It gets harder, but by how much?

[EdisonTrent]

There's definitely a noticeable change from the starting zones to the ones after; even without the scaling, coming back to a beginner's zone, perhaps to help a friend seems to be a hilarious one-shot fest. It seems necessary, as you wouldn't want to throw players into challenging content right away, but it's quite noticeable either way, and tends to annoy those you come back to play with.

That's not what I'm here to talk about, however, we know the game has gotten gradually more difficult up to about 20 or 30 where the beta content abruptly ends, however, does this progression continue, or flatten out from here on out?
The dungeons and mini-dungeons in the world are very refreshing in their challenge, actually feeling like a fair fight rather than a gimmick to put a tick on the box; however, it'd be a shame to see majority of the world content flat-line in difficulty and be relegated to "the easy part" as it is in every other MMO.

I realize we're talking completely hypothetically here, the closed beta is on a strict NDA and the rest of us have to wait over a month to even get a chance to see, but, in your opinion, are there signs that the game will ramp up considerably after this point? Further, do you want it to get harder than what has currently been shown, or stay as-is? Perhaps you'd even like to see a return to the earlier betas where even starting zones posed a surprising challenge.
In my opinion, having some decent difficulty scaling and a gradual learning curve can only do good things for the game, especially for more casual players, but I'm quite sure some would disagree; post your thoughts.

[Waaldo]

That's what she said! Sorry... It had to be done.

[Deleted]

I don't know if you can get an answer for this at all. Not because people haven't experienced harder content but just because it's really hard to quantify difficulty.

[Larynx]

Unless someone has a quote from ArenaNet, this entire thread is just pointless hypotheticals.

Based on everything ArenaNet has said and lead us to believe however, I believe it will continue to get more and more difficult. Orr to Queensdale will be miles in difference.

[Cyclone Jack]

Content in BWE3 seemed to be quite a bit easier than content in BWE 1 and 2. This could be because I have become more accustomed to the game, but I think they made the starter zones much easier than they were previously. I do think that the easier starting zones will help people get accustomed to the combat and flow of the game. However, I would like to see levels 10-20 slowly ramp up to what it was during BWE1 and 2.

[Larynx]

Content in BWE3 seemed to be quite a bit easier than content in BWE 1 and 2. This could be because I have become more accustomed to the game, but I think they made the starter zones much easier than they were previously. I do think that the easier starting zones will help people get accustomed to the combat and flow of the game. However, I would like to see levels 10-20 slowly ramp up to what it was during BWE1 and 2.

They've definitely made the starting areas easier. Skales which used to hit me for 150+ now only do 40. Melee is actually viable now as well because of this. As it was before, the game was too hard for the starting areas. The tutorial did not teach you enough about the game, and you were punished you for not being perfect.

[ddsad2212]

They nerfed the starting zones a bit to much i feel in this beta weekend, that may be due to giving out the free keys however. I don`t have any source , but i remember there been a big jump from the level 20 to the level 30 zones, i would assume that would keep going. Also if i am not mistake A-net has talked about elite zones, i believe thats where the real challenge will be

[rhinomatic]

I don't know if the rest of you tried to do it, but that fire elemental in the destroyed reactor in the Asura starting zone was REALLY HARD. All strategies ended up failing and we finally defeated it by naked zerging it down over the course of an hour since we all got tired of paying to repair our armor.

[Valeron]

I think they will adjust the difficulty upwards. I thought BWE2 was at a pretty good place. This one was a bit too easy. Even at level 29 things were a bit on the easy side. They have adjusted the difficulty for every beta so I expect the same for release.