ArenaNet: Dynamic Leveling Adjustment

[Izzy]

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Hello, I’m Isaiah Cartwright, the lead game designer for Guild Wars 2. I’d like to talk today about some changes we made to our dynamic leveling system, which allows players to enjoy the content on any map at any level.

We had a few issues with this system that we made adjustments to. When high-level characters played in lower level zones, they were a bit too powerful, so the content was not as challenging as it could be. As a result of this, we also scaled down the rewards a bit too much.

As of the January 28 build, we made some changes to the dynamic scaling system to address these issues:

1.) We changed the formula for how attributes are calculated when the dynamic leveling adjustment system scales you down. This makes returning to lower level zones more fun and better balanced.
2.) We changed the formula for how rewards are calculated when scaled down to make it more rewarding for high-level players to visit lower level areas.

The goal is to more accurately reflect the attributes you should have at that level for a similarly geared character. While this will make some areas harder, our goal is to make all areas of Guild Wars 2 exciting and fun for players of any level. We also want players of all levels to feel like their time is well spent and rewarding in any map they go to.



In 2013, one of our main goals is to add more content to maps of all levels, as well as stronger reward structures for playing across all locations in the world. This will give us a strong structure of experiences, challenges, and rewards that are balanced for a player of any level in any map and help make the social experience of playing anywhere in our game more exciting.

Thanks for playing!

Honestly I'm not sure how I feel about this yet. I will have to experience it a bit more to really understand how it's going to effect the players. I'm leaning towards the positive side right now, but I know there's going to be the backlash of "Hey, why am I having a hard time killing these level 5 enemies when I'm level 80?!" and it may end up dividing the player base a bit in that regard.

[Edward M. Grant]

Sounds about right to me. When I've returned to lower-level areas I've generally found it's too easy and I don't get much worth doing it for, other than completeness.

[sclowe1995]

This is just me, but I hate scaling. But I guess you can only have it two different ways. Either have low level places, that are easy and have not much reward, or have low level areas that scale you down and still give you decent rewards for the level that you are really at. Atleast, I hope the second one is actually is actually how they did it. What is the point of scaling us down if we don't get extra reward for it.

[Theoldman]

Not real fond of the change. As a crafter/explorer I don't really find spending all my time killing lower level mobs that fun. Mobs that previously took 5-8 attacks are now taking 8-12 attacks. Running around a mob constantly button pushing gets very old and in reality is not fun or challenging. When I want challenge I change my target type.

[Zorac]

I have not noticed a difference in the gameplay, maybe things take a few more hits, but to me its not noticable. I have noticed an increase in the rewards though. On the toons I am lvling I go through every zone lvling them up. All the starter zones, then the 15-25 zones and so on. So I am always a bit higher lvl than the zone after the first couple of starter zones. For example my charr warrior is 45 and is 70% done with the charr 15-25 zone, Disseua Platuea (Yeah I know thats spelled wrong) so he's being scalled down at least 20 lvls now. The zone feels just as easy as if I was doing it on a lvl 80 toon.

[Leohan]

Have not really noticed a difference myself when level 80 in low level areas, the armor and weapon specs just off set whatever down grade in level Anet put on us.

[Bell]

Have not really noticed a difference myself when level 80 in low level areas, the armor and weapon specs just off set whatever down grade in level Anet put on us.

I've had a different experience. Not with a lvl 80, but with a mid lvl guardian. Before the patch it took significantly less time to kill a mob in one of the third tier areas (25-35 areas), where I levelled. So, to me it seems as if the desired result has been achieved.

And I also think that this is actually a good way and hope that future games will pick up this kind of lvldesign. It's still not really difficult to kill something in a lower region and if you're good, I bet you can still solo some group events to feel allmighty. And I also think it's a good thing that farming lowlvl ressources is not a piece of cake in this game. Additionally I hope that they will work more on spreading the PVE people out all over the world for rewarding events. Right now, there is little reward to be had in outdoor PVE events, as the rewards of, for instance, dragon events are really not that great. And the fights should also be more interesting.

These dragons are basically a joke. I'm not a huge PVE fan, but I would love if they would implement real cool outdoor raidbosses with long respawn timers that yield great rewards and also demand a number of people that know what they are doing and actually work together or follow a tactic instead of just mindlessly zerging the mobs down, like the dragon aspects of Vanilla WoW. I feel that the direction they were heading with the temple events by increasing their difficulty is the right one.

[JHCinSC]

It feels that playing a lower level area with a higher level toon is still not rewarding enough to warrant the effort. I still do it on occassion if I feel like completing a zone, but for the most part my high levels stay in high level areas and my low levels stay in level appropriate zones. The only area I have a high level consistently playing a lower level area is Sparkfly Fen which is where I do my daily achievements so I just part a lvl 80 warrior there.