). Enemies and bosses have their "difficulty" increased to fight this party of Level 50 players. Enemies may drop more gil. Quests may provide bonuses to XP, gil, and seals. Treasure chests *may* provide improved items.

Like this post if you like where this idea is going.

edit#1, 2012.01.10: The reason I'm suggesting an upscaling versus a level cap and equipment downscaling was a shot at a reward incentive for higher levels. Although a level cap and equipment downscaling might work as well to encourage the beautiful rainbow of friendship that occurs. It would also maintain the risks of death, but unfortunately without the material reward incentive to accompany that risk (i.e. level 50 gear damage on death, could die multiple times, dungeon yields a level 30 weapon that player has already leveled).

Like this post if you dislike where this idea is going.

Reasons may include:
*This feature is unnecessary.
*This couldn't possibly work.
*Bad experiences with upscaling such as Unlimited SaGa, Oblivion, or other game.
*If high level players want to blast through lower level dungeons, that is their choice.
*I'm posting in a reindeer costume and am not to be taken seriously.
*Unmentioned here.

Room for me to expound on the above posts and reform ideas as necessary.
<brainstorming with myself in public until further posts are introduced>

edit 2012/01/09 starting at 14:52 EST (with intermittent RL segues)

I apologize if this was discussed somewhere in the forum before. Such a previous topic did not reveal itself easily when searching for content scaling. I'm viewing this differently than a downscaling level sync or equipment sync, but an upscaling and balancing of monster attributes and *possibly* item rewards.

If SE continues to focus on releasing content to challenge the current end-game community, there will be quite a few things for Level 50 players to do. If a level cap is implemented, such as Level 60, would the current Level 50 content be desired? Is it expected that nearly all current content will vanish in 2.0 or if it will be restructured to fall in line with the 2.0 vision?

This is where I'm going on an unfabulous asshumption that Ifrit, Moogles, Garuda, Legatus, Darkholm, and such will find it's way into 2.0 as Level 50 content. Whether as an echo from the past, altered to make sense in the 2.0 plot, or ... whatever have you. Again, re-emphasizing: unfabulous assumption.

Incentive: The rewards without scaling may not be as attractive. Would you, personally, stop to run a primal fight several times for a weapon or just level up to 60 in an EXP party and gear up then?

On loot scaling, this may be difficult to balance without rendering most items obsolete. If your Level 30 Dungeon Weapon scaled upward to be useful to you at Level 50? One would not need to replace their gear at this point, but continue running the same dungeon.

Concern: A party of Level 60 players will have a large level advantage over enemies, significantly reducing the intended challenge.

Concern: A large amount of instanced content for Level 45~50 to perform, with a gap between Level 25~30 and only an open-world dungeon before. Which may get unused by current players or reduced incentive for current players to aid newer players coming through up the ranks.

Fantasizing: A mixed party of low-levels, mid-levels, and high-levels join together against a mid-level instanced dungeon. Through some unknown mechanic, all characters perform at a heightened baseline (increased HP, MP, dLvL ignored) for the duration of the instance. Where the higher level characters have the benefits of better gear, stats, abilities, and traits. Ah shoot... I need to step away from this for a moment... This is getting unfabulously more complicated than I initially brainstormed... *gets a Thundaga to the Mind*

edit 2012.01.10 @ 15:08 est: Reference on why I even considered this happy nonsense. Was playing the Old Republic of Windurst in instanced PvP, where lower levels were boosted in their abilities and could actually hurt, debuff, and stall higher levels from map objectives. With some teamwork against a lone max level, pull a combat victory. Max levels had advantages due to more HP, wider array of abilities, higher rank abilities, better gear, overall dealing more damage and taking less, etc. But sloppy tactics at max level may not save you against a few low levels who play well together. No level brackets for these instanced PvP sessions. Veteran, new, and everything in between, playing together and capable of contributing sums.

I considered what would happen if this was somehow executed for PvE content. What type of system would have to go in place for this. Level capping instanced content and equipment downscaling is probably the easier route to take with only the rewards of the downscaled challenge. T'was considering a different end of the spectrum with the upscaling.

<--gives Fiosha a ball of yarn

Sounds like a great idea^^

How about this.

Give dungeons a star rating like leves. For each Star you increase the dungeon, the enemies get harder, the bosses get new moves etc etc. but you spawn an additional chest at the end.

The current dungeons would be the equivalent of a 3 star, the average difficulty.

So toto rak which now accepts 2 players, could go in on a 1 or 2 star.
and Dzmael Darkhold which now accepts 4 players, could go in on a 1 or 2 star.

But a party with mega gear (all moogle/ifrit double/triple melds) who have no problems with the current difficulty and want more chance at rewards, BUMP IT UP!

This is of course provisional on level scaling, but not the dungeon to the player, the player to the dungeon. How it worked in (DUN DUN DUN) FFXI. You enter a level 30 area, you are lowered down and your gear is matched.

That reminds me of that infamous thread pre-1.18 where a good share of people were against a scaling cap because they thought it was more fun and added replayability to go into a level 25 dungeon as a level 50 to overkill everything. I hope they still have a good time in Toto-Rak after few months.

I'm with you on scaling in one way or another as I believe it's a key to replayability, difficulty balancing and content creation efficiency.

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Originally Posted by Antanias

<--gives Fiosha a ball of yarn

Sounds like a great idea^^

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*plays with the yarn until it becomes a coatee* Yaaay!!!
http://static2.finalfantasyxiv.com/a...H93E_vHGbE.jpg
*hammers finger*

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Originally Posted by Junpei

How about this.

Give dungeons a star rating like leves. For each Star you increase the dungeon, the enemies get harder, the bosses get new moves etc etc. but you spawn an additional chest at the end.

The current dungeons would be the equivalent of a 3 star, the average difficulty.

So toto rak which now accepts 2 players, could go in on a 1 or 2 star.
and Dzmael Darkhold which now accepts 4 players, could go in on a 1 or 2 star.

But a party with mega gear (all moogle/ifrit double/triple melds) who have no problems with the current difficulty and want more chance at rewards, BUMP IT UP!

This is of course provisional on level scaling, but not the dungeon to the player, the player to the dungeon. How it worked in (DUN DUN DUN) FFXI. You enter a level 30 area, you are lowered down and your gear is matched.

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A starred dungeon. See this is what I get for overthinking stuff. I guess I was thinking along the lines of SaGa, where the player is forced to play it at the higher difficulty rather than having a chance to blast through it one 1~3 stars.

But I think in the interest of balance, that is possibly and probably easier to implement. Or so I hope, mwee hee hee

I think the scaling should be automatic (to a lower limit)
You can go higher for better rewards but you shouldn't be able to scale it lower.

Why would people vote against this?

It's like they want everything to be as easy as it is now. What a bunch of lame-oes.

TOTALLY FOR THIS

I guess my thought was SE being able to have content still be a challenge for those that outlevel an instance and did not want to make a new character to fight the instance at the target level range.

My thought is that difficulty levels really devalue the content itself. From a "content" perspective, meaning what we as players have to do, this is a great idea. From a "lore" point of view however, you really undermine the dungeon. Why should these monsters be weak one time and grossly overpowered another? They explain it with Ifrit by him growing in strength as time passes. How are you going to slap that on to every dungeon though? Why should they? Having content at certain levels discourages people from blowing through levels and actually experiencing the content. Grand Companies and Totorak are a great example. More than likely you'll be a few seals short of a Chocobo when you hit 25, so you'll do Totorak. This sometimes ends up in being run through it by higher level friends, but this doesn't change the fact that you experienced it. Why should something that you were able to blow through at level 50 be stronger all the sudden "just because?" You fight small creatures like puks, traps and mitelings in Totorak. It fits the difficulty. You fight hippogryphs, toads and skeletons in Darkhold. Larger creatures, more intimidating. That's the point of a RPG, Yoshi himself has said that. You need to be able to physically see a boost in your power. Being bested by little baby puks, chigoes, baby mites and plants isn't exactly heroic when you're supposed to be a strong and renowned adventurer. That's why some of the sizes of creatures were adjusted, so that you're killing monsters proportionately sized to your strength. It's why you kill rats and ewes at level 1, and not nannies or raptors.

I understand that it would help draw out content, but it's the wrong way to look at it. There's plenty of other content that can be drawn out such as the world NMs. Instead of a difficulty scale, just buff their loot as well as their difficulty.

None of this post really matters though, considering they've already confirmed difficulty scaling. Oh well.

I would most like to see lv capped instances. Instead of the need to rebalance an instance several times for different lv ranges, gear might be scaled instead. If the lv 25 ifrit fight were capped at 30 i think that might have allowed for less overly contrived time sink regarding the hyper versions loot. I would even be fine with no gear scaling! Buy or make new lv 30 stuff for Toto-Rak? Fine, lets run this a few times till our gear is fully bonded.

It would just be easier to cap your level at 30, that's all I want. How would they even scale a level 25 50 30 25? You can't if you make the mobs level 40 it would be to hard for the lower levels, even for the single 50. If you make the mobs 30ish it would be to easy. Just cap the levels.

they should also should do every one instanced area make 3 open world stuff to do. You can see how people feel about instances here > http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...nced-dungeons.

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Originally Posted by Rokien

It would just be easier to cap your level at 30, that's all I want. How would they even scale a level 25 50 30 25? You can't if you make the mobs level 40 it would be to hard for the lower levels, even for the single 50. If you make the mobs 30ish it would be to easy. Just cap the levels.

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This.

Much easier to prorate the stats of a few players than balancing boss fights for a variety of different levels. On top of stats, you've got all those new abilities available as you level up...

This way also you know where to go to get your level x gear and this makes sure that you have a fun experience getting it. If not, how would you scale up the reward? Scale up the stats of the sword you get from toto-rak? Get the same sword you would get in Dzelmahel?

Level cap is probably what would give the longest longevity to content without having to readjust everything

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Fiosha_Maureiba

I guess my thought was SE being able to have content still be a challenge for those that outlevel an instance and did not want to make a new character to fight the instance at the target level range.

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Sort of like Burning Circle fights in FFXI then, where you're level is dropped to what ever is suitable for that challenge?

I could see that being good for those who missed on dungeons/fights they want to do at the correct level (i.e. I missed out on Totorak with my ARC. I could still do it, but it wouldn't be very hard!). If some dungeons or fights end up being like this, it might also be worthwhile to have some special gear drops that level with you, or can trigger quests to level the gear up.

Say this gets done with Ifrit after a level cap is raised, go back, do it where we're capped to 50 and I get whatever item. I could then take the piece and follow a quest line to upgrade the weapon and use it at the level cap.

This might also fix that one issue I had with WOW and it's content: there's a ton to do sure! But at the level cap, 90% of it's outdated and useless for anything but looks. If you weren't around when everyone did X raid during Y expansion, then you just plain missed out!

SE already mentioned doing this with Ifrit and I think Dzemael Darkhold as well where it becomes scaled for 4 people. Since they're doing it with Ifrit, I'm sure they're doing the same with Moogle and the upcoming Garuda fight in 1.22.

I think the world being different after 2.0, and them already having these built. I think they will scale them so we come back to play them with the new ps3 characters joining

I think I missed the post(s) that talked about difficulty scaling. At least where level was concerned. The Full Party -> Light Party difficulty conversions do sound familiar howe'er.