Content Difficulty Scaling - Wouldn't it be amazing?

[Twoflower]

No thanks. I like that each zone in the world has its level limits. I also like to go to a zone where mobs are too high level for a change. It's part of a realistic world feel for me.

[gamingmuscle]

Scaling the content does not make it relevant =P You would have to put new quest hubs/events in all these "old" regions to make them relevant. Granted I'd kill hogger a couple times for luls, I wouldn't consider elwyn forest over new expansion zone ABC. =P

[melodramocracy]

Scaling the content does not make it relevant =P You would have to put new quest hubs/events in all these "old" regions to make them relevant. Granted I'd kill hogger a couple times for luls, I wouldn't consider elwyn forest over new expansion zone ABC. =P

Unless he dropped some mat you needed, for example.

Outdated, irrelevant content serves no positive purpose for the game, and does little other than actually 'shrink' the game at any given point. Out of the dozens and dozens of zones that are always available to players, less than 10 ever 'matter' once you've reached max level. Same goes for instances and raids.

What levels and gear should net the player is the ability to play a wider amount of content, not make you stronger so that the vast majority of said content is now pointless.

[ACES]

Only if it's optional. I want to be able to solo old content for mounts and transmog gear after an expansion passes because I prefer solo play.

[thedingleberry]

short answer: no.

long answer: nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

What he said x100.

[Seezer]

no. effort brings reward. increasing effort for no reward is bad game design.

Except it doesn't. The reward should be having fun playing it. If you can't have fun without a reward, then you are wasting your money by only paying for a digital reward that doesn't really exist.

[Belloc]

No, thank you. I don't want difficulty to scale. I've worked hard to get where I am and I feel that my gear and my level should confer an advantage in certain situations... old zones being one of them.

- - - Updated - - -

Unless he dropped some mat you needed, for example.

Outdated, irrelevant content serves no positive purpose for the game, and does little other than actually 'shrink' the game at any given point. Out of the dozens and dozens of zones that are always available to players, less than 10 ever 'matter' once you've reached max level. Same goes for instances and raids.

What levels and gear should net the player is the ability to play a wider amount of content, not make you stronger so that the vast majority of said content is now pointless.

That content isn't pointless... it's there for lower levels. Why should low level content ALSO be high level content?

[melodramocracy]

I've worked hard to get where I am and I feel that my gear and my level should confer an advantage in certain situations

They do. They give you the advantage of being able to take on a far wider array of challenges.

Why should low level content ALSO be high level content?

Why shouldn't it?

[laplacedemon]

Except it doesn't. The reward should be having fun playing it. If you can't have fun without a reward, then you are wasting your money by only paying for a digital reward that doesn't really exist.

That can only be true if you look at it at a sandbox, without any context and past of the game at all. But if there's content somewhere which provides rewards AND fun, I would choose that over the content without rewards but only fun.

And even if you don't particularly like questing experience (or anything else for that matter), you can still do it for rewards, whether it's leveling, gold, gear for whatever purpose or achievements... Comperatively increasing the effort can mean fun for some, but can also make people say that rewards aren't worth it anymore.

(And I personally find the reward solely being the fun approach very contradictive to WoW. A lot of the content rewards character progression of some sort.)

[Belloc]

They do. They give you the advantage of being able to take on a far wider array of challenges.

Yes, and they also allow me to ignore or destroy low level content. This is not going to change.

Why shouldn't it?

Why shouldn't it? Because when you try to make content appropriate for both demographics, you usually fail at both. You can make good low level content and you can make good high level content. To make content that is good for both is difficult at best, and I really don't think it would work to make leveling content also function as max-level... farming content. They should be kept separate, or else you run into issues where you've got low levels competing with high levels for something that was originally just for low levels.

High level players have their place, and it's not Westfall. More content is designed for max level players than anything else, so there's no need to provide further, redundant content for max level players... especially when it would come at the cost of low levels being able to enjoy that content without having to share it.

[Ragashii]

It should work like mentoring levels in RIFT. You set the level you want to be and then go play with your friend(s). It should be completely optional to use and should have incentives for doing so (helping friends level etc). Making it mandatory would have very negative side effects.

[Deleted]

I don't see why people prefer having less content when they grow stronger.

Now you have this:

- Fight through the content.
- Earn rewards, gain power.
- Reduce your relevant content to the most recent 1-2 raids of the most recent expansion, thereby effectively shrinking your own game by 90%.

When you should have this:

- Fight through the content.
- Earn rewards, gain power.
- Increase your relevant content to the entire game; with your high levels and good gear, you can now adventure through the entire game.

Don't people see that?

Personally, I want the entire game world at mine and Blizzard's disposal.

I want there to be new quests which send me to Felwood to track down an artifact hidden beneath the trunk of an old tree, before I have to go to the Netherstorm in order to enchant it and finally bring it back to some guy in Stormwind, who aims to enchant it before I can use it against a world boss pillaging the countryside of The Twilight Highlands.

I want Blizzard to be able to invent a cool new recipe for a potion which doesn't somehow just require reagents from the vicinity of the current expansion. I want it to be believable. I want them to send me out into the Kodo graveyard of Desolace to collect some grave moss whilst risking being trampled by Kodos and skewered by centaurs.

I want to wander around Ashenvale and feel like its a real place in WoW, full of beauty and danger. Right now, it feels like a photograph from the past. Something which is nice to walk through with an alt every six months, but which even then doesn't really feel quite like a part of the "real" game.

All of that would be fixed with content difficulty scaling. WoW would spring to life like never before, and new content would be everywhere, not just on new continents.


Bear in mind that they don't have to push out new quests and bosses in the old world every two weeks just because of this. They can rely on systems for longevity in old content, once scaling is in place. For instance, they can use my old Broken Caravan idea for world PvP, or implement a Legacy currency system for rewards for doing older raids, dungeons, quests, etc., now that they are scaled. Heck, if content was scaled then people would be encouraged to complete all zones on a single character, thereby seeing all the lore and being properly rewarded for it.