Would personally love to be able to make open world areas more difficult by just having the game consider me a higher level for scaling purposes. No effect on xp or gold necessary.
I see this working via a menu where you just type in the number of levels you want the system to add to your level for scaling purposes, up to max level.
Has there been any commentary on why this, or something similar, isn’t implemented? I’d be genuinely curious to hear if there is a technical reason why it couldn’t be. It just seems like such a golden opportunity to save/gain subscribers who are interested in the leveling/story experience.
Personally, I’d like to explore the many stories I’ve missed in the world, on new characters with my friend, and have to consider our roles and strategies in the duo.
Because they create elite ares for more “challenge” and people avoid them like the plague. So I don’t think they’d waste their time on open world challenge when people have proven to not actually want it.
I don’t remember, but didn’t they do something like this in one expansion? I feel like twilight highlands saw a bump in difficulty for me t some point, but I don’t remember. Maybe it was just leveling through the zone that felt off.
For now the zones scale in difficulty as they’re released. Mobs in waking shores at max level aren’t as threatening as the mobs in zaralek caverns, for example. The scaling is there, we just outpace it pretty quickly.
I appreciate the good faith attempt to meet the goal of the post with existing possible measures, thank you! However, in this instance I believe it fair to compare this to selling your car for gas money. While it does meet the objective of making the game more difficult, it sacrifices one of the major reasons to do so.
Making the mobs harder to handle incentivizes more careful and deliberate gearing. I would need to make sure I am properly prepared with the equipment I can obtain to meet the higher challenge. This becomes a self defeating prospect if I remove my gear to then simply overcome it by putting my gear back on.
Compare this to the simple ability to tell the game I am actually 5 - 10 levels higher than I am. The game already has this capability, it simply needs to put the reins into the players hand. Suddenly, every lever I have to pull to meet the challenge becomes relevant.
I would be grateful to hear any further thoughts you have on the matter!
I often agree with this sentiment, I have argued from this stance in many scenario elsewhere. However, there is a baseline amount of health/damage enemies can have that can significantly effect the intrigue of combat.
At the extreme low end, I push any attack once and clear all enemies. At the extreme high end, I am instantly annihilated. There is a clear distinction of difficulty here. Somewhere in the middle there is a point where I need to use all of my resources to complete a combat in the fastest time instead of an extreme minimum of resources.
By being able to adjust my own scaling, I can find that middle ground without disturbing other’s gameplay.
Unrelated to this specific comment, I just want to add that there was a similar system in City of Heroes, where you could control both what level you were considered and how many party members you were treated as. For example, I could tell the game that I am 5 people and that I am 4 levels higher. This would affect mob density in instances, as well as power level, and even mob choice to a degree. It was widely used and quite enjoyable, but not necessarily the level of effort I am asking from Blizzard.
Thank you for the consideration, but please see this earlier response relating to how this is similar to ‘selling your car for gas money’. I would be curious to hear further commentary with these specifics in mind.
@guessmyname -
The suggestion in this case would only be consider our level higher for scaling enemies against us, not lower. Additionally I am suggesting no change to rewards. There should be no opportunity for exploits, but I would be quite interested to hear how if there is something I am missing.
You mentioned mob density, which would imply there would be more mobs, the higher you set yourself, the game already has hyper spawns based off people in an area, If one person could be 5+ it would increase spawn rates and be abused.
I apologize for any confusion, I was just noting one example of where something similar was successful. The only thing I’m requesting is being able to tell the game I am X levels higher for the purposes of scaling enemies against me.
You guys can’t really believe this is a good solution. It feels like a troll more than anything.
Take off your gear in a RPG? Why even play a RPG if you have to sacrifice one of the main features to achieve more of a challenge?
Personally, I’d love to see an open world difficulty toggle, much like the one in the Diablo games. I also think the OP is proposing a rather easy solution to creating it as well, and that’s by scaling up the world around you.
I’d enjoy a more challenging leveling experience, but I won’t take off my gear to achieve it. I’ll just play stuff that fulfills that vibe better. But I’d definitely play it here if it were offered.
They can do it for classic, creating all of these leveling variants for that version of the game, IDK why they couldn’t put some more effort into retail.
with retail if they had a toggle they would have to create another shard for the players.
or we will see someone rolling in and 1 shotting a mod you made hard for yourself
I see your point. I have done so much leveling over the years, that it really isn’t appealing any more. But to be honest, i actually have dropped a few pieces of gear or wore gray gear in the past for a challenge. It just seems complicated for a feature that ~six players will use.
The current track record for such things isn’t very good. They’ll hear… you want mobs to have more hp and require 6 rotations for no good reason. Not difficult… just slower.
I doubt they have any way to scale this that doesn’t provide you the experience you want while breaking it for others.
