Leveling Scaling and Our Future

[Deadvulcano]

Posting in f2p because I can't make unofficial blogs here atm, this is mostly a preview and some initial thoughts, but still interesting for discussion to help flesh out a final draft

Best news I've heard from blizzard in a long time.

When Cataclysm was released, you mentioned the possibility of allowing players to scale down their level and play with friends that are newer to the game. Is this still something that you would like to add in the future?
It certainly is something that we would still like to add. We are continuing to make progress in that regard. Some of the technology that we need to do that is being created for the challenge modes, so the challenge modes get us closer to being able to do that. That is a feature that we find very valuable and we are hoping to see it for the Mists of Pandaria launch, but we can't say for sure yet that it will be ready. It might be in a patch that comes right after launch.

If this goes live, the way it should, it will change twinking forever.

While the intention may only be to allow questing to help friends it will be built via the “technology” that uses this feature for challenge mode dungeons. It is reasonable to assume that this down scaling should allow dungeon access. Personally I would love this so that I could scale down any character until the dungeon/raid is sufficiently challenging solo, or in small sets of 1-3 ppl. It may also allow scaling down to join battlegrounds (the holy grail).

Scaling is a great solution to games where you can't see all content at level appropriate times. Several hours and resources are spent developing content that newer players may never get to experience. You may want to run though an old dungeon with a friend that is experiencing it for the first time. Before this solution you could either have an alt of around the same level or bring a main and run over this content.

Guildwars 2 has built in scaling for this problem already. And solved several other problems in this genre that blizzard has yet to even address. … blah blah more about how awesome their developers are, and something about how twinking doesn't exist here because its a bad concept/solution.

Other points:
Dungeon Depth: The old dungeons were great and taps into the pre-LFD era memories. The fact that a f2p shaman can solo sfk in its entirety shows how the dungeon was balanced. Random levelers of varying skill levels trying to get through interesting content together. The same can be said for just about any content short of hard mode raid content pre-nerfs. But if you could scale your character down until the dungeon is challenging, read fun, you could find a balancing point for you personally without the rest of the bell curve messing with the numbers.

PvP Depth: Blah Blah, would love to have scaling so I can keep one main for each class where the name means something. And where I could switch brackets at will.

extremely basic notes
Scaling Mechanics: Not enough information. Should be from any level n to any lower level (n-1,n-2,...,n-(n-1)) Should scale off higher level abilities somehow (this seems troublesome for users.) Has several problems integrating with bgs:

• do you remove abilities;
• how do you scale down ilvl9001 to ilvl 25;
• should it be restricted to exp-locked, what about grouping with the lower level new player? Force them to not play together? This doesn't seem like a good solution for a “friend” feature.
• will f2p's even be able to access this feature? Can we pick level 14 ?
• Blah Blah, not enough info.

Not sure if the feature that will be ready during the MoP lifecycle is level scaling or just challenge modes...

 

[pinochet]

Huh. They should have done this ages ago.

There is no realistic possibility of failure in a dungeon anymore, except through the extreme incompetence of pugs. This makes dungeons monumentally boring. One of my best experiences in f2p wow was running SM with Shft and Kalrena, which really required all of us to be playing to our fullest ability. It's pretty lousy that hit mechanics lock casters and many melee out of SM.

Nonetheless, I don't think the 6 standard dungeons we have access to would really be harder in an interesting way through gear downgrading--none of them involve any of the fight gimmicks (cc, dispells, fire, LoS) that made 60/70/80 dungeons interesting. I don't expect harder hitting mobs to pose a real challenge to any of us.

I do wish there were a way we could scale our level up, so we could face dungeons more appropriate to our HP and damage, without the spell hit and glancing blows obsoleting every class save hunters. I think we'd probably be capable of finishing dungeons through ZF/ST if we could (a) enter them, and (b) land hits on the mobs.

 

[shanker]

the possibility of allowing players to scale down their level and play with friends that are newer to the game

something similar was mentioned at blizzcon prior to cata as a blue post from the event. i don't believe this would be available for F2P and from what i remember they made it sound like it was related to when you RAF and it read/sounded like this would be coming in cata. never did

i asked about it going into cata and the thread overall was locked and deleted. i couldn't find the original comments/post because it was done on the old wow forum, which was wiped and clean slated as part of pre-patch cata.

overall it would change twinking at the start, for example you could end up having 19 twinks wearing level 80 thru 85 quest gear along with other hi level satchel items that show no level requirement.

this loophole of gear would get exposed fast in leveling XP-on BGs or allowing a F2P/P2P to devel to 14 and use all the gear obtained and relevel in BGs to 20 over and over would not happen imo, and would get nerfed fast too

it would require nerfs on item level items based on and related to level of the player....then twinking at low levels as it is now might suffer because items like a AGM/jutebraid gloves/etc could end up becoming unuseable

 

[yasueh]

This is actually something I suggested on the EU forums way back around the time when XP lock first came in and made such a mess of twinking (can't say I was the only person who suggested it though. Same as for me suggesting XP lock, shortly after getting the game in TBC, as a way to get twinks out of the levellers BGs, and stop everyone treating them like some kind of plague*). The difference is, I wasn't interested in downscaling in order to do dungeons with friends. I thought it would be a great way to make use of character slots, and allow twinking to become a serious part of the game with a lot more players able to do it.

At that time people were complaining about a twink being a waste of a character slot, as a reason why people had little interest in them, so I figured if you had a way to use one slot for all the twink brackets, everyone would have access to any class they wanted, for any bracket (provided they had an endgame character, as that's the level you'd get the delevelling feature at). I also said they'd need a bigger bank or a special gear only bank to allow people to keep all the gear sets for all the brackets.


It's about that point I stopped making suggestions on how Blizzard should fix the game on their forums, because I don't see why they should get to take all the credit, and get payed for it, when they aren't the ones coming up with the ideas in the first place.


*I'd also taken into account that if they were able, some people would lock XP, get geared, then unlock to play in xp-on, so I'd suggested not being able to unlock, unless it dinged you into the next bracket (you'd gain XP while in an xp locked bracket, up until the cap, at which point you'd be able to unlock and gain that 1xp more).

 

[Imirak]

We can dream of a day when leveling is removed from the game entirely, you simply play your class, and dungeons can be played at easy, moderate and difficult settings.

 

[C O T U S]

i enjoy leveling. i think it's fun. it's fun to level with friends, or meet new people while leveling up, and gradually learn how to play your new character. i don't see why it should be removed from MMORPG games

they just need to add in feature(s) that allow someone to level faster, or skip portions of leveling (if they want to), once the person has already leveled a character to max level - similar to the recruit-a-friend system. i get that people don't want to do the same grind over and over, and they shouldn't have to

 

[Grape]

If any of you ever played Everquest back in the day or even now, they came out with a NPC that would do this thing called Shrouds. They would transform the high lvl into an Imp or gargoyle looking creature you could choose the lvl at which you wanted to play it. This way high lvl friends could join their new or low lvl friends in dungeons.

 

[NavyRetired]

I'm not sure why any F2P is excited about this, 1st you know F2P will NOT have access to it, they'll probably make it so you have to Pay to turn it off and charge
10g 85s purposely.
2nd and most important... you think P2P's in our bracket with 100 health enchants to chest or 6 to stats and dual 15 agility to both their weapons is unfair? They will have BETTER than Heirloom gear scaled back to level 24 and enter our BGs. As heirlooms ruined this bracket and twinking in general the ONLY benefit would be all our P2P friends who help us now that would come play with us....
would actually be an unfair advantage and frowned upon imo using gear that we do not have access to. Scaled down trinkets and Hats that are better than anything Heirloom has to offer. Twinking a 19, 29, 39 ETC would become obsolete... no need to work so hard... gear up to 85 get your Arena Gear, scale down and go...
Bad Bad JuJu IMO!

 

[Imirak]

2nd and most important... you think P2P's in our bracket with 100 health enchants to chest or 6 to stats and dual 15 agility to both their weapons is unfair? They will have BETTER than Heirloom gear scaled back to level 24 and enter our BGs. As heirlooms ruined this bracket and twinking in general the ONLY benefit would be all our P2P friends who help us now that would come play with us....

Depending on how it is implemented, this could very well turn out to be true.

It's a good thing I'm not actually paying for this game.

 

[Imirak]

look blizz would never do anything to make f2ps stronger. stop hoping about it and pay for wow like the rest of us

You're in the wrong forum.

I'll pay for wow when I run out of fun things to do as F2P.

 

[Deadvulcano]

Pinochet

[...]
Nonetheless, I don't think the 6 standard dungeons we have access to would really be harder in an interesting way through gear downgrading--none of them involve any of the fight gimmicks (cc, dispells, fire, LoS) that made 60/70/80 dungeons interesting. I don't expect harder hitting mobs to pose a real challenge to any of us. [...]

This is exactly what I want to expand on in the dungeon depth section. The only dungeon that has any depth right now is SFK. Once MoP hits SM will probably be updated for more depth. Hit mechanics and health/damage levels are exactly why using levels is bad design. But certainly if we could hit mobs with much higher levels (closer to twink health/damage) we would see twinks running drastically higher level dungeons. ZF would be fun.

Shanker

[...]overall it would change twinking at the start, for example you could end up having 19 twinks wearing level 80 thru 85 quest gear along with other hi level satchel items that show no level requirement.

this loophole of gear would get exposed fast in leveling XP-on BGs or allowing a F2P/P2P to devel to 14 and use all the gear obtained and relevel in BGs to 20 over and over would not happen imo, and would get nerfed fast too

it would require nerfs on item level items based on and related to level of the player....then twinking at low levels as it is now might suffer because items like a AGM/jutebraid gloves/etc could end up becoming unuseable

I'll get to implementation of the actual scaling later, but what I have in mind doesn't have any of these problems. I expect blizzard to do something that either:

• scales gear down from ilvl 500 for a level 90 to an ilvl 25 for a level 20. In this case some level 20 gear may be BiS depending on how certain gear scales.
• Something like a standard set of "blue" quality gear similar to how BoA's work.

The changes can't occur in a vacuum. Handling enchants would be difficult, but can possibly be done with two main options:

• If the gear is scaled down from higher levels. Have enchants scale down to level appropriate enchants.
• If the gear is a "blue" quality BoA'ish set, give the gear level appropriate enchants. (Although it may just completely disallow enchants, in which case BiS items may be items you can gain at the lower level.)

There is problem with items here which I'll address more in my response to Yasueh. In short, the entire itemization system would have to change. Whenever this happens there is an opportunity for grandfathering.

Yasueh

[...] they'd need a bigger bank or a special gear only bank to allow people to keep all the gear sets for all the brackets.
[...]

To allow items for each bracket without using something like a BoA scaled set would be a nightmare for users. While many of us (as twinker's) would enjoy something like this, it would be too complicated for most users. If I want to scale down my level 90 monk to play with some level 45 friend I may not have a gear set that is appropriate. Sure I could use my level 39's gear set, but I don't have another gear set available till level 70.

I would solve the items problem with a function that takes ilvl x (a blue set) and returns ilvl y (also a blue set), where ilvl y is appropriate for the reduced level. I'm not blizzard, but this is what they should do if they don't implement some BoA set for reduced level purposes.

As an aside, the tech already exists to do the full BoA set option, so it seems possible​

(I'll get to more comments eventually, standby)

 

[MarzRider]

look blizz would never do anything to make f2ps stronger. stop hoping about it and pay for wow like the rest of us

How about you say something useful for once? O wait. Not sure if you can do that.

 

[Deadvulcano]

nvm
/sigh
/wrists

 

[Yde]

nvm
/sigh
/wrists

/bandage

I think it's a swag concept, especially considering that gear scaling mechanics already exist with boas (as you pointed out in squinty writing - my eyes hurt). I can't see Blizz coming up with it as soon as that interview suggested, but with rising pressure from other successful MMOs that don't torture customers who want to play with their less advanced friends... Maybe sooner than judgement day. Interested in your fleshed out thoughts.

 

[Deadvulcano]

I'm not sure why any F2P is excited about this, 1st you know F2P will NOT have access to it, they'll probably make it so you have to Pay to turn it off and charge
10g 85s purposely.
2nd and most important... you think P2P's in our bracket with 100 health enchants to chest or 6 to stats and dual 15 agility to both their weapons is unfair? They will have BETTER than Heirloom gear scaled back to level 24 and enter our BGs. As heirlooms ruined this bracket and twinking in general the ONLY benefit would be all our P2P friends who help us now that would come play with us....
would actually be an unfair advantage and frowned upon imo using gear that we do not have access to. Scaled down trinkets and Hats that are better than anything Heirloom has to offer. Twinking a 19, 29, 39 ETC would become obsolete... no need to work so hard... gear up to 85 get your Arena Gear, scale down and go...
Bad Bad JuJu IMO!

1st, no... There is no information about who can access it. Its a feature to help ppl play together, for this reason any player should be able to access this function. But of course, its possible they would keep it as a max level perk, but they would be stupid to do so as it removes an entire market space of non-maxed users (or ppl on a new server that finally got a friend to reroll/xfer.)

2nd 24's/P2Ps advantages are overrated. Specifically you can't buy skill with anything short of "hard" work. And while you only saw preliminary information in the op I imagine you will change your mind here as you read on. Or at least presume a little less

 

[Deadvulcano]

My response after reading all other comments so far. Primarily about better solutions compared to leveling:

Leveling
I believe that leveling in general is bad. I can show this later in my own projects, but now it should be sufficient to say that gaining "experience" points is a poor substitute for innovative gameplay. The gameplay itself should be great, not just holding some carrot representing greater power in the players face (leveling, new abilities, etc.) Then presenting a flourish of light and big congrats you spent this time gaining some artificial representation of your growth as a player, here are some new abilities/areas.

You should be rewarded for struggling against a certain difficulty and then gain a new tool that helps overcome that difficulty. A simple example might be playing a rogue with a simple attack and gouge.

The challenge that you need to overcome is some guardian caster where you must interrupt every other cast via gouge. If you can't use gouge when a cd aligns with this guardians cast you will take too much damage and can't complete this challenge.

But if you can complete the challenges, i.e. learned how to use gouge, you gain access to a new ability kick. This lets you breeze through this old challenging content because you learned how to play. And not just because you rolled your face for a sufficient number of hours.

Basically, Zelda progression. Although, in zelda you gain hearts so you can "feel" the progress. But the mobs hit harder anyways, the scaling was genius. The skill cap is low enough that anyone could do it, but it tests skill only. No random bs with passive gameplay like hit/dodge mechanics.

Obviously the name "challenge" is not a compelling game mechanic for everyone, it would instead be part of normal exploration and advancement via /dynamic events/quests/dungeons/etc. Any number of more complex scenarios can be thought up to challenge groups of players to actually learn to play together. Tons more to add here...

This is just one area of gaming that needs serious help. GW2 has some solutions to this with special traits that require exploration/hidden locations to gain these new abilities. They have some solutions with scaling to preserve content. Arenanet is off to a good start, but the system should go farther still.

This has nearly turned into a developer blog entry so .... moving on.

I just hope blizzard waits and learns from gw2 when designing "Titan". I don't see how they can realistically do scaling with the current WoW playerbase.

 

[Yde]

It would be awesome if players had a something like a set of PVP timing challenges against (or working together with) class abilities/defined situations, measured by the game, resulting in a hidden PVP challenge rating, independent of win/loss situation. This would be invisible to other players, but you could compare your stats in one area to the anonymized values of others. If there were enough players queueing, BG would ideally group higher PVP challenge levels against each other.

I just woke up, I think I might be dreaming up incoherent stuff, but it's fun. Maybe I am still asleep. ^^