I’ve been thinking, maybe I should play more and think less, but I can’t so you are forced to delete my posts from your feedreader instead.
So, I am wondering why Blizzard doesn’t introduce scalability into the game. Sure in some cases this my mean a bit of balancing, but in these days of phasing, I wonder if it isn’t more possible than ever.
There are 3 areas (which pretty much covers everything). Mobs, Quests and Instances.
Mobs
I know grinding can be a bitch, but I suggest making it interesting. Notice how more often than not the mobs you are grinding are relatively low level and really quite boring to grind.
Two shots, next mob, two shots, next mob.
This also creates an unbalance in that low level toons are disadvantaged against higher level toons. A high level toon can round up the mobs and slaughter them before a low level toon can tag one.
Exploring Azeroth is kind of boring as a high level toon. You have no fear. I run over the mobs so they will aggro and die by Molten Armor.
What if, all mobs scaled to be a minimum of 5 levels below you. Why not let the mobs of Westfall have their high level cousins drop in for a visit?
Quests
How many old world quests do you have outstanding? Why not revitalize the old world and TBC by scaling the Quest level so it’s the same as the quest carrier?
Hogger the new target dummy
This thought is in part inspired by Saresa.
Remember Hogger? The bane of any newbie Alliance toon. There was a time where Hogger would make or break a toon. If you couldn’t take down Hogger, you rerolled Horde.
To this day the name Hogger instills a fear similar to watching another guy getting hit in the nads.
Willel points out that Hogger has now been nerfed down from needing a 40 man raid to a 10 man raid, but I say bring on Heroic mode!
Don’t let the Alliance come back at 80 and one-shot Hogger (in revenge), give Hogger a chance to test the toon no matter what level.
In increasing the Quest level, some other adjustments may be required, let me cover them in the next bit.
Instances
Yep, bring on 83+ Van Cleef!
Let instances scale (maybe optionally). Screw Ulduar, bring on Heroic Deadmines!
I know this concept has been discussed before, and it probably is too hard to balance the instance, but if they just apply a similar “buff” to the mobs as suggested above we would be 90% of the way there.
What about the loot?
Now as mentioned, some changes would be required. I would suggest appropriate rewards: cash, xp and of course loot.
Scalable loot!
Silly idea right… But then we already have a model for this… Heirloom items.
If I remember right, every leather wearer coverts the Blackened Defias armor…
not to mention the Red Defias Mask.
Now wouldn’t it be grand of that gear scaled so they you could be wearing it at level 80. A raid on Orgrimmar in Defias clothes – Hell Yeah!
Sure it wouldn’t be the best gear, but I dare say the formula they have for Heirloom items could be equally applied to other existing gear.
Let’s make Old World’s interesting
By making old content scalable we make the old world content worthwhile, to everyone, no matter what the toon level.
It would make the achievements: quest, exploration and instance real achievements. You either did it originally, or you achieved it against the odds at your current level.
Gnomer and Out!
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It’s a fun idea, but I imagine it’s too complicated. And it’s always a question about where to relocate development resources. I think most players prefer them to be put into making up new content, new quests, new instances, rather than to recirculate the old ones once again. (Even though that was exactly what they did with Naxx…)
This said I must admit that I’ve never done Hogger for REAL when he was hard, on a low lvl toon. And never did Dead Mine at the right level either. I’d love to. Maybe I could do it with my upcoming druid (level 10, yay!), the question is if I can find a low level group to do it with…
There is a game that has scaling dungeons and NPCs, Oblivion. And that was a complaint against the game itself. An aspect of all RPGs is that your character slowly improves over time (via levels, gear, etc.). For most people, opening up your character sheet and seeing larger numbers isn’t good enough. They need to feel bigger and stronger by going back to old foes that used to give them problems and be able to kill them off without problems.
I was getting ready to say what anonymous already has mentioned. Oblivion does this. It’s part of BethSoft’s The Elder Scrolls series. I really enjoyed this. They did an excellent job with scaling.
It’s one of the reasons why that game has never become old to me. it’s just not fun roflstomping things that used to be difficult. Perhaps now and again but every single time? Uh, thanks but no thanks…
Why did Blizzard feel the need to nerf Hogger in the first place? He is now a push-over, like most content outside of Northrend.
I agree with Larisa. If we had to chose between Blizzard scaling up all the old content or developing new content, I know which one would win. I’m sure they’ve discussed the same thing. It’s just nostalgia. We all want to go back to the content we’ve seen before and remember the good ol’ days… but we still want to be able to move forward.
It’s already possible to go through Deadmines and have it be difficult, same with Hogger. Roll a new character. Done! That was a lot easier than spending a year in development, right?
@Larísa: You may be right… but I think if they at least made the mobs variable, people would come. People already do naked runs through deadmines…Surely with end game stuff they would clear it.. if not, then there would be a challenge in a naked run.
Honestly I doubt people would care too much about the rewards. Some of the Old world raids are still challenging.. and apart from an occasional pet drop, there is no real reward.
@Anon: Yeah I can appreciate what you are saying.. I am thinking along the lines of saving some dev effort, yet giving some challenges. I am sure at end game, most people can find a 5 man to take out an elite… or let’s face it, the extra skills should enable the average underpowered toon a fair crack at an old foe.
@Gaming Diva: Glad to hear that you enjoyed both the challenge and the “freshness” of old content.
I figure at the moment, with 2 expansions, leveling bonuses, before you even get to RAF, that there are a lot of people that would have seen very little of the old world.
For just a little bit of tweaking, that old world would become attractive again to 80′s.
Even I, who have seen all 3 portions of WoW, have probably only explored and therefore encountered 60-70%.
Old World.. whole zones unexplored.
TBC… only about 60% of the quests done and only 2-3 zones fully explored.
WoLK – Nearly 79, and I have only done 2 zones “completely” (There are bound to be a few quests I didn’t do), plus 80ish% of Dragonblight.
The rest of Wolk still holds appeal… why? Because it will be a challenge.
Yet Duskwood (with only Darkshire for the flight path discovered)… no challenge and no reward.
@Brajana: Yeah, eaiser to reroll a new toon… the problem I see is they have introduced these stinking achievements.
If I have to run Uldaman again… make it more of a challenge than having 2 makes so I can do a boss summon.
To me it’s almost one of those tasks that you can set for graduates, or entry level coders… here’s you challenge, see what you can do.
Wouldn’t we be happier in 3.2 if we knew that apart from a new raid and an odd instance, we could take on Onyxia at full strength.
Hogger is a bit of a joke… but still
I’m one of those people.
I started playing last year. At times, I think people forget that not everyone has been around for a long time. I’ve only been in two of the old raids. Onyxia’s Lair and part of Karazhan, adding old world achievements is fun but scaling, I believe, is just one way they could breathe old life into new content.
Regarding scaling… I thought the same thing when I wentback into old content for the first time. I ‘ve also thought about gear scaling too. In The Elder Scrolls series your talents also scaled based on what you skills (stealth, agility, melee, etc.,) you used the most.
That should have been…
I believe, is just one way they could breathe new life into old>new content.
I would LOVE to have heroic versions of the old dungeons. That said, I think that it would be to difficult to change the mob levels. You woul dhave too many phasing things going on and not enought people interacting due to this fact.
The thing to remember is that Blizzard already does a lot of reuse and scaling.. in a sense.
You encounter level 1 goblins… and level 80 (well certainly high level 70) Goblins.
So they already know how to scale things.
What level would you set the mobs at… the highest party member level.
That way you would inhibit a level 80 dragging a group of lowbies through… make it a level 80 challenge if there is at least one level 80 in the group.
Blizzard could add an option at the trainers that temporarily halts all XP gain.
>Train me further in the ways of being a pirate.
>I would like to unlearn my talents.
>I wish to halt my progression as a pirate.
Then you could roll an alt and stop at lvl 60 (or 62) to raid vanilla WoW. Guilds could set up to raid the old content. There are already players who stop leveling a toon to become a twink, why not let them do the instances as well?
I joined WoW during TBC. At an early level I was ported to Shatt to set my hearth. I have never seen any of the vanilla endgame. I would love the chance to play it as a challenge and not just run Strat for some orbs so I can sell crusader enchants.
And for all the “Hardcore, Uber-Leet, been-here-since-day-1 Legends of Azeroth” who feel that it will somehow diminish their own personal game experience:
1. Yeah, yeah, uphill both ways and no mount until 40, we’ve heard it before.
2. While you’re in Heroic Naxx getting iLvl 200+ drops, do you really care what I’m doing in a lvl60 instance?
3. Back in Westfall when you had to milk the chickens and feed the cows, I don’t care.
4. You cry about how Blizz is nerfing all the earlier content, this would let us experience and appreciate the trials and tribulations that you had to fight through.
5. Seriously, old dude, I don’t care about how your guild was the first to find a way into Old Ironforge.
6. The developers spent time and money on those raids. I’d like to experience them.
7. “In my day, they weren’t called talent trees, they were talent saplings!” Shut up.
8. It would be mean a lot less players lagging Dalaran. You would like that.
9. “But back when I was…” Seriously, they need a ‘Bring Out Your Dead’ guy for me to turn you over to. Where’s the Azerothian Old Folks Home?
Ok, did I date myself with the ‘Bring Out Your Dead’ reference?
“I feel happy! I feel happy!”
/thud
It’s too bad Blizzard’s made it very clear that they don’t care about old content. The only reason they brought back Naxx is because they spent six months building it and thought it was the best instance they ever made, but only 1% of the population got to even go inside. Very few people even went at level 70, because the requirements for attunement were too steep for a casual old-world-raid pug.
I doubt they’d do the same for the other raids I never got to see when they were current. Very few people saw Sunwell when it was hard, but there’s nothing stopping you now. As much as I wish there was a point to running those places other than achievements and the occasional mount, I doubt it will ever happen.
Giving old world instances “heroic mode” would be a great idea. Rather than patch in numerous daily quests for a pointless faction, just make the heroic bosses drop 15-20g each. No need to scale the loot at all. If people complain that they aren’t getting emblems, have the final boss drop 1 or 2.
I would love to go back and do some of my favorite old world dungeons with a level 80 scaling. Heroic Arugal? Yes pls! I don’t even want to fathom the difficulty of a heroic live Strat. Just thinking about it makes me all warm and fuzzy inside.
one thing i think everyone is missing in this idea. it sounds fun and all, in a macro-global type idea, because we’re all thinking about it in terms of 80′s. we’re all level 80 characters, maybe going back to run a friend through stocks in one pull, maybe going to STV to hammer through crap we didn’t the first time through for a loremaster or nessingwary achievement, maybe just switched your toon to mining and have to run through every zone to level up mining ticks, or maybe farming a now-valuable elemental water or old world enchant because of heirloom items.
it doesn’t matter the reasoning, but we’re all reading the scaling idea and thinking of it in terms of our 80 – and what did they see the first time through, or what did they skip, or what/where will we go help a friend or farm.
and one thing keeps coming up, about wanting to “experience the zone, each zone in its fullest” – and how scaling would help that because it wouldn’t be a bore to just trudge through for some epeen achievement points. [this isn't me making fun, i'm that junky, my main is approaching 6000 achievement points].
and now the devil’s advocate in me speaks up, because everyone is missing one fact. the scaling of mobs/instances/etc. would actually cause toons to SEE LESS OF THE GAME.
a couple examples: pretend you were level 18, and grouped up and leveled into dead mines. did it well with your group. then you’d level and it would become easier. then you’d level and it would become easier. then you’d level and it would become easier. then you’d level and it would scale up to 5 levels below you. then you’d level and it would scale up to 5 levels below you…….
-or-
elemental waters are now valueable. your toon would grind waters in EPL for these. then level, and they’d become easier. then you’d level, and they’d become easier. then you’d level,………[and so on].
my point is. people would actually see less of the game if the game constantly scaled with them. they’d find something they’re good at [say a good 5-man group with aoe and just farm stockades from level 22 to 80], or they’d find something profitable [and just farm that from level X to 80].
just my two cents worth. but i live in america, so that’s like really 1.67 cents worth in today’s market.
hjb out
I’m of the opinion that there should be a Hogger achievement.
/nod
I must agree with hokiejaybee, if the mobs scaled with your level.. a person could grind from 1-80 standing in elwynn forest. that just ain’t right.
BUT, if one had say a heroic mode flag.. (oh wait we do) mobs we encounter could scale up to 10 levels below us, but be elites.
BUT… the phasing to make that happen would mean that normal folks couldn’t see people in heroic mode standing next to them otherwise the scaled up elites would sneeze and kill them without even knowing they were there. it would also be very server intensive methinks.
I would keep anything like level scaling restricted to the dungeons. I’m very much against having a high level toon drag lowbies through, when I led a guild, it was a requirement that instance runs were done with level appropriate groups, otherwise the challenge was eliminated. and we had fun doing those runs.
By scaling the mobs to be within the level bracket of the highest member of the group, it makes sure the difficulty still exists. For loot in heroic old world, I would suggest various BOE green/blues based on the normal level of the instance, with the end boss giving out BOA gear/emblems/badges
On the topic of badges, there should be some sort of badge exchange program.. maybe 50 of the lvl 70 badges could be traded in for 1 of the 80 heroic dungeon badges, they already have a 1:1 trade from 80 heroic raid badges to 80 heroic dungeon badges. I don’t think 50:1 of kara badges would unbalance anything.. that’s 2 weeks + of kara clears for 1 badge that you can get from heroic UK.. but.. you wouldn’t be throwing your badges away on useless gems, weaopns/armor that you already have upgraded past ect.
Why not just make everybody level 80, and scale all the mobs accordingly. You’ll have to gain experience to get your talent points, but other than that everybody would be the same level.
That would have the same effect.
(You wouldn’t do it ’cause it wouldn’t be fun. Look at Oblivion. Scaling ruined the game. Everything is always level appropriate. There’s no area you’ll fear ’cause you’re too low level. There’s very little differential in difficulty per area. It’s one uniform, boring-assed experience.)
Gear scaling… There’s a great idea… Gear upgrades are the bread and butter of Blizzard’s replayability formula, so they should shoot themselves in the foot by making it so you never really need an upgrade? Brilliant.