It's important to make sure you understand that they are two separate issues. From what I could see, the OPs main interest was in playing non-linear games. the introduction of scaling mechanics to ESO allowed Shank to play a non-linear game, hence his enjoyment of it. I can't see anything in the OP to suggest Shank actually enjoys the new scaling mechanics.
I'm with Shank on this one: I prefer non-linear games.
That said, I HATE scaling mechanics. Scaling is a bandaid for the underlying problem, and it kind of works. But, it isn't a genuine solution.
The underlying problem is VERTICAL progression. Vertical progression is when your relative power increases as you progress through the game. This can come from core stat increases on a level up, or new gear with better stats, or new skills that make you more powerful, or whatever else you can think of.
Vertical progression works well in single player games, because the player's actions are easily predictable and so the game can be designed around it. It also works well in co-op games, because each player is only playing the game at the same time, so relative power between players is balanced.
However, it falls flat on it's face in a multiplayer environment, especially a massively multiplayer environment. The main problems it causes are as follows:
It makes 99% of content redundant.....what a waste!
It segregates the community into small power slices.
Part two is really the biggest problem. This is the massively multiplayer genre, we're supposed to be playing together! So why the fuck would you design a progression system that segregates players?!?!?! It's so frustrating to want to play with friends, but can't because you're over- or under-powered. Couple this with the typical linear content design and its just soooo hard to play with friends.....until you hit endgame and the power curve levels out.
This is also why devs have stopped putting that much group content into the leveling process. If you are leveling up "with the pack" then finding a group can be easy. But, if you're late to the party then finding a group for a quest or dungeon can be a nightmare, so much so that it drives players away or blocks their progression. This in turn has led to the situation where players hit endgame, want to do group content but find out that they suck (because they've never done it before). They have a bad time, and quit.
The solution to all this is horizontal progression.
This is essentially what scaling attempts to do, it just does it badly. If you take a vertical progression system like ESO, and then squash it flat with scaling, you just end up with a mostly meaningless progression system. Why get excited about gaining power through stats when it means nothing?
A proper horizontal system is all about specialisation and customisation. Gain in one area, lose in another, so that relative overall power stays the same. For example, unlocking abilities that allow you to build an AoE spec at the expense of single target damage. Go glass cannon, at the expense of survivability and sustained damage.
This has the added benefit of keeping all content relevant. It also allows players much greater freedom in finding the build/playstyle that suits them, thus increasing retention. It allows players to play together, regardless of where in the progression they are. A "level 1" could join a raid, its just the level 1 would only be able to play one way and may lack the specialisations required by the content. Players still have things to aim for, and you could still gate content based on specialisations if you're that sort of dev. Content can still be balanced to provide easy, medium, hard, master type difficulties, it's just the difficulty will no longer be based on power, but on player skill.
We see horizontal progression in other genres all the time, we just don't see it in RPGs. I firmly believe this is because of the historical influence: we all grew up with D&D and other board and video games that used vertical progression and have never thought to question it's suitability to a multiplayer environment.
Luckily for me, Camelot Unchained is going to have horizontal progression. Crowfall has made some noises about having it, but im doubtful.
Currently Playing: WAR RoR - Spitt rr7X Black Orc | Scrotling rr6X Squig Herder | Scabrous rr4X Shaman
I believe there is a way to have a scaling system without the world scaling but have gear not have levels on it and the stats are locked in a certain range this way gear progression is more horizontal and level progression is about player growth unlike most mmo's including ESO gear player into your player power as 90% of it and the other 10% is from progression of level.
Sherman's Gaming
Youtube Content creator for The Elder Scrolls Online
Gated content is preferred for me. Or a hybrid like FFXIV where you can scale to another players level or do dungeons scaled to a lower level for rewards that still help you. I think most games need some sort of hybrid just because it keeps content populated.
...snip... DDO did this the absolute best! They had Flagging Quests for Raids, where the flagging quests needed to be done, before you could even access the Raid itself (you could not bypass this in any way, and every character, individually needed to flag, just to make sure you didn't try to bring a gimped toon into the raid), and these quests gave you a feel on how ready you might be to handle the raid. If you were struggling with the flagging, there was no way you were ready for the raid.
...snip...
Hmm DDO flagging quests could be done easily, most raiders had other toons parked at the flagging quests and you could get a higher level to carry you through it.
For raids there was always gimps in pugs that got carried as a soulstone and most raids even pugs had a few of us that new how to do the more tricky stuff like Abbot where you need a few peeps that know how to do roids/tiles. Most other peeps were just carried past those parts till you got to abbot himself.
I was about to say you were way off base, but then since you seem to know about the parts of Abbot, (and IMHO, Roids are easy, Ice and Tiles not so much) but, that got me to think, that might be something the mega guilds do on Khyber or Argonnessen, but, that was not a thing on the servers I played on.
But then again, each server did have it's own culture.
With that said, None of what you said, changes that the system itself was a really good one.
If some uber raid guild wanted to give people backpack rides, that is on them, and if that makes them happy, then kudos.
That was not the culture I knew in DDO, and I lead more Shroud and VoN5 Pug Raids then I care to count. But then again, I could see carrying a few soulstones if your guild could short man the raid easy enough and just needed hands in the chest, as, sometimes the best way to get some people though the raid was in the backpack.
As the joke in DDO goes:
If you want a Challenge, Solo it on Elite. If you want a Harder Challenge, have 5 people sit at the start of the zone while you solo it on Elite. If you want a Real challenge.. Ask them to help.
But, what you said, that is purely a cultural thing on whatever server you play on, not an issue with the game design itself at all.
Egotism is the anesthetic that dullens the pain of stupidity, this is why when I try to beat my head against the stupidity of other people, I only hurt myself.
I am not a fan of scaling at all.....I like to go back to old zones and just kick butt sometimes....i don't want everything to be on my level the entire game, I want variety...I like to explore new zones and crush old ones....What's the point of gaining levels if you aren't actually gaining anything on the mobs?
I don't consider non-scaling as "gating progression". It's nice to have things around that are dangerous. Roaming giants etc that can squash your group give you something to keep an eye for instead of just mindlessly smashing everything because its your level.
I hate scaling.
What I like in a MMO is feeling like I'm part of the world. Not that the world revolves around me.
If I go in a notoriously dangerous place, I expect it to be dangerous.
Levels are not necessarily the best expression of challenge though as in most cases games feel very linear.
But in old Ragnarok, if I went to the wrong map right beside the level 5 monsters I could end up in a lvl 40+ area and get taken apart by a random MVP walking by. In FFXI, if I got hurt at night near undeads I could probably expect to be swarmed by a bunch of skeletons and die.
I don't like linear level progression in games, where all the areas are ordered based on your level and you have no freedom of exploration either, however, I do not feel that scaling is a solution as it makes the world evenly bland.
As a pvper I still love the immersion aspect of pve, but level scaling is the most immersion killing feature there is. Always felt it was a cop out for the lack of other features or a proper repayable leveling progression. A leveling system should involve more than the numbers next to your character's names. You should progress from your starter/noob island to a truly inhospitable region full of dangers by endgame. Scaling absolutely ruined ESO's zone's enjoyability and story for me.
Haxus Council Member 21 year MMO veteran PvP Raid Leader Lover of The Witcher & CD Projekt Red
I think it depends on the game. If it is a game focused on vertical progression (IE: Not ESO or GW2) then scaling is a great option. If the game is vertical progression focused, however, I think in general that it is important to not scale everything. I think some scaling is okay (Low level zones that are no longer relevant / super dated), but not scaling the whole game. When you scale the whole game, players find the easiest stuff to do to earn rewards and are not encouraged to do content that developers created after learning from previous content. Scaling the whole world also all but completely eliminates a sense of progression in the game.
I would rather scaling in most vertical power based games be more focused on small cases. IE: Sidekicking style in CoH. This allows players to still play with friends, but not completely destroy the sense of RPG like progression the game has.
Scaling should also never give you new abilities or increase your gear level. What I mean by this, is that it should not make your character stronger relative to the content you normally do. For example, if you are level 37 with 4 blue items and a green and you are playing with a friend who is level 60 with full epic armor, you should not scale to level 60 with full epic armor. You should scale to level 60 with 4 blues and a green.
Dungeons I pretty much apply the same logic to as well, but I feel like having a little scaling for those even in vertical progression based MMOs can be nice (Something like FFXIV does is reasonable)
I've played ESO before and after level scaling and both had there advantages and disadvantages. I think I like to do is explore with a low level character through high level zones where you're one shot away from death and if you haven't found a port gate, have a very long walk to get back to the area. Level scaling opened the world up and questing flow a bit better, imo.
One thing I don't like is the twenty hits to kill a wolf no matter where you go or what level you reach. If you're a high level, low level mobs should die in one hit or completely ignore you.
That said a game with good solid elements should play just as well either way.
"We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." SR Covey
Personally I don't like scaling systems, they never scaled properly. For example, I kill this rat at LVL 1 easy, at LVL 20 I fight this same rat scaled suddenly the rat is so powerful that my LVL 20 can't kill it. It's not I'm the one that is not powerful it's the scaling never considered the rat should be that powerful for LVL 20. It's like suddenly you are LVL 1 again. This kind of system demean player effort in progress. Players should be able to group with whoever they want to be regardless of LVL, and just let them do whatever they want, we don't like to be told of what we can and cannot do. even at PVP, oh you have to scale down with the noobs to PVP them, why? we are not your customer rep.
I honestly have a hard time understanding the thinking that anyone should be able to do anything at any time when referring to anything to do with rpgs. It is just as ridiculous as someone saying they should be able to solo raids because they like it.
Didn't read the article. Simple question that really is a complex answer. First off MMOs cost allot to make and it's always been my opinion that having 80% of the content be made for one thing, leveling is really a dumb use of money.
ESO turned that on its head and made 99% of the content for all players. This let you pick what part of the world you want to play in and also play with any of your friends at any chapter you want too, even the current one.
Only thing I don't like is this game was not designed from the ground up with this in mind. So rewards, exp earned and difficulty do not always match up. IMO ESO devs do need to go back and rework this.
In the end, horizontal progression should be the way all MMOs are made. The benefits have more positives then there are negative effects. And if done from the ground up, I think the results would be better then ESO patched this together. More pls.
I'm not certain that scaling works well within a game designed for groups. It seems to encourage solo play over group play. If that's the focus of the game, then scaling seems to work.
However, scaling in a group-focused game makes the entire experience somewhat more bland. First, the characters in the group need to be 'balanced' before the content can be adjusted. Balancing the group tends to make each individual function similarly, removing the distinction between the characters. This devalues gear, skills, accomplishments and other forms of progression in my view. That seems to be directly opposed to what an MMORPG is trying to accomplish.
What's bland is not being able to play with my friends and guildies and being forced to play with strangers that happen to be the same level as me. Or having to make an alt that sits at the same level as my wife or friends because I play more and my main can't team with them. Or having to do the boring task of PLing them because they want to come do the content I'm at. Let me play with who I want to play with on my own terms.
If everything increases to your level, why are you "leveling" to begin with?
It certainly isn't to become more powerful than your opponents, because even that medium sized rat in the tavern basement will increase in level with you, rendering your power increases moot.
If everything increases to your level, why are you "leveling" to begin with?
It certainly isn't to become more powerful than your opponents, because even that medium sized rat in the tavern basement will increase in level with you, rendering your power increases moot.
Progression dose not have to make things always easier to kill something or that a rat will be just as hard to kill. It should be just a relevant to kill. Like in RL stepping on a rat should yield the same result. Fighting the leader of some faction should not ever feel like stepping on that same rat. Sure it should become easier but not irrelevant game play.
Do we really need to come to the point that we out level boss mobs to the point they are grey con and a slight tap from us cause a crit that kills it 100 x over?
We will know 10% more powerful in a MMO means PvP has no chance of killing us solo. But there is still a fight that's fun having. NPCs should follow the same rule. I walk into a dungeon, I should not be able to pull 1/2 the dungeon with no consequences. A dragon should always cause me pause. Not matter if its from 6 expansion ago. Where is the fun, meaningful content fun in one shoting a dragon it took 20 people to kill last expansion?
Progression can be just enough you feel the edge. Options in how your skills work so you feel a progression in play style. Adding flavor to your class so you stand out in a team. All these things and more can maintain the RPG feel, without chucking out 80% of the world.
If everything increases to your level, why are you "leveling" to begin with?
It certainly isn't to become more powerful than your opponents, because even that medium sized rat in the tavern basement will increase in level with you, rendering your power increases moot.
It certainly is to become more powerful than your opponents. In a well done system with scaling (not WOW's) all they're basically doing is getting rid of power according to levels.
You still gain power progressing except the levels don't reflect that. I don't even know why they even continue to have levels except maybe as a security blanket for those who can't handle change and need to see a character level.
Progression without levels is very similar to end-game progressions past the level cap that all MMOs have. Except that's usually restricted to gear in those games.
The horizontal progression in ESO starts from the moment you start playing the game. There's gear progression but also skill unlock progression. It's the combination of the two that makes you more powerful and trust me, you're one hell of a lot more powerful when all skills are unlocked and you're wearing the best gear.
They really should just ditch character levels and be done with it.
"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
Levels in ESO were always kind of irrelevant even before the change to scaling. Yes they gave you skill points to use on skills and passives but so did skyshards, quests and many other things. The skill points that leveling gives you are less than 1/5th of what you can get in total.
It has always been about unlocking the good skills and using them with good gear sets that reinforce those skills and it still is.
IDK what to tell you if you think it made that much of a difference... maybe you were playing it wrong?
"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
Neither idea is good,it should be a world that mimic's a real world,meaning we can go anywhere we please and content is alive and realistic and not some number code that changes as players change.
Gating the world is also bad,makes the world look fake,non immersive.
Above poster sort of touches on my same feeling,i am tired of meaningless level numbers.The problem of course is that i want a super rich deep game,you cannot have said elite gear item and attach it to a brand new player,you would dumb down the game to nothing.
There lies the constant problem....gear and for that reason alone we still need to use levels.I cannot think of a better way to utilize gear/items and still keep the game immersive and fun.
I have played the idea of scaling from all angles and it never comes off as good...ever.One idea i liked to see done more often that many games don't do at all ,is combining ALL level of npc's in various zones and not just turn each zone in a level tier zone.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Levels in ESO were always kind of irrelevant even before the change to scaling. Yes they gave you skill points to use on skills and passives but so did skyshards, quests and many other things. The skill points that leveling gives you are less than 1/5th of what you can get in total.
It has always been about unlocking the good skills and using them with good gear sets that reinforce those skills and it still is.
IDK what to tell you if you think it made that much of a difference... maybe you were playing it wrong?
I forced myself to play through PvE quest hell (for those who don't know I abhore questing) because leveling via PvP sucked at launch.
I tried going back after the PvE changes - it was much worse, couldn't stand it
Well the PvP XP gain got adjusted too. It's totally viable now to just PvP in Cyrodiill and progress through that.
You will still need to pop out to PvE to level a few skill lines that are just much faster there or can only be leveled there: Fighter's and Mage's guild, Psiijic, Undaunted, Thieve's and Dark Brotherhood skill lines.
Most of those are not all that relevant for PvP if that's what you want to do. The basic class and weapon lines as well as both PvP skill lines can be leveled just fine doing nothing but PvP these days.
"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
The problem is that if difficulty is automatically scaled to level and nothing else, then it will be scaled badly. WoW demonstrates the problem: they scale everything to be trivial for your level, so that you have this huge, long slog of doing a bunch of stupid stuff that is completely boring.
But it's not necessarily as simple as just making all content harder. If you scale only to level, then at a given difficulty, everything might be trivial for someone who is very well geared for his level, but a lot of things could be impossible for someone who is severely undergeared. And the player who is undergeared can't just go catch up, as he can't kill anything because it's all scaled to be too hard for him.
I want a world where there are mixes of different things in an area. Where a low level can wander into a place and realize he/she doesn't belong there.
Where high levels go to starter areas because there is "high level content" there.
I remember in Everquest 2 there was a sewer area in the starter city that had an additional part that was too high for low levels.
It would be great if low levels could get a small raid going to attempt higher level content.
gating a world is horrible. keeping everything at the same level for players is not my taste.
Every zone in a game should have those mixes instead of level gating zones.
ESO tries and they do indeed have a mix in each zone ranging from simple mob types > strong mobs > delves > public dungeons > group event locations > world bosses.
Their problem is not that they have level scaling but that the difficulty for all of those except the world bosses are just tuned to be too easy. Any half-way knowledgeable player built logically can trivialize all of that solo including the "group suggested" events and public dungeons.
But that's a balancing issue not a level gating vs. scaling issue.
I'm like you. I find level gating zones to be an old standard but horrible design that needs to die.
I agree and would add I think its a power scaling issue. If you are level 50 but with 0 CP you will feel the difficulty of the mob. Its only after you get to around 300CP or max it out entirely at 810 where the content becomes trivial. This is why they have stopped adding more CP levels with each major patch as they are investigating other ways to handle.
Its an intriguing question that doesn't have an easy answer. The trade off will be significant.
Comments
Sherman's Gaming
Youtube Content creator for The Elder Scrolls Online
Channel:http://https//www.youtube.com/channel/UCrgYNgpFTRAl4XWz31o2emw
But then again, each server did have it's own culture.
With that said, None of what you said, changes that the system itself was a really good one.
If some uber raid guild wanted to give people backpack rides, that is on them, and if that makes them happy, then kudos.
That was not the culture I knew in DDO, and I lead more Shroud and VoN5 Pug Raids then I care to count. But then again, I could see carrying a few soulstones if your guild could short man the raid easy enough and just needed hands in the chest, as, sometimes the best way to get some people though the raid was in the backpack.
As the joke in DDO goes:
If you want a Harder Challenge, have 5 people sit at the start of the zone while you solo it on Elite.
If you want a Real challenge.. Ask them to help.
But, what you said, that is purely a cultural thing on whatever server you play on, not an issue with the game design itself at all.
What I like in a MMO is feeling like I'm part of the world. Not that the world revolves around me.
If I go in a notoriously dangerous place, I expect it to be dangerous.
Levels are not necessarily the best expression of challenge though as in most cases games feel very linear.
But in old Ragnarok, if I went to the wrong map right beside the level 5 monsters I could end up in a lvl 40+ area and get taken apart by a random MVP walking by. In FFXI, if I got hurt at night near undeads I could probably expect to be swarmed by a bunch of skeletons and die.
I don't like linear level progression in games, where all the areas are ordered based on your level and you have no freedom of exploration either, however, I do not feel that scaling is a solution as it makes the world evenly bland.
21 year MMO veteran
PvP Raid Leader
Lover of The Witcher & CD Projekt Red
I would rather scaling in most vertical power based games be more focused on small cases. IE: Sidekicking style in CoH. This allows players to still play with friends, but not completely destroy the sense of RPG like progression the game has.
Scaling should also never give you new abilities or increase your gear level. What I mean by this, is that it should not make your character stronger relative to the content you normally do. For example, if you are level 37 with 4 blue items and a green and you are playing with a friend who is level 60 with full epic armor, you should not scale to level 60 with full epic armor. You should scale to level 60 with 4 blues and a green. Dungeons I pretty much apply the same logic to as well, but I feel like having a little scaling for those even in vertical progression based MMOs can be nice (Something like FFXIV does is reasonable)
One thing I don't like is the twenty hits to kill a wolf no matter where you go or what level you reach. If you're a high level, low level mobs should die in one hit or completely ignore you.
That said a game with good solid elements should play just as well either way.
"We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." SR Covey
ESO turned that on its head and made 99% of the content for all players. This let you pick what part of the world you want to play in and also play with any of your friends at any chapter you want too, even the current one.
Only thing I don't like is this game was not designed from the ground up with this in mind. So rewards, exp earned and difficulty do not always match up. IMO ESO devs do need to go back and rework this.
In the end, horizontal progression should be the way all MMOs are made. The benefits have more positives then there are negative effects. And if done from the ground up, I think the results would be better then ESO patched this together. More pls.
What's bland is not being able to play with my friends and guildies and being forced to play with strangers that happen to be the same level as me. Or having to make an alt that sits at the same level as my wife or friends because I play more and my main can't team with them. Or having to do the boring task of PLing them because they want to come do the content I'm at. Let me play with who I want to play with on my own terms.
It certainly isn't to become more powerful than your opponents, because even that medium sized rat in the tavern basement will increase in level with you, rendering your power increases moot.
Lost my mind, now trying to lose yours...
Do we really need to come to the point that we out level boss mobs to the point they are grey con and a slight tap from us cause a crit that kills it 100 x over?
We will know 10% more powerful in a MMO means PvP has no chance of killing us solo. But there is still a fight that's fun having. NPCs should follow the same rule. I walk into a dungeon, I should not be able to pull 1/2 the dungeon with no consequences. A dragon should always cause me pause. Not matter if its from 6 expansion ago. Where is the fun, meaningful content fun in one shoting a dragon it took 20 people to kill last expansion?
Progression can be just enough you feel the edge. Options in how your skills work so you feel a progression in play style. Adding flavor to your class so you stand out in a team. All these things and more can maintain the RPG feel, without chucking out 80% of the world.
You still gain power progressing except the levels don't reflect that. I don't even know why they even continue to have levels except maybe as a security blanket for those who can't handle change and need to see a character level.
Progression without levels is very similar to end-game progressions past the level cap that all MMOs have. Except that's usually restricted to gear in those games.
The horizontal progression in ESO starts from the moment you start playing the game. There's gear progression but also skill unlock progression. It's the combination of the two that makes you more powerful and trust me, you're one hell of a lot more powerful when all skills are unlocked and you're wearing the best gear.
They really should just ditch character levels and be done with it.
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
Levels in ESO were always kind of irrelevant even before the change to scaling. Yes they gave you skill points to use on skills and passives but so did skyshards, quests and many other things. The skill points that leveling gives you are less than 1/5th of what you can get in total.
It has always been about unlocking the good skills and using them with good gear sets that reinforce those skills and it still is.
IDK what to tell you if you think it made that much of a difference... maybe you were playing it wrong?
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
Gating the world is also bad,makes the world look fake,non immersive.
Above poster sort of touches on my same feeling,i am tired of meaningless level numbers.The problem of course is that i want a super rich deep game,you cannot have said elite gear item and attach it to a brand new player,you would dumb down the game to nothing.
There lies the constant problem....gear and for that reason alone we still need to use levels.I cannot think of a better way to utilize gear/items and still keep the game immersive and fun. I have played the idea of scaling from all angles and it never comes off as good...ever.One idea i liked to see done more often that many games don't do at all ,is combining ALL level of npc's in various zones and not just turn each zone in a level tier zone.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
You will still need to pop out to PvE to level a few skill lines that are just much faster there or can only be leveled there: Fighter's and Mage's guild, Psiijic, Undaunted, Thieve's and Dark Brotherhood skill lines.
Most of those are not all that relevant for PvP if that's what you want to do. The basic class and weapon lines as well as both PvP skill lines can be leveled just fine doing nothing but PvP these days.
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
But it's not necessarily as simple as just making all content harder. If you scale only to level, then at a given difficulty, everything might be trivial for someone who is very well geared for his level, but a lot of things could be impossible for someone who is severely undergeared. And the player who is undergeared can't just go catch up, as he can't kill anything because it's all scaled to be too hard for him.
I agree and would add I think its a power scaling issue. If you are level 50 but with 0 CP you will feel the difficulty of the mob. Its only after you get to around 300CP or max it out entirely at 810 where the content becomes trivial. This is why they have stopped adding more CP levels with each major patch as they are investigating other ways to handle.
Its an intriguing question that doesn't have an easy answer. The trade off will be significant.