(Optional) Difficulty Settings in WoW?

[Deleted]

You know, I'll just say this: "It's always been like this, so it is okay" is a very poor argument.

I'm saying - that's what the design is. You don't seem to understand how the basics work and you certainly don't seem to have played the game (neither WoW nor SWTOR) to actually talk about it. You're just pulling opinions out of your hat.

Experience the whole game first, OK? Even the current content. We can talk about the systems after that (and no, I'm not super happy about the "abandoning" of the old content - but I do understand why it's like that.)

[Eats Compost]

WoW has always had a huge difficulty problem, even at max level. Outside of a few very specific situations (raiding, brawler's guild, etc) the difficulty of content is so pathetically low that it's just rewarding you for showing up. That has some merit in some situations, but it's a terrible approach to apply to literally everything. In environments where there's no particularly riveting story or gimmick (ergo, most environments) it makes WoW an abysmally boring experience.

Don't mistake this for a levelling problem. This is an everything problem, closely tied to how Blizzard treats most outdoor content. I understand that they want the game to be accessible (as Ghostcrawler said, "something your grandma can play") but their current solution of making everything a walk in the park is sloppy. WoW's combat is horrifically shallow when nothing provides a respectable challenge.

Unfortunately, it's a hard problem to solve, because WoW is hella deep in a hole it dug for itself. The easiest way to go about it would probably be to implement "hard mode" servers that jack up the HP and damage of everything by a significant percentage. It allows them to keep something easy like the current environment for accessibility, but it also allows people who want a broadly more challenging experience to seek that out.

[Deleted]

The zones no longer match the XP gains and this is due to several reasons.

One being the various xp nerfs (or buffs) to reach max level faster as there are an ever increasing amount of levels (numerical rather than time investment).

Second being that abilites are better and have greater synergy than they used to.

Thirdly, dungeon and dungeon quests are way too good for xp/time invested. I know we are talking about leveling difficulty, but it gives another reason to take a look at zone and quest XP.

One way of fixing this is zone scaling for old content, but that leads to the issue of ppl not seeing Outland bc they are still going through Kal and EK unless they cap each XPac (60 vanilla, 70 tbc, etc). Still the issue here is that even without heirloom, they would make it to the atm 40-45 zones and already be close to 60.

Even then, way back they implemented a NPC that could stop you from leveling for X gold, they could just add them to each ones starting area to cap you once you reached "max" level for the zone.

Although the second solution isnt much of a solution and would take a few tests to make sure it worked properly.

Just thought that they could give the npc(stops xp) an option to cut dmg and XP gained by lets say 10% or whatever to help you not out-level the zone as well.

[May90]

I'm saying - that's what the design is. You don't seem to understand how the basics work and you certainly don't seem to have played the game (neither WoW nor SWTOR) to actually talk about it. You're just pulling opinions out of your hat.

Experience the whole game first, OK? Even the current content. We can talk about the systems after that (and no, I'm not super happy about the "abandoning" of the old content - but I do understand why it's like that.)

And I'm saying that it is a design I strongly dislike, and my biggest gripe with WoW. I am a relatively new player, hadn't played before 2013; I don't care about "current content", all content is current for me. And when I see this content having idiotic balance, I'm saying that the game is poorly balanced. The last 5% or however much of the content being well balanced doesn't negate the rest 95% being poorly balanced.

[Deleted]

And I'm saying that it is a design I strongly dislike, and my biggest gripe with WoW. I am a relatively new player, hadn't played before 2013; I don't care about "current content", all content is current for me. And when I see this content having idiotic balance, I'm saying that the game is poorly balanced. The last 5% or however much of the content being well balanced doesn't negate the rest 95% being poorly balanced.

Yeah, just be aware that your definition of "the game/content is unbalanced" is a bit strange since you're not talking about the current game.
The game right now is World of Warcraft: Legion.
You're talking about legacy content.

All new players receive their lvl100 boost, so they can start playing the current game.
Later on, if they so wish, they can play it from lvl1 and see how the legacy content looked.

Blizzard has talked about 'slowing down' the 1-100 content now that the boost exists, before the boost that simply wasn't possible.
So maybe they will at some point, I just don't see it being very high on their priority list.

[Teri]

Blizzard has talked about 'slowing down' the 1-100 content now that the boost exists, before the boost that simply wasn't possible.
So maybe they will at some point, I just don't see it being very high on their priority list.

I'm okay with them "slowing down" 1-100 content, but they should add more then just simple xp nerfs or increasing mob hp.

But I also want more choice in zones where to level, and I'd still say scaling between boundaries, even if its 1-60/58-70/68-80/80-85/85-90/90-100, give me a "command board" entry point in each expansion, and scaling per expansion would not affect much, of course I dont want level 100 boars in durotar or elwynn, 60 at most, legacy dmg boost would make them trivial anyhow.

The only problem implementing scaling is the loot system, legion boe greens scale with your level, and i dunno how that would work for other expansion green "sets" / weapons , for transmog purposes.

Also older expansions have more types of herbs and ore that would make crafting a bit awkward, especially for vanilla with the large
amounts of ore/herbs/leather/cloth types.

Sure you can skip crafting completely and do 1-700/800 with draenor or legion now but still it would break the progression.

[May90]

Yeah, just be aware that your definition of "the game/content is unbalanced" is a bit strange since you're not talking about the current game.
The game right now is World of Warcraft: Legion.
You're talking about legacy content.

All new players receive their lvl100 boost, so they can start playing the current game.
Later on, if they so wish, they can play it from lvl1 and see how the legacy content looked.

Blizzard has talked about 'slowing down' the 1-100 content now that the boost exists, before the boost that simply wasn't possible.
So maybe they will at some point, I just don't see it being very high on their priority list.

Your argument is basically "It is not in the game design, so there is no point to complain". Very bizarre logic. I'm saying that I dislike the fact that it is not in the game design, and you respond with, "It is not in the game design, so your complaint is unwarranted".

Well, whatever... I just somehow think that 1-shotting a quest boss isn't what legacy content should be like.

[Kynario]

Timewalking shows why that is a bad idea.
It simply does not scale consistently.
Player stats have changed in many ways, and not simply "bigger numbers" which you can scale down proportionally.
The content was designed with specific toolkits in-mind.
And with an extension of the level cap beyond that content a player will no longer have their full toolkit any longer in content designed around them having that.
Plus the toolkits have changed significantly, more options to trivialise mechanics.

This is a fantastic set of points.

Vanilla content (such as levelling) was challenging and time-consuming due to the limited toolkits of that time and also due to limited game-design know-how from the developers. Thus, 12 years down the line with completely different toolkits i.e. players having access to abilities that either didn't exist, or used to be only available to higher-levelled characters, difficulty will naturally decrease with greater utility options etc...

As I've said though, just speaking for myself. If we are to "categorise" things, I guess I am a casual-player. That said, despite being relatively short on time myself... I still prefer my games to be challenging and relatively time-consuming meaning it takes several weeks to achieve something, and it feels incredibly rewarding at the end, admitting also with a slight sigh of relief, hehe. Nonetheless, this is what RPG games are about, no? Not this instant-gratification you get nowadays for simply logging into the game, or completing a simple set of quests...

Still, my ultimate question was - without forcing others to do this - should players like us who prefer more of the old RPG elements returned to the game like these not be give options like these?
- a dangerous world,
- a challenging levelling experience,
- dungeon-pulls and quests that require some (minimal) planning ahead and strategy and thus also feel meaningful again,
- toolkits that give levelling players options but does not trivialise content, i.e. 1-2 shotting mobs whilst levelling and allowing DPS-classes to chain-pull dungeons without dying when it is the tank's job to tank and initiate pulls etc.

If not, why? Is having options a bad thing?

[Bigbazz]

Timewalking shows why that is a bad idea.
It simply does not scale consistently.
Player stats have changed in many ways, and not simply "bigger numbers" which you can scale down proportionally.
The content was designed with specific toolkits in-mind.
And with an extension of the level cap beyond that content a player will no longer have their full toolkit any longer in content designed around them having that.
Plus the toolkits have changed significantly, more options to trivalise mechanics.

He said it would help though, which is true the scaling tech combined with rebalancing across the board could help a lot. If the scaling could allow you to choose which zones you level in without being forced to move on then it would already go a long way to fixing the low level game. Problem with questing currently is you literally outlevel zones before you're even 25% through them quite often, you effectively skip past masses of content, hit outland and repeat, then Northrend and repeat, Cataclysm/MOP etc repeating.

So you never really have a coherent well rounded questing experience, you just skim over zones while levelling slower than you would in dungeons. All of that could genuinely be fixed with scaling, even if it didn't totally fix the fact that you're oneshotting your way through most of it.

[ComputerNerd]

He said it would help though, which is true the scaling tech combined with rebalancing across the board could help a lot. If the scaling could allow you to choose which zones you level in without being forced to move on then it would already go a long way to fixing the low level game. Problem with questing currently is you literally outlevel zones before you're even 25% through them quite often, you effectively skip past masses of content, hit outland and repeat, then Northrend and repeat, Cataclysm/MOP etc repeating.

So you never really have a coherent well rounded questing experience, you just skim over zones while levelling slower than you would in dungeons. All of that could genuinely be fixed with scaling, even if it didn't totally fix the fact that you're oneshotting your way through most of it.

Content in dungeons or raids at a given level was designed around a toolkit the player would have at that level during that expansion.
That progression now is completely different.
In addition to stats changing in ways other than simply scaling, their ratios all changed as for example health changed to remove the need for PvP resilience.
Simply making all numbers smaller won't solve that.

So scaling isn't a fix all solution.
Bracketed scaling would help the outlevelling issue, but not provide a consistent difficulty experience.
That would only be achieved by starting from scratch, the world and the abilities mobs have, the mechanics of each and every encounter in a dungeon, etc.

Legion works for one reason, it came all at once, it is lots of the same.
There is no difficulty progression, it is all the same stuff with bigger numbers before Suramar.

[Deleted]

Scaling tech would help if they enable it for the rest of the game.

legion showed that scaling failed so for all that is holy please no. tia.

[Teri]

legion showed that scaling failed so for all that is holy please no. tia.

It did not fail in it's purpose of giving you 4 zones to level in any order you wanted, something no other level curve has had 1-100.

It's just way more complicated to retroactively apply to other zones as it's not as simple as just scaling levels/hp.

1-60 content by far the hardest to scale as it uses so many crafting materials and player spells still develop at that point, whereas legion you basicly got all your spells/talents at 100 already.

[Kokolums]

I have a leveling redesign in my sig. basically make levelling its own endgame.

[Stormspark]

But, World of Warcraft isn't like Skyrim. They aren't the same genre. And I'm pretty sure there isn't a difficulty setting for TESO. If is quite difficult to add a thing to a game that is meant to offer the same thing to anyone whom might be within the same box as you.

ESO now has Legion-like scaling throughout the entire game. Mobs scale to your level no matter where you are.

[Bigbazz]

Content in dungeons or raids at a given level was designed around a toolkit the player would have at that level during that expansion.
That progression now is completely different.
In addition to stats changing in ways other than simply scaling, their ratios all changed as for example health changed to remove the need for PvP resilience.
Simply making all numbers smaller won't solve that.

So scaling isn't a fix all solution.
Bracketed scaling would help the outlevelling issue, but not provide a consistent difficulty experience.
That would only be achieved by starting from scratch, the world and the abilities mobs have, the mechanics of each and every encounter in a dungeon, etc.

Legion works for one reason, it came all at once, it is lots of the same.
There is no difficulty progression, it is all the same stuff with bigger numbers before Suramar.

Once again you're confusing improvements with fix all, it's not all black or white, yes or no. Something doesn't have to absolutely fix all issues to be an improvement. If things can be greatly improved what are you arguing? That it's not a 100% complete fix so don't bother?

The toolkit point is irrelevant, the low level was re-done in Cataclysm and the dungeons have been re-done more recently again, times when the toolkits available to each class was actually greater than they have now. The main reason content is easy is the same reason it has been easy for years, it got nerfed in addition to classes doing much much more damage at low level, that is not new and has been an issue since MOP, it can be fixed.

Your posts come across as "if this one solution doesn't completely fix all problems then it's not worth it", when the real thing you need to consider is "how can we improve things".

[ComputerNerd]

Once again you're confusing improvements with fix all, it's not all black or white, yes or no. Something doesn't have to absolutely fix all issues to be an improvement. If things can be greatly improved what are you arguing? That it's not a 100% complete fix so don't bother?

The toolkit point is irrelevant, the low level was re-done in Cataclysm and the dungeons have been re-done more recently again, times when the toolkits available to each class was actually greater than they have now. The main reason content is easy is the same reason it has been easy for years, it got nerfed in addition to classes doing much much more damage at low level, that is not new and has been an issue since MOP, it can be fixed.

Your posts come across as "if this one solution doesn't completely fix all problems then it's not worth it", when the real thing you need to consider is "how can we improve things".

"all of that could be genuinely fixed" - what confusion is there in that statement.
Scaling was held up as some solution to something it would not fix, simple as that.

I did not dismiss it, even highlighting where bracketed scaling would work.
Upper and lower limits on content to minimise out-levelling, but that is ALL it would fix.

There are lots of things it would either not change at all, or make worse.
The difficulty of the content is one.
Because the game has changed in ways beyond simply outright bigger numbers.

Timewalking with simply scaling the numbers IS proof where that does not replicate the old experience.
If you have to then fix the content to fix the scaling, then that speaks volumes.
And it would then need to be done every expansion.

The toolkit issue is never irrelevant.
A class is only complete at the level cap of the current expansion.
The progression of that has changed and no longer lines up with what you had in a given dungeon at or near the level cap of its associated expansion.

You know full well I did not say that, I did not say anything about an all or nothing approach, but because I can actually see problems you choose to put words in my mouth to discredit my view.

[Lochton]

ESO now has Legion-like scaling throughout the entire game. Mobs scale to your level no matter where you are.

Level scaling of mobs isn't the same as difficulty settings.

[SirCowdog]

WoW leveling and old content definitely needs a "New Game+" mode, where you can start back at the beginning and re-play through the quests with a harder setting. I mean, between the level scaling tech, phasing, and mechanics like Mythic+, it seems like it SHOULD be possible. The only question is whether or not Blizzard is willing to put in the time to make it happen.

Sadly, that's almost certainly a resounding "NO", given their current M.O.

[May90]

If not, why? Is having options a bad thing?

I think it has to do with the fact that a lot of players will pick the highest difficulty options for the sake of purely achievements and such, and then go on forums and complain about how slow and challenging it is, forcing the developers to take action.

What would work is just giving people an option to get level 100 chars for free infinitely. Then any complaints about leveling being slow and hard wouldn't be legitimate, because technically leveling will be instant and challengeless for those who want it. But then, it is unlikely to happen, since level 100 char purchases is one of the sources of income for developers.

Ultimately, I just think that that is the modern MMO developers' mindset: "Give people an easy time so they can get all the rewards without putting in much effort, so they will be hooked on the endless flow of rewards and never stop playing". The fact that things like immersion, fun, challenge disappear then is secondary, since they are nothing next to profit. Which is perfectly reasonable, mind you, every developer is concerned first and foremost with profit, that's the only way to stay in business for long. Sadly, it also makes the product itself less than it could be otherwise...

---

On a side note, IMO, scaling would be a terrible idea. The problem with scaling is that you don't feel becoming much stronger, which is pretty much a core RPG element. I would hate to be in a situation like one has to be in games like Oblivion: "I just leveled up, and the enemies scaled with me, but my gear didn't change, so I became weaker".

Maybe a more gradual power growth would be more reasonable. So a character of level 60 wouldn't completely obliterate mobs of level 50, but just would have a significantly easier time fighting them.

[Dergiab]

An easy fix would be to allow us to do higher level quests, aka orange and red. I don't know why we can't do them now. Red and orange level mobs feel like old-school mobs but it's quite boring to grind mobs only.