Please Don't Ever Add Entire World Level Scaling

Please Square-enix, I read a post about how yall feel the world has become too easy. Whatever you do!!! Do NOT add world level scaling. EVER! Don't do what other MMO's have done to balance the game in a cheap manor. Level scaling absolutely ruins the entire point of an MMO. To get better gear, and FEEL the power progression.

WoW does it in terms of Timewalking no? which is a huge W and fun?
If ff14 did world scaling or whatever, it wouldn't matter anyway as mobs dont reward you anything, put mob to sleep and move on ins faster than killing if in most cases anyway

honestly what they need to do is like you have in OC and be able to activate a LV sync to the other player in the party.

I'm assuming by "world level scaling" that it'd be something like Bioware added in SWTOR's later life with the planets - IE, when you enter a zone you are force synced to close enough to its level in a manner similar to when you sync for FATEs?

This seems like a lot of work to change very little. Mob farming, even the large kill counts for certain Hunt spawns, is of little hazard even at level (the ability to farm faster at higher levels is greatly limited by respawn rate, as anyone that's spawned Leucrotta can attest almost immediately upon getting to the Chimeras). Gathering might've become inconvenient in the past with the old gather stealth system, but with Sneak it'll still be a doddle.

The main thing it would seem to affect would be the Hunt, in particular you'd be more likely to need to get help again for old A Ranks. (Whether it would affect trains or S Ranks much is questionable, as although it would limit small groups of hunt "snipers" when it comes to relayed marks, even at-level, these melt rapidly during busy hours: I still remember a Forecaster during prime time that didn't even have a chance to deliver a single Weather Channel, and I'm not sure if it was even 7.2 yet at the time, for that matter)

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Originally Posted by Codyjt92

Level scaling absolutely ruins the entire point of an MMO. To get better gear, and FEEL the power progression.

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I feel like the immense jumps in power between levels is fundamentally harmful to a fun experience for many reasons. Truth be told I would do away with levels entirely, but if they have to stay, does the level cap damage amount need to be literally 10,000x or more the base level? We have such drastic differences in damage output that playing with friends of different levels or trying to interact with players in earlier zones can feel pointless. It may also contribute to stale content because it allows for the creation of "new" content that are exactly the same as past content but scaled to whatever new damage amount the player does. It's a way to mask the fact that you're doing the same exact thing with no meaningful change at all. Yes the numbers on screen are bigger, but if you hid that you couldn't tell the difference.

So my main experience with world scaling is GW2 and ESO.

ESO is bizarre, the whole game functionally works at max level (of 50), and the lower your real level is, you simply get a scaling bonus proportional to the difference, what this actually means is that you feel very little in the way of progression through the game, or at least I did, and in fact you can feel yourself getting weaker as you level and your bonus diminishes, making it extremely unfulfilling, it was by far the worst leveling experience I ever had.

GW2 you always get scaled to map level, but you keep everything else, notably this doesn't do nearly as much to prevent max level players from demolishing low level zones, as they weren't balanced for someone in Ascended/Legendary gear and an espec, the primary reason this never becomes an issue is twofold, one is that there is very little interest for max level players in maps affected by this scaling so you never get a high density of incredibly powerful players for that content, the other is that this only truly affects core maps, which is to say what would be equivalent to ARR maps in XIV, after that, the max level stays at 80 and every zone operates at level 80, and instead the game focuses on more horizontal progression systems.

Those two games have painted my view of world scaling rather negatively, especially ESO, I firmly believe it was the primary reason it failed to capture me in any capacity, I didn't even get to enjoy a feeling of watching numbers go higher.

They don't add zone scaling for that exact reason, really. They want gear progression to matter. They more specifically scaling specific pieces of content that they want to, such as FATEs, instead.

I agree that gear progression matters, but it stops mattering once the expansion is over. We become so powerful that hunts cease to be the fun they once were at release, where their attacks 1 shot most players and left bodies everywhere. I don't propose zone scaling for this, but rather just having the hunts get a status effect that adjusts incoming/outgoing damage based on the level difference to the target. This way we don't have to press a sync button and it doesn't affect normal mobs that we still want to 1-shot.

A common reason people will suggest zone scaling is so they can do the MSQ with friends, but because the MSQ is not a joint experience like many of SWTOR's cutscenes, it's not worth it for that reason anyway. MSQ is a solo experience and the best you can do is watch them stream it.

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Originally Posted by LilaIronman

WoW does it in terms of Timewalking no? which is a huge W and fun?

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monsters in the open world of WoW scale with the players level, which means when ever you get a level up, the monsters become stronger because your gear become worse relative to your level.

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Originally Posted by Arohk

monsters in the open world of WoW scale with the players level, which means when ever you get a level up, the monsters become stronger because your gear become worse relative to your level.

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Yeah I dont see a problem with that tho but idk what op didnt specify

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Originally Posted by Arohk

monsters in the open world of WoW scale with the players level, which means when ever you get a level up, the monsters become stronger because your gear become worse relative to your level.

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Not just that, but they also scale with your gear to a point. If you're "casually skilled" player and best gear you'll get is world quest / Normal mode raid / Mythic Dungeons, you'll barely feel a difference as the mobs will scale to your ilvl as well. If you're a well geared Mythic Raider / Mythic+ dungeoneer, world mobs would melt at your feet still.

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Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

They don't add zone scaling for that exact reason, really. They want gear progression to matter. They more specifically scaling specific pieces of content that they want to, such as FATEs, instead.

I agree that gear progression matters, but it stops mattering once the expansion is over. We become so powerful that hunts cease to be the fun they once were at release, where their attacks 1 shot most players and left bodies everywhere. I don't propose zone scaling for this, but rather just having the hunts get a status effect that adjusts incoming/outgoing damage based on the level difference to the target. This way we don't have to press a sync button and it doesn't affect normal mobs that we still want to 1-shot.

A common reason people will suggest zone scaling is so they can do the MSQ with friends, but because the MSQ is not a joint experience like many of SWTOR's cutscenes, it's not worth it for that reason anyway. MSQ is a solo experience and the best you can do is watch them stream it.

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They don't add zone scaling for that exact reason, really. They want gear progression to matter.

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https://media.tenor.com/KZSCnVzDgKcA...h-laughing.gif

i barely feel any progression tbh.

a new lvl cap gives you more skills? sure, but only after taking away other skills. lvl 100 feels kinda like lvl 90 felt when it was max lvl. but lvl 90 feels worse now. actually 1-99 feel worse now xD
whats the point in new skills?

better gear for more dmg? great now bosses die faster, we play less and also see less mechanics (only the boring ones because bosses in ff14 have all these boring tutorial phases)
getting savage gear for... doing dungeons a bit faster?
ultimates on release are pretty much the only cases you need savage gear for.

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Originally Posted by Amarande

I'm assuming by "world level scaling" that it'd be something like Bioware added in SWTOR's later life with the planets - IE, when you enter a zone you are force synced to close enough to its level in a manner similar to when you sync for FATEs?

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In SWTOR they totally messed it up - at max level it actually takes longer to kill stuff on a level 30 planet, than when you're doing it with a level 30 character. The higher your level and the better gear, you feel less powerful in open world and in heroics. It's riddiculous.

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Originally Posted by LilaIronman

Yeah I dont see a problem with that tho but idk what op didnt specify

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The Problem is that Leveling makes you feel weaker and not stronger.

Also FFXIV already has an overabundance of scaling, by downleveling your character for almost everything in the game.

Idk I wish they did something to make the overworld a bit more interesting, but I don't think I want to level sync down even more in its current state. I'm pretty sure most other games let you keep your kits in some fashion, whereas we do not.

Also gear progression at this point is more of a nuisance than anything. We're just progressing so we keep up with content on release, not so we can 1-shot mobs in Thanalan and feel good about it.

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Originally Posted by Atreus

Idk I wish they did something to make the overworld a bit more interesting, but I don't think I want to level sync down even more in its current state.

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Yeah, the problem is that syncing doesn't solve most of the problems with the overworld. Hunts are the one thing that may benefit while everything else would remain dull, or become even worse because you wouldn't be able to brute force your way through generic mob spawns or fetch quests by being overleveled or having another player help.

Unless SE wants to invest in redesigning existing areas, they should be left alone. They can approach the problem by making any new areas more interesting and better balanced. I'd like to see a mix of intended player levels as a part of that.

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Originally Posted by LilaIronman

WoW does it in terms of Timewalking no? which is a huge W and fun?
If ff14 did world scaling or whatever, it wouldn't matter anyway as mobs dont reward you anything, put mob to sleep and move on ins faster than killing if in most cases anyway

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We're talking open-world. It's been a few years since I played WoW, but I remember one of the more common complaints back when I played it was how you would actually get weaker when you leveled up because mobs would get stronger but your gear stayed the same. Hitting max level in particular was a detriment to your character until you were able to get a good chunk of end-game gear.

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Originally Posted by Arohk

monsters in the open world of WoW scale with the players level, which means when ever you get a level up, the monsters become stronger because your gear become worse relative to your level.

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Originally Posted by LilaIronman

Yeah I dont see a problem with that tho but idk what op didnt specify

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Imagine you're level 90, and the next expansion comes out.
First you pull whatever you see, 5 mobs, 10 mobs, all the same.
Then you reach level 95. Suddenly, every mob has a boatload of HP, and hits like a truck. So you pull 2 mobs, and you're dead.
The scaling is also broken in a lot of places, AFAIK in certain game modes a level 10 does like 10 times the damage of a max level character. Imagine the fun when you (max level) get into a group with a level 10, who pulls the entire dungeon and survives (there are no walls in WoW dungeons).
This is one of the (many) reasons I finally left that dysfunctional game for good.

In RIFT you can choose which level you want to play as. You can set your level at any level between level 10 and 5 levels below your actual level (65 at 70). Plus you keep all your abilities.