Scaling is an awesome idea. The alternative is 95% mismatched content. You just need to have it adjust to the players desired level of difficulty.
Mine would be: Trash Mobs: Average Special Mobs: Challenging Scale to group size: Yes
And to give players the feeling of getting stronger have the number of enemies increase as well as their strength.
For players who don't care about "World" and consistency, I think that's a great idea. Not my kind of game, but for your wants (and those of like mind) that's a great way to go.
It feels like "illusion" rather than "immersion" to me. But I know that doesn't bother many players.
It might be scaled content isn't necessarily bad. What's bad is no variance between content. For example, if everything is a trash mob it's completely inconsistent from what we expect of a world. If everything is equally challenging it's inconsistent. We expet a range of variance between opponents. Some are so easy to kill you merely touch them. Some require some effort, and some are nearly unbeatable, while others, on the extreme end, are essentially impossible. A non-scaled world provides this consistency. However, non-scaled worlds fail to progress as the player progresses. You would expect the content in a world to progress as you do, right? Non-scaled worlds do not provide that. In a non-scaled world, the only tyhing that progresses is the player, and that's inconsistent. However, you'd also not expect everything to progress at teh same rate. So if something was a average challenge when you start, it might be very difficult later on when you're stronger, or, contrastingly, it was complacent and is now pitiful.
So here's what I think would be most consistent for a immersive world:
1) ...Limited and variable scaled content, in that it scales at different factors, and AT ITS OWN PACE, so the progress of the player is not linked directly to the content, except in specific cases where the game needs to guarantee a opponent will be killable by the player with a certain amount of challenge--for example in mmo's where content progressing over many years, at its own pace, would not coincide even remotely with players entering the game many years after it started. Such a condition would create a circumstance where new players would increasingly struggle to find anything to kill--with the passage of time.
2) ...Content is not equally challenging, with extremes on either end. Some is so easy it dies when you're nearby, and some is so hard it kills you with one menacing stare.
3) ...Non-linear combinations of content, so that very powerful content will sometimes exist within weak content. For example, very hard monsters like dragons will sometimes be nearby villages of farmers and trade folk--who have no ability to defend themselves.
So essentially what i'm arguing for is a hybrid of scaled content and non-scaled content, with a focus on the world more than the player. This would classify it as more of a simulation than a RPG.
And ideally the rat you meet when you first start teh game will be replaced by something else, or not exist at all later on. The content should change somewhat as the player plays. Villages will come up and fade away, or get razed in a war. NPCs will be at the anvil one day and dead the next. So it shouldn't be a guarantee you'll be able to revisit content from your early days, as it might be dramatically different, not merely in power, but in character or kind. Although there should be some inertia.
That's still the misnomer that scaling prevents progression, which it does not.
You still can gain new skills, progress in stats on some measure, and even again the gear progression that all feeds into making it so that some generic orc you fought at level 1 is considerably easier to handle at level 10 or especially max.
This has rather been the constant hitch in the argument. That people keep claiming scaling removes progression, which is simply a false statement. I don't know how many times it's been reiterated at this point the variety of ways in which progression still exists, and as that was even the point of the ESO examples that it is a game with scaling and progression, and we even described exact conditions around the CP levels and how that affects the scaling and ability to handle such mobs over time.
At this point it feels mostly like talking to a wall whenever someone brings up "but muh progressions" as their argument against it, because it's not a valid argument.
It negates THE FEEL of progression, NOT progression itself. Games are illusions. Some illusions work, some don't. Why even progress if NPCs/mobs do to? Solely to gain new abilities/skills/spells?
Is that more clear?
PS: I'm not going to go on a three page debate with you. You love scaling and I don't. No one is right or wrong.
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse. - FARGIN_WAR
It's not a matter of loving or hating something. If you wanted opinions, then I would have said that scaling is a half-measure solution to a more fundamental problem regarding rampancy of vertical scaling.
But this isn't about whether or not you or I like, hate, or have any other emotions around something.
It's a case of making observation and counterpoint, to examine the value and implications of a system.
Which for example your argument that scaling "negates the feel of progression". Which I would again have to call a misnomer.
You are basically trying to use the exact same kind of argument that's levied against non-scaling systems. When you grind up to max level beating up rats and shiz, only to walk into another zone and get your butt handed to you by a rat with a different color fur, how much progress do you feel like you actually made?
That "illusion of progress" is just as vacant in non-scaling systems, as that is a problem built on how well the developers manage the surrounding factors such as offering proper variety to the mobs you face, introduction to new challenges and types of content over time, or even just the generic tiers of mob difficulty.
Which then cycles to answering your question there with a rhetorical one.
You wish to ask "Why even progress if NPCs/mobs do to? Solely to gain new abilities/skills/spells?"
Then I will ask "Are the Zelda games not entertaining to you?"
While the Zelda titles do not "scale", they also do not "progress" through levels. Instead, the player progresses horizontally. A notion that applies just the same in principle to scaling systems. IE, that sense of the world expanding, gaining ease of access to new areas, obtaining new methods that allows you to more easily handle a challenge or dispatch certain mobs. That's all progression that is very tangible to a user experience.
And further regard to your question. If you gain new abilities/skills/spells, would you not feel like you are making progress when you turn around and use those new things to more easily deal with those NPC/mobs? Just because they have averaged core stats, does not mean they also gain new defenses or skills to match your own broadening access to game features.
You'd have to forge a scenario where every enemy mob acts like an exact clone of the player in order for such an argument around "scaling mobs makes everything always feel the same" to work, and that just dives head-first into absolute absurdity.
If your opinion rests on the claim that scaling is not able to offer progression or "the illusion of progression", then I ultimately have to simply address that this is simply not the case, as games that are mechanically designed on horizontal progression and scaling systems, as we have used in example time and again in this thread, are fully capable of representing a wide berth of REAL progression to feel within a character and a gameplay experience.
That your opinion hinges on a complaint that is every bit as valid an accusation to make regarding non-scaling content, it makes your "opinion" that much harder to bear when you want to treat it in such an artificially binary manner.
This is the same issue with the kitten argument @Scorchien gave. Him saying he's up to 400+cp means he should be well aware, or could even experience the difference himself again by leveling a new character, the difference in challenge in fighting a mob in ESO as a low level scaled character, versus playing as one of his high level characters. Suddenly, content stops being so easy, even though it's scaled content.
Hell, if open world or general dungeons aren't hard, then seek appropriately tiered challenges like the DLC vet dungeons, vet trials, or even the PvE arena trials. Claiming the game for not being hard, because you're not participating in the more challenging content that's offered, makes for a very skewed argument.
And even if we did step past that to try and argue "well I totes did that stuff and found it easy", would they not understand that to get to that point it would mean you have an exceptionally well built and geared char that's had to make a ton of PROGRESS to attain that state? That they are not going to be able to pull that off as even a 160CP char? That to make it to the point of feeling like all the content is trivial, they'd have to play through immense amounts of content and PROGRESS far enough that it's finally trivialized those things.
There needs to be a better line when one shares their opinion, because just saying "Oh I don't enjoy this" is far different than saying "This doesn't work" or "This IS x". Making an argument about how a game "feels" as an extension of mechanical user experience, and then defending that with "oh but it's just an opinion" is nonsense.
"Good." A word defined by personal tastes, not "truth", as some decide their opinions are. What else is there, oh winded one?
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse. - FARGIN_WAR
That's still the misnomer that scaling prevents progression, which it does not.
You still can gain new skills, progress in stats on some measure, and even again the gear progression that all feeds into making it so that some generic orc you fought at level 1 is considerably easier to handle at level 10 or especially max.
This has rather been the constant hitch in the argument. That people keep claiming scaling removes progression, which is simply a false statement. I don't know how many times it's been reiterated at this point the variety of ways in which progression still exists, and as that was even the point of the ESO examples that it is a game with scaling and progression, and we even described exact conditions around the CP levels and how that affects the scaling and ability to handle such mobs over time.
At this point it feels mostly like talking to a wall whenever someone brings up "but muh progressions" as their argument against it, because it's not a valid argument.
It negates THE FEEL of progression, NOT progression itself. Games are illusions. Some illusions work, some don't. Why even progress if NPCs/mobs do to? Solely to gain new abilities/skills/spells?
Is that more clear?
PS: I'm not going to go on a three page debate with you. You love scaling and I don't. No one is right or wrong.
Honestly, that is not a problem of scaling. NPC power and difficulty are all based on designer choice.
For example, why all of a sudden can ordinary NPC like wolves or elephants suddenly can destroy my hero in expansion X? Same hero could go back to old expansion and sneeze on world destroying threats to death? Could a developer make all NPC types have a level range? Yes, but they always up the power so a regular wolf could solo the Lich King to make all NPC viable in the new expansion. To me these new NPC are scaled to the new expansion and inconsistent.
Same with level scaling. You could choose to make some NPC types easy and some hard. It could be influenced by your level how easy.
Vertical progression is all a numbers game and can be manipulated in infinite ways. Scaling or no scaling you can choose how your game works.
Scaling removes options -- people will always head for the lowest common denominator -- and unless there is some tremendous reason to move around, people will take the easy road and stay in the same general area, beit the best loot area, best exp area, or least risky area avoiding the rest of the world.
If it somehow becomes "best" to do certain areas at certain times you are exactly back to where you started. (IE if quest rewards are scaled and the quests can only be done once then players "in the know" will do those specific areas at endgame, avoiding it until then)
Scaling removes options -- people will always head for the lowest common denominator -- and unless there is some tremendous reason to move around, people will take the easy road and stay in the same general area, beit the best loot area, best exp area, or least risky area avoiding the rest of the world.
If it somehow becomes "best" to do certain areas at certain times you are exactly back to where you started. (IE if quest rewards are scaled and the quests can only be done once then players "in the know" will do those specific areas at endgame, avoiding it until then)
At any rate the mechanic will be gamed.
It can be gamed but once again, that totally depends on the details of how it's implemented. That bit about reserving quests in an area until end game is only a problem if those quest rewards are the only way to get that item. If it's just one of the ways of getting it, and a minor way at that as is the case in ESO, then it doesn't really matter.
The One Tamriel patch that implemented level scaling everywhere also added 3 specific 5-piece gear sets to each zone. Non repeatable quests in the zone is just one of the ways of getting a piece of those sets. Repeatable content like bosses in dolmens and public dungeons, world bosses as well as random mobs, locked chests, thieve's troves and psijiic portals also drop the set pieces. Dolmens, public dungeons and locked chest farming are the go-to way for anyone set-piece farming in any zone. One-of quest rewards don't really matter at all.
Having said that, not all sets are of equal interest and some become more sought after for different builds (although that changes over time due to the never ending buff/nerf cycle) so doing that repeatable content in some zones is more popular than in others. That drives zone popularity and density to some extent but it's a pretty minor thing in ESO except in the case of newly added areas that do get population peaks but that's just an inevitable byproduct of not just their sets but the whole area and quests being new, shiny content.
So it's pretty easy really to get relatively the same use of all zones by just paying some attention to detail when you implement scaling.
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Scaling removes options -- people will always head for the lowest common denominator -- and unless there is some tremendous reason to move around, people will take the easy road and stay in the same general area, beit the best loot area, best exp area, or least risky area avoiding the rest of the world.
If it somehow becomes "best" to do certain areas at certain times you are exactly back to where you started. (IE if quest rewards are scaled and the quests can only be done once then players "in the know" will do those specific areas at endgame, avoiding it until then)
At any rate the mechanic will be gamed.
This is my biggest concern about scaling, there will be a best place to get xp, locust players will never move from it until they are top level. You could implement a 'reduced xp in a zone' cooldown or even a finite amount of xp you can get from a zone. There are answers to this, I am just not sure the gaming studio would want to implement them.
Here is some truth .. A new character , using training gear , just pulling all he can and easily wiping out mobs spamming .... not so hard is it , and i do have a level 30+ healer i fool with a bit and yes its very easy ..
Notice his health never dips below 70% .. no danger , it looks and feels exactly the same IMO (to me at CP 460 as it does early ..This is specific to the overland experience where the majority of players spend the majority of there time ..
That video highlights how to exploit non-dlc locations, like how he targets mobs that are attacking other mobs, in order to avoid taking damage. He's exploiting mechanics to make the experience easy.
And if it's easy, then how about logging in, removing all your CP level bonuses, and then doing a dlc dungeon?
Fact is, there's always easy places to level. @Scot and @centkin can just as easily apply his complaint to the level-tiered dungeons in WoW that people regularly grinded out levels in in the early days of WoW, which has carried through it's life into being a dominant focus in it's later years. Something even Rift had with players queuing for level-appropriate dungeons regularly over and over just to level up, because it was way easier than traversing the world quest chains.
IE, non-scaling content has this exact same problem. Why do people like you pretend this problem only exists for one-half of the gaming world when this is a broader issue? Because you want to find something wrong with this other mechanic, and instead of finding a valid reason you latch onto the first branch of nonsense someone can think of.
So instead of talking about scaling itself, people have on and off ranted about content balance and challenge, which is a problem in scaling and non-scaling systems, and has been for a long time, then they pretend it's a scaling issue. It's disappointing and dishonest.
Also @AlBQuirky , When you said "It negates THE FEEL of progression, NOT progression itself. Games are illusions. Some illusions work, some don't." did you preface that was a case of your own experience? No, you only claimed you didn't love scaling as your opinion at the end. When you did use the word "good" a few posts above that, was your orc example meant to be subjective to your opinion as well, or were you trying to describe an issue you perceived in the mechanics, which would be an objective argument.
When your complaint is that scaling makes fighting every mob the same, that's an assertion about an objective mechanic we can observe. Hence we give example from live games that demonstrates how they are not, But when we do that then suddenly "Oh but that's my opinion so I don't have to accept these facts."?
That video highlights how to exploit non-dlc locations, like how he targets mobs that are attacking other mobs, in order to avoid taking damage. He's exploiting mechanics to make the experience easy.
And if it's easy, then how about logging in, removing all your CP level bonuses, and then doing a dlc dungeon?
Fact is, there's always easy places to level. @Scot can just as easily apply his complaint to the level-tiered dungeons in WoW that people regularly grinded out levels in in the early days of WoW, which has carried through it's life into being a dominant focus in it's later years. Something even Rift had with players queuing for level-appropriate dungeons regularly over and over just to level up, because it was way easier than traversing the world quest chains.
IE, non-scaling content has this exact same problem. Why do people like you pretend this problem only exists for one-half of the gaming world when this is a broader issue? Because you want to find something wrong with this other mechanic, and instead of finding a valid reason you latch onto the first branch of nonsense you can find?
hes not exploiting anything , If anyone watches the entire video he is pulling mobs directly onto himself and mowing them down , and as i specified this is the overland experience , you are interjecting a DLC dungeon .. What i am pointing out is where most casual players spend there time .. and the game is rather easy , as several folks have expressed , And in the instances where he attacks mobs fighting one another , again that is how the game is designed , He is not exploiting ( report as such if you feel so , let us know the response)
And again , go to Kaladim the new EQ 2 server for ex .. and pull 6 equal mobs on to your self in starter gear , please stream us your one way ticket to your bind location , its imposible in most Old School MMORPGs( in there vAnila state) as ive listed in this thread earlier ..
And there is something to mobs for the most part feeling the same as also is demonstrated in the video above , he fights 5 distinct kinds of mobs in different areas , he uses the EXACT same technique to pull and spam in each area ..
Go try that in UO , go fight a Lich Lord the same way you would approach a Troll .. you would be dead , rather fast ill add.. There are no tactics needed in ESO for much of the game , , you do need it more so in end game dungeons , But the majority of the game ( particularly overland ) not so much ..
ESO does alot of things well , and i play and enjoy the expereince in bites , But the challenge for a vast portion of the game is lacking .....
That video highlights how to exploit non-dlc locations, like how he targets mobs that are attacking other mobs, in order to avoid taking damage. He's exploiting mechanics to make the experience easy.
And if it's easy, then how about logging in, removing all your CP level bonuses, and then doing a dlc dungeon?
Fact is, there's always easy places to level. @Scot can just as easily apply his complaint to the level-tiered dungeons in WoW that people regularly grinded out levels in in the early days of WoW, which has carried through it's life into being a dominant focus in it's later years. Something even Rift had with players queuing for level-appropriate dungeons regularly over and over just to level up, because it was way easier than traversing the world quest chains.
IE, non-scaling content has this exact same problem. Why do people like you pretend this problem only exists for one-half of the gaming world when this is a broader issue? Because you want to find something wrong with this other mechanic, and instead of finding a valid reason you latch onto the first branch of nonsense you can find?
hes not exploiting anything , If anyone watches the entire video he is pulling mobs directly onto himself and mowing them down , and as i specified this is the overland experience , you are interjecting a DLC dungeon .. What i am pointing out is where most casual players spend there time .. and the game is rather easy , as several folks have expressed , And in the instances where he attacks mobs fighting one another , again that is how the game is designed , He is not exploiting ( report as such if you feel so , let us know the response)
And again , go to Kaladim the new EQ 2 server for ex .. and pull 6 equal mobs on to your self in starter gear , please stream us your one way ticket to your bind location , its imposible in most Old School MMORPGs as ive listed in this thread earlier ..
I watched the video, and he attacked a werewolf that was aggroed to an NPC, he had a whole bit on that for how to whack tougher mobs safely.
And yes of course I'm going to point out the DLC, because as I noted, not all content in the game is created equal. The DLC zones also have tougher content in their overland content than vanilla ESO zones. This is intentionally done by Zenimax to create a content ramp players can experience even with level scaling. On top of that, the video highlights the guy trying to find the easiest content to grind in the vanilla eso while avoiding the challenges.
This is again the type of thing you'll find in most MMO's. You're talking about seeking out grind spots, which I can again note how WoW has always had such grind spots even in it's heyday.
You want to talk about Kaladim? Then should we note Youtube also has videos for that? There's a bunch of videos showing how you just step through the tiered dungeon queues to grind levels and not even bother with the world content.
On top of that, your Kaladim comment is quite the pot meet kettle moment. Kaladim is a progression server that intentionally rolls the game back to a harder state than the "current" game servers.
Your UO comment is just repetition of this same contradiction. Do you mean to say the general trash mobs populating those game's overland are not soloable? Because if you accidentally pull a crowd in ESO instead of a few mobs at a time like in that video you linked, you're in the same kinda trouble.
That was literally like saying "Go fight this world boss the same way you'd fight a troll" in ESO, yet you completely ignore the tiers of mobs in one context just to bring it up in another. Are there lich floating around everywhere In UO? Oh, there aren't?! They are reserved for sepecific dungeons, a few graveyards, and champion areas. IE things you shouldn't be approaching as a lower level/inexperienced player. Kinda like a veteran mob or world boss.
So you can tell me to go play intentionally harder game content, but you balk when I mention there's harder game content than vanilla overland to experience in ESO?
Can you make an argument without resorting to logical fallacy?
That video highlights how to exploit non-dlc locations, like how he targets mobs that are attacking other mobs, in order to avoid taking damage. He's exploiting mechanics to make the experience easy.
And if it's easy, then how about logging in, removing all your CP level bonuses, and then doing a dlc dungeon?
Fact is, there's always easy places to level. @Scot can just as easily apply his complaint to the level-tiered dungeons in WoW that people regularly grinded out levels in in the early days of WoW, which has carried through it's life into being a dominant focus in it's later years. Something even Rift had with players queuing for level-appropriate dungeons regularly over and over just to level up, because it was way easier than traversing the world quest chains.
IE, non-scaling content has this exact same problem. Why do people like you pretend this problem only exists for one-half of the gaming world when this is a broader issue? Because you want to find something wrong with this other mechanic, and instead of finding a valid reason you latch onto the first branch of nonsense you can find?
hes not exploiting anything , If anyone watches the entire video he is pulling mobs directly onto himself and mowing them down , and as i specified this is the overland experience , you are interjecting a DLC dungeon .. What i am pointing out is where most casual players spend there time .. and the game is rather easy , as several folks have expressed , And in the instances where he attacks mobs fighting one another , again that is how the game is designed , He is not exploiting ( report as such if you feel so , let us know the response)
And again , go to Kaladim the new EQ 2 server for ex .. and pull 6 equal mobs on to your self in starter gear , please stream us your one way ticket to your bind location , its imposible in most Old School MMORPGs as ive listed in this thread earlier ..
I watched the video, and he attacked a werewolf that was aggroed to an NPC, he had a whole bit on that for how to whack tougher mobs safely.
And yes of course I'm going to point out the DC, because as I noted, not all content in the game is created equal. The DLC zones also have tougher content in their overland content than vanilla ESO zones. This is intentionally done by Zenimax to create a content ramp players can experience even with level scaling. On top of that, the video highlights the guy trying to find the easiest content to grind in the vanilla eso while avoiding the challenges.
This is again the type of thing you'll find in most MMO's. You're talking about seeking out grind spots, which I can again note how WoW has always had such grind spots even in it's heyday.
You want to talk about Kaladim? Then should we note Youtube also has videos for that? There's a bunch of videos showing how you just step through the tiered dungeon queues to grind levels and not even bother with the world content.
On top of that, your Kaladim comment is quite the pot meet kettle moment. Kaladim is a progression server that intentionally rolls the game back to a harder state than the "current" game servers.
So you can tell me to go play intentionally harder game content, but you balk when I mention there's harder game content than vanilla overland to experience in ESO?
Can you make an argument without resorting to logical fallacy?
lol again IME there is not harder content in ESO for most of the game its rather casual soloable most all of it anywhere you go , and again Modern versions of games like EQ2 , AO , etc are easy much like ESO suffers from and why dont play those versions , there is little chalenge in Live EQ2 as well and why i must point to vanilla versions and play to find challenge , ESO does not deliver the kind of challenge i look for .. excpet the end game dungeons , which once you learn the mechaincs much like FF14 for ex , those become rather boring also ...
You need to just except that everyone does not like scaling like ESO does , it should not bother you this much .. ESO is a good game but has flaws much like all of them , people will point the flaws that they feel effect there gamneplay and experience , you with all your walls of text , will do Nothing to change there expereince
That video highlights how to exploit non-dlc locations, like how he targets mobs that are attacking other mobs, in order to avoid taking damage. He's exploiting mechanics to make the experience easy.
And if it's easy, then how about logging in, removing all your CP level bonuses, and then doing a dlc dungeon?
Fact is, there's always easy places to level. @Scot can just as easily apply his complaint to the level-tiered dungeons in WoW that people regularly grinded out levels in in the early days of WoW, which has carried through it's life into being a dominant focus in it's later years. Something even Rift had with players queuing for level-appropriate dungeons regularly over and over just to level up, because it was way easier than traversing the world quest chains.
IE, non-scaling content has this exact same problem. Why do people like you pretend this problem only exists for one-half of the gaming world when this is a broader issue? Because you want to find something wrong with this other mechanic, and instead of finding a valid reason you latch onto the first branch of nonsense you can find?
hes not exploiting anything , If anyone watches the entire video he is pulling mobs directly onto himself and mowing them down , and as i specified this is the overland experience , you are interjecting a DLC dungeon .. What i am pointing out is where most casual players spend there time .. and the game is rather easy , as several folks have expressed , And in the instances where he attacks mobs fighting one another , again that is how the game is designed , He is not exploiting ( report as such if you feel so , let us know the response)
And again , go to Kaladim the new EQ 2 server for ex .. and pull 6 equal mobs on to your self in starter gear , please stream us your one way ticket to your bind location , its imposible in most Old School MMORPGs as ive listed in this thread earlier ..
I watched the video, and he attacked a werewolf that was aggroed to an NPC, he had a whole bit on that for how to whack tougher mobs safely.
And yes of course I'm going to point out the DC, because as I noted, not all content in the game is created equal. The DLC zones also have tougher content in their overland content than vanilla ESO zones. This is intentionally done by Zenimax to create a content ramp players can experience even with level scaling. On top of that, the video highlights the guy trying to find the easiest content to grind in the vanilla eso while avoiding the challenges.
This is again the type of thing you'll find in most MMO's. You're talking about seeking out grind spots, which I can again note how WoW has always had such grind spots even in it's heyday.
You want to talk about Kaladim? Then should we note Youtube also has videos for that? There's a bunch of videos showing how you just step through the tiered dungeon queues to grind levels and not even bother with the world content.
On top of that, your Kaladim comment is quite the pot meet kettle moment. Kaladim is a progression server that intentionally rolls the game back to a harder state than the "current" game servers.
So you can tell me to go play intentionally harder game content, but you balk when I mention there's harder game content than vanilla overland to experience in ESO?
Can you make an argument without resorting to logical fallacy?
lol again IME there is not harder content in ESO for most of the game its rather casual soloable most all of it anywhere you go , and again Modern versions of games like EQ2 , AO , etc are easy much like ESO suffers from and why dont play those versions , there is little chalenge in Live EQ2 as well and why i must point to vanilla versions and play to find challenge , ESO does not deliver the kind of challenge i look for .. excpet the end game dungeons , which once you learn the mechaincs much like FF14 for ex , those become rather boring also
You seemed to miss the point spectacularly.
You tried to loft a game, that has remarkably easy content in it's current version, as being harder by focusing on a finite scope of it's content. Content that you have to hop onto a specific server no less to find.
IE, you tried to sell a sliver of the game's actual difficulty as the norm, when it's not the norm. You had to SEEK OUT THE CHALLENGE.
In ESO, you are complaining abut what is functionally the same scenario. While the original overworld and starter dungeons are easy, there is indeed harder world mobs, harder dungeons, harder vet content that can all be approached. In other word you have to SEEK OUT THE CHALLENGE.
Modern version of non-scaling games exhibiting the same kinds of problems as games that are scaling should give you a hint that you are complaining about a different issue here, and are erroneously conflating things, yet there seems to be a lot that you refuse to acknowledge right now.
And don't pull that bogus opinion argument yet again when we were just talking about mechanics, an objective element of the game's design.
You want to say you don't like games with scaling? I have never had an issue with that. You want to try and make a bogus excuse for your opinion around something objective? I will have issue with that.
I want a RPG+MMO to be BOTH. I do not want developers to start giving me mechanics or ideas that ruin the integrity of the game,it's lore or the role playing of a character in a plausibly real world.
mmorpg's are not about quest markers over a npc head,it is not about how fast you can get a new level number and does not have ANY reasoning behind instances and Raids.Those are just ideas some dev leads over the years decided was good to give players "something to do". Well that is what scaling is"some new idea,something to do".
When you create a world and it's inhabitants,they are suppose to be accepted as real lifeforms within the world.When you scale their numbers you CHANGE their very existence to a computer program that changes the numbers according to a players level.Your level should have NOTHING to do with the inhabitants of the world,they exist weather you are there or not and are SUPPOSE to have an exact identity weather you exist within that world or not.
So all of a sudden some new players joins and enters that zone and these mobs lose their identity,they become whatever that player has made them and to me that is just dumb.I first witnessed this idea during EQ2's Splitpaw Saga,i sort of understood why it was a sketchy idea but had to try it first.Hit me like a brick wall and soon nobody wanted to play it,the Splitpaw Saga became a ghost zone,terrible idea and SOE never did it again,learning from their mistake.
So fast forward and the Wow team ,seems to not get around,not learn from others mistakes,hey let's do this,i doubt they had any sound reasoning for the decision other than,it works,we don't care if it makes sense,it just works.Well yeah if my Boss paid me more than his profits takes in,sure that works for me...GREAT but doesn't make any sense at all.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
You ever been in a bar where some guy has nodded off and then he wakes up and says " And another fucking thing..."
That's this thread in a nutshell.
"Social media gives legions of idiots the right to speak when they once only spoke at a bar after a glass of wine, without harming the community ... but now they have the same right to speak as a Nobel Prize winner. It's the invasion of the idiots”
― Umberto Eco
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?” ― CD PROJEKT RED
So all of a sudden some new players joins and enters that zone and these mobs lose their identity,they become whatever that player has made them and to me that is just dumb.I first witnessed this idea during EQ2's Splitpaw Saga,i sort of understood why it was a sketchy idea but had to try it first.Hit me like a brick wall and soon nobody wanted to play it,the Splitpaw Saga became a ghost zone,terrible idea and SOE never did it again,learning from their mistake.
Yeah, pretty sure that's why "fixed" scaling ended up more popular than ripping mob scale back and forth to meet players.
And don't pull that bogus opinion argument yet again when we were just talking about mechanics, an objective element of the game's design.
You want to say you don't like games with scaling? I have never had an issue with that. You want to try and make a bogus excuse for your opinion around something objective? I will have issue with that.
Of course you realize you have expressed your opinion in this thread Many times , but only yours matters to you it seems ..
And don't pull that bogus opinion argument yet again when we were just talking about mechanics, an objective element of the game's design.
You want to say you don't like games with scaling? I have never had an issue with that. You want to try and make a bogus excuse for your opinion around something objective? I will have issue with that.
Of course you realize you have expressed your opinion in this thread Many times , but only yours matters to you it seems ..
Have a good day
Feel free to quote my opinion then.
I know I expressed it clearly once and requote at ease, it'll be rather easy to correct if you make something up instead.
Yeah that's what I thought. Can't defend the objective arguments, so tries to make the subjective plea, then turns it into a personal jab only to skip off when even that's called out. Sometimes the people in this community truly disappoint me.
Here is some truth .. A new character , using training gear , just pulling all he can and easily wiping out mobs spamming .... not so hard is it , and i do have a level 30+ healer i fool with a bit and yes its very easy ..
Notice his health never dips below 70% .. no danger , it looks and feels exactly the same IMO (to me at CP 460 as it does early ..This is specific to the overland experience where the majority of players spend the majority of there time ..
You sure are stubborn about this. Implementation is all that matters.
EQ has levels where there are hard platforms and you can need groups for even con NPC. WoW I loved up one shotting everything that gave experience up like level 60 I believe in prior expansion. AC levels had different meaning and well built lower level could beat poorly built higher level.
Just like there is more than one to do vertical progression there is more than one way to do scaling. The things you talking about can be avoided if the developers choose to or know know how to. In some of the normal Elder Scroll games NPC scaled to you. So you might have bandits in the best gear and weapons. The very series you are showing had difficult leveling scaling. Scaling can be done anyway the developer chooses.
I want a RPG+MMO to be BOTH. I do not want developers to start giving me mechanics or ideas that ruin the integrity of the game,it's lore or the role playing of a character in a plausibly real world.
mmorpg's are not about quest markers over a npc head,it is not about how fast you can get a new level number and does not have ANY reasoning behind instances and Raids.Those are just ideas some dev leads over the years decided was good to give players "something to do". Well that is what scaling is"some new idea,something to do".
When you create a world and it's inhabitants,they are suppose to be accepted as real lifeforms within the world.When you scale their numbers you CHANGE their very existence to a computer program that changes the numbers according to a players level.Your level should have NOTHING to do with the inhabitants of the world,they exist weather you are there or not and are SUPPOSE to have an exact identity weather you exist within that world or not.
So all of a sudden some new players joins and enters that zone and these mobs lose their identity,they become whatever that player has made them and to me that is just dumb.I first witnessed this idea during EQ2's Splitpaw Saga,i sort of understood why it was a sketchy idea but had to try it first.Hit me like a brick wall and soon nobody wanted to play it,the Splitpaw Saga became a ghost zone,terrible idea and SOE never did it again,learning from their mistake.
So fast forward and the Wow team ,seems to not get around,not learn from others mistakes,hey let's do this,i doubt they had any sound reasoning for the decision other than,it works,we don't care if it makes sense,it just works.Well yeah if my Boss paid me more than his profits takes in,sure that works for me...GREAT but doesn't make any sense at all.
Not all RPGs have vast vertical progressions. NPC generally change as you level. My characters could easily solo old top tier raids in WoW. Thus a world threat like the Lich King would die to an expansion zone giant sewer rat. I think that is a change in lore.
That's sort of been the thing not being "gotten" this entire time with most arguments.
Scaling is a way of creating a "baseline". That baseline does not itself define the scope of the game. If developers stick too close to or under that baseline, then the game becomes easy, if they reach above it, the game becomes harder.
Having non-scaling levels has the same condition, the baseline is just how "at-level" content is built.
The challenge a game poses, comes from how things are built in relationship to what the baseline is. That is true for both systems.
The problem of games feeling "too easy" in many cases can be mechanically traced to what the target difficulty and challenges of the individual content is as a consequence, irregardless of if the system is scaling or non-scaling. How mobs types and builds are handled, how variety in obstacles and content barriers are handled, how encounter mechanics are handled, etc. The features directly involved in actually constructing a challenge within a game are, logically, the most direct factors regarding how challenging the content is going to be.
Comments
Is that more clear?
PS: I'm not going to go on a three page debate with you. You love scaling and I don't. No one is right or wrong.
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse.- FARGIN_WAR
But this isn't about whether or not you or I like, hate, or have any other emotions around something.
It's a case of making observation and counterpoint, to examine the value and implications of a system.
Which for example your argument that scaling "negates the feel of progression". Which I would again have to call a misnomer.
You are basically trying to use the exact same kind of argument that's levied against non-scaling systems. When you grind up to max level beating up rats and shiz, only to walk into another zone and get your butt handed to you by a rat with a different color fur, how much progress do you feel like you actually made?
That "illusion of progress" is just as vacant in non-scaling systems, as that is a problem built on how well the developers manage the surrounding factors such as offering proper variety to the mobs you face, introduction to new challenges and types of content over time, or even just the generic tiers of mob difficulty.
Which then cycles to answering your question there with a rhetorical one.
You wish to ask "Why even progress if NPCs/mobs do to? Solely to gain new abilities/skills/spells?"
Then I will ask "Are the Zelda games not entertaining to you?"
While the Zelda titles do not "scale", they also do not "progress" through levels. Instead, the player progresses horizontally. A notion that applies just the same in principle to scaling systems. IE, that sense of the world expanding, gaining ease of access to new areas, obtaining new methods that allows you to more easily handle a challenge or dispatch certain mobs. That's all progression that is very tangible to a user experience.
And further regard to your question. If you gain new abilities/skills/spells, would you not feel like you are making progress when you turn around and use those new things to more easily deal with those NPC/mobs? Just because they have averaged core stats, does not mean they also gain new defenses or skills to match your own broadening access to game features.
You'd have to forge a scenario where every enemy mob acts like an exact clone of the player in order for such an argument around "scaling mobs makes everything always feel the same" to work, and that just dives head-first into absolute absurdity.
If your opinion rests on the claim that scaling is not able to offer progression or "the illusion of progression", then I ultimately have to simply address that this is simply not the case, as games that are mechanically designed on horizontal progression and scaling systems, as we have used in example time and again in this thread, are fully capable of representing a wide berth of REAL progression to feel within a character and a gameplay experience.
That your opinion hinges on a complaint that is every bit as valid an accusation to make regarding non-scaling content, it makes your "opinion" that much harder to bear when you want to treat it in such an artificially binary manner.
This is the same issue with the kitten argument @Scorchien gave. Him saying he's up to 400+cp means he should be well aware, or could even experience the difference himself again by leveling a new character, the difference in challenge in fighting a mob in ESO as a low level scaled character, versus playing as one of his high level characters. Suddenly, content stops being so easy, even though it's scaled content.
Hell, if open world or general dungeons aren't hard, then seek appropriately tiered challenges like the DLC vet dungeons, vet trials, or even the PvE arena trials. Claiming the game for not being hard, because you're not participating in the more challenging content that's offered, makes for a very skewed argument.
And even if we did step past that to try and argue "well I totes did that stuff and found it easy", would they not understand that to get to that point it would mean you have an exceptionally well built and geared char that's had to make a ton of PROGRESS to attain that state? That they are not going to be able to pull that off as even a 160CP char? That to make it to the point of feeling like all the content is trivial, they'd have to play through immense amounts of content and PROGRESS far enough that it's finally trivialized those things.
There needs to be a better line when one shares their opinion, because just saying "Oh I don't enjoy this" is far different than saying "This doesn't work" or "This IS x". Making an argument about how a game "feels" as an extension of mechanical user experience, and then defending that with "oh but it's just an opinion" is nonsense.
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse.- FARGIN_WAR
For example, why all of a sudden can ordinary NPC like wolves or elephants suddenly can destroy my hero in expansion X? Same hero could go back to old expansion and sneeze on world destroying threats to death? Could a developer make all NPC types have a level range? Yes, but they always up the power so a regular wolf could solo the Lich King to make all NPC viable in the new expansion. To me these new NPC are scaled to the new expansion and inconsistent.
Same with level scaling. You could choose to make some NPC types easy and some hard. It could be influenced by your level how easy.
Vertical progression is all a numbers game and can be manipulated in infinite ways. Scaling or no scaling you can choose how your game works.
If it somehow becomes "best" to do certain areas at certain times you are exactly back to where you started. (IE if quest rewards are scaled and the quests can only be done once then players "in the know" will do those specific areas at endgame, avoiding it until then)
At any rate the mechanic will be gamed.
The One Tamriel patch that implemented level scaling everywhere also added 3 specific 5-piece gear sets to each zone. Non repeatable quests in the zone is just one of the ways of getting a piece of those sets. Repeatable content like bosses in dolmens and public dungeons, world bosses as well as random mobs, locked chests, thieve's troves and psijiic portals also drop the set pieces. Dolmens, public dungeons and locked chest farming are the go-to way for anyone set-piece farming in any zone. One-of quest rewards don't really matter at all.
Having said that, not all sets are of equal interest and some become more sought after for different builds (although that changes over time due to the never ending buff/nerf cycle) so doing that repeatable content in some zones is more popular than in others. That drives zone popularity and density to some extent but it's a pretty minor thing in ESO except in the case of newly added areas that do get population peaks but that's just an inevitable byproduct of not just their sets but the whole area and quests being new, shiny content.
So it's pretty easy really to get relatively the same use of all zones by just paying some attention to detail when you implement scaling.
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
And if it's easy, then how about logging in, removing all your CP level bonuses, and then doing a dlc dungeon?
Fact is, there's always easy places to level. @Scot and @centkin can just as easily apply his complaint to the level-tiered dungeons in WoW that people regularly grinded out levels in in the early days of WoW, which has carried through it's life into being a dominant focus in it's later years. Something even Rift had with players queuing for level-appropriate dungeons regularly over and over just to level up, because it was way easier than traversing the world quest chains.
IE, non-scaling content has this exact same problem. Why do people like you pretend this problem only exists for one-half of the gaming world when this is a broader issue? Because you want to find something wrong with this other mechanic, and instead of finding a valid reason you latch onto the first branch of nonsense someone can think of.
So instead of talking about scaling itself, people have on and off ranted about content balance and challenge, which is a problem in scaling and non-scaling systems, and has been for a long time, then they pretend it's a scaling issue. It's disappointing and dishonest.
Also @AlBQuirky , When you said "It negates THE FEEL of progression, NOT progression itself. Games are illusions. Some illusions work, some don't." did you preface that was a case of your own experience? No, you only claimed you didn't love scaling as your opinion at the end. When you did use the word "good" a few posts above that, was your orc example meant to be subjective to your opinion as well, or were you trying to describe an issue you perceived in the mechanics, which would be an objective argument.
When your complaint is that scaling makes fighting every mob the same, that's an assertion about an objective mechanic we can observe. Hence we give example from live games that demonstrates how they are not, But when we do that then suddenly "Oh but that's my opinion so I don't have to accept these facts."?
What is the point of that dialogue then?
And yes of course I'm going to point out the DLC, because as I noted, not all content in the game is created equal. The DLC zones also have tougher content in their overland content than vanilla ESO zones. This is intentionally done by Zenimax to create a content ramp players can experience even with level scaling. On top of that, the video highlights the guy trying to find the easiest content to grind in the vanilla eso while avoiding the challenges.
This is again the type of thing you'll find in most MMO's. You're talking about seeking out grind spots, which I can again note how WoW has always had such grind spots even in it's heyday.
You want to talk about Kaladim? Then should we note Youtube also has videos for that? There's a bunch of videos showing how you just step through the tiered dungeon queues to grind levels and not even bother with the world content.
On top of that, your Kaladim comment is quite the pot meet kettle moment. Kaladim is a progression server that intentionally rolls the game back to a harder state than the "current" game servers.
Your UO comment is just repetition of this same contradiction. Do you mean to say the general trash mobs populating those game's overland are not soloable? Because if you accidentally pull a crowd in ESO instead of a few mobs at a time like in that video you linked, you're in the same kinda trouble.
That was literally like saying "Go fight this world boss the same way you'd fight a troll" in ESO, yet you completely ignore the tiers of mobs in one context just to bring it up in another. Are there lich floating around everywhere In UO? Oh, there aren't?! They are reserved for sepecific dungeons, a few graveyards, and champion areas. IE things you shouldn't be approaching as a lower level/inexperienced player. Kinda like a veteran mob or world boss.
So you can tell me to go play intentionally harder game content, but you balk when I mention there's harder game content than vanilla overland to experience in ESO?
Can you make an argument without resorting to logical fallacy?
You tried to loft a game, that has remarkably easy content in it's current version, as being harder by focusing on a finite scope of it's content. Content that you have to hop onto a specific server no less to find.
IE, you tried to sell a sliver of the game's actual difficulty as the norm, when it's not the norm. You had to SEEK OUT THE CHALLENGE.
In ESO, you are complaining abut what is functionally the same scenario. While the original overworld and starter dungeons are easy, there is indeed harder world mobs, harder dungeons, harder vet content that can all be approached. In other word you have to SEEK OUT THE CHALLENGE.
Modern version of non-scaling games exhibiting the same kinds of problems as games that are scaling should give you a hint that you are complaining about a different issue here, and are erroneously conflating things, yet there seems to be a lot that you refuse to acknowledge right now.
You want to say you don't like games with scaling? I have never had an issue with that. You want to try and make a bogus excuse for your opinion around something objective? I will have issue with that.
I do not want developers to start giving me mechanics or ideas that ruin the integrity of the game,it's lore or the role playing of a character in a plausibly real world.
mmorpg's are not about quest markers over a npc head,it is not about how fast you can get a new level number and does not have ANY reasoning behind instances and Raids.Those are just ideas some dev leads over the years decided was good to give players "something to do".
Well that is what scaling is"some new idea,something to do".
When you create a world and it's inhabitants,they are suppose to be accepted as real lifeforms within the world.When you scale their numbers you CHANGE their very existence to a computer program that changes the numbers according to a players level.Your level should have NOTHING to do with the inhabitants of the world,they exist weather you are there or not and are SUPPOSE to have an exact identity weather you exist within that world or not.
So all of a sudden some new players joins and enters that zone and these mobs lose their identity,they become whatever that player has made them and to me that is just dumb.I first witnessed this idea during EQ2's Splitpaw Saga,i sort of understood why it was a sketchy idea but had to try it first.Hit me like a brick wall and soon nobody wanted to play it,the Splitpaw Saga became a ghost zone,terrible idea and SOE never did it again,learning from their mistake.
So fast forward and the Wow team ,seems to not get around,not learn from others mistakes,hey let's do this,i doubt they had any sound reasoning for the decision other than,it works,we don't care if it makes sense,it just works.Well yeah if my Boss paid me more than his profits takes in,sure that works for me...GREAT but doesn't make any sense at all.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
That's this thread in a nutshell.
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
I know I expressed it clearly once and requote at ease, it'll be rather easy to correct if you make something up instead.
Yeah that's what I thought. Can't defend the objective arguments, so tries to make the subjective plea, then turns it into a personal jab only to skip off when even that's called out. Sometimes the people in this community truly disappoint me.
EQ has levels where there are hard platforms and you can need groups for even con NPC. WoW I loved up one shotting everything that gave experience up like level 60 I believe in prior expansion. AC levels had different meaning and well built lower level could beat poorly built higher level.
Just like there is more than one to do vertical progression there is more than one way to do scaling. The things you talking about can be avoided if the developers choose to or know know how to. In some of the normal Elder Scroll games NPC scaled to you. So you might have bandits in the best gear and weapons. The very series you are showing had difficult leveling scaling. Scaling can be done anyway the developer chooses.
Scaling is a way of creating a "baseline". That baseline does not itself define the scope of the game. If developers stick too close to or under that baseline, then the game becomes easy, if they reach above it, the game becomes harder.
Having non-scaling levels has the same condition, the baseline is just how "at-level" content is built.
The challenge a game poses, comes from how things are built in relationship to what the baseline is. That is true for both systems.
The problem of games feeling "too easy" in many cases can be mechanically traced to what the target difficulty and challenges of the individual content is as a consequence, irregardless of if the system is scaling or non-scaling. How mobs types and builds are handled, how variety in obstacles and content barriers are handled, how encounter mechanics are handled, etc. The features directly involved in actually constructing a challenge within a game are, logically, the most direct factors regarding how challenging the content is going to be.