World of Warcraft: Current Year

Sometimes I read this thread and I just can't believe how much Ion's crew fucked up the game. How did classic and BC turn into this shit.

Level scaling seemed like nonsense ever since it was made popular by the Elder Scrolls series.

Why not just flatten the power curve if you want lower power differences between levels?

I suppose the answer is that they want to keep the illusion of the power increase intact by increasing numbers polynomially but only really increasing power gain something like logarithmically.

In the end, though, this just makes the games that do so harder to understand for everyone because inevitably, in order to understand the game, they must understand these underlying constructs.

Things become more complicated but not more interesting. You also end up with artifacts wherein an apparent increase in numbers can cause a decrease in relative power. That feels bad, man.

I have the imagine the core problem with their game is the insistence to design by spreadsheet. Everything needs to follow some sort of mathematical curve(see item level) rather than just hand designing content and letting imbalances exist. They genuinely think that players care more about balance than they do about creative designs.

Hard to believe that the decision makers are raking in the cash for such reductionist design philosophies. I bet they have talented people working on the game, but they're clearly being stifled.

I just came back to WoW after leaving near the end of WoTLK, and everything is pretty overwhelming at the moment. There are some things I don't like much, but I've been pretty addicted. Feels a lot better to play than FFXIV to me. I never noticed the huge delay and how annoying combat in FFXIV was until I came back to WoW. The class combat just feels much more fluid and responsive. Dodging and dungeon mechanics are a lot more fun compared to dodging orange circles all day. I'm really looking forward to Shadowlands. I haven't been this excited to play an MMORPG in a while. There are so many quality of life changes over the game I'd been playing for the last 5 years (FFXIV) that it feels like a brand new game to me. It's a weird feeling to be excited over WoW again though, but to be honest I'm grateful to feel this way. Whenever I can get excited for a MMORPG I take what I can get.

Octave said:

Level scaling seemed like nonsense ever since it was made popular by the Elder Scrolls series.

Why not just flatten the power curve if you want lower power differences between levels?

I suppose the answer is that they want to keep the illusion of the power increase intact by increasing numbers polynomially but only really increasing power gain something like logarithmically.

In the end, though, this just makes the games that do so harder to understand for everyone because inevitably, in order to understand the game, they must understand these underlying constructs.

Things become more complicated but not more interesting. You also end up with artifacts wherein an apparent increase in numbers can cause a decrease in relative power. That feels bad, man.

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Scaling is the dumbest thing to ever be implemented. My BFA character didn't feel any more powerful when I quit than the day the xpac came out. Meanwhile in Legion my characters all felt pretty powerful even early on.

There's absolutely zero reason for me to gear up when subjectively that gear doesn't do anything.

There seems to be some confusion about "scaling" here. Rextroy vid was about PvP scaling, a game mechanic implemented in BFA to replace the infamous Legion PvP template system. Basically, in Legion your gear stats didn't matter in PvP, everyone had the same fixed stats which were given by your iLvL. Implemented to "balance things out" between ultrageared hardcore progaming players and filthy uncommited casuals, the Legion PvP system felt too rigid for minmaxing / customization purposes and was replaced with the current one.

BFA PvP scaling "even the odds®" between people when iLvl threshold is too high. For example, Johnny Mythic has 500ilvl and really wants to kill Bob Casual sitting near him, AFK'ing in Uldum near some rare spawn like the true casual he actually is. Problem: Bob Casual, being an absolute 2 hours a week player, has only 300ilvl. That 200ilvl threshold is too high for decency and fairplay purposes, that's when PvP scaling kicks in: a not so elaborated formula will make Johnny Mythic hit slightly less on Bob Casual, while Bob Casual is gonna hit Johnny Mythic slightly more, damage wise (it's more or less the same with heals). So, instead of being obliterated in one or two shots, Bob Casual will have a fighting chance (if he comes back from being AFK, please follow). This system works well with high iLvL thresholds; if A Player with 475iLvL hits B Player with 480iLvl, then scaling here is almost non-existant.

There's a lot of debate to whether this system is good, bad or the worst thing to happen to mankind alone, but please be aware PvP scaling, as its name strongly implies, only happen during PvP (Player Versus Player) interactions. It had nothing to do with PvE combat or leveling.

Mob level scaling is not debatable that it's happening in WoW (and most other mainstream MMOs). Maybe the current discussion around it is in PvP but that's not my issue with it.

Mob level scaling based on item level is a little more hidden but there as well:


WoW has a lot going for it with respect to combat feel, art, and a very large community. It's too bad that they've found their way into this formulaic, bland local maxima.

Blizzard has an obsession with balance, perhaps something they got from the RTS games which do need it.

The fun of an RPG is from NOT being balanced and making choices which give you a significant edge over your environment.

In Classic people enjoyed getting those random weapon upgrades which made them feel powerful for a few levels, that's why everyone crowded around Scarlet Monestary which had a bunch of them. They enjoyed having some random long but difficult quest chain which gave a best in slot trinket, that's why Tirion Fordring became a prominent character because everyone did his questline.

Instead of seeding more significant power boosts throughout the levelling process which involved some sort of effort (farm boss or do long questline or grind rep), they just had random quests decided by algorithm give you a +better weapon every so often. It's shit.

Mob scaling is the opposite of fun. You get yourself an edge in power and the mobs scale up, likely making encounters more difficult. In BFA you levelled up backwards with your character being more powerful and capable of more things at lv110 than lv120.

O Octave your link is 3 years old and is about Legion, but from what I understand for BFA mob health scales linearly while your gear scales exponentially. That's why each new "big" patch where iLvl goes up, "new" zone mobs are strong and hit hard while "old" zone mobs become utterly weak. Anyone can verify that right now by killing mobs in release zones (Tiragarde, etc) and then "new" zones like Nazjatar or Uldum.

Bondurant My understanding was that you were saying that PvP scaling was only relevant.

My argument is that even though your relative power does increase compared to the mobs, level scaling doesn't make sense to me. It over-complicates without adding something interesting. Refactoring the math would be a simple solution. There doesn't seem to be a good argument for level scaling that flattening a power curve wouldn't solve.

Level scaling represents a symptom of the overall problem of MMOs complicating their game to the point of fatigue for players without having those complications add to the fun of the game. This is simply bad design.

Chris I agree that many modern games, most notably Blizzard games, have fallen into the trap of balance over fun. It also has to do with how large teams need to create standards to manage making things in parallel. These standards for item/mob/zone/etc design create a more bland experience.

It's obvious they lost something.

Octave said:

Bondurant My understanding was that you were saying that PvP scaling was only relevant.

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Mob scaling only happens in outdoor zones. I don't think it over-complicates anything because as opposed to Legion it's so toned down now it's not really noticeable: new zone mobs will give you a hard time while you'll have it easy with old zone ones. It's easily verifiable by killing 10 mobs in Uldum and 10 mobs in Tiragarde or Zuldazar. You'll still mow Zuldazar ones down in 1-2s while Uldum ones will last slightly longer.

I agree with the "over-balancing for the sake of it" argument though, I mean they even started to "balance" words in some way:

Bondurant said:

O Octave your link is 3 years old and is about Legion, but from what I understand for BFA mob health scales linearly while your gear scales exponentially. That's why each new "big" patch where iLvl goes up, "new" zone mobs are strong and hit hard while "old" zone mobs become utterly weak. Anyone can verify that right now by killing mobs in release zones (Tiragarde, etc) and then "new" zones like Nazjatar or Uldum.

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The main issue in bfa was the last level and then right as you hit max level. The bump up made you feel like you were getting weaker. They corrected that a bit combined with how fast gearing increases once you hit max level if you want to feel like you can go out and kick puppies you can feel free to do so.

115 -> 116 was worse. Your legendaries worked until 115, so when you hit 116 you were gimp as fuck.

They "kind of" learned their lesson in Shadowlands. They are taking your corruption away in the pre-patch, so now you'll feel weak before the expasion hits.

Mob scaling takes away from the gameplay experience. In the past, the highest level mobs were in the highest level zones, usually outside where the raid zone is. This gave you a sense of scale to the threat of whatever you're fighting in the expansion/patch is. Now every animal and half assed grunt you fight before you're geared out poses a fathomable threat to the champion of the universe?

Korillo said:

115 -> 116 was worse. Your legendaries worked until 115, so when you hit 116 you were gimp as fuck.

They "kind of" learned their lesson in Shadowlands. They are taking your corruption away in the pre-patch, so now you'll feel weak before the expasion hits.

Click to expand...

I played Legion in the BFA prepatch and they had already gimped Artifacts in that patch which ruined a lot of the Legion experience although it was still pretty good.

I'm puzzled why they plan to turn this stuff off, it's so badly designed. Surely they could plan it in a way to have them be naturally discarded for an upgrade or used for something else.

If you played this patch and have corruption, pre-patch it will be so much worse than losing your artifact ability/strength. The borrowed power from corruption is nuts, the game has never seen anything like it. It is so powerful that there is no reasonable way they could naturally let you discard it for an upgrade. They are once again going down the borrowed power route in SL, with legendaries, conduits & covenants. Hopefully it won't get as out of control by the end of SL as it was in BFA.

I can see both sides of the scaling issue. As someone who just leveled through it on a couple of characters I have some thoughts on it. Part of me still wants the higher level monsters in certain locations like outside of raid encounters. It gives the world a bit of depth that scaling just doesn't seem to have. That said, it was nice to be able to pick any zone I wanted to level in and just level up there. I somewhat remember leveling in BC and it was basically you start in Hellfire Peninsula and move somewhat linearly, then mop up the areas you missed later. Which also has some charm to it in a way. Seeing all the new questers stampeding through HP was pretty fun.

I think most people can see why they chose to go with level scaling when you look at their progression path changes. They want everyone to be able to choose where they start or where they level freely. I do have a few gripes with the NPC level scaling, but they're somewhat minor when I actually think about them. Running through the first zone I started in at level 110 and having everything chase after me and knock me off my mount as a somewhat geared level 120 is a little annoying. I guess that problem is solved with flying, but I haven't gotten it yet. Also the group quests scaling with me so I can never use my power increases while leveling to get back at the NPCs that kicked my ass is a little annoying. Then I found out group finder actually works for WANTED: quests and it got a bit easier.

That said, I'm not a huge fan of the scaling in general. I didn't like it in Skyrim, and I'm not too fond of it here either. It just hasn't been as annoying as I think it should be when I actually think about it. With my gear upgrades from world quests I'm able to make quick work of even the scaled up 120s now. I do agree that it takes something away from the experience, but maybe that's just because that's how it has mostly always been in a pre-scaling world.