Actually, that’s kind of cool.
I don’t understand why everyone keeps linking to MMO Champion or manually quoting the post that’s on these forums…
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I think this is a great change for retail. There is a massive amount of content and people get spread thin across so many zones. It’s hard to find people to group with. Sometimes phasing makes it difficult to help with quests. Party sync will help solve that problem somewhat. Totally linear progression through seven outdated expansions pre 7.3.5 was terrible. The scaling has drawbacks, but I think it solves more of retail’s problems than it creates.
That being said, Classic can’t come soon enough. The only thing that can save retail at this point is a complete rework, aka WoW 2.
On an interesting note, there’s now slightly more than enough content for 3 characters to level without repeating zones, in the Cataclysm Vanilla section.
Sounds like these are pretty interesting ideas. I like the fact that you can play with friends a lot easier with different levels. These sound like good changes to me. More group oriented. Seems like Blizz is listening to the community.
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Mainly because by allowing leveling scaling in that manner, it eliminates a large sense of progression for your character.
Incentivizing high level players to participate in lower level content by giving them level-appropriate rewards and scaling them to that level makes it feel as if you’ve never really gained power and moved past that content.
We want old content to be relevant, but in a way that doesn’t negate the fact we’re literally 100 levels above it by now.
It’s actually one of my biggest complaints with level scaling in the old zones: I never feel like I’m any more powerful, because the mobs level with me. I can’t go back to the old places that used to be difficult and smash them to pieces, so despite the fact I’ve leveled up a bunch and gained new gear and abilities since then, I’m no stronger by comparison.
With “Party Sync,” levels are totally irrelevant.
Imagine playing an RPG where you start in the cellar fighting Giant Rats with your Rusty Dagger.
You go on a grand, epic adventure, gain hundreds of levels. You’ve slain giants, dragons, titans, and even gods. You come back to that cellar with the most powerful artifacts in existence equipped… and you still struggle to kill that Giant Rat.
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How so? The game isnt forcing it on you like it is with Overland level Sync. Overall if they create an optional system that gives rewards to people that want to use and help people leveling in lower level instances than it seems like it would be a good system.
Something akin to what another game offers to daily rewards for instances. You can of course forgo the rewards in favor of other things if you dislike it that much. The catch of course is to say its optional.
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I explained how so in my post.
I really dislike this argument. It’s optional to wear gear, but I’m still going to wear gear.
It’s optional to run LFR and hope for Titanforged raid pieces. I still dislike titanforging, though, because it obligates me to run LFR and hope I get lucky.
Similarly, depending on how good these level appropriate rewards will be, I might feel obligated to be running low level dungeons on my max level character, and I definitely dislike that I’m regressed in power when choosing to do that content.
The fact something is optional doesn’t negate the incentives to do that thing. It’s designed to make you want to do it, even if you don’t like it. I feel like the “it’s optional” argument comes from a really casual perspective. I mean no disrespect, but I’m not really a casual player, so if there is some incentive for me to do something, I’m probably going to do it.
I’ll grind every difficulty of every raid for Titanforging. Every difficulty of every dungeon. Every World Quest. Island Expeditions. More and more, Blizzard piles onto my list of daily and weekly obligations. For a casual player, it’s more optional content. For a hardcore player, it’s a progressively increasing list of tedium we have to suffer through to remain competitive in the content we actually enjoy, until it burns us out and we quit.
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While the systems in the game offer reward there are ways to make this system such that it doesnot have the same value to raiders. In terms of effenicy if its even slightly less efficent method than Islands or farming Mana Pearls than the incentive isnt there for the most hardcore to do it. At the same time it can still be of value to people who maybe are not interested in doing what you are farming have another option.
While not part of this i do wonder if you actually enjoy playing the game based on your post. From the way it was written it would seem to be that you dislike the various systems in the game as they create this overlapping web of needs to make sure you have the best items to do whatever content your doing. Personally i would think that blizzard abundence of systems harms the game in that manner. Still the leveling systems in the game need to be looked at in wow and improved.
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Think GW2 had something like this. Since the level gap is so huge it’s hard to have an alt the same level as a friend that is new or just came back. When I resubbed a month ago my friend that plays retail tried to plvl me on a new alt. This change would have helped both of us out at the same time.
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So why don’t they just apply the level squish and move away from level increases and just do their seasonal releases? It seems like retail has moved away from a leveling and true RPG style and instead focused on content upgrades paired with gear scaling/resets. They kept releasing expansions with level increases that then made it longer and more painful to catch the end-game and it forced this cycle.
Just doesn’t seem like Blizzard wants leveling for retail.
The easiest way would be to offer cosmetic rewards, or pre-dungeon gear on-par with quest gear of equal level.
If it’s possible to gain dungeon quality gear of appropriate level by running old dungeons, then there’s still a problem with the system.
That would depend on the rewards. If it’s gear, it wouldn’t be competing with Islands, and some slots aren’t filled by Benthic gear, iirc (might just be rings and trinkets that aren’t).
Of course not. I quit a long while back. My guild asked me to come back for 8.2. I tried it for 45 minutes before realizing none of my concerns were addressed by the patch; they were merely translated into a new system.
This new Party Sync system has its own issues, but knowing Blizzard, it will also tie into my existing complaints with the game all too well.
No matter what they do now, Blizzard will never satisfy everyone. It’s a catch 22. Some will like it, others will not. The way I look at it, if you do not like what they are doing so much that it is no longer fun for you, find another game.
That said, I think the proposed changes are not bad, per se, but I think it should be optional if you want to power level someone or even help out guildies, it is a lot easier to do that if you outlevel the dungeon and can just run through it. This does bring up the question though. If a high level player is running low levels through a dungeon, does the low level character lose out on experience because of the higher level in the dungeon? To me, it has always made more sense to run dungeons at level. This way, all of you get experience. I do think they are trying to address this by scaling.
It really does the game and the community no good if everytime they suggest a change to answer a need voiced by some, that everyone who does not have that needs gets upset. The game is not made to be all things to all people, that is impossible! So can we just enjoy what we are given without getting all bent out of shape because it does not affect you personally? I mean, its a game, not real life, and what is good for someone else does not have to mean its bad for you. How about this community you all speak of? Don’t you want everyone to enjoy the game? If not, then that is not community, it is selfishness to expect Blizzard to cater to only a few.
Your right we should make the RPG elements more prononced. Instead of weekly raid kills and resetting instances, we should just make it so that mobs slow down when they are killed and instances are cleared once and never again. Also raids should only be killed by the first people that can clear them. Though luck everyone else cause we needed to put in more RPG elements into the game.
UO even tried that and removed that system because it actually doesnt work in MMORPGs. So in the grand scheme of things there are systems that make the GAME better for people as opposed to bolstering the RPG aspects which are already light.
Scaling instances to the level range actually makes MORE sense from a RPG perspectve simply so that you can cannon do it at the right time. As for overworld scaling i said my peice on that and i dont really care what MMO wow looks to to make WoW better since its pretty bad atm
To be honest i dont have a ton of faith in the team to do it right either. I hope they do i would like the game to be better.
Have you noticed that every week when you head back into Uldir that G’huun is back alive again? What the heck blizzard? I THOUGHT THIS WAS AN RPG!! MUH IMMERSION!!1
No but i want to make sure we understand the different in RPG elements when we talk about how deep they are in MMOs. That is to say that outside of stats and levels they are quite shallow overall.
Vanilla did a great job for the players in the world overall. I still have issues with what blizzard did with Level Sync in the open world. I think its bad. However, in instances, overall, i dont think that these systems hurt as much. As i mentioned, to me instances that are set at the level range (even being optional) are good for the game that allows for the world to be more alive than it is currently
Some times sacfrice should be made to make the GAME better which in this case i think is the right call. make the MMO a bigger part of this and allowing more people the ability to help people do content without stepping all over it. At the same time you are more than just comming in and god stomping some low level quest for a friend and power leveling them.
People seem to enjoy time walking, at the same time you call it something else like player syn and suddenly its awful. I dont see how allowing people to make a choice on how to play the game is bad. It WOULD be bad if it was forced on you like it is with Overworld Level Sync
That was actually a general criticism aimed at retail in general. That’s why I mentioned it in a separate paragraph as a separate idea. The part you didn’t quote was aimed at the scaling down system. I was saying I thought it was pointless given mob scaling. What’s the difference between scaling mobs up or scaling the player down? None if done in a 1 to 1 scenario. So why scale players down again? For instances sure, but why not just make mobs in instances scale up then? They already have this except that it’s just not spread from 1 to 120.
To explain: If a level 20 and a level 34 group together they can quest in old world content without any problems currently. If a level 80 and a 20 group however, then the old world content will only scale to 60. If they just make it all scale to 120 then that would solve the problem. It’s a very ‘sledgehammer’ solution, but so is everything they implement and I’ll be damned if it’s a good one. They’re both very poor solutions for an RPG, but good solutions for an action game where level is almost meaningless.
In fact, why even have levels? Just have ability unlocks instead with a bar until next ability. That would REALLY appeal to people.
I swear whenever someone knocks on blizzzard, someone else takes it as a personal act of aggression towards them.
In fact, why even have levels?
Because the level 20 player cannot do level 80 content yet. Duh. That seems so obvious how do I have to explain this concept to you.
You people need to learn the concepts of “level floors” and “level ceilings”
Blizzard is not raising the level scale ceiling. Theyre giving the option for higher level players to lower their level floor.
Your solution of just having everything scale from 1-120 would work if you kept the level floors the same as they are currently. On top of this it would have to be optional or else transmog farming would be completely destroyed and nobody wants that.
Why bother leveling up a character, gaining power and prestige, or whatever, if I go to old content and I’m just as weak as I was back when it was relevant to my character?
Why have levels at all anymore, if everything is scaled?