Many other MMOs have achieved a world that scales with player levels.
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With a fraction of the population
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Taking on that content scaled should be an optional thing for the player. Not forced.
Sometimes players just want to go back and solo-stomp a raid, maybe to get something from it, maybe just to blow off steam.
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I don’t think that’s because of level scaling. I think level scaling in WoW would make the world feel more alive. It currently feels dead because people are only in the most recent expansion. I personally don’t like everything else being pointless.
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Too much content, too spread out.
I like the concept, but in practice, there are a litany of issues that would cause a headache.
The scaling. From the examples we have played through so far, the scaling has bee very hit or miss. Either the mobs are too hard, or too easy. Normally when they scale mobs up, those mobs are just health sponges. And do they scale it for the player power of the launch of the current expansion, or the current patch? The sheer amount of resources needed to try to balance everything, ever spell and ability would be staggering.
The other issue is gear scaling. Balancing it for a fresh max level, would end up in it just getting utterly stomped by someone in even Normal Raid gear. So again, at max level, you will have content, being faceroll for those with gear, or a challenge for a fresh max level.
Itemization. They would have to continually monitor and run passes over all the old gear, weapons, trinkets ect. They would have to disable tier bonuses of course. They dont want a random trinket from Legion, that when scaled up, is better than mythic trinkets off the current raid.
The sheer amount of things that would need to be tuned, or monitored would be borderline impossible.
One last thing would be the players. Would the juice be worth the squeeze? If this amount of resources are invested, what percent of the players would engage with it?
If anything can be true about the retail players, is that that game version is very rewards driven. If the content doesnt make numbers go up, then they will not do that content.
They would have to attempt to make all of the previous content worth doing as scaled up. But, they would have to make it not quite as good as the current patch. Because, there is a finite amount of play time that the population has. And if they want their character to get stronger, they have to choose what content to do. If there is 25 raids and 80 dungeons to choose from, there is an oversaturation. And at the end of the day, once the older content doesnt give upgrade rewards, people dont do it.
These are problems Blizzard has created as a core design philosophy of WoW. Basically every major patch is a gear reset. So trying to keep everything scaled to current, its impossible to make all of the old content rewarding enough to participate in, yet not rewarding enough to compete with new content.
Old zones are mostly empty because there’s no incentive to go to them. This would fix that issue.
I like going back to complete my collection or “get my revenge” on a boss that wiped the team over and over. I enjoy watching them get one-shot. Stop trying to make everything trivial. Not everyone wants to be a sweaty Andy in this game.
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Sure. But thats a huge core issue.
Not a fan of “hey, see that game worse than us in every way possible? We should change a huge cornerstone aspect of our game to copy them”
Making raids or dungeons give current rewards wouldn’t make the world feel more alive. You won’t see those people in the world. They are in the dungeon or raid.
Quests giving higher rewards would have next to no impact. You can already quest anywhere through current expansion levels. Adding 10 more levels of experience/rewards would be meaningless.
All those rewards you instantly replace. And people generally just want to level fast.
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Suggestions like these are never a good idea because part of the fantasy here in the game is to get stronger and stronger. This is why level scaling is such a bad idea in general; it robs the player of the sensation of actually getting stronger with every level. Sure, I get a few more options or buttons to push, but the mob is still dying is roughly the same amount of time it took me to kill it at 11 versus 71, and it’s only at the very pinnacle of leveling do you start to feel powerful, you start being able to three-tap common mobs, you start being able to facetank crowds.
If we’re going to Guild Wars everything, then WoW needs to get rid of leveling or make it basically-instant.
Specifically, what incentive would be added to fill old zones with players?
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Would you buy a new game if most of the enemies were easy, died in one hit, and only a small portion of the game was actually relevant? That’s the situation in WoW right now.
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Because that’s not endgame? Because this game is 20 years old and those are from the old expansions?
Yes I would buy it because the majority of players enjoy collecting things than run raids all day long.
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If it was a mmorpg and I understood how mmos generally work.
Yes
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If the world scaled, then quests, mobs, events, and rewards in old zones could stay relevant instead of becoming trivial. Players would actually have a reason to go back because the content wouldn’t be a one-shot ghost town anymore. Right now, only the newest expansion matters—scaling would make the entire world usable instead of just a small slice of it. Most of my favorite zones are not relevant.
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Relevant to what?
Relevant to leveling?
They already are.
Relevant to max level? Then they are worthless because you would replace them with end game gear.
I am not seeing any way this increases players in the world
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I get that old zones aren’t “endgame,” but that’s exactly why scaling would help. If old content scaled with your level, completing quests, collecting items, or revisiting bosses could actually feel meaningful again. Right now, almost the whole world is irrelevant unless you’re in the latest expansion. Making old zones viable gives players more reasons to explore beyond raids and dungeons. I guess I will make a game with only a small portion that is relevant and you will pay $49.99 to $89.99 for only a small portion of gameplay.
The whole point is all the content becomes relevant for everyone. No one is getting removed from the main game because the main game just gets larger for everyone.
That’s the entire point of horizontal progression systems. Everything remains relevant as part of the entire game. Not being forced into the same 6 zones for an entire expansion.
But I guess wow players enjoy spending $200 a year for 6 zones of content vs 100 zones of ever evolving content.
It’s still meaningful to me because I get what I came to get. I don’t need to group for every single quest in this game. We don’t have enough players anymore to fill up every continent.
I don’t think some of you understand how progression works. What’s the point of going to higher level and ilvl if I can never be stronger than old content?
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You may not want more but others do. We might have more players if veteran players were happy. Old content is not relevant or meaningful. It should be!
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