August 24 Hotfixes, Dev Interviews, Mob Scaling

[Confucius]

this is direckly making doin WQ on max level horrible experience.

if those mobs wasnt so crazy high scaled during leveling then they wouldnt scale as high on max level.

blizzard absolutely fucked up scaling from 115-120 there is no discussion about it.

if only blizzard had a beta where they could test things, then they would know. it's a shame that they had to blow 90% of their budget on voice over actors who can only do bad jamaican accents

[bigamie]

if only blizzard had a beta where they could test things, then they would know. it's a shame that they had to blow 90% of their budget on voice over actors who can only do bad jamaican accents

Well, their budget ran out when they got to the war campaign on Alliance. None of the quests have voiceover which IMO is a huge detriment.
At least we got voiceover for the turtle wq... „A turtle made it to the water.“ /s

[HuxNeva]

Objectivvely leveling felt much tougher in BfA than in Legion. I honestly don't think I ever had to kite mobs or cc in Legion leveling. Just burn them down. And when a pack was accidentally pulled, you blew your CD's on them and that was that.
This time around, I had to cc and kite even for normal mobs, accidentally pulling more than 3 was either drop combat if available (5 mins CD) or a guaranteed corpse run. The tougher Elites required full CD preparation.

I'm inclined to believe them that they didn't touch the scaling algorithm since Legion. So it is something else has changed.

My thoughts? Since I can burn mobs down 100% faster when I have Warmode talents on (many of winch are PvE talents, let's not pretend), probably the base mob health/dmg was tuned relatively higher than in Legion. So if you leveled with Warmode off, this resulted in a truly awful experience for those specs that are already not the strongest in solo content.

[sonalita]

There pages of comments, and nobody has mentioned the most disturbing change in the patch notes...
The more brutal murdering of baby turtles by the evil seagulls.

Where is the outrage?!

[Fabled]

If there was scaling in Legion, which I remember someone mentioned it and everyone blew up about it, I don't even recall it at all. Outdoor Legion content was always piss easy, even as a fresh 120, I can't remember a time where I actually struggled with it. Having gear just made it faceroll..which sounds like the opposite of gear scaling like they're doing in BfA.

[Deleted]

They wont tell the truth: they slow players down because there isn't much to do. This way the content lasts longer.

[Lahiri]

I have no idea what the comments on here are talking about. The outdoor world is ridiculously easy as it always has been. It felt a bit weird as it gets tougher as you level but that's literally always been the case. Max level scaling is beyond fine. We are two weeks in, I'm just below 340 Ilvl and I'm mowing down mobs. They die faster and are far less of a threat than when I first hit 120. What's wrong with this?! They are NO THREAT what so ever. If I use my 325 azerite gear with the defensives I'm pretty much never going below 100% hp.

[plaits]

I have no idea what the comments on here are talking about. The outdoor world is ridiculously easy as it always has been. It felt a bit weird as it gets tougher as you level but that's literally always been the case. Max level scaling is beyond fine. We are two weeks in, I'm just below 340 Ilvl and I'm mowing down mobs. They die faster and are far less of a threat than when I first hit 120. What's wrong with this?! They are NO THREAT what so ever. If I use my 325 azerite gear with the defensives I'm pretty much never going below 100% hp.

Yeah I have no idea. Leveling was easy, playing at 120 is easy. the dungeons don't get challenging until Mythic, which is as it should be - and with a premade group of intelligent people they're only challenging in a good way, not an impossible way. Most complainers are probably just bad or entitled, and Blizzard shouldn't listen to them.

[Jasper Kazai]

That explains why Stormsong Valley seems half-baked and rushed compared to the other two zones. It was the weakest of the three by a wide margin, in my opinion. If what ended up in the game is considered better than what they had originally planned, then they must have really had a stinker on their hands.

I feel like this highlights why permanently selected paths was a bad idea. It's difficult to not feel jipped when you get a nerf.

You can respec your Azerite gear... there is an "Azerite Reforger" ethereal person in the transmog area of your faction's captial. Increasing gold cost like old school talent trees were.

[Shadowstrike]

I did not get the expansion yet. But. Almost all the changes give me nostalgia from vanilla.
1) Harder to level up. Sure it needs more time. But i enjoy with it base from my past. As i remember in vanilla when you completed all quests in an area you couldn't get to a new area because you couldn't start the quest chain there or kill mobs based on your level.
2) Tough fights

Objectivvely leveling felt much tougher in BfA than in Legion. I honestly don't think I ever had to kite mobs or cc in Legion leveling. Just burn them down. And when a pack was accidentally pulled, you blew your CD's on them and that was that.

As you said it really reminds me vanilla. It was something like that. Sometimes you had to CC and maybe use CDs to survive.
3) Mob scaling. Yes, it takes more time no matter what level you are. I pretty much enjoy the way it works. And i like when to level up my lower level alts to experience the story in all areas. I got bored from dungeons so most of my alts are lower levels than my main. I enjoy especially when playing along with new players. I can assist them because of the mounts i have unlocked. For new players they can learn their class better through solo questing by not getting easier over time and seeing the world as it used to be.
4) Buffs. Putting them back is worth it imho. It pretty much reminds me of the old times.

[HuxNeva]

I did not get the expansion yet. But. Almost all the changes give me nostalgia from vanilla.
1) Harder to level up. Sure it needs more time. But i enjoy with it base from my past. As i remember in vanilla when you completed all quests in an area you couldn't get to a new area because you couldn't start the quest chain there or kill mobs based on your level.
2) Tough fights
As you said it really reminds me vanilla. It was something like that. Sometimes you had to CC and maybe use CDs to survive.
3) Mob scaling. Yes, it takes more time no matter what level you are. I pretty much enjoy the way it works. And i like when to level up my lower level alts to experience the story in all areas. I got bored from dungeons so most of my alts are lower levels than my main. I enjoy especially when playing along with new players. I can assist them because of the mounts i have unlocked. For new players they can learn their class better through solo questing by not getting easier over time and seeing the world as it used to be.
4) Buffs. Putting them back is worth it imho. It pretty much reminds me of the old times.

In a way. The difference is that in Vanilla (I only have leveled on "Blizlike" private servers as I started WoW in WotlK it was a different context. Leveling was a game in itself, and took months. In Modern WoW leveling is like a short thing to do at the start of the expansion. It's more a storyline. Some rush through it, others enjoy it at a relaxed phase. But still you have to be ready for raid in 3 weeks, there's alts to take care off, gold and consumables to be made ...
It is just a different game. Which is good, as I get to enjoy both when Classic finally releases.

What I find baffeling is that there is this long post by Ion saying 'hey, nothing changed', whereas all the players are saying it is incredibly more different than it has been for the last 10 years.

- - - Updated - - -

Yeah I have no idea. Leveling was easy, playing at 120 is easy. the dungeons don't get challenging until Mythic, which is as it should be - and with a premade group of intelligent people they're only challenging in a good way, not an impossible way. Most complainers are probably just bad or entitled, and Blizzard shouldn't listen to them.

Reading comprehension seems to be a lost superpower these days. I'll spell it out for you. People are discussing leveling, not 120 or instances. It's not 'whoa this is hard'. It's Ion saying nothing changed, whereas people playing the underpowered specs without the warmode locked PvE talents are saying 'you might not have changed the scaling algo, but you've done other things that made it very different from previous xpacs.

[Doomchicken]

"Many Wanted: quests on the enemy continent now reward 7th Legion or Honorbound reputation. These quests have been reset for players who have already completed them."

So alliance has been getting 7th legion rep for their wanted quests, while horde was getting no rep (for all but a single wanted quest). They fix horde quests and reset alliance ones also, giving them double rep overall. Seems good.

Alliance ones didn't reset for me. Feelsbadman.

[grexly75]

One thing I am happy about is the changes to the AH, where those who post 100 auctions of one item such as cloth or herbs will get charged more by the AH for doing so..

[Karamaru]

Man Stormsong valley must have been really bad its still the weakest of the three Kul tiras zones

Also
Can't have internal conflict in the Alliance when there is no internal conflict
*taps forehead*

[Peacemoon]

It’s pretty easy to tell that reopening vanilla realms has inspired Devs to make stuff a bit harder. The game is so much more engaging and challenging for it, everyone is having a great time. I feel sorry for the blizz poster who had to waste so many paragraphs explaining level scaling. Everything he said should be obvious.

[Weeps]

Sure, there should be some ilvl scaling with mobs but it has to get to a point where it stops. Let's say someone with 400 ilvl (in later stage of BfA) comes through Drustvar doing WQs, the mobs should not be 400ilvl challenge.

At best the mobs should be 310 with the elites going up to 340 at the most.

[hyphnos]

It’s pretty easy to tell that reopening vanilla realms has inspired Devs to make stuff a bit harder. The game is so much more engaging and challenging for it, everyone is having a great time. I feel sorry for the blizz poster who had to waste so many paragraphs explaining level scaling. Everything he said should be obvious.

First off, most people are objecting to ilvl scaling not level scaling, though level scaling has plenty of issues and only one upside but that saves Blizzard money so we're stuck with it.

It is not "obvious" that outdoor world trash, which has ALWAYS and forever been trivialized by higher end gear and higher levels need to scale up with both level and ilvl so that they meet some totally arbitrary amount of time to kill.

An outdoor world dying in 1 second, 3 seconds, 5 seconds, 15 seconds or what the fuck ever never mattered to Blizzard right up until the amount of time they can suck out of players lives became a metric that can reported in ATVI's quarterly reports.

There is no reason for anything outside to "have" to take whatever amount of time to kill other than the fact that Blizzard finds it desirable for MONETARY reasons.

The only obvious thing about all these stupid fucking changes is that they save Blizzard money(reusing every zone as max level content instead of making separate content) and allow them to increase time played metrics. Those are the real and only reasons. If you're trying to understand something a big ass corporation is doing and it can be explained by something they report in their quarterly report, then you don't need to look any further at all. ATVI sees value in how many man hours they can report quarterly and you can bet anything that on it's face serves no real purpose other than increasing those is being driven by reasons other than concern trolling about the outdoor content that Ion Hazziwhatever doesn't give two shits about unless it has some impact on raiding and mythic plus.

[MasterHamster]

First off, most people are objecting to ilvl scaling not level scaling, though level scaling has plenty of issues and only one upside but that saves Blizzard money so we're stuck with it.

It is not "obvious" that outdoor world trash, which has ALWAYS and forever been trivialized by higher end gear and higher levels need to scale up with both level and ilvl so that they meet some totally arbitrary amount of time to kill.

An outdoor world dying in 1 second, 3 seconds, 5 seconds, 15 seconds or what the fuck ever never mattered to Blizzard right up until the amount of time they can suck out of players lives became a metric that can reported in ATVI's quarterly reports.

There is no reason for anything outside to "have" to take whatever amount of time to kill other than the fact that Blizzard finds it desirable for MONETARY reasons.

The only obvious thing about all these stupid fucking changes is that they save Blizzard money(reusing every zone as max level content instead of making separate content) and allow them to increase time played metrics. Those are the real and only reasons. If you're trying to understand something a big ass corporation is doing and it can be explained by something they report in their quarterly report, then you don't need to look any further at all. ATVI sees value in how many man hours they can report quarterly and you can bet anything that on it's face serves no real purpose other than increasing those is being driven by reasons other than concern trolling about the outdoor content that Ion Hazziwhatever doesn't give two shits about unless it has some impact on raiding and mythic plus.

No, the reason they use ilvl scaling is to prevent/postpone the gameplay degradation of hitting the point where you kill regular mobs so quickly they feel like completely insignificant, irrelevant annoyances rather than a part of the game world. Note that now I'm meaning the weak ilvl scaling they tried in Legion, i.e mobs became, what, 15% more powerful compared to players who at that point was at like 300% the power level of a newly dinged player? But people sure enjoy the willful ignorance and claim things like "mobs get harder as you gear up". If their health increases by 20% while you doubled your damage, that isn't actually "making them harder".

I already know what kind of reply I'd get to this point so I'll just say it in advance, yes regular mobs are meant to become trivial, and that's natural part of progression. What isn't natural about progression is when you quickly become so powerful mobs, even in recently released world content, are so easily killed, deal so little damage, that they might as well not exist at all. Their greatest posed "threat" is to dismount you by daze. Because you're not caught in the "oh crap, now I have to survive this mob", it's always "oh fuck you, whoever put daze in should be fired *kill mob in .4 seconds and re-mount*"

And that means that mobs were too weak to begin with. What exactly is wrong with the design that pulling 2+ mobs might be a genuine threat, so that you have to focus, not overpull, manage your cooldowns for when they're needed? That's how it's supposed to be, and that should be the case for a good few months into a new expansion at max level. Once there's been some increased ilvl rewards from additional content, and you get that power surge and those mobs and elites that used to give you a proper fight are now getting mowed down, that is satisfying. It's not satisfying or fun to hit that point with gear from regular 5man dungeons.

Quoting this part:

Philosophically, we completely agree that progression is an essential part of an RPG experience. Rewards need to mean something, and their impact needs to be felt when playing the game.

Part of making rewards feel like they have an impact, is to design content so that you appreciate the power gained from upgrades. Going from killing a mob in 2 seconds down to 1.8 seconds however, does nothing in that regard. Because you go from Very Easy to Braindead Easy, instead of Hard, to Medium, to Easy.

That's why they did ilvl scaling and seemingly have made world mobs tougher than in Legion. Making sure that rewards are actually felt when tackling mobs and other world content threats. It does *nothing* for MAU numbers. The whole idea that Blizzard would use time it takes to kill mobs for increasing play time or "artificially prolonging content" is in itself absurd. No, those things are decided by things like rep rewards, *how many* mobs there are in an area, and how many are required to finish a quest, and about a hundred other subtle factors. Blizzard changing mobs to die in 5 hits instead of 4 isn't paying their servers, but it sure is easier to point a finger at Blizzard for *gasp* trying to design the game properly. Things aren't supposed to be easy as shit just because that let's players get everything done faster.

[Aenigmax]

My only gripe with scaling is that you feel it a lot harder this time around during leveling. In Legion, the reduction from stat ratings going up wasn't nearly as noticeable as here, and you could go through the leveling process from 100 to 110 at a fairly stable rate. In BfA, as soon as you reach 116, things start going downhill, and the difficulty practically skyrockets with every level until 120, where it peaks to the point where pulling anything more than one mob is guaranteed to kill you. If they could fix that, and maybe tone down the initial stats on 120 mobs so that freshly maxed people don't have to fight for survival, it'd be perfect.

That's not an issue with level scaling, you're probably doing something wrong in how you play your character if you can't pull more than one mob at 120. Check your talents, and maybe read some guides.

I just leveled a mage and found it definitely easy, at least until pulling max 2-3 mobs or single rares.
And now at 330 ilvl I can just pull a whole camp with the mount, drop a Frozen Orb, and watch everything die, so character progression goes indeed much faster that mob progression due to scaling.

[Mardux]

Just wanted to let you know the Alliance side wasn’t getting rep for those 7th Legion quests either. I did a bunch of them earlier this week when I was trying to finish the war campaign and they weren’t giving any rep. In fact there were a lot of quests done for the 7th Legion that didn’t have any rep rewards at all. Not sure if those were intended or not, but the 3 wanted quests I did on Tuesday definitely didn’t give any rep when i turned them in.

There was roughly a 2000 rep difference between honorbound and 7th legion pre-hotfix. This was confirmed by many many people (leveling both alliance and horde) as well as wowhead.