Dynamic Downscaling: Making Lower Levels Great Again!

[snowe]

What is 'dynamic downscaling' in this context?

There are two examples:

First, for armor it implies temporarily, dynamically reducing the effect of an augment or mod to a lower tier version of that augment. For example, if the top tier of a piece of Fire Magic gear had a +23% base damage modifier on it, it might get downscaled to a lower tier version of +20%, +17%, +14%, +11%, +8% or +3 depending on the degree of downscaling.

Second, 'downscaling' would similarly affect player skills. For example, 'Fire Breath 6' does 597 fire damage at L70... downscaled it would behave like 'Firebreath 1-5' accordingly, inflicting between 40 and 468 fire damage depending on the degree of downscaling.

Why should this be done?

There are several reasons of convenience to mention: the potential for fewer skill icons in the skill book, higher level skills automatically adapting through downscaling to match much lower level skills, etc. The main benefits, however, two fold:

Most obviously, downscaling armor and skills to be within reasonable ranges for a given dungeon improves the experience of that dungeon for almost everyone. If, for example, Serbule Crypts downscaled everyone in it to L35 (meaning downscaling skills to L35- variants, and gear mods to L30 tier mods), you'd be back to needing a group to go down and take Kyrulek out. The current preferred method of having a bored L70 carry you on a Serbule Crypts boss tour would no longer be possible. Now, level 35 was chosen somewhat arbitrarily (5 levels higher than the gear dropped by the Rhino Guardian), but the idea is really more important than the specific number chosen. Similar caps in the Goblin Dungeon (40?) and Kur Tower (50?) could address some of the common issues being encountered (over-camping, AE farming trivializing content, etc.) today without otherwise nerfing specific skill lines.

Perhaps less obvious is an increased utility of lower level gear. Specifically, in the situation where vets are now PLing one skill through use of another, it typically benefits them greatly to use the highest level variants available under a 'main' L70 skill with high level augmented armor, and then treat their secondary skill as a token skill until level 50 or so. Making that high level gear less dominant by downscaling the mods in certain situations would lower the level at which it pays to properly gear for the skill set being played.

Where should this be done?

Every dungeon. It should *not* be done outside of dungeons, preserving the late-level BMoC feeling important to grind-heavy MMOs.

[Taei]

Yes, this needs to be done ASAP, so it keeps the dungeons experience clean for everyone. But I think it should be optional

[snowe]

It's not really something that could be done optionally.

The main goal isn't to give high level players PLing skills and farm-stomping lower level dungeons a choice in whether or not they want to continue doing that... but to mitigate the effect of that behavioral choice in a reasonable way, thus presenting a better face to newer players through their experience of dungeons that aren't always spawn-less or suffering under the burden of AE farming.

[Taledar]

Not sure why it couldn't be done optionally like Taei mentioned, I remember City of Heroes (as one example...can't recall any others right off-hand) did something similar where if you grouped with a much higher level character it down-scaled your abilities to match the lower level. Group specific or similar down-scaling would allow you to tackle any content and still enjoy a challenge with friends.

I'm not sure I like the idea of zone-wide down-scaling, I'm someone who plays a lot of solo because my playtime is very sporadic bursts and because of that the majority of it is non-combat. Because of that I don't usually poke my head into dungeons until I'll past the target levels. I don't really want a group of higher combat skills to come babysit me through the content, it isn't very fun to just plow through things in a blur and not experience it they way it was intended.

[Trufax]

Belt of Weak Links
Your health, armor, mana and combat skills are equal to the lowest levels of the members in your party.

As an aside I think this type of scaling has some added benefits. I noticed when farming Gaz wurms for level 75+ mods with a lower level party member there were catchup mechanics in place that weighted loot drops in their favor.

[Raviollius]

I noticed when farming Gaz wurms for level 75+ mods with a lower level party member there were catchup mechanics in place that weighted loot drops in their favor.
Let me guess: it was free loot mode and the lower level was the leader?

I agree on the mod scaling when you're equipping lower level skills, to avoid having people do exactly what they do today: power-grind all their combat skills like mad. I disagree on having location-specific forced downgrading on skils: people who want to help newbies without doing too much damage/healing can downgrade their skills manually(you can even set up beforehand so the swap takes two clicks), and this wouldn't remove the need from high level players looking for the loot there, it'll just make them rooted on that spot even longer.

[Trufax]

Let me guess: it was free loot mode and the lower level was the leader?


Neither was the case.

[kazeandi]

I'd hate if this was forced. I leveled 10+ skills to 70 over 2 chars, I've seen all the leveling spots often enough. These days I just wanna PL a skill that peaks my interest.