Automatic Levelscaling

Pretty sure they all are "toned down" versions of Horse Sh*t to be used in the company of women and children - back in the day, ya' know....
When civility was considered good practice.
Still is, as we see right here.... hehehe

 

I played games with level scaling and dont liked it. Its boring crap.
I dont want it in SotA!

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The more hardcore, the less players. The less players, the less income. The less income, the less chance of SotA surviving for a long time...

 

Sorry, double post.

 

Here is one thing I typically see in this genre: avatar's typically have a max level.

When the player hits the max level they:

1. Explore freely killing anything easily
2. Engage in high-end PVE that requires a properly staffed group of mostly combat professions to succeed.
3. PVP

In SotA there is technically no max level.

1. How will they engineer high-end PVE to make it challenging?
2. Will there be any areas or content that will be challenging and rewarding to a group of players that each have several GM+ skills?
3. PVP will be interesting, even with diminishing returns it is going to be a major challenge to "balance" combat.

With these things in mind how could level auto-scaling not help or at least not be a tool to consider?

 

Since power gains are on a curve rather than linear, there is technically a max range in power. Which, for all intents and purposes is the same as max level.

 

I would imagine this is the curve we are talking about (this is not from the devs, just a simple graph showing diminishing returns and a guess at where GM would be on such a graph)



My concern depends completely on GM's actual location on this curve. Even if it is further down the X line that doesn't preclude the fact that a +2 to a specific scale over 30 skill levels could be a huge difference in a high-end PVE battle. I would imagine that 5 level 130's could be as effective as 8 level 100's as long as we are talking about GM+ across 4-6 skills...but technically for a power gamer this could be across many more skills than that. I just see this as an extreme nightmare to "balance" when you consider not just the diminishing (but not non-existent) returns coupled with the ability to GM+++ more skills than the average player and the ability to tack the deck such that dps will be able to be pushed in ways that is doubtfully being considered at this point.

In most games I've played this diminishing return is actually handled by a) Max level -> b) power-ups/buffs to exceed that max level with tiny little bumps.
These small bumps added together make you amazing compared to a player that is just max level. In SWG these clothing and other bonuses could take a high-end PVE instance from requiring 8 players to just requiring 3 players that REALLY knew what they were doing coupled with top-end gear.

None of this detracts from my argument that skill-leveling will help keep much of the content challenging even after we've gotten all the bells and whistles. To me rising up in prowess should be more about gaining new skills not just being able to pwn everything in the game while falling asleep at the keyboard.

 

I didn't like the levelscaling in GW2.

I think the system currently inplace with diminishing returns is perfect, no complaints from me.

 

I'd be curious how you'd survive lets say as a 1st level character getting hit by a dragons area effect breath along with your friends who are lets say level 100 characters... and how would you actually be damaging that same dragon in any remotely similar way as your friends... if this could be done then what would there be to the point of gaining experience and levels... if a level 1 is equal to a level 100 in ability to use items and weapons armor and spells and survive and do damage.